Страница 79 из 95
“Yes. And we don’t know Lucas Bradford. We have nothing to do with the Bradfords. If you want money, I can get you money, but you have to believe that we have nothing to do with the Bradfords!”
“I can get you money,” she said again. “My family… my father… I can get…”
Her voice trailed off as he walked back to her. He still had the knife in his hand but now he knelt and picked up the roll of duct tape, pulled out a short strip and cut it free with the knife. She was trying to say more when he bent at the waist and smashed the tape roughly over her mouth, ru
“Don’t hurt her,” A
“What?” he said. “What did you just say?”
It took her a second to realize he was upset about the use of his name. He actually wanted to be referred to as Campbell. He was standing there in front of the bloody drawing he’d left on her window, asking to be identified as a dead man. She’d never heard of anything so mad.
“Don’t hurt her,” she said in a whisper. “Campbell? Please don’t hurt her.”
He gri
He turned from her, still smiling, to stare out the window. A moment later A
“Well,” he said, “what now? You told me to listen. I’ve tried. And this bitch isn’t worth a thing to me. Not a thing. I’m standing here holding a handful of nothing, same as I always was. But I’m ready to listen. I’m trying to listen.”
The wind rattled the glass against the old wood frame as he stood there and stared at it, stared as if there were something in it that could offer help. Down on the floor, Claire Shaw was silent, watching in obvious astonishment and horror.
“You’re right,” Josiah told the window. “You’re right. ’Course she’s not worth anything to me-none of them ever was. That isn’t what it’s about. I don’t need the dollars. I need the blood.”
A
“I’ll deal with them first,” Josiah said, voice softer now, thoughtful, musing. “Finish what needs to be finished, and then I’ll come back to that hotel. They’ll remember me when it’s done, won’t they? They’ll remember us when it’s done.”
He swiveled his head back and locked his gaze on A
“Get up.”
“What? I don’t-”
“Get up and go down into the basement. Now.”
“Don’t hurt her,” A
Josiah dropped the knife to the floor, stepped over it, and collected his shotgun. Lifted that and swung the barrel to face A
“Go down into the damn basement. I ain’t got time to waste tying your wrinkled old ass up.”
It was only then, the second time that he said it, that she realized exactly what was being offered-the shortwave, the dear old R. L. Drake. A lifeline.
She stood up, legs unsteady after sitting for so long, and, with one hand braced on the wall, went to the basement door and opened it and started down the steps. There was a light switch mounted just beside the door but she didn’t reach for it, preferring to walk down into the dark rather than chance his seeing the old desk with the radio.
He didn’t even wait till she’d reached the bottom of the steps before slamming the door shut. That plunged her into real darkness, and she stopped and gripped the railing. She heard some banging around and then something smashed into the door and the knob rattled. He was blocking the door, locking her in.
She slid her hand along the railing and took a careful step down into the blackness, then another. A splinter bit into her palm and she gasped and stopped. Upstairs Josiah was saying something she couldn’t understand, and then she heard footsteps, too many to be just him. The front door opened and then banged shut. She stood still and listened and when she heard the motor of his truck start, she thought, Oh, no.
They were on the move. He was leaving, and he was taking that woman with him.
A
She took another step, down into the dark.
55
KELLEN AND ERIC WERE still standing in the same spot in the woods when they saw the cloud. The rain was coming down in furious gales and the wind was howling now, sounded like something alive, like something wounded and angry, and it was Kellen who pointed up at a bank of purple clouds that seemed to be separating and joining and separating again, partners in some strange turbulent dance.
“I don’t like that,” he said. “We got to get out of here, man.”
“I need to find that spring,” Eric said, feeling numb as he watched the clouds. “I’m going to need that water, Kellen. It might be the only thing that will work.”
“Then we’re going to have to come back for it,” Kellen said. “We’ve got to leave now.”
Eric stared at the clouds but didn’t move or speak.
“Come on,” Kellen said, and when he pulled Eric away by the arm, it was with the ease of a grown man moving a child. Only when he realized Eric was finally cooperating and ru
“Go
They ran down the hill and found the dry cha
Eric’s legs didn’t feel steady, seemed to be operating more out of momentum than muscle control, but he kept up with Kellen as best he could and kept moving. Finally the edge of the tree line was in sight, and from there it was maybe a half mile through a field of short scrub pine to get back to the car.
They broke out of the trees into a roar of wind and ran right up to the barbed-wire fence. Eric was ducking to his hands and knees again, thinking, the hell with looking graceful, he just wanted to be on the other side, when Kellen reached down and grabbed the back of his shirt and spoke in a hiss of awe.
“Look at that. Look at it.”
Eric straightened and followed his stare and felt his own breath catch.
From here they had a view out across open fields, and to the west, a ways off but not so far as to feel comfortable about it, a fu
“Is it going to come this way?” Eric shouted.
“I think so.”
They stood without speaking for a moment and watched as the cloud churned through the field. The tight fu
“It’s definitely coming this way,” Kellen shouted. “We got to run!”