Reflex (45 page)

The butler was made of sterner stuff than Agnes and Harvey. Instead of collapsing to all fours, as they had, the man in the cutaway extended his hands and moved calmly toward the sink.

He's holding his breath.
Millie didn't want to get into range of him again but she didn't want him washing off the foam. She threw the kitchen trash can into his path and he went down. She jumped to the other side, kicked him in the stomach, and it was over.

Five minutes later, when she jumped him to the island, she left him to the others to guide to the water.

She rested for a moment, bent over, in the Aerie. She was having trouble standing upright. Her midsection was screaming and her skin burned as her fingers traced the foot-shaped bruise on her stomach.

The pepper foam container felt light. She'd used a lot of it on the butler. She discarded it and got the second can.
I should've bought a case.

Back in the mansion's kitchen, she put the trash can back in its corner and hurriedly picked up the spilled garbage. While she was doing this, she heard a door open and footsteps. Lots of footsteps. When she used the dental mirror to peer down the hall, four men, grouped around a fifth, entered through the main door to the house.

She thought she recognized one of them, from the National Gallery in D.C., a blonde who walked closer to the man in the middle.

"Jimmy—go back to control and stand by. I'll probably want that woman, Johnson. If I do, bring her and don't let her headbutt you like she did Planck."

Sojee?
For a brief second she considered following him but she was more worried about Davy. She felt guilty about it, but Sojee probably didn't have a device surgically implanted in her chest.
I hope.

"Yes, Mr. Simons." The blonde turned back to the door and left.

The man himself.

Simons pointed at one of the remaining men. "Desmond, find Abney and ask him to send me up some coffee, then wait down here with Trotsky. Graham—you're with me."

"Yessir." Simons and Graham moved down the hall. Millie heard an elevator door.

Trotsky took out a pack of cigarettes and said, "I'll be on the porch."

Desmond, the man detailed to find Abney, said, "Don't let him catch you off station."

Trotsky said, "Worry about your own butt. Go on, fetch the coffee." He spun on his heel and went back out the front door.

Desmond came up the hallway toward the kitchen.

Millie suspected that Abney was the butler who was so handy with his feet. She pursed her lips. Desmond wouldn't find Abney.

Not without assistance.

She helped Desmond find Abney but doubted very much that Abney would be able to bring the coffee.

Afterwards, as she was straightening her apron (and putting it two inches above the hem of her dress), she froze.

But
I
could.

The industrial-sized coffeemaker was a Bunn with a constant reserve of preheated water. A gleaming silver service sat on the counter beneath the china cabinet. It took only minutes to fill the silver coffee urn and arrange the creamer, sugar bowl, spoons, and cups on the heavy silver tray.

Abney probably knows what he takes in his coffee. Tough.

The indicator above its door showed that the elevator was parked on the third floor.
So that's where they went. That's where
he
is.

There was a small framed mirror in the elevator and Millie noted her wig was crooked. She wedged the tray against the wood paneling and, one-handed, straightened the wig and removed a smudge from her jaw. The door opened on the third floor and she caught the corner of the tray on the frame as she exited, nearly spilling the coffeepot. It rocked precariously on its heavy silver feet, then settled back.

Calmly, calmly.

The elevator whined to life, heading back down. Graham, the man detailed to follow Simons upstairs, was leaning against a wall down the hallway to the right. As he saw her, he stood and knocked on the door next to him. His voice, a surprising tenor in such a large man, said, "The coffee, sir."

Millie expected him to look at her, to know she wasn't on the staff, but he'd studied her face without reaction.
Maybe he isn't familiar with the staff here? Maybe Simons brought him from New York?

At some command from inside Graham opened the door and held it for Millie. She kept her eyes down and walked into the room. He closed it behind her.

The smells hit her, feces and vomit, at the same time she saw Davy, seated on his knees, and the chain running from a floor-mounted steel ring to his ankle. He looked horribly thin to her eyes.

Can't snatch him and go.

She turned. Simons was sitting by himself, to the left of the door. She put the tray down on the small table near him and faced the wall, away from Davy. She poured coffee into a cup.

