He came forward, the Colt still on her, dipped and picked up the Glock.
“You wouldn’t be carrying a backup weapon, would you?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you pull up the legs of your jeans there? One at a time.”
She did, looking up at him as she bent.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s take a walk. Get out in front of me. I’ll tell you where to go.”
“Why don’t you let the hammer on that pistol down?”
“Through those trees there. Go on.”
When she came to a gap in the fence, the chain-link sagging almost to the ground, she said, “I can’t see where I’m going. It’s too dark.”
“You’re fine. Just watch going over, some sharp ends there. And please, Sara, don’t try to run. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you make me.”
She lifted a leg high enough to clear the hanging fence, stepped over, and brought the other one up behind. She took two steps, stopped, heard him cross the fence behind her.
“To your right.”
They passed through trees, thin branches snapping at her in the dark, then came into the clearing behind the refinery. There was a loading dock back here, and a rusted two-story framework that had once been a chute and conveyor system. Across the back wall was a long row of windows, most of them broken.
“Go on,” he said. “Through the door.”
She saw it then, a metal door, rusted hinges. She hesitated.
“I can’t leave you roaming around out here, Sara. Not now. Go on in.” She heard him come up behind her.
At the door, she reached out, put a palm against cold metal, pushed. It swung open into blackness.
Morgan almost missed the refinery in the dark. No lights out here, just a canal and cane fields on one side of the road, swamp on the other. When he got to the crossroads and the blinking yellow light, he realized he’d gone too far. He pulled onto the shoulder, backed and filled, killed his lights, and headed back the way he’d come, the road long and straight and empty. He powered the window down, listening.
The moon was low in the sky, but bright enough that he could see the dark outline of the refinery. He slowed, saw the bridge and the access road Flynn had told him about. He drove past.
There was another farther down, as he’d expected. He turned down it, slowing the Monte Carlo to a creep. He bumped over the bridge, heard metal groan, drove slowly ahead into darkness.
TWENTY-SEVEN
When she stepped through the doorway, she heard Billy come in behind her, the rusted creak of the hinges, a bolt being thrown. He touched her on the back, prodded her forward.
“Go ahead,” he said. They were in almost total darkness.
Noises to her right. She turned to see him lighting a Coleman lantern with a match. He set the lamp atop an overturned crate, adjusted the wick until the flame grew brighter. He still held the Python. Her Glock was tucked into his belt.
They were in a big, high-ceilinged room, the concrete floor stained and chipped, the remnants of some type of machinery in one corner. On the front wall, massive sliding doors, closed now, a smaller door beside them. Grids and gaps in the concrete where other equipment had once been, empty crates. An iron staircase led up to a second-floor catwalk. There were gaping holes in the ceiling, and she could see the first stars against the blackness.
“What am I going to do with you, Sara? You always complicate things.”
He eased the Python’s hammer down, pointed to her waistpack. “Your cell in there?”
She shook her head.
“You sure?”
“It’s back in the Blazer.”
Something fluttered near the ceiling. She looked up.
“Pigeons,” he said. “Bats in here, too. Didn’t get more than an hour’s sleep all night.”
Her eyes were adjusting. There was trash scattered on the floor, broken bottles, graffiti on the walls. A sooty blotch against one wall, as if from a fire.
“Nice place, isn’t it?” he said. “Go on up those stairs there.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Sara. We don’t have a lot of time.”
The stairs were spotted with pigeon droppings, rust. She went up slowly, heard him behind her. He’d left the lamp where it was, but its glow was bright enough that she could see where she was going. Sweat crept down the nape of her neck.
“Up there on the left,” he said.
She reached the catwalk, saw the open door there.
“Go on,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”
She went in, heard the scratching of another match. He lit a thick candle, set it on the floor.
It was a long empty room, stripped of machinery, a tangle of pipes protruding from one wall. The ceiling was pressed tin. There was a single big front window, half the panes missing.
On the concrete floor near the window was a wooden pallet, a sleeping bag stretched out on it. Atop the sleeping bag was a Bushmaster AR-15 and an olive drab duffel bag. There was a small camping stove in the corner, a cardboard box of groceries.
“Over there,” he said. “Stay away from the window. Go ahead, sit down.”
She lowered herself to the floor, her back to the wall, watching him. To her left was a black nylon gearbag, zippered shut.
He went to the window, looked out.
“I saw you,” he said. “From up here. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. You never did give up easy.”
He set the Python on the windowsill, picked up the rifle. He looked out again and then used the butt to bump out the remaining panes of glass.
“I’ve got the high ground,” he said. “That’s something, I guess.”
He sat on the sleeping bag, his back against the wall, facing her, the window above him, the rifle in his lap.
“I used to come here as a kid,” he said. “I ever tell you that?”
“No.”
“My father was assistant foreman, until his accident. My mother and I would come here sometimes, bring his lunch. I couldn’t wait to get out of here, away from the noise, the dust. Those rollers would be going nonstop, twenty-four seven. You could almost feel that shit in your lungs.”
He pulled the candle close to him, ejected the rifle’s magazine. She looked at him, at the Python on the sill above him.
“All I could think about was how I never wanted to end up in a place like this.”
From the duffel, he took another magazine, a roll of duct tape. A draft came through the window, set the candle flame flickering.
As she watched, he ripped strips from the roll, taped the magazines together, open ends in opposite directions.
“Who are you expecting?” she said.
“Someone. Soon.”
He fit the magazine back into the receiver, slapped it into place.
Easy. Calm. Don’t let him know you’re scared.
“Billy, this has all gone too far.”
“I guess it has.”
“Lee-Anne-”
“I know. He told me.”
“Who?”
“One of the men who did it, maybe. I don’t know.” He worked the bolt, laid the rifle across his lap, rubbed his right sleeve across his forehead. “Christ, it’s hot in here.”
“This doesn’t have to go any further,” she said.
“Too late for that. How much you tell Hammond?”
“All of it.”
“Too bad.”
Moonlight was beginning to filter through the window. He looked at his watch.
“We agreed on an hour from now,” he said, “but I imagine he’ll be along a good bit before that. Maybe bring some people with him, too.”
“What people?”
“Ones that money belonged to, I expect. Or them that want it now. Doesn’t matter either way. Didn’t know how long I’d need to hide out here. It was almost a relief, getting that call.”
She thought about Danny at JoBeth’s, eating dinner now maybe, or watching TV, wondering where she was.
You have to think clearly. You have to get out of this.