Why was Pamela calling him? If they were in this together, if all the misfortunes that had struck in the past few days were the doing of Jericho’s longtime comrade-in-arms, then why would she need to call him on the sat phone to tell him what was going on? Wouldn’t he already know, either because he was on the scene, or because he was in touch with those who were?
Had she misjudged Pamela?
Beck heard glass shattering. Bad news. She had to get help. She turned back to the safe and dug out the charger, only to realize her stupidity. With no power in the house, there was nowhere to plug it in.
Fine. She would have to do it the hard way.
Still shaking, she stepped out into the darkness. She could not see past the bend in the hallway. The guest suite was beside her; Jericho’s suite, and the other bedrooms, were around the corner. She pressed her back into the wall, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. Maybe Pamela was working with Dak, maybe she was in it for herself, maybe she was even in it for her father. The one thing Beck knew for sure was that Pamela was not in it for Beck. She inched along the hall, trying to figure out where else Jericho would have hidden guns. The master suite had to have a couple. To be sure, Audrey might not have thought about cleansing the guest quarters, but she would hardly have overlooked Jericho’s room. So he would have hidden the guns well.
They would, however, be there.
At the corner, she hesitated. She did not have even the flashlight any more. If Pamela was waiting for her around the bend, she would be a perfect target. And yet there was no way out but forward. She shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them, remembering that trick from Jericho, too: shutting her eyes would widen the pupils, making it
easier for her to use the thin scatters of light from moon and stars to pick out whatever was waiting for her.
She poked her head around the corner.
And did not need much light at all to see Pamela’s body, crumpled on the floor.
CHAPTER 34
The Sniper
(i)
There was blood everywhere, but Pamela was breathing. She tried to talk, and even managed to wave a hand to show Rebecca where the gun had fallen. Beck nodded, retrieved it, and tried to find the wounds. The one in the arm did not look too bad. The one in the stomach was bleeding. Too low for the heart or the lungs. If it had smashed something else vital, there was nothing to be done until they could get out of here. She crawled to the bathroom, came back with towels, did her best to stuff them in place, whispered to Pamela to hold them.
Pamela tried to grab her arm.
Beck leaned in.
“I wasn’t lying,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
A tilt of the head, both hands now busy trying to stanch the flow. “Calling Dak. Didn’t do anything wrong. Trying to help.”
Beck looked at her, couldn’t decide. “Rest,” she said, kissing her forehead.
Then, gun in hand, she scuttled along the landing with her knees bent, hoping the banister would hide her. The broken glass in the high windows told her that the shots had come from outside. The security mesh covered only the panes large enough to climb through. The clerestory windows were too small for a man, but plenty large enough
for a bullet. So the sniper was perched high up Jericho’s mountain. She glanced back at Pamela, already a moaning shadow in the darkness. Dak had insisted that nobody in Jericho’s family could be harmed, but with Audrey dead and Pamela wounded, somebody out there had decided otherwise.
The strategy was simple, and obvious. Cut the house off from the world, shut down the power, remove those around Jericho, then come in and get him.
She wondered if the man out there shooting might be the killer Phil Agadakos had mentioned: the great Max, out of retirement for one last job. Jericho had said she would never see Max coming. She hadn’t; neither had Audrey; and neither had Pamela, whichever side she was on.
Rebecca took a moment, leaned against the wall, shut her eyes. She should be with Nina now. She should never have come. Even a weekend in Chicago with Pfister had never looked so good. A week ago, she had been a nobody, raising her daughter and advising her bosses on where to put the perfume. And now the mysterious Max was out there, trying with all his skill to kill her. She wondered how Audrey would fit this little scenario into God’s will—except that Audrey was gone. Max had blown her to bits, and, sooner or later, he would get Beck, too.
Pamela’s groans were louder.
Eyes open, Beck measured the distance to Jericho’s suite. “Move,” she told herself harshly.
The motion sensor had buzzed once, and not since. How long? Fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most. She was not sure why it was so important to get in there, but she knew she had no choice. Whatever was going on—whoever was out there, trying to get in—Jericho would have the answers. Either he was awake, or she would find a way to wake him.