"Cream or sugar, sir?" It was a horrible strain to make her voice emotionally neutral.

Simons didn't even look at her. "Cream, one sugar."

The door opened again and Sojee was pushed into the room, wearing a dark green jumpsuit and handcuffs. The blonde followed her and pushed her, none too gently, to the right, away from Simons. There was no mistaking Sojee—her lips were smacking and her cheeks kept twitching.

Millie's first impulse was to spill the coffee cup onto Simons's lap, but just then the blonde grabbed Sojee's hair from behind and wrenched her head back. Sojee cried out.

"Your coffee, sir." She handed Simons the cup and saucer.

He took it and finally looked at her. "You may g—." He froze.

Took you long enough.

She took the handle of the heavy silver coffeepot in one hand, flipped open its hinged lid, and jumped ten feet to the side, her arm swinging.

The blonde screamed as the scalding coffee poured onto his side and back. He fell away, clawing at his clothes. Sojee yelped when Millie put her arms around her, but then they were in the Aerie and she stumbled away when Millie released her.

"It's okay, Sojee. It's okay!"

Sojee's eyes were wide open and she was trembling.

"It's me—Millie!"

Millie still had Padgett's handcuffs and their key in the Aerie. She found the key and held it up. "Here, let me get you out of those cuffs."

Sojee looked confused and disoriented. She was muttering to herself, disjointed snatches of meaning. "...could be a demon. Could be the Blue Lady. No, I don't want to do that. Leave off..." She started when Millie took hold of her wrist.

"Easy. It's okay." She unlocked one of the cuffs, then pressed the key into Sojee's hand. "It's okay. I've got to go get Davy, all right? I'll be back soon. Just rest, right? No one can get you here."

Sojee rubbed the freed wrist. "Millie?"

Millie took Sojee's hand and pressed it against her face. "Yes. Millie. I've got to go get Davy, all right?"

Some of the tension went out of Sojee's posture. "It
is
you!"

"Yes. Look, don't go outside. There's a cliff and you could fall, okay? I'll come back for you."

"Uh, I guess."

Millie took a deep breath. She wanted to go straight to Davy but those men probably had their guns out by now.
I'll risk the hallway.

The water struck her entire lower body from the chest down but she felt it most where the butler had kicked her. It roared in her ears and she lost her footing and fell, dropping under the surface. It stung her eyes and stung her nostrils.
Sea water? Warm sea water? On the third floor?
When she struggled upright, the wig had shifted around, hanging sodden across her face. She spat hair out of her mouth, then swept the wig from her head with her hand, letting it go in the current. Her hands were empty—she'd lost the pepper foam.

She grabbed a doorframe as she swept past it and her shoulder screamed, but she held on and struggled to her feet. The noise had increased. Still holding on carefully, she looked behind her. One emergency light set high in the stairway shed a harsh glare on the water and she saw the water drop abruptly away in a cascade.

The stairway had become a waterfall. Above the landing, several feet below her, she saw Lawrence Simons clinging to the banister with both arms. He still gripped his gun tightly in one hand. His eyes were wide and his beautiful suit was ruined.

She couldn't blame him for holding on so desperately. Just below him the landing window had torn out, frame and all, and the bulk of the water shot out onto the grounds, two-and-a-half stories below. As Millie watched, the hole was widening, as bricks were plucked out singly and in groups by the raging torrent.

She wondered what had become of the blonde and the guard outside the door.

Simons gun flared and suddenly she was on her back in the water, blinking, stunned. The current took her.

It was like a waterpark ride. She kept her feet before her and her face above the water. As she swept down the stair she saw Simons swing his gun toward her, and she lashed out with both feet. Her left heel crashed into Simons's shoulder; his grip broke and he was in the current flailing his arms and then they were both shooting out through the wall and into the bright spotlights, which, perversely, still shone on the exterior of the mansion.

Simons screamed and the sudden drop got to her in a way the current hadn't. She flinched away to the Aerie.

Gallons of water cascaded to the stone floor around her.

