No good. Evidently the operator had to punch in a numeric code, similar to the personal identification number used when interfacing with automatic tellers. She didn’t know the code.
Was there a panic switch Some systems offered a single button that could be depressed to trip the alarm. Not this one, though. It might be possible to activate the panic feature by typing in some special code or symbol, but she had no idea which keys to press, and she couldn’t stand here all night.
Okay, back to Plan A. She was thinking anyway. She was full of bright ideas.
Cautiously she moved forward, the Glock gripped in both hands, her arms shoulder high and horizontally extended in the pose of a tennis player at the net. Her bare forearms glistened, radial flexors standing out like taut ropes. Between her wrists the handcuff chain rattled softly.
The gazebo was her immediate destination. But reaching it would be dangerous.
She would have to cross twenty-five feet of open lawn, and although the yard was dark, she couldn’t know if someone was watching from a window.
Flashback: glow of a red-orange diode, a laser beam stamping a bull’s-eye on her forehead. Flashback: a bullet blowing past her face underwater.
Mustn’t think about that. Mustn’t think about anything.
Like those stupid ads said: Just do it.
Fast.
She darted across the treeless ground. Behind the gazebo she slid to her knees, panting.
No shots fired. At least she didn’t think there had been. Those guns were silenced, though. And she’d heard you couldn’t always tell if you’d been shot.
She patted her legs, her torso, looking for holes. None.
Okay. Okay.
Her stomach rolled. That granola bar hadn’t settled too well. Briefly she worried that she would be sick again.
No, ridiculous, she was fine, and every second she spent inside the Kent compound increased her odds of being seen, so come on, hurry up, get it done.
With shaking hands she put down the Glock, then unfolded the binoculars from her pocket. Warily she lifted her head over the gazebo’s low wall and scoped out the house.
Lights burned in three rear windows. One pair, in the east wing, framed what looked like a bedroom.
Ally was in there. Through the binoculars Trish could see her, squirming in a chair. Tied up-and alone.
Strange that the girl had been separated from the others. Disturbing, too, as if the killers had special plans for her.
The rear entrance had been left open, the doorway a rectangle of darkness.
She focused on the remaining lighted window, closest to her. The kitchen. Barbara Kent’s vantage point when she’d glimpsed a prowler by the gazebo.
Now Trish was the prowler. Peculiar thought.
The kitchen appeared empty. Only a small portion of the room was visible: the corner of a refrigerator … part of a cabinet … a wall-mounted telephone … a laminated noteboard littered with partly erased messages.
Below the noteboard, keys hung on a row of pegs.
The kitchen, then, was her objective. One of those key sets would surely include keys to the boats. If she—
Behind her, a rustle of bushes.
She whirled, dropping the binoculars, grabbing the gun.
Darkness. No movement.
But she’d heard something.
One of them Hiding Drawing a bead on her
There.
Not a bad guy, not death in a black jump suit. Only a rabbit, small and brown, frozen in profile ten feet away, observing her with one unblinking eye.
She lowered the Glock. The slight movement was enough to send the rabbit scurrying into shadows.
Catching her breath, fighting to control her racing heart, she stared after the rabbit. Such a little animal, so vulnerable, surviving only by constant watchfulness born of constant fear.
Tonight she knew the same vigilance, the same terror.
She knew how it was to be hunted.
28
Ally was afraid.
She stared at herself in the mirrored doors of her bedroom closet-dress torn, body twisted at an unnatural angle in the tubular desk chair, wrists lashed to the padded armrest with strips of bedding.
The room felt hot and stuffy. Stagnant air clogged her lungs like paste.
Having the windows open didn’t help. It only reminded her of the man who’d watched her through the backyard fence on those other nights.
Watched with binoculars as she stood naked, feeling the night air on her breasts. Watched as she emerged, towelless and dripping, from the shower in the adjacent bath. Watched, perhaps, as she lay in the canopy bed and touched herself, legs twisting languorously, the sheets damp with sweat.
Cain might have seen all that.
She knew his name now, his name and his face, along with the names and faces of two associates of his. That knowledge, more than anything else, was what made her so very afraid.
They had hidden nothing from her … as if it no longer mattered what she saw or heard.
Cain hadn’t even bothered putting on his mask again after the attack. She’d been left weeping in a corner as he stepped to the doorway of the den.
“Lilith, get in here.”
The soft crackle of the police radio had preceded her entrance. Ally had found it somehow obscene to see Officer Robinson’s walkie-talkie clipped to this woman’s belt.
Lilith had worn no mask either. She was short and frizzy-haired, pretty except for her eyes-small, glittery eyes that liked pain.
“You heard what happened” Cain asked.
“I heard.”
“I think young Miss Kent needs to go to her room.”
Lilith studied her with a stalking cat’s feral gaze. “Why not take care of things right now”
“I need to make it square with the management.”
“After you do-“
“I’ll do the honors.” His gloved hand brushed the gun at his hip.
She pouted. “You never let me have any fun.”
Ally had understood at least part of what she heard but somehow couldn’t make the implication real. She had offered no resistance as Cain hustled her out of the den.
They had been entering the east wing when another man, unmasked also, appeared out of the rear hall. Lanky and sun-blasted, he could have been a movie cowboy if not for his blond ponytail and storm trooper costume. Ally recognized him as the one who’d carried Officer Robinson out of the house.
“Done” Cain asked with a smile.
The cowboy nodded. “Done.” His squinty eyes narrowed. “What’ve we got here”
“Minor problem,” Cain said, handing Ally over to him. “You and Lilith handle it. I’ll get started trashing this place.”
She had been escorted into her bedroom. From the front of the house came noises of breaking glass, as distant and unreal as the soundtrack of a movie.
Briskly Lilith unmade the bed and tore a floral-patterned sheet to ribbons. Although Ally understood that the strips would be used to tie her up, still she raised no protest. She was numb with shock and fear.
Only when the cowboy lashed her wrists behind her had she finally reacted-kicking, squirming, mewling like a hurt animal.
Lilith subdued her with a slap that brought fresh blood to her mouth.
“Stupid little slut,” she lisped. “You should’ve let him do it. He wasn’t gonna off you. He just wanted to put in his dipstick, check the oil.”
“Check the oil,” the cowboy said. “I like that.”
“You can look under my hood anytime, Tyler.”
“Cain might revoke my license if I did.”
Cain. That had been the first time Ally heard the name. Instantly she knew who was meant. The scarred man. And the cowboy was Tyler.
She had registered the names with a sick feeling of dread, while desperately searching Lilith’s face for some shadow of compassion.