Circle of Bones (42 page)

She turned to Cole and signaled that they should run on the count of three. She grasped his hand. Holding up the fingers of her other hand, she counted down.

Go! Riley heard the shot and the soft
phhfft
as it penetrated cloth. Cole!
Was he hit?
Oh God. She did not dare slow the pace. She gripped his hand tighter and she felt some small relief when he squeezed hers back. She knew that if he faltered, she would pull him, carry him if necessary. 

They made it through the kitchen door, then turned right and rounded the big butcher block center island. Riley strained to hear sound of footfalls behind them. Nothing. Her breathing was already rasping in her throat, and she could not hear a thing beyond the slap of their own shoes. Cole was keeping up with her. Maybe he hadn’t been hit? She was headed for the servants’ door to the kitchen that was out back, through the mud room.

The scarf round her neck tightened so abruptly, her throat closed and her feet nearly flew out from under her. Her neck, already sore and bruised, burned as the scarf dug into the skin. She could not breathe. Cole continued past her, then almost dislocated her shoulder when he pulled up short. She nearly blacked out from the pain, but even so, she wanted to scream at him
No, go on, let go of me. Get out of here!

In less than a second, Riley regained her balance and whirled around, her hands coming up ready to strike. She would not let Dig get his hands on her again.

“In here,” a voice whispered. She paused, her arm cocked back, ready to punch. In the darkness, Riley could make out Hazel standing in a recessed doorway holding the other end of her long scarf. 

Behind Hazel, a flight of stairs led downward. Jesus, she thought. She stopped herself from imagining what would have happened if she’d struck Hazel.

Her friend motioned again for them to go down the stairs. Riley hesitated. She didn’t like the idea of being caught in a cellar. Then another shot whizzed past them, and she heard it hit the wall next to her head. Night-vision goggles, she thought. Of course. She sprinted down the stairs with Cole right behind her. Hazel slammed the heavy wood door, and Riley heard the bolt slam home. At the foot of the stairs, Hazel turned on a small penlight.

Riley squeezed Cole’s hand. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He held up his duffel and Hazel shone the light on the small hole. 

“Thank God,” Riley said, throwing her arms around him. “I thought you’d been shot.”

“Hey,” he said, his lips right next to her ear. “You keep this up and I might go back out there and let him have another try.”

Riley released him and stepped back. She brushed her hands off on her jeans. “Don’t get your hopes up, Thatcher,” she said. “Just glad none of us is injured.” 

“Don’t even joke about going back out there. Not smart,” Hazel said to Cole. “I’ve seen enough of these obsessive nut cases. You, he’ll do quick.” She pointed at Riley with her thumb. “He wants to take his time with her.”

“Enough chit chat, people,” Riley said, loosening the scarf round her neck. “He’s got us all cornered down here.”

From the top of the stairs came a resounding crash. Then another.

“And now he’s planning to beat a hole in the door,” Riley said. “Dammit, is there anything down here we can use for a weapon?”

“No need. Over here.” Hazel led them down a corridor between racks filled with wine bottles. The cellar was large, the air damp and cool, though not freezing. “This whole house used to be heated by coal. The old coal chute is back here.”

The pounding continued from the top of the stairs, though it sounded more muffled when they reached the back wall.

In the corner, Hazel shone the thin light on double doors that angled down from overhead. A big rusty barrel bolt held them closed on the inside. 

“Boost me up,” Riley said. 

Cole threaded his fingers together and bounced his eyebrows up and down. “Glad to be of service.”

She put her sneaker in his hands. “You’d better not be enjoying any of this, Thatcher.”

He grunted as he heaved her up. “Not a bit, ma’am. I promise.” 

She hit the bolt’s raised handle with the heel of her hand. It didn’t budge. She hit it again, hard enough to make Cole stagger. “Shit!” she said. “That hurt.”

“Let me try,” Cole said.

From the far side of the cellar, they heard a muffled gunshot. He was shooting at the door now to splinter the wood.

“I’ll get it,” Riley said. She hit it again with the heel of her hand, biting her lower lip against the pain.

Hazel appeared out of the dark with a magnum of champagne. “Try this,” she said. 