Sojee, still standing where she'd left her, jumped back from the splashing water. "Who the hell are you?" she asked.

Millie, her heart pounding, wiped water from her face. "Huh? It's me, Millie."

"Did they scalp you?"

"Oh. It was a wig."

"And the blood?" Sojee gestured toward the left side of Millie's head.

Millie put her hand to her face and stared blankly when her fingers and palm came away covered in red. "Oh. I guess they shot me."

She felt for it and found a furrow above her temple, three inches long. When she touched it the nerves screamed to life and she nearly fainted.

Sojee snatched up the dish towel hanging from the refrigerator handle and folded it into a pad. She held it against the side of Millie's head and pressed.

"Ow!"

"Hold still!"

Millie lifted her own hand. "I'll hold it. Get me something to tie it on. I still have to get Davy."

"Won't they shoot you?"

"No. Not anymore." Millie pointed to the pink button-down shirt lying draped over a chair. "Rip that."

Sojee tore it lengthwise into three pieces, then helped her use the longest piece, tail to collar, to secure the dishtowel over the wound.

Millie caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the window.
Like the fife player in that painting,
"Spirit of '76." "Thanks!" She jumped.

She jumped back to the hallway, braced for the water, but it had dropped substantially and she staggered forward, in a knee-high current. By the time she'd splashed down the hall to Davy's door, it was swirling about her ankles. The room itself was a dark cavern and some furniture had come to rest across the lower half of the doorway. Only the emergency light at the end of the hall provided any light and it didn't reach within.

She jumped back to the Aerie and picked up the night vision goggles, started to lift them to her head, then realized the headset would rest on her head wound. She looked around wildly.

Sojee was staring at her, backed up against the wall, her lips smacking, her eyes blinking.

Millie tried to smile. "Need a light."

Sojee pointed at the old electric lantern Davy kept for backup or when they wanted to turn off the generator.

Millie's smile became genuine. She jumped across the room. "Great!" She took it, and left.

When she climbed over the wardrobe lying across the door she found Davy on his side stretched lengthwise between the chain and a five-foot gap in the floor. His face lay in a puddle of water and he wasn't breathing, though Millie swore she saw his hand twitch.

She groped for the atropine. Two of the autoinjectors were gone, washed out of the apron pocket in the flood, but two remained. She yanked one out of its holder, arming it, then jammed the opposite end into the outside of Davy's thigh. The pop as it activated was quite loud, startling her. The internal coil spring plunged the needle through pajamas, skin, and muscle. She waited, as the instructions said, counting, "One elephant, two elephant, three elephant," giving the spring time to drive the dose into his body. She pulled it straight out, then threw it aside.

Davy still wasn't breathing. She tried for a pulse and wasn't sure if she could feel one or not. She wanted to take him to the trauma center but the manacle still circled his ankle—the chain still stretched to the floor bolt. The last of the water drained through the gap in the floor and she heard a motion in the corner of the room. She jerked the lantern around.

A foot-long flying fish wiggled and flopped across the wet floor. She wondered if she was hallucinating.

Gotta get him breathing,
she thought, and checked Davy's mouth for obstructions and to see if he'd swallowed his tongue. As her fingers swept his mouth, he began breathing again, ragged, irregular breaths. He was still unconscious. She presumed his heart was beating.

Tears started and she blinked them away.

No time.

She jumped to west Texas, to the rim of the pit. The desert air, bone-dry, turned her soaking wet maid's uniform into an evaporative cooler, sucking heat from her body. She shook herself, like a cat, heard water drops hit the rock around her, and, after a few seconds, splash the water below.

She was regretting that she'd given Padgett's guns to Becca but there were lots of weapons down
there.

Her prisoners had found the old fire pit and the piñon logs she'd brought for Padgett. Their fire was now a staunch blaze before which Agnes, the butler, the chef, and the man with the injured nose couched and warmed their hands. Hyacinth sat with her back to the fire, her gun in her hand, swiveling her head from side to side, staring out at her own shadow cast across the water and onto the limestone wall across the water.