If she could get to the room.
She began crawling. To anybody with night-vision glasses she would be visible between the dowels of the banister, but there was nothing for it.
More glass shattered. Bullets. She had never been shot at in her life, and, crawling faster, only hoped that—
The gunfire stopped.
She looked up.
She was at the entrance of the suite. Of course. Whoever was out there was perfectly willing to kill everyone else in the house, but did not want to take any risk of harming Jericho, and a stray bullet through the door might just do it. Meaning, somebody still hoped to extract his secrets from him, no matter how sick he might be.
She reached out, shoved the door, crawled through, slammed it behind her.
(ii)
Jericho was half on the bed and half on the floor. He had found a flashlight somewhere, but was too weak to do anything but shine it at her as she burst in. He looked up at her and smiled, and behind the smile was agony, and behind the agony—just for a moment—was delighted calculation.
“You came for me,” he gasped, still struggling to rise. “I knew you would. Can’t do what you’re told, can you? Silly girl.”
But over the last half-hour Beck had grown up all the way, and she had no more time for his nonsense. “Stop it,” she said. “We have to get moving.”
Jericho looked at her, then nodded. With her help, he made it to a sitting position on the bed. “What’s the status?” he said, as if they were co-conspirators.
“Your friend Max is out there with a sniper’s rifle. Pamela is wounded. Audrey”—she hesitated—“I don’t know Audrey’s status.”
The old man made a face. “Meaning that explosion was my little girl.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Jericho.”
“Oh well. It’s not like you did it.” His face clouded, but only for a
second or two. “Well, what the hell. Saint Audrey is getting her chance to find out if all the praying and sacrifice made a difference, or if she’s going to hell with the rest of us.”
Again Beck refused to rise. “We need a plan.”
“Not if it’s Max out there. If it’s Max, the best thing to do is sit and wait.”
“For what?”
“Well, if you don’t make Max angry, you get a nice bullet in the back of the head. No muss, no fuss.”
She grabbed the lapels of his jacket. “Jericho, listen to me. Listen. It’s over now. You proved your point, okay? You’re smarter than everybody. You made everybody stand up and take notice. But now we’re going to die. Do you understand that? Max is out there. He killed Audrey. He shot Pamela. He’s going to kill us next. The only way to change that is for us to give him whatever—”
“I told you, my dear. Max doesn’t bargain. You go out there under a flag of truce, beating a
chamade
on the drum, and Max will put a bullet through your brain.”
“You don’t know that, Jericho. Max is working for a client, right? And all his client wants is the secrets you’ve squirreled away. We might have a chance of making it out of here alive, but you’re going to have to tell me everything.”
He waved all this away. “I need to lie down.”
For a mad moment she wanted to smack him. “Come on, Jericho. I think I’ve figured it out, but unless you confirm my—”
“I told you already. You know everything. Did you ask Saint Audrey why she left the family business?” He was up on the bed.
“Yes. She said she couldn’t take the torturing any more—”
He stretched out. “And she told you everything? All about liking girls? About leaving poor Mr. Gould in the lurch to run off with some chick?”
“She said you made all that up.”
“Well, then.”
“Jericho—”
“You know as much as you need to know, my dear. I need to sleep.” He tugged at the blankets, and Rebecca knew she would never get him moving. She stood up. He was waiting for Max. Waiting to die. She would not wait with him. “Jericho, listen. Before you go to sleep. I need to know about weapons—”
“You’ll find what you need in the kitchen. Under the sink, I think. And when they come, tell them what they’re looking for is in the garage. But don’t go out there yourself.”
“Listen—”
“Good night, Becky-Bear.”
“Wait. Jericho, wait. Why would Max kill Audrey? Didn’t you say they were friends? And Dak told me your family couldn’t be hurt—”
A yawn, then a series of coughs. “No rules,” he whispered. “That’s the first rule of this business. We used to preach it to the newbies. Rule Number One is that there are no rules. Rule Number Two is to see Rule Number One.” He laughed, then coughed again, harder. He finally had the blankets over him. He lay there, fully clothed. “I’m going to sleep now, Becky-Bear. Tell Max not to bother waking me.”
