The Bone House (49 page)

    
'Tresa,
'
he called again, as loud as he dared.

    She
was gone.

    Cab
awoke with his blood dripping from his face to the floor. It made a pool around
the tips of his fingers. The pain in his head was like a nail hammered through
the back of his skull and driven out between his eyes. When he pushed himself
up on his forearms, a wave of dizziness and nausea almost made him vomit and collapse.
He stayed on his hands and knees until his head cleared, then he stood up
slowly, supporting himself against the bedroom wall. He touched the back of his
head tenderly and winced as he felt the swollen bump, which was damp with
blood. He had no idea if he'd been unconscious for a minute or an hour, but his
flashlight was still lit, shooting a tunnel of light toward the bed. He
squatted carefully and retrieved it.

    When
he listened to the cold, quiet house around him, he concluded that the
assailant was gone. So was his Glock. It was missing.

    He
staggered toward the bathroom and turned on the water at the sink. He grabbed a
hand towel from the rack, soaked it under the water, and dabbed it against his
skull, wiping the blood. He opened the vanity cabinet under the sink and used
the flashlight to find a box of gauze bandages and medical tape. Positioning a
pad at the base of his skull, he added tape until the mesh stayed tight against
his hair and skin. It was a crude job, but he didn't have time to waste.

    Before
he left the bathroom, he opened a bottle of Advil and took five of them to
battle his monster headache.

    Cab
made his way out of Mark Bradley's house and tramped through the muddy driveway
to the black Nissan, which was parked where he'd left it. He leaned against the
car, letting the waves of pain in his head dissipate. Whoever had assaulted him
couldn't be far. Neither could Mark Bradley and Tresa Fischer. He just didn't
know where to find them. They could be anywhere, hidden by the night.

    He
opened the car door.

    That
was when he heard it. A sharp crack sizzled through the noise of the rain. The
echoes bounced around him, but the ripples of sound started at the beach.

    A
gunshot.

    The
world spun as Cab ran for the water.

    Hilary
ran to Amy on the bed.

    As
she did, her cell phone rang, and the music was jarringly loud in the silence
of Gary Jensen's house. She fumbled with the buttons to answer the call before
the coach heard the ringing downstairs.

    'It's
Katie,' Amy's roommate whispered as Hilary pressed the phone to her ear.
'Gary's back! Where are you? Are you inside?'

    
'Call
nine one one,' Hilary hissed. 'I found Amy. Get the police here right now.'

    She
slapped the phone shut before Katie said another word. She didn't have time to
wait. At the bed, she cupped Amy's cheek and then clawed with her fingernails
at the tape that bound the girl's wrists. The tape was tightly wound in layers
and was slow to fray as she picked at it and pulled it away from the down on
the girl's skin. Behind the gag, Amy whimpered, partly in pain and partly in relief,
but Hilary quieted her with a gentle hand at her mouth. 'Shhh.'

    Hilary
succeeded in freeing Amy's right wrist, and the girl's arm flew around her neck
and pulled her close. They couldn't stop for emotion. Hilary disentangled
herself and set to work immediately on Amy's other wrist. This time, her
progress was faster, and in less than a minute, Amy's arms were both free, and
the girl immediately ripped off the tape from her mouth with a gasp and dug out
the cloth bandage that had been stuffed inside, choking her. Her face was
blistered and red.

    Amy
sat up and again hugged Hilary in an embrace so strong she could barely
breathe. 'Thank God, thank God, oh, Hilary, thank you,' she murmured in a rush
of words.

    Hilary
peeled the girl's arms firmly away. 'I know, kiddo, but keep quiet, he's
downstairs. We have to hurry. Help's on the way.'

    Hilary
grabbed her car keys out of her pocket and sawed at the tape on Amy's left leg with
the jagged edge of one key. The threads split apart, and she tore it away,
making the girl's skin bleed. Amy winced and bent her leg at the knee to
jump-start her circulation.

    Hilary
quickly freed her other leg.

    'Let's
go,' she whispered. 'Let's get the hell out of here.'

    Amy
swung her legs off the bed, but her knees gave way as she stood up, and she
collapsed heavily into Hilary's arms.

    'I'm
dizzy,' Amy said.

    'I
know. Try again.'

    Hilary
slid an arm around the girl's waist, and Amy draped her left arm around
Hilary's shoulder. Amy swayed as the two of them took a step together, but she
didn't fall.

    'Stay
quiet,' Hilary whispered. 'The front door is at the bottom of the stairs. We'll
go straight down and out, OK?'

    'Hell
yeah.'

    With
each step, the girl grew stronger. Her young body shrugged off the
after-effects of the drug and the long stretch spent prone on the bed. She let
go of Hilary, balancing one hand on the wall of the hallway. They reached the
stairs leading back to the ground floor, and Hilary went first, with Amy at her
heels. Freedom felt close; she could almost smell the rain and pine outside.
The staircase wound like a corkscrew, and as they followed the iron railing
round the curve, the front door beckoned to them from across the marble tile of
the foyer.

    She
wanted to run. In ten seconds, they could be through the door and safe. She
reached behind and took hold of Amy's hand.

    Hilary
glanced back at the girl. Their eyes met. She gave Amy an encouraging smile,
and the girl's face glowed with confidence as she smiled back. Then, as Hilary
watched, the smile vanished, and Amy's expression bled into terror. Hilary
looked downstairs and understood why.

