Circle of Bones (39 page)

While Dig was talking, Riley had forced her body to go limp. Then, when Dig was concentrating on her father, she slammed the heel of her sneaker down on his foot. He groaned and the pain caused him to loosen his arm enough for her to continue her downward motion into a squat. She slipped right out from under his arm. Pivoting around and shooting upwards, she brought her knee up into his groin with every bit of anger and strength she had in her.

Again she heard him moan as his body bent. She stepped back, trying to get out of his reach, but his arm shot out. He grabbed a handful of fabric at the front of her shirt. He straightened up with effort and pulled her to him. Though she hit back and landed several good punches to his body, he didn’t flinch. 

Then both his hands were around her throat and she could not breathe. He pulled her face so close to his, she could see the watery tears shining in his blue eyes. Dig’s attempt to smile through his own pain turned his face into a horrible grimace of clenched teeth and drawn cheeks. She didn’t want to look into those eyes, but he held her so close, there was nowhere else to look.

In the distance she heard another voice she thought was her father’s, but the roaring in her ears made it too difficult to hear.

Dig’s nostrils flared and she felt the hot breath on her face. He was taunting her. He had air, she had none. His fingers tightened on her throat, and she felt his fingernails dig into her skin. She punched at his body with both her hands, tried to reach up, to get past his forearms and elbows to scratch at those eyes that were burning into her, but she also knew that all of her flailing was hurrying the process.

“Yorick,” Dig shouted. “I’ve been waiting for this day. You didn’t get to watch me kill your son.” His spittle sprayed her face. “But this time, you’ll get to watch it all.”

Riley did not want to die. Not like this. Not staring at this man, her heart filled with hate. Her chest felt like it was going to explode, while at the same time she grew weaker. With no idea whether it would work or not, she unbuckled the big dive watch on her left wrist and laced the strap through the fingers of her right hand, the big glass and metal dial on the outside of her knuckles. Then, with every bit of strength she had left in her, she swung her fist at Dig’s head. Just as she struck, she saw her father standing, launching himself onto Dig’s back. 

The pain in her fingers was excruciating, but Dig’s eyes went unfocused for a second and she saw blood smeared down from his temple. In the next moment, his face reddened with rage. He roared and flung her away. In the second before she hit the wall, she sucked in air before the impact knocked it out of her again.

The side of her head struck the wall first. The blow didn’t knock her unconscious, but she couldn’t move for several seconds. She was aware of lying there in a heap on the floor, helpless, but there seemed to be some disconnect between her brain and her limbs. 

She opened her eyes and saw Dig’s back. He was leaning over her father’s wheelchair. Her father’s legs were twisted.

Riley heaved herself to her knees and crawled over to the couch. From that angle, she could see the hands around her father’s throat, just as they had been around hers. She saw her father’s red face, the fear in his eyes. 

“Dad,” she croaked as she used the couch to pull herself to a standing position. She picked up the ceramic lamp, raised it above her, and brought it crashing down on Dig’s head. 

He released her father and turned to face her. Another gash in his forehead dripped a jagged line of blood. 

“You bitch,” he said before he went for her. 

She didn’t have enough strength left to put up much of a fight. He knocked her to the floor again with one back-handed blow to the face. When she got up, she licked her lip, tasted her own blood. The room was tilting, her vision blurred. Where was he? She blinked her eyes, trying to clear them.

Then she saw him. He was standing behind her father’s wheelchair, now, his big palms gripping the sides of the old man’s head like a pair of earmuffs. Her father’s lazy eye shone white, while his good eye danced in the socket as he tried to see what Dig was doing.

She forced her body to a stand and started toward them. 

Then her father’s good eye focused on her and he said, “I’m so sorry.”

Dig roared, “Yorick!” and twisted the head around to the right with a sickening crunch. 

Riley screamed, “Dad!”

Dig released his grip and jumped back, his hands high in the air like those of a runner who had just won the race of his life. He danced back and forth from one foot to the other, his bloody face alight with laughter.

