“No. No. No.”
“Come on.” Wrapping the slimmer woman in her arms. “Come on. We can’t stay out here.”
“We have to help her—”
“We can’t,” said Beck. “She’s dead.” But Pamela refused to be moved. Rebecca looked at the trees, wondering who was out there watching.
Max is a killer
. The cell phone, unanswered upstairs, began vibrating once more on her hip. She glanced at the other cars and the pickup but rejected them at once: if the van had a bomb wired to it, surely the mysterious Max would not have forgotten the others. “We have to get back inside,” she hissed.
“No.”
“We have to help your father.”
“He’s a monster. He can help himself.” But the flaming car was drawing the energy out of her. Pamela slumped to her knees. Beck knelt beside her. “I told you,” Pamela said. “I told you to go. But no. You had to send Audrey. You bitch.”
Rebecca blinked. This was the last thing she had expected. She tugged on the other woman’s arm. “We have to get in the house,” she said. “We don’t know who’s out there.”
At last, glumly, Pamela allowed herself to be led, face twisted toward the wreckage, the bright leaping flames reflected in her tears.
(ii)
They were in the security room. The mesh was closed. The external sensors were on. The monitors continued to show them trees swaying in the night wind and empty lawn, and, in the forecourt, one van, burning brightly in the night.
“They’ll see it from town,” said Pamela, wiping her eyes.
Beck looked at the screen. She remembered the view from Main Street. At thirty miles, Jericho’s property was not even a blip on the mountainside. “No,” she said. “We’re on our own.”
“Somebody will come,” said Pamela, doggedly.
“Maybe. But we have to assume—”
“They
will
.”
Beck took her wrists, pulled the hands away from the pale face. “We need a plan, Pamela. We need to protect ourselves.” A pause. “And your father.”
“They’ll come.”
“Pamela, listen to me. Listen. There’s a gun in my room. I’ll get it, and you should get the one from yours—”
“There isn’t one. Audrey got rid of them.”
“You had it Tuesday night.”
“Audrey took it.” Tears streaming. “Oh, God. Oh, God. It’s real. Oh, God.”
Beck lifted her face, sought out the golden eyes, which now looked lost. “Yes, Pamela. It’s real. Now, unless you want to really die, do what I tell you.” She hesitated, and felt her own tears threaten. For Audrey. For Nina. Anger rescued her. She wondered if Jack Notting had known that this Max was coming, and wanted Beck to stay the night for that reason; or whether yet another player was showing its hand. “Help me out here, okay?”
“Okay.” Listlessly.
“Good. Now, I’m going to get the gun and check on your father. You stay here. Watch those monitors. If anything twitches, give a holler.”
She hurried from the room, knowing that, whatever she said, only one of the screens would garner Pamela’s attention.
(iii)
Pamela was sitting with Jericho. Rebecca was downstairs, watching as the cameras scanned the lawn, occasionally patrolling the windows. The fire in the van had burned down. They had no idea what to do next. They were in one of the wealthiest states in the most technologically advanced nation in history, and they had no way to get in touch with the world beyond this patch of mountain to call for help. They had repeatedly pressed the alarm buttons, but they doubted that anyone had heard. They had considered and rejected one idea after
another. The satellite phone in the safe made the most sense, but Jericho still could not remember the combination. Beck tried various permutations of her own birthday and, for good measure, Jericho’s and Pamela’s and Audrey’s. Nothing worked. At one point, Jericho grabbed her by the arm and drew her face close. “You should have run when I told you,” he whispered, breath hot and sickly. “Silly girl. Well, now you know. Loyalty can be expensive.”
After that, she left him to Pamela.
“At least let me have the gun,” Pamela had begged. But Rebecca was not about to share the Glock, least of all with a woman who, earlier tonight, might have been delighted to shoot her in the back.
The peculiar part was that she saw no movement. Whether checking the monitors or peering through the windows, she saw nothing but the occasional low, skittering shadow of a forest animal. But somebody was out there. All Jericho’s calculations were wrong. Somebody was out there, willing to kill the people Jericho thought he was protecting.
Wait.
She had an idea.
That business with the cell phone. Maybe it could work both ways. She picked up the phone. No bars, of course. But if a device existed to send messages, maybe it would also monitor her transmissions, bars or none. She pressed green and heard the vast emptiness of the ether.
