Thr3e (40 page)

Enough with the arrows, Sam! This is something that you couldn’t mistake. Not something cute out of a Nancy Drew mystery. What’s changed here? What is altered to make a statement? What’s altered that
could
make a statement?

The window. The window is painted black, because it’s now a darkroom or something. So really it’s not a window any longer. It’s a dark sheet of glass. No light.

It’s dark down here, Kevin.

Sam let out a small cry and immediately swallowed it. That was it!
No
window. What used to have light but does no more? What has no window?

Sam ran for the fence and slung herself over it, spilling to the ground on her landing. Was it possible? How could Slater have pulled it off?

She felt for her gun.
Okay, think. One hour.
If she was right, she didn’t need five minutes, much less sixty, to find Kevin.

“And how is a man or a woman set free from this hideous nature?”

Jennifer asked.

“You kill it. But to kill it you must see it. Thus the light.”

“So just like”—Jennifer snapped her fingers—“that, huh?”

“As it turns out, no. It needs a daily dose of death. Really, the single greatest ally of evil is darkness. That is my point. I don’t care what faith you have or what you say you believe, whether you go to church every Sunday or pray to God five times a day. If you keep the evil nature hidden, like most do, it thrives.”

“And Kevin?”

“Kevin? I don’t know about Kevin. If he is Slater, I suppose you would need to kill Slater the way you kill the old self. But he can’t do it alone. He wouldn’t even know to kill him. Man cannot deal with evil alone.”

Kevin had never shown her the inside of the old shed because he said it was dark inside. Only he hadn’t just said inside, he said
down
there. She remembered that now. Nobody used the useless old shack in the corner of the lawn. The old bomb shelter turned toolshed on the edge of the ash heap.

The window that wasn’t really a window had to be Kevin’s window. In Slater’s mind he might have used another riddle:
What thinks it’s a window but really isn’t?
Opposites. As a boy, Kevin thought he’d escaped his tortuous world through his window, but he hadn’t.

The old toolshed in the corner of Kevin’s lawn was the only place Sam knew of that had a basement of sorts. It was dark down there and it had no windows, and she knew that she knew that she knew that Slater was down in that bomb shelter with Balinda.

Sam held the nine millimeter at her side and ran for the shack, bent over, eyes fixed on its wood siding. The door had always been latched and locked with a big rusted padlock. What if it still was?

She should call Jennifer, but therein lay a dilemma. What could Jennifer do? Swoop in and surround the house? Slater would do the worst. On the other hand, what could
Sam
do? Waltz in and confiscate all illegally obtained firearms, slap on the handcuffs, and deliver the nasty man to the county jail?

She had to at least verify.

Sam dropped to her knee by the door, breathing heavily, both hands wrapped around her gun. The lock was disengaged.

Just remember, you were born for this, Sam.

She stuck the barrel of her gun under the door and pulled, using the gun sight as a hook. The door creaked open. A dim bulb glowed inside. She pushed the door all the way open and shoved her weapon in, careful to stay behind the cover of the doorjamb. Slowly, the opening door revealed the shapes of shelves and a wheelbarrow. A square on the floor. The trapdoor.

How deep did the shelter go? There had to be stairs.

She stepped in, one foot and then the second. The trapdoor was open, she could see now. She edged over to the dark hole and peered down. Faint light, very faint, from the right. She pulled back. Maybe calling Jennifer would be the wisest course of action. Just Jennifer.

8:15
. They still had forty-five minutes. But what if she waited for Jennifer and this
wasn’t
the place? That would leave them with less than half an hour to find Slater. No, she had to verify. Verify, verify.

Come on, Sam, you were born for this.

Sam shoved the gun into her waistband, knelt down, gripped the edge of the opening, and then swung one leg into the shaft. She stretched her foot, found a step. She mounted the stairs and then swung back up. The shoes might make too much noise. She took them off and then settled back on the stairs.

Come on, Sam, you were born for this.

There were nine steps; she counted them. Never knew when she might have to run back up full tilt. Knowing when to duck to avoid a head-on with the ceiling and when to turn right to exit the shack could come in handy. She was telling herself this stuff to calm her nerves, because anything in the dread silence was better than facing the certainty that she was walking to her death.

Light came from a crack below a door at the end of a concrete tunnel. The tunnel led to a basement below Kevin’s house! She’d known that some of these old bomb shelters were connected to houses, but she’d never imagined such an elaborate setup beneath Kevin’s house. She’d never even known there
was
a basement in his house. Wasn’t there a way to the top floor from the basement? Jennifer had been in the house, but she hadn’t said anything about a basement.

Sam withdrew her gun and tiptoed down the shaft.

“Shut up.” Slater’s voice sounded muffled behind the door. Sam stopped. Verified. She could never mistake that voice. Slater was behind that door. And Kevin?

The door was well insulated; they would never hear her. Sam walked to the door, nine millimeter up by her ear. She reached for the doorknob and slowly applied pressure. She didn’t plan on bursting in, or entering at all, for that matter, but she needed to know a few things. Whether the door was locked, for starters. The knob refused to turn.

She backed up a foot and considered her options. What did Slater expect her to do, knock? She would if she had to, wouldn’t she? There was only one way to save this man, and it was on the other side of that door.

Sam eased down to her belly and pressed her left eye to the crack beneath the door. On the right, white tennis shoes walked slowly toward her. She stilled her breathing.

“Time is most definitely winding down,” Slater said. The feet were his, white tennis shoes she didn’t recognize. “I don’t hear your lover breaking down the door.”