Riley grabbed the heavy bottle and tapped the bottom of it against the raised iron knob. After several tries, the bolt slid clear with a shriek. 

“Move me closer to the wall,” she told Cole. She pushed up and the wooden door rose and then fell open. When she scrambled out into the freezing night, sirens howled, not too far distant. She spun around and grabbed Hazel’s hand, then heard the sound of splintering wood. The pounding stopped.

“Hurry,” Riley said as she boosted Hazel up. Cole followed her out and grabbed Riley’s hand. Hazel led them at a run across the stone terrace to some smaller brick buildings around the perimeter of the property. When they reached the shadows between two of the brick buildings, Hazel stopped and turned around to look back at her house. The sirens had reached the street in front of the house, and then shut off. 

“Cops are here,” she said.

Riley stood next to her looking back at the house. “You’re pretty cool under fire, my friend,” she said.

“Not the first time for me, either. I’m glad I sent Kayla home early. The bastard cut the power and the alarm system. I called 911 from my cell while I waited for you to get to the kitchen.” She tapped Riley’s arm with the back of her hand. “You took your time.”

“We didn’t know the house like you. In the dark, you were invisible in that black get-up. I couldn’t follow you.” Riley realized she and Cole were still holding hands, and she made a show of needing to blow on her hands to keep them warm. “Come on, we need to keep moving.” She didn’t like standing there talking when Dig might be about to come out of that cellar at any minute.

“I think he’s more worried about the cops than us, right now. But come on,” Hazel said. She turned and led them down a walkway with old oak trees on one side and a brick wall on the other.

“Where are we going?” Riley asked.

“These are the old slave quarters that I’ve made into rental apartments. Ironic, eh? I have a car in the garage of a vacant one. This way.”

At the end of the walkway between the apartments and the adjoining property, they had to pass through a gate to the street. Hazel opened the wood gate a crack, then pulled it closed again.

“A black car. I know, there are thousands of the damn things here in DC, but let’s wait a minute.” After they heard the car pass, Hazel hurried them around the side of the brick building and pushed an electronic fob on her key chain that opened the garage door.

Riley knew Hazel collected antique cars like she collected rich boyfriends, but she wasn’t prepared for the bright red little two-seater convertible.

“We’re going to fit three of us in that?” she said.

“It’s all we’ve got, honey.” 

“Hazel,” Riley said, “it’s not what I would call inconspicuous.”

“Exactly. Nobody would suspect that the three of us would be driving around in a 1949 MGTC. You either sit on this fella’s lap all the way to Leesburg or —” She raised the lid on the back of the car and threw her bag inside. “We can lock you up in here. Your choice.”

Cole tossed his duffel inside. He looked up and down the car. “Wire-spoke wheels, tufted red leather seats.” He nodded. “We’ll fit,” he said, then he tipped his head toward the car. “Let’s get moving.”

Riley looked at Cole, then swiveled around to face her friend. She raised one eyebrow. “

A two-seater with right hand drive?”

Hazel nodded. “Let’s go,” she said. As she passed Riley going round to the driver’s seat, under her breath she added, “The shocks on these old cars suck, so it might get a little bouncy.” She winked. “Enjoy the trip.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Georgetown 

March 28, 2008

6:45 p.m.

The door must be made of two inches of solid oak, he thought. Dig had tried everything from knives to bullets to a big meat cleaver he had found in a wood block on the kitchen counter. The hole he had made was not yet big enough to reach his hand through, though, when he first heard the sirens. He tried enlarging the hole with a few more shots, but the sirens stopped in front of the house. It was time to leave.

He backtracked the way he had come, passing down the hall, through the day room and to the grand staircase. As he climbed the stairs, he heard the voices of the police officers assembled on the front porch, their radios crackling. He had disabled the alarm system, but Riley and the others must have called from a cell phone. He heard the front door open and the jangling of the gear the officers wore as they entered the house.

Earlier in the afternoon, it had taken him more than an hour to find the manhole covers where he could access the power transformer and phone lines. He had his driver cruise the street past the front of the house several times. Twice he caught a glimpse of the Kittridge woman with Thatcher. Even at such a distance, he could see her animal sexuality. It was common in her kind.  