“Anybody there?” she said. “Can you hear me?”
Evidently not.
“If you’re listening, we’re in trouble. We need help.”
No reply, not even the hum of dead air.
Try something else.
“Pamela!”
A moment’s wait, then a pale face over the banister.
“Let’s switch. I have an idea.”
“What kind of idea?”
“I have to talk to Jericho. You have to watch the monitors.”
“Does that mean I get the gun?”
“Just go.”
(iv)
Jericho sat, exhausted, in the armchair. His breathing seemed labored, though Beck was no expert. He was no longer coughing, but he was wearing the oxygen mask.
Beck crouched in front of him. The golden eyes flicked across her face. “Good evening, my dear,” he said from behind the plastic.
“How are you holding up?”
He lifted a hand, said nothing.
“Jericho, listen a minute, okay? Do you understand what’s happening?”
“Of course, my dear. No need to shout.”
But she had been whispering, and now pitched her voice lower still. “We need to get out of here.”
He managed a sad smile. The eyes were still moist, and his hands trembled. “I believe I made that point the night you arrived.”
“I have an idea.”
“I’m listening, my dear.”
“This killer—this Max—well, he isn’t here to kill us for the fun of it. He’s a killer for hire. You said so. And whoever hired him wants something, right? And if we give them what they want, maybe they’ll call him off.”
Jericho frowned. “We don’t bargain with terrorists. First rule of civilized government.”
“They’re not terrorists, Jericho. They’re your partners. The people you’re blackmailing. All they want is for you to stop.”
He coughed again, eyes half shut. “Too late for that, my dear.”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t believe that. Now, listen to me. Listen. You had your fun. You wanted the world to notice you again. Well, they’re noticing. They’re noticing so hard they hired an assassin.” The Former Everything showed no response. “You have to tell me, Jericho. It’s life or death now. You have to give me whatever you can that I can use to trade—”
“I told you already. It’s too late for that. Max doesn’t do deals. Max won’t bargain. Max won’t be reasoned with. Max does the job. Period.” He smiled. “We used to have a saying around the Agency. About who makes the best assassin. We said you need somebody crazy enough to pull the trigger, but sane enough not to miss. That’s Max, my dear. A wounded soul with a steady hand.”
(v)
The two women sat together on the stairs, drinking lukewarm coffee to stay awake. Upstairs, Jericho slumbered.
“We should nap,” said Pamela, yawning. “We could take turns.”
“You go ahead.”
“You’re afraid I might try to pull something, aren’t you? You’re more afraid of me than you are of whoever’s out there.”
Beck rubbed weary eyes. “Believe me, Pamela, I’m a lot more afraid of Max than I am of you.”
Jericho’s daughter shook her head. “I’ve made movies about hired killers,” said Pamela. “I never thought I’d be running from one.”
“So far, we’re not running. We’re sitting.”
A long silence, both perhaps thinking the same thing. It was Pamela who first put it into words. “We’re not going to get out of this, are we?”
“Come on.” Patting her leg. “Stop talking that way.”
“Audrey was supposed to be Max’s friend, right? Isn’t that what my dad told you? Well, if Max was willing to kill his friend Audrey, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill the two of us.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not giving up. I’m going to see my daughter again.” She found a laugh somewhere. “I can’t leave her for my mother to raise.”
Another silence. It occurred to Beck that they were not watching the monitors. Still, the sensors should tell them if anybody approached the house. Sooner or later, somebody would.
All at once, she grabbed Pamela’s shoulder. “Look. When we get out of this, please, make peace with your daughter. You have no idea how important that is.”
“Peace? I love Madeira!”
“Then stop bribing her and start raising her.”
Pamela’s color rose. She raised a hand, and Beck saw her own father’s twisted face before he struck. Then Pamela relaxed, and almost smiled. “I will. I’ll make peace with her.” She tilted her head toward the window. “If we get out of this.”
“When we get out of this.”
“When,” Pamela agreed. She laughed.
Beck was about to answer when the lights went out.
CHAPTER 32
The Prison
(i)
“The backup generator will come on in a minute,” said Pamela, with none of her usual confidence. They were in the kitchen, where an array of flashlights hung on the back of the closet door. Beck selected two apiece. The heavier of the pair, she said, could be swung as a club, the way the police do. Pamela laughed screechily but took the proffered weapon.
