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“That’s what it sounds like from that paper we found. Somebody put a bounty on your head. And maybe not just yours.”
“Maybe Solomon and Richard and Carrie, too,” he whispered.
“But not publicly,” Maria went on. “It’s not like you could take out a classified ad. Whoever’s behind this put it to a select audience of folks who wouldn’t report it.”
They stopped a few yards from the driveway. “I don’t see any cameras.” Maria wished for more light. “The place looks abandoned.”
“Let’s circle around behind. There’s scrub brush we can use for cov?—”
The front door opened. They were in plain sight on the road, but it was pitch dark. Harry found Maria’s hand with his own as he crouched low. She crouched, too. The figure staggered to the ATV, got on, and started it up. Its headlight came on, bathing the house. Something skittered underneath.
Harry and Maria backed into the nearest bunch of bushes, and in a moment, the ATV was turning in a tight circle, and roaring away, in the opposite direction from where they’d left the car.
“Let’s go.” Harry ran right up the driveway to the front door, ignoring Maria’s whispered warning that the assassin might’ve left somebody behind.
But nobody challenged him as he tried the door and found it locked. He was about to kick it down, when Maria’s hand clasped his shoulder from behind and she said, “Why don’t we see if there’s a less obvious way in first? Come on.”
He was impatient, but it would only take a minute. It wasn’t a very big house. So he went around the side, checking every window until he came to a basement hatch, angled low to the ground. There was no padlock on it. Its rusty hinges squealed into the night.
He froze, met Maria’s wide eyes. She was motionless as well, partially crouched, ready to run. But they didn’t hear a thing. “Okay,” he said. “Flashlights.” He held up his phone.
Maria took hers out, and activated the light, and then she followed him down into the basement. “We should close these behind us,” she whispered.
“We’ll be five minutes. In and out.” He was already aiming his light into every corner and crevice of the cellar, and then mounting the rickety wooden stairway up. At the top, the door was closed, but not locked. It opened when he turned the knob, and he pushed it inward just slightly, peering through, flashlight off.
There was no sign of anyone. He stepped up into a kitchen. There were dishes in the sink, a towel on the rack, a bottle of dish soap, a pan hanging from a hook, potholders, a toaster. Someone lived there.
“We should split up,” Maria whispered. “You take the upstairs?—”
“Not on your life. Stay close to me, okay?”
“Okay.” She looked around the kitchen, grabbed a meat hammer from a rack of utensils, and returned to position behind him.
He crept from the kitchen through a dining room whose table and chairs bore a thick layer of dust. The living room had a ratty sofa and chair, and a big TV on the wall. The recliner had a cup holder in which stood a beer can. There was an overflowing ashtray on a coffee table. A thin spiral of smoke rose lazily from a not-quite-extinguished butt.
“If he’s living here, he probably didn’t go far,” Maria said. “We have to hurry.” She tugged his sleeve toward the stairs, and they hurried up, flinging open doors, no longer being quiet. Bathroom, empty. Bedroom, empty. Bedroom?—
“Lily!”
She was on a bed with a bare mattress and an old metal head and footboard, maybe brass. She was lying on her side, hands and feet bound, hair covering her face. The leg of her jeans was soaked in blood. She wasn’t moving.
Harrison ran to her. “Lily.” He rolled her onto her back, and she moaned. “She’s alive.”
“We need to get her out of here fast, before he gets back,” Maria said. “Scoop her up and carry her out the back door. Come on, let’s go.” She reached over and pulled off one of his sister’s slip-on shoes. “Sorry about this, Lily. I’ll buy you a new pair.”
They moved through the house rapidly, down the stairs, out the back door, which they left open, but Maria darted over to the hatchway door through which they’d entered and closed it. Then she threw Jen’s shoe toward the farthest edge of the back lawn where it met with dark woods.
Maria rejoined Harrison and they headed for the car. “If he thinks she escaped, he’ll waste time lookin’ for her out there,” she said.
“You’re brilliant. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” He walked fast, his sister limp in his arms. “She’s out cold, Maria.”
“He probably drugged her,” she said. “It can’t be from blood loss, there’s not enough.”
The sound of the ATV’s motor came then. Harry ran faster, but Maria sprinted. She got to the van ahead of him and opened the side door. The interior light came on. Harrison slid his sister into the back, lying her down on the floor, and then he and Maria dove into the front, slammed the doors. The lights went off.
The ATV was rolling up to the house. Harry started the van, pulled out, and drove away before the other vehicle’s noisy motor shut off, heading away from the little house. He didn’t turn his headlights on until they were clear.
“Perfect!” Maria said. Then she twisted in her seat, pulled out her cell phone and called Willow on speaker.
