Here and Gone(71)

‘Maybe just the one,’ Danny said. ‘One, right? Boy or girl?’

Collins slammed the Glock into the back of Danny’s head. A starburst back there, a brilliant flash behind his eyes. He fell forward, got his hands down, pushed himself up again.

‘You doing this for your kid? So long as your child doesn’t suffer, right? But Sean and Louise, they’re going to suffer. Every dollar you spend cost those children their—’

Another blow, another luminous starburst, and this time Danny collapsed to the ground, sand and grit scouring his cheek. A sickly swell of pain inside his skull, like a balloon expanding. Don’t pass out, he told himself. Don’t. He got his hands under his chest, pushed himself up once more.

‘For Christ’s sake, just do it,’ Whiteside said. ‘Or do I have to?’

Danny ignored him, turned once more to Collins. Her eyes wide, her breath ragged, her teeth bared.

‘Are you really willing to make those children, Sean and Louise, suffer and die for money?’ Danny nodded toward Whiteside. ‘He can live with it. But you’re not like him. Are you? Can you face—’

She swung once more, but this time Danny was ready.

He ducked to the side, seized her wrist with his left hand, used her momentum, let her fall into him. His right hand enclosed hers, pulled her arm out and up, found her trigger finger, squeezed one shot, then another. Both cracked the air over Whiteside’s shoulder. No chance of a hit, but it was enough to make Whiteside drop to the ground.

Danny wrested the pistol from Collins’ hand, pressed the hot muzzle to her temple as Whiteside sprawled in the dirt. Collins struggled, but Danny pressed the Glock harder into her temple.

‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Be still.’

She did so, and Danny got his soles on the ground, his back against the car’s grille. He pushed up with his legs, bringing Collins with him. Whiteside got to his knees, but Danny let another shot ring over his head.

‘Stay down,’ he said. ‘Toss the weapon.’

Whiteside licked his lips, flexed his fingers.

‘Don’t do it,’ Danny said. ‘I’ll take your head off. Toss it.’

Whiteside remained still for a few moments, hate in his eyes. Then he threw the revolver away, out into the dark pools beyond the reach of the car’s headlights.

‘Put your hands on your head,’ Danny said. Then into Collins’ ear, ‘Take the keys for the bike out of your pocket. Throw them that way.’

He pointed into the black with the Glock’s muzzle. Collins did as instructed. He heard a faint jangle out in the shadows.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

He backed around the driver’s side of the car, paused to open the driver’s door, pressed the muzzle against the back of Collins’ skull to hold her there while he opened the rear door.

‘On my word, get in and close the door,’ Danny said. ‘Now.’

They each lowered themselves in, Collins in the front, Danny in the back, as Whiteside watched them with fury in his eyes. The doors slammed in unison.

‘Okay,’ Danny said as Whiteside stared back at him in the glow of the car’s headlights. ‘Now take me back to Silver Water.’

As Collins reversed, he heard Whiteside scream over the sound of the engine.





41


AUDRA DREAMED OF her childhood home. An old house on the outskirts of a town not far from Albany. The big yard with the apple tree at the bottom. The rooms she was afraid to enter because her father had said no, don’t go in there. To enter those places would make him angry, would make his fists swing, and his belt.

She dreamed of her bedroom at the top of the house, the way the light swept in, and how if she lay on the bed and looked to the window, she would see only sky. As if the house floated high above the earth, and she pretended she was Dorothy soaring up and away to a land of wonders.

The bedside alarm clock pulled her from the dream, and she fell onto the bed as if from a great height, her body bouncing on the mattress. As she gathered her senses, she wondered what time she had fallen asleep. Sometime after midnight, lying here in her clothes, she had been staring at the ceiling, wondering what Sean and Louise were doing.

She hoped they were asleep.

She hoped they weren’t afraid.

She hoped they were safe.

When she’d set the alarm for 4:30 a.m., she’d had no confidence of ever slipping into the dark, yet she had, and she was glad of it. She sat upright, climbed out of the bed, and crossed barefoot to the bathroom. There she used the toilet, washed her face and body with cold water from the hand basin. She regarded herself in the mirror, saw new lines around her eyes and mouth, new grays in her hair. Without thinking, she touched her reflection, fingertips tracing the shape of her face.

A sudden and new emotion came upon her: mourning. Mourning for herself, the girl she had been, the years lost to a marriage that leached the soul from her, leaving a hollow woman behind. Too late to get those years back, not too late for the time ahead. But only with her children. No point without them. No point to anything.

Back in the bedroom, she pulled on a clean shirt and buttoned it, ill-fitting as it was. Clean socks, the running shoes that were one size too big. She slipped out of the room, closed the door as softly as she could, not wishing to wake Mrs Gerber. The stairs creaked beneath her feet, and she winced at every step. Down into the hall, back toward the kitchen.