Her father’s head fell on his chest at an unnatural angle, the lock of white hair falling forward again. More than anything she wanted to run to her father, to fix him, to straighten his neck and brush back that lock of hair.  

When Dig lowered his arms and looked at her, she knew he intended her to be next.

So she ran.

Riley made it into the hall before Dig reached the door. He was so much bigger and faster though, she could never outrun him. She would have to out maneuver him.

When she reached the top of the stairs, he grabbed the tips of her fingers on her arm’s backswing. She whipped around and smashed her free hand down onto his, breaking his grip. Dig howled with rage. He lunged after her, but she dodged his grip, pivoted around, and started down the stairs, taking them three at a time. 

Dig was taking four steps with each of his strides, and when they reached the bottom, she felt the tug as his fingers closed around her shirt tail. She dug her shoes in even harder, thinking that if only she could make it to the door and scream, someone might hear her on the street and come help her. 

That was when she saw something flash past her right side at the farthest edge of her field of vision. She heard a metallic clang and a crack at the same time. The pressure pulling at the back of her shirt released, nearly causing her to fall face first onto the floor. She slowed, glanced over her shoulder, then came to a complete stop inside the front door. 

There, at the bottom of the stairs, was Cole Thatcher standing over Dig’s crumpled body holding the lid to Mrs. Wright’s soup pot in his right hand.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Washington, DC 

March 28, 2008

1:05 p.m.

All Cole could think of as he looked at her standing in the entry like a frightened fawn ready to bolt, was
what has that son of a bitch done to her?
Riley’s lower lip was swollen and split, her chin streaked with blood. Her neck shone with the imprint of fingers and thin red slits where fingernails had pierced the skin. A big knot of a goose egg swelled on her right temple. She stood there, unmoving, staring at him. He heard the sound of traffic outside, the ticking of a clock somewhere in the house. In the seconds that passed as he tried to think of what to say to her, her blank eyes filled, and tears dripped down her already wet cheeks.

“Cole?” she said. She sounded confused.

He walked to her and put his arms around her, inhaling the scent of her. He touched her hair and attempted to lay her head on his shoulder, but her body remained rigid. He slid his hand from her hair to the silky soft skin of her neck, and he felt the flutter of her runaway pulse. His own heart and body were reacting to the closeness of her, and he felt the fierce heat of anger together with an overwhelming need to protect her.  

Cole would have been willing to stand there for hours sheltering her in the safety of his arms, but from the kitchen he heard a dull thudding, like someone pounding on a door. A muffled voice called out for help. Riley’s body jerked away from him, ready to run.

He held her at arm’s length and moved his head back and forth as her eyes darted around the room. He tried to get her to focus on him. “It’s okay,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “She can’t get out. That’s the woman who came downstairs when I let myself in earlier. She tried to stop me, and we had a little disagreement,” he said. 

He didn’t tell her there was a moment when he thought the old Amazon was going to get the better of him. She was a fighter, and she had both a height and reach advantage on him. But his high school wrestling career had come back to him, and he’d managed to force a biceps slicer onto her arm and got her elbow into a compression lock. The old gal did as she was told after that. “She’s in the pantry which, for some reason, has a bolt and hasp and a padlock on it. If you tell me to let her out, I’ll go do it, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” 

“We have to go,” Riley said.

He noticed she would not look at the unconscious figure on the floor. “What about your father?” he asked.

She jerked out of his arms and turned away to face the front door. “We have to go,” she repeated.

Cole decided not to ask again.

He rummaged in a coat closet in the entry and found a man’s heavy coat and a hand-knit scarf.  At his bidding, she threaded her arms through the sleeves. She was barely tolerating his ministrations, he thought as he wrapped the scarf round her neck, covering the purpling bruises. She was desperate to get out of that house.

Grabbing his duffel, he led her to the front door. He glanced back once at the still form on the floor. The man was still breathing. Cole considered tying him up, but he was afraid the man would regain consciousness at any minute. He wanted the two of them to be gone, their trail cold. 