    Gary
Jensen stood at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for them. Hilary's eyes
followed the length of his right arm and saw that he was holding a gun.

    Amy
screamed in panic, yanking Hilary's hand and dragging both of them back up the
twisting staircase. The girl's speed took Jensen by surprise, but they were
only a handful of steps ahead of him as he charged in pursuit. At the top of
the stairs, Amy sped left through the open door to the master bedroom. Hilary
cleared the doorway behind her, slammed the door shut, and pushed the surface
bolt into place just as Jensen's shoulder collided with the heavy door.

    Hilary
longed for the sound of sirens, but she heard nothing outside. She dug out her
phone and punched in 911 on the keypad. On the other side of the door, Jensen
hammered and kicked. The lock shivered under the impact, the screws loosening.
She heard the phone ring once, twice, then three times, with excruciating
slowness.

    Jensen
kicked again.

    'Nine
one one emergency,' the operator finally answered.

    'Get
the police here, we've got a man trying to kill us.'

    Her
panic didn't rattle the operator. 'Ma'am, this is a mobile phone. I'm showing
this phone registered to an address in Washington Island, Wisconsin. What is
your current location?'

    Jensen
kicked again, and this time the lock exploded off the door, and the door itself
spun on its hinges and banged into the wall. He surged through the doorway with
his gun extended and his finger on the trigger. He pointed the barrel at
Hilary's head.

    'Ma'am,
what is your location?' the operator repeated.

    'Hang
up!' Jensen whispered.

    Hilary
hesitated. The operator spoke urgently into her ear. 'Ma'am? Are you OK? Are
you still there? Ma'am, what is your location?'

    Jensen
shifted and pointed the gun at Amy's head, not even two feet away.
'Hang up
!'

    Hilary
clapped the phone shut. She let it fall from her hand to the ground.

    'Don't
be stupid,' she told Jensen. 'The police are already coming. You may as well
let us go.'

    She
watched his face. His eyes darted between them, and his hand squirmed on the
gun, which slipped in his sweaty fingers. She realized he was paralyzed. He
didn't know what to do.

    'Give
it up,' she urged him. if you harm us, you only make it worse.'

    At
Hilary's feet, her cell phone began ringing.

    'See?'
she said. 'They know we're here. They're already tracking the pings on the
phone. It won't take long.'

    Jensen
squatted and took the phone in his hand. He flipped it open, not taking his
eyes off the two of them, and switched the phone off.

    'Get
on your knees,' he said. 'Both of you.'

    Amy
glanced at Hilary, who nodded. They slid down to their knees on the bedroom
floor, next to each other. Jensen towered over them, shifting the gun back and forth
between their faces.

    'You
killed Glory, didn't you?' Hilary asked, stalling for time, praying for the
police to hurry. 'That's what this is all about.'

    Jensen
laughed, but it was manic and strangled, like a man who laughs at things he
can't see in the darkness. Things that scare him. He pointed the gun at
Hilary's head.

    'Please
don't do this,' she said.

    The
gun trembled in his hand. His finger moved on to the trigger, and she knew she
had to jump for the gun. If she jumped, if she got in his face, then she gave
Amy a chance to survive.

    Hilary
thought about Mark. She saw his face and felt his touch, as real as if he were
here with her. She thought about the faces of the children they would never
have. She thought about how you can go from life to death in an instant.

    She
readied herself to leap, but before she did, she spotted movement in the
hallway behind Gary Jensen. She didn't dare look away from Jensen's eyes, but
in the dim light beyond the doorway, she realized that someone was creeping
down the hallway toward them. A teenage girl stalked Jensen's back with a
finger pressed over her lips for silence.

    It
was Katie.

    The
shot went wild, careening into the treetops.

    Troy
cursed silently to himself. He'd heard Bradley's voice in the woods above the
beach, but he was aiming like a blind man. His nerves made him careless. Now,
with a foolish shot, he'd warned Bradley away.

    He
hiked up the dirt road away from the beach. He hoped the patter of the rain
covered the slow crunch of his footfalls. He had the uncomfortable feeling that
he was being watched, but he couldn't see anything in the darkness, and he was
confident that no one could see him. Even so, he didn't feel alone. The woods
seemed alive. He told himself that it was his imagination creating monsters in
his head, but every scrape of tree branches as the wind blew made him twitch
with fear.

    He
wanted to quit. He wanted to hike to the main road and call his buddy Keith,
who would pick him up and smuggle him on to the ferry in the morning. They
could spend the night in Keith's basement, drinking beer and playing pool and
surfing porn. Forget about Mark Bradley. Forget about the gun in his hand.

    
He
thought:
Glory's laughing at me.

    Maybe
she was the one watching him; she was the spirit he felt. Her ghost. If he
listened, he could hear her voice.
You can't do anything right.

    He
was angry at Glory. Angry at himself. All of that anger still had a focus that
made him stay where he was, rooted to the ground. Mark Bradley. He wasn't going
to give up while Bradley was alive.

    'Where
are you, you bastard?' he murmured aloud.

    Like
the answer to a prayer, Bradley revealed his location. No more than two hundred
yards away, Troy saw a stream of light splash through the woods. It was deep in
the trees in the campground between the beach and the cemetery. He stayed on
the road and hustled, eating up the space between them. Based on the direction
of the light, Bradley was heading toward the graveyard, and Troy realized he
could get there ahead of him and be waiting for him when he emerged into the open
ground.