He found his way back to the master bedroom window, and he climbed back out through the broken shards of glass onto the branch of the big old elm tree just as the police were starting up the stairs. The DC Police were a hopeless lot of barbarians. They’d lost all standards through affirmative action. Dig wasn’t worried about them, he thought, as he dropped to the ground. He hurried across the neighbor’s yard, removing his cell from his pocket, and then slipped out the gate onto a side street. His car met him at the corner and picked him up.

“Circle the block a few times,” he told the driver.

In front of the Kittridge house, half a dozen police cars with flashing lights lined the street. The few passing cars slowed, the drivers gawking. A Pepco truck had already arrived and was at work on the power lines. As they drove past the front of the house, he slid down in the back seat and watched out the window. He looked for them in the crowds in front of the house, or through the windows. Once, he saw a small woman about Riley’s size, and he told his driver to slow, but it wasn’t her. He imagined them down in that cellar, cornered, waiting for the police to arrive and save them. If only he’d had a few more minutes. 

Priorities, he told himself. Operation Magic. He had no idea what it was, but he knew it would be his ticket, his entree, his reservation for a seat at the table. That was what he must concentrate on now. He’d shot at Thatcher’s duffel to motivate him. Let the man think he was out to kill him. In fact, Dig wanted Thatcher back down in the islands as soon as possible to find that submarine. 

He had seen the way Thatcher looked at Riley down on Dominica. It turned his stomach, but the fact was that he could put that to good use. Thatcher would do whatever Diggory wanted – hand over whatever he’d found, as long as he had Riley to motivate the man. Then later, when he had Operation Magic in his possession and Thatcher had been dealt with, Dig could take his sweet time with Riley.

Dig told his driver to return to his apartment, then settled back into the seat and removed his gloves. He would fly to Guadeloupe and charter a boat. He spread wide the fingers of his right hand stretching the aching muscles. Then he would check on the barbarians, he thought, clenching his fingers into a tight fist. He would find Thatcher and his submarine. After closing his eyes, he pictured Riley’s naked body, her pale skin and long neck, and he squeezed until his knuckles turned white.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Leesburg, Virginia

March 28, 2008

9:05 p.m.

By the time they passed through the electric gate onto the unplowed road, Riley was beyond worrying what part of her body landed on what part of Cole’s. Even though Hazel tried to speed whenever possible, attempting to leave the Washington area during the evening rush hour was a horror, and it had taken them more than two hours to travel about forty-five miles. But thinking about the man’s body beneath her had at least prevented her from reliving the events that had taken place earlier in the day. 

During those first miles, she braced herself with one arm on the seat back and the other on the dash, her head bent to one side. But she was so tired from whatever medication Hazel had given her earlier, eventually, she leaned back against Cole’s chest and rested her head on his shoulder. She was beyond caring what he or anyone else thought, and she had to admit, though the old MG was a drafty wind tunnel, the heat they were generating between them was more than enough to keep her warm. She said, “Wake me when we get there.” It was the drugs, she told herself. 

Of course, try as she might, she wasn’t able to go to sleep. Drowsy or not. She couldn’t shut off her mind. What was wrong with her? After what she had been through this day, men should be the last thing on her mind. But, there was something comforting about being cradled in his arms. He made her feel safe, and sometimes she opened her eyes in thin slits and watched the curve of his jaw line as it hardened when Hazel bumped over the reflectors in the road. Her weight must be crushing his legs, she thought. 

The front left tire dropped into a pothole with a jarring lurch, and Riley’s butt dropped hard onto Cole’s lap. With no more feeling in her legs, she wasn’t even trying to make the bumps easier on him. She was pretty sure this had stopped being fun for him quite a while ago.

He slid his hands under her and cupped her buttocks. “Sorry, Magee,” he said. “I’m just going to adjust your position a little.”

She lifted her head to look at him, her eyes open wide. She saw his white teeth shining in the glow from the headlights. “Hey,” she said. Maybe she was wrong about the amount of fun he was having.