Cole hustled her down the sidewalk toward the major thoroughfare at the end of the block. At the intersection, he hailed a cab. When they’d both slid into the back seat and closed the door, the driver turned around and asked, “Where to?”

Cole was starting to consider the possibilities when Riley surprised him by speaking in a clear voice, “3410 Prospect St., Georgetown.”

The cab driver nodded and pulled away from the curb.

Cole turned to Riley and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s my sister’s place,” she said, and angling her body toward the window, she rested her cheek against the glass and closed her eyes.

Cole opened his mouth, then closed it. Sister? 

When the cab pulled to the curb after what seemed like an interminable, silent ride through the city’s traffic, Cole peered out the window at their destination. 

“Dang!” he said, staring up at the immense, five-story, brick Georgian mansion. The front of the home was festooned with white windows in different shapes from round ports to the large multi-paned sash windows on the lower floors. Next to the front door, he saw a bronze plaque with the date 1787. 

Riley sat up straight, tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “Let’s go.” 

She opened her door and climbed out, so Cole paid the driver and followed. Riley was already at the front door ringing the bell.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on? I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Before she could answer him, the door was opened by a young, slender African-American woman with close-cropped hair. She wore a black turtle neck sweater with black pants and black-framed glasses with narrow, rectangular lenses. When she smiled, her teeth were so white, they seemed almost to light up the gray day. Her smile faded when she got a closer look at Riley’s face.

“Miss Riley,” she said. “My gosh, are you all right?  Please, come in out of the cold. Oh-my-god, she’ll be so happy to see you!”

“Thanks, Kayla,” Riley said. “So she is here? I need to talk to her right away.”

“Of course. I’ll clear her calendar for the rest of the day. Just let me take your coats.”

From upstairs, a voice called out, “Kayla?”

The young woman rolled her eyes. “Hang on,” she said to Riley. “I’ll go tell her you’re here.” She hurried down the hall and disappeared around a corner.

“What is this place?” Cole asked as he hung his oilskin jacket in the entryway closet.

“I told you. My sister lives here.”

Riley had no sooner finished speaking than Cole heard shrieks from somewhere inside the house. When he turned to look, a tall, light-skinned African-American woman wearing a bright pink blouse and flowered pants came running down the hall, her sandals clacking on the polished wood floors. 

“That’s Hazel,” Riley said.

“Mmm. I can see the family resemblance.”

The woman scooped Riley up in her arms and shrieked, “Girlfriend!” Cole could not help but notice the woman’s voluptuous, hourglass figure and the low-cut blouse that revealed her ample cleavage. With black hair that fell in soft waves around her shoulders, he thought she looked like a human defibrillator – she could jumpstart the heart of a dead man. After she’d spun Riley around once, she set her back on the floor, held her at arm’s length and looked down at her.  

“What happened to you?” Hazel’s voice had changed to a very businesslike tone. “Kayla, back bedroom bath. Get the kit.”

She glared at Cole. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

Riley patted Hazel’s shoulder. “No, no. He’s a friend. I don’t think I’d be here if it weren’t for him.”

Hazel nodded, then put her arm around Riley’s shoulders and began ushering her down the hall. Kayla took up position on the other side. Glancing back over the top of Riley’s head, Hazel said, “Come on. You, too.”

Cole followed the women down the hall, through a larger entry, and past a huge grand staircase with gilt banisters. They continued down another hallway to a small bedroom that overlooked an empty swimming pool. Hazel directed Riley to sit on the bed, while Kayla slipped into the bathroom. She returned seconds later with a large plastic case. 

Cole sat on the edge of a plumped arm chair by the window leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees. He felt awkward and helpless as he watched Hazel rip open packets and swab at Riley’s facial wounds. 

After examining the lower lip, the lump on her temple, and the bruises on her neck, Hazel said, “Looks like you were lucky, sister. The last woman I saw with marks like these on her neck was dead. Do you want to talk about it?”

Riley sighed. She wet her lips with her tongue. “Not really.”