And he would say no more.
She was alone.
CHAPTER 35
The Kitchen
(i)
The kitchen was as dark as the rest of the house. By now Rebecca knew that nobody was coming: nobody on her side, anyway. The alarm people had received no alert, because somebody had taken the system off line. The van was only smoldering now, and if the town had not sent the fire brigade by this time, it never would. Pamela was wounded. Jericho was waiting to die. She had no working telephone. She had no vehicle she dared use. If Beck was going to see Nina grow up, she was going to have to find her own way out.
And her way out began with the sink.
Down on her knees, Beck pawed through the cabinets. She found cleansers and sponges and steel wool. She found mouse droppings. She found a folder of more instruction pamphlets for the various devices in the house. She found bug spray. She found extra garbage bags. She found wires and pipes. She found no weapon or signaling device. She found no directions on how to escape from the prison the house had become.
But she found the confirmation she craved, an instruction pamphlet that matched a set of schematics Jericho had printed from the Internet. Best of all, the device bore the brand name that—
“Find what you’re looking for?” said a voice behind her.
Rebecca spun, the gun waving wildly.
Slouching against the butcher-block table, hands in the pockets of her jeans, was the town librarian, Miss Kelly.
(ii)
“How did you get in here?”
“I have the alarm code.” The dark face was shy. “Mr. Ainsley and I are very good friends.”
Beck pointed the Glock. “How good?”
“Oh, not like you mean. Not like the two of you were. I just help him out from time to time.”
“I don’t believe you. The power’s out. You don’t need the alarm code.”
“The alarm runs on batteries. It’s working fine. Not the part that notifies the alarm company. The part that protects the house. Please point that thing somewhere else. You’re making me nervous.”
Beck shook her head. “You’re telling me that, just for helping him out, he gave you the alarm code? A man as paranoid as Jericho?”
“You’re right. Mr. Ainsley didn’t give me the alarm code. When poor Mr. Pesky took his tumble and the alarm company called to find out why somebody pushed the panic button? That’s how I got it.”
“You were listening in? You?”
“Somebody was,” said Miss Kelly, testily. “That doesn’t matter. The important thing is, I’m on your side.”
Beck pointed with the Glock. “Everybody says they’re on my side. You. Pete. Lewiston Clark. Dak.”
“The others are lying. I’m telling you the truth.” She held out her hands. “I’m unarmed. See? Now, why don’t you put that gun away? It’s making me nervous.”
“I’ve heard everybody else’s stories. Why don’t you tell me yours?”
Miss Kelly shook her head. “No. There isn’t time. You’re going to have to trust me.”
“Why?”
“Because any minute now that helicopter that has you so bamboozled is going to drop off half a dozen heavily armed men wearing night-vision goggles who will scoop Jericho up and fly him off to an undisclosed location before you can say Patriot Act.”
Beck couldn’t help herself. She backed away, peered through the window, saw no helicopter.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Miss Kelly, town librarian.”
“Come on. If you’re going to show up at a time like this and ask me to trust you, you should at least tell me your name. I’m sure it isn’t Kelly.”
The librarian turned out to have a dazzling smile. “If you don’t believe Kelly is my last name,” she said, “why would you believe whatever I tell you is my first name?”
“I have to call you something. I can’t just call you Miss.”
The smile widened. “My name is Maxine,” she said. “My friends call me Max.”
(iii)
Rebecca’s hand wavered. For the third time on this endless night, reality seemed to shift around her. “No. No. That’s not possible.”
“Why not? It’s just a name.”
“Max is a killer! An assassin!”
A moue of disapproval. “Ouch. That one hurt.”
“But—but—”
“Tell you what. Let’s just agree that I get called in to do difficult jobs now and then. Now, please. Put the gun away.”
“Not a chance.” Beck had both hands on the grip now, just the way Jericho had taught her. “I know why you’re here.”
“I’m here because you called me.”