“We have to get out of here,” said Beck.
Pamela looked around. The mesh still guarded all the windows big enough for anyone to crawl through, including skylights. “We should wait.”
“Wait?”
“Whoever’s out there, they can’t get in. It’ll be light in a couple of hours.” Nodding jerkily as her own plan became clearer to her. “Daylight means visitors. A delivery truck, somebody from town, even another crazy journalist. You’ll see.”
Beck stared at her. When you have spent your life living according to whim and looking down kindly on those who cannot, it must be no easy matter to accept that you might be, even for an instant, at the whim of another. “Have you noticed that it’s still dark?”
“Because it’s just four-thirty in the morning—”
“I meant, the house. The generator didn’t come on.”
Pamela was hugging herself. “It will in a minute.”
“No. It won’t. No power, no generator. No security cameras, no sensors, no alarm. Whoever did this went to a lot of trouble. They didn’t cut everything off to wait until morning. No, Pamela. They’re coming in.”
“You’re wrong, Rebecca.” A flash of the old airiness. “The alarms and cameras have batteries—”
“Are you sure?” Beck had not heard this before. She had not bothered to visit the security room, assuming that nothing was on. Now she brushed past the other woman, and, sure enough, the monitors were still working. The alarm lights continued to glow. The gates in the basement probably worked, too, but they were designed less for protection than to trap an intruder. “How long do the batteries last?”
“Dad always said forty-eight hours. We can hold out a long time.”
“Pamela—”
“We should stay here. Shut ourselves up in the bedroom with my father, and just wait.”
Beck took her by the shoulders. Pamela was taller but, at the moment, too busy trembling to break free. “Listen to me. Just listen. We have power for the cameras. That means we might be able to plot a way out. But that’s all it means. They’re still coming in, Pamela. They blew up your sister. Do you think that’s why they’re here? You think they came to kill Audrey and then leave?”
“She could have been the target.” In the glow of the monitors, Pamela’s eyes had taken on her own father’s mad energy. “She used to be in the CIA. Maybe they came to get her. Maybe now they’ll be satisfied.”
“Then why did they cut the power?”
“I don’t know!”
“Well, I do. They cut the power because they’re coming in, and they’re coming in because your father has something they want.” Pamela only stared. “You told me before that you don’t know what Jericho’s hiding. Was that true, or was that just an act?”
The fire went out of Pamela’s gaze. She looked down and shuffled
her feet. “No. It was true. I don’t know what he’s up to. I never know.” She wiped at her eyes. “If there was anyone he’d tell, it would be Audrey. She was always…around.”
“Audrey?”
“She was the one he loved best.”
“I think I understand,” said Beck, with quiet wonder. A helper in town. Always around. Audrey, helping him with the fake autobiography that turned out to be a fake will, the set of materials the lawyers had carried down to Denver for safekeeping.
“Audrey,” she repeated, shaking her head. Audrey, the repentant sinner, the reformed interrogator, helping her father to blackmail whoever had hired her old friend Max to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Beck still doubted that Audrey was the one harassing her with mysterious telephone calls—the nun’s repentance seemed genuine— but, the rest—
Maybe the bomb had not been random, or meant for Rebecca herself. Maybe poor Audrey had been the target after all.
Beck wondered how Audrey reconciled her roles; and whether, at this moment, she was standing before her God, mumbling excuses.
“Are you sure you have no idea? Not even a clue?”
Pamela shook her head.
“Maybe something you overheard. From Jericho. From your sister. A word. A phrase.” Desperation. “Maybe a joke between the two of them.”
For a moment the gaze sharpened, as if the questions had focused Pamela’s mind.
“You did, didn’t you? You remember something!”
“There was one time,” Pamela said, softly. “I don’t know if it means anything. We were up here—just the three of us—for Dad’s birthday. So that’s October. Six months ago. They went out for a walk on the property—Dad and Audrey. I was working. What’s new, right? I felt left out. I always felt left out, and—and I guess that made me work harder. I don’t know. Anyway, they were gone for maybe an hour. Could have been two. When they came back, they were laughing. But
furtive, too, like they were embarrassed. Audrey especially. She couldn’t look me in the eye. And Dad said—he said, ‘That’ll show your Mr. Gould, won’t it?’ Audrey shushed him. But he wouldn’t stop. You know how he was. How he is.”