“Sam’s smarter than you,” Kevin said.

The tennis shoes stopped.

Sam jerked her eye to the left, where the voice had come from. She saw his feet, Kevin’s shoes, the tan Reeboks she’d seen by his bed a few hours ago. Two voices, two men.

Sam pulled back. Kevin and Slater weren’t the same person. She’d been wrong!

Sam flattened herself again and peered, breathing too loudly but not caring now. There they were, two sets of feet. One to her right, white, and one to her left, tan. Kevin tapped one foot nervously. Slater was walking away.

She had to tell Jennifer! In case something happened to her, she had to let Jennifer know who stood behind that door.

Sam slid back and stood. She hurried to the end of the hall. Going up the stairs might be prudent, but at this distance, there was no way Slater could hear. She lifted her phone and hit redial.

“Jennifer?”

“Sam! What’s going on?”

“Shh, shh, shh. I can’t talk,” Sam whispered. “I found them.”

A barely audible ring pierced the silence, as if a gunshot had discharged too close to her ear within the last half-hour.

Jennifer seemed incredulous. “You . . . you found Kevin? You actually located them? Where?”

“Listen to me, Jennifer. Kevin’s not Slater. Do you hear me? I was wrong. It has to be a frame!”

“Where are you?” Jennifer demanded.

“I’m here, outside.”

“You’re absolutely positive that Kevin isn’t Slater? How—”

“Listen to me!” Sam whispered harshly. She glanced back at the door. “I just saw them both; that’s how I know.”

“You have to tell me where you are!”

“No. Not yet. I have to think this through. He said no cops. I’ll call you.” She hung up before she lost her nerve and dropped the phone into her pocket.

Why didn’t she just call Jennifer in? What could she possibly do that Jennifer couldn’t? Only Slater knew the answer to that. The boy she’d never seen. Until today.
Kevin, dear Kevin, I’m so sorry.

A shaft of light suddenly cut through the tunnel. She whirled around. The door was open. Slater stood in the doorframe, bare-chested, grinning, gun in hand.

“Hello, Samantha. I was getting worried. So nice of you to find us.”

27

Monday
8:21
P.M
.

S
AM’S FIRST INSTINCT WAS TO RUN. Up the stairs, duck, to the left, into the open. Come back with a flamethrower and burn him out. Her second instinct was to rush him. The rage that flooded her mind seeing him backlit by the light surprised her. She could feel her gun at her waist and she grabbed for it.

“Don’t be so predictable, Sam. Kevin thinks you’re smarter than me. Did you hear him say that? Prove it, darling.” He brought the gun up and aimed it inside to his right. “Come on in here and prove it to me, or I’ll cap the kid where he stands.”

Sam hesitated. Slater stood with a cocky grin. She walked down the hall.
You were born for this, Sam. You were born for this.

Slater backed up, keeping his gun aimed to his right. She stepped past the steel door. A single bulb cast dim light over the basement. Shades of black and gray. Stark. Kevin stood in front of a wall of pictures, face ashen. Pictures of her. He took a step toward her.

“Not so fast,” Slater snapped. “I know how badly you want to be the hero again, boy, but not this time. Take the gun out slowly, Samantha. Slide it toward me.” There wasn’t a trace of doubt on Slater’s face. He had them precisely where he’d intended.

Sam slid the gun across the concrete, and Slater scooped it up. He walked to the door, closed it, and faced them both. It struck Sam, staring at the man’s smirk, that she’d committed a kind of suicide. She’d stepped into the lair willfully, and she’d just given the dragon her gun.

You were born for this, Sam. Born for what? Born to die.

She turned from him purposefully.
No, I was born for Kevin
. She looked at him, ignoring Slater, who stood behind her now.

“You okay?”

Kevin’s eyes darted over her shoulder and then settled on hers. Trails of sweat glistened on his face. The poor man was terrified.

“Not really.”

“It’s okay, Kevin.” She smiled. “I promise you, it’ll be okay.”

“Actually, it won’t be okay, Kevin,” Slater said, walking briskly to her right. He wasn’t the monster she’d imagined. No horns, no yellow teeth, no scarred face. He looked like a jock with short blond hair, tight tan slacks, a torso cut like a gymnast’s. A large, red tattoo of a heart branded over his breast. She could have met this man a dozen times over the years and not taken notice. Only his eyes gave him away. They were far away, light gray eyes, like a wolf’s. If Kevin’s eyes swallowed her, Slater’s were the kind she might bounce off of. He even smiled like a wolf.

“I’m not sure you’re aware of what we have here, but the way I see it, you’re both in a bit of a pickle,” Slater said. “And Kevin is fit to be tied. He’s made three phone calls to his FBI girlfriend, and I just sat back and let him do it. Why? Because I know how hopeless his situation is, even if he doesn’t. No one can help him. Or you, dear Samantha.”

“If you wanted to kill Kevin, you could have done it a dozen times,” Sam said. “So what
is
your game? What do you hope to accomplish with all of this nonsense?”

“I could have killed you too, my dear. A hundred times. But this way it’s just so much more fun. We’re all together like a happy little family. Mommy’s in the closet, Kevin’s finally come back home, and now his little girlfriend has come to save him from the terrible boy down the street. It’s almost like old times. We’re even going to let Kevin kill again.”

Slater’s lips fell flat. “Only this time he’s not going after me. This time he’s going to put a bullet in your head.”