He caught his breath as the door opened and a woman stepped into the hallway. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first, confused at the blonde hair that fell about a face that was once beautiful but that now wore the gray pallor of decades in prison, her eyes hardened from years of watching her back.
She looked at Walton calmly, appraisingly, then her eyes drifted over his shoulder to where her sister, Anna, hung by her neck, no longer moving. She looked back at him once more, for just a second, and then June Stanton turned and ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Hugo awoke in darkness. The air around him was close, stuffy, and the back of his head ached. He was on his left side in some kind of container that smelled of oil, leather, and dirt. His chief sensation was a stinging in his wrists, which felt glued together. When he wiggled his hands, that pain got worse.
He lay still, not willing to risk exertion until he knew where he was, who might be nearby or even watching. His mind looped back to the last thing he could remember, which was driving Walton to London, coming off the A1, and driving through Hendon.
A lay-by in Hendon, a quiet place, that was next. Hugo pulling over in Upton’s car and following Walton’s instructions to get out, waiting for a chance to get close to the old man, to take the gun away, and end this.
Now Hugo remembered the look in Walton’s eye, how the journalist watched him like a hawk and never came closer than ten feet, the gun always pointed at Hugo as they stood at the back of the car. The zip ties. Walton had fished one from his bag and thrown it to Hugo.
“Put it on,” Walton had said. “Hands behind your back.”
“I can’t,” Hugo told him. “If you want me to tighten it, I need to use my teeth. It’s either in front, or you have to do it.”
Walton paused, the first hint of doubt creeping across his face. “In front then,” Walton decided. “Tight, so I can see.”
Hugo had done as he was told, relieved that Walton was relying on zip ties and not handcuffs. The former were relatively easy to get out of, the latter all but impossible without a key. They cut like a knife when too tight, so he adjusted his position, now sure he was in the trunk of Upton’s car, until he felt the pressure ease and the blood flow back into his hands. But as that pain subsided, his head throbbed harder, especially when he moved it. Walton must have hit him, maybe with the gun, but when? He’d put the zip tie on to Walton’s satisfaction, then …
The trunk, he’d been facing it with Walton behind him. He’d not even heard the old man move forward, certainly didn’t remember being hit. And Hugo had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He thought he’d heard voices at one point, but the memory was foggy and maybe not real.
The car rocked suddenly as one of its doors thumped closed and Hugo’s stomach lurched at the sound of the engine starting. The floor under him began to vibrate and the car moved forward.
Whatever Walton had wanted to do, he’d done. And Hugo knew that now it might be his turn. He started to feel around for the emergency release tab that he knew was there, somewhere. Every car had them, though it flashed across his mind that a police car, modified in some ways, might not. But he had to look.
It took several seconds to work his way onto his back, and his methodical search was thrown off for a second when the front of the car bumped up over an object, and seconds later he was knocked onto his side again as the rear tires hit that same solid object. A curb?
Beneath him the smooth road had turned to something bumpier, and Hugo had trouble holding himself still to search for the latch, the car rocking and jerking, but at least it was moving slowly.
Then it stopped again. Hugo held his breath, wondering whether he was about to see Walton’s face, his gun. Instead he heard a light tap, as if someone had laid hands on the trunk above him and the car started moving once more, an inch at a time, gradually picking up speed until it suddenly slowed, as if it had run into something soft, rolling Hugo onto his right side as the nose of the car tipped downward.
In an instant, the gurgle of rushing water told him exactly where he was and what was happening.
Pressed into the back seat by the angle, Hugo had more room. He knew he had a minute, maybe less, to find the latch and get out. He had no idea how deep the water was, but just three feet would be enough to seep in and drown him.
The latch. In a new car it should glow in the dark, and from where he lay with his back to the rear seats of the car, he should be able to see it. He calmed himself, tried to ignore the sounds of the water pressing in on the car, his eyes scanning the blackness in front of his face. Why couldn’t he see it?
There. A spec of something luminous, but not big enough to be the latch. He started to shuffle toward it but his hands brushed against something small and hard in the way. He worked his fingers around the object, testing its shape and feel. A roll of tape. Walton had wrapped tape around the release latch so he wouldn’t see it. The spec that glowed was his escape.
He wriggled his way toward it, hope growing within him. He closed his hands around it and then shut his eyes and mouth tight as he tugged. The trunk popped an inch and water gushed over him. Hugo held his breath and positioned himself to push the lid up, bracing his back against the floor. His pinioned hands pressed upward, and immediately water filled his nostrils, threatening to suffocate him, yet the lid barely moved. He pushed harder, panic starting to fill his chest as he wondered whether he’d made the wrong decision, whether Walton had somehow tied down the trunk …
And then the lid was up, and he felt hands on the front of his coat, tugging him up, not strong enough to lift him but strong enough to help. He blinked, but the water stung his eyes and he couldn’t see who it was. Gasping, Hugo rolled himself from the trunk into the pond, the stranger still pulling at him, and together they fought their way to the bank where they collapsed in parallel heaps, panting and sodden.
His face pressed to the wet grass, Hugo turned his head to see his rescuer, and when he recognized her, his breath caught in his throat. She looked at him, too, her face set, wet strands of hair streaking across her cheeks.
“June Stanton,” he panted. “He didn’t … find you?”
She rolled onto her back and let an arm fall over her eyes. “He found my sister. Whoever that was, he killed her instead of me.”
Hugo closed his eyes tightly. Another death he’d failed to stop, and Walton was still on the loose. “You saw him? Where? When?”
“I walked into the house … I saw what he did and ran. He came after me but he’s old, he didn’t run far. I hid between two cars and watched him get into this one, drive it to the pond. I thought he was just trying to hide it.”
“How did you know I was in there?” Hugo sat up, soaking wet with the cold beginning to feed on his skin.
“Just before he pushed it into the pond he made the sign of the cross. I could tell it was a cop car and I thought maybe the policeman he’d taken it from was inside.”
“Close enough,” Hugo said. “And thanks.”
They cut down the body of Anna Stanton and laid her on the hallway floor before calling the police. There was no crime scene to preserve, not really, just the dignity of an innocent woman to restore. June sat on the floor with her sister’s head in her lap, rocking gently back and forth as they waited to hear sirens. She didn’t speak and her eyes stayed dry, but Hugo knew her heart was forever broken and that she blamed herself for this. They’d shared everything growing up, a home, food, their very genes, but the one thing that June had been responsible for, all alone, had killed her twin sister.