The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(61)
I didn’t stay for the fireworks. I’d already lost too much time. The sky flashed yellow at my back as I got into my car. House windows shattered and doors blew out with an eardrum-pounding explosion. A car alarm went off, howling in the dark. I drove away.
I hit the highway doing eighty, swerving up the ramp and redlining the engine the second I had a straight shot of clear road. I didn’t have a plan, just a mission. Priority one was grabbing Amber and stashing her someplace safe until I had a word with her father. He’d switch sides or I’d put him in the ground. Either way, he wasn’t laying a hand on that girl, not while I was still breathing.
? ? ?
Amber’s grandparents lived in a tract house on the outskirts of Vegas, a sleepy little neighborhood where retirees gathered to soak up the sun. Inside lights warmed the flimsy white curtains in the living-room window, and the faint flicker of a television set filled me with hope as I ran up the driveway. I pressed the doorbell, pressed it again, then hammered the heel of my hand on the door. I didn’t know what I’d tell them. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.
Nobody answered. I jogged around to the back of the house, to the kitchen door, and hammered on that one too.
They’re old, I told myself. Maybe they can’t hear you, or they’ve got the television up too loud. I fished out my picks and went to work on the lock. If I stumbled in on them, I’d just have to keep them from calling the cops until I explained myself.
Your son-in-law is on his way over. He’s going to murder your granddaughter unless I can talk him out of it. Yeah, they’ll believe that.
The door opened with a faint squeal, drowned out by the television blaring in the next room. An audience went into hysterics as David Letterman riffed on the week’s news. I crept across the yellowed linoleum, ears perked, edging toward the open doorway. A tin of cocoa mix sat beside a still-wet spoon. A trail of spilled powder dusted the countertop.
I rounded the corner and found Amber’s grandparents. Her grandfather slumped on the sofa, his head lolling over the armrest and his arms and legs sprawled at haphazard angles. Her grandmother lay on the carpet between the sofa and the coffee table, unmoving.
I ran over to them, feeling for a pulse. They were both alive, their breathing shallow, but out cold as I snapped my fingers next to their ears and shook their shoulders. A porcelain cup lay on its side, inches from the grandmother’s outstretched fingers. Spilled cocoa stained the shag carpet. Another cup sat on the end table, half-finished and still warm. I picked it up and gave it a sniff. Chocolate, but something underneath, concealed by the strong scent. Something chemical.
He drugged them, I thought, picturing it my mind. Tony came by for a visit, offered to make hot chocolate for everyone, then went into the kitchen alone to add a little something special to the drinks. As soon as the narcotics kicked in he’d have the house under his total control, which meant—
No!
“Amber!” I shouted as I ran through the house, slamming open doors, not stopping to think or even breathe. “Amber? I’m a friend of your mom’s! If you’re hiding, come out, okay? Amber!”
I flung open the bathroom door at the end of the hall.
Amber lay face-down at the bottom of the bathtub. Her golden hair spread out in the water like streamers, like tiny fingers reaching for help that never came.
Thirty-One
Water spots smeared the wallpaper. Puddles pooled on the cold tile floor. Even drugged, she’d fought him. I plunged my arms into the lukewarm water and hauled her out. Water drenched my clothes, but I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t even think. I laid her out on the floor, on her back. Her limp hand slapped against the tile. No pulse. I felt her blue lips, her clammy skin, frantic. I’d taken a CPR class years ago, but everything I’d learned was just a mishmash of half-remembered facts. I tried compressions, my hands engulfing her tiny chest as I pressed down against her rib cage, counting, breathing into her lifeless mouth. I knew even before I started that it was a lost cause.
I caressed the little girl’s cheek.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, and left her dead on the bathroom floor.
I shut the door and stood in the hallway, feeling the world quietly fall apart. I took a slow, deep breath.
“Fuck!” I screamed, slamming my fist into the wall. A mirror hung at the end of the hallway. I tore it down, threw it to the carpet, and stomped it again and again, glass shattering under my heel, just for the sake of breaking something.
Monsters are real. I’d known that since I was a child. Every day people abuse, hurt, and kill each other for the pettiest of reasons. Somebody gets blown away for a pair of shoes or a new iPod and I just shrug. But Tony Vance murdered his own daughter. He took an innocent eight-year-old girl, drowned her in a bathtub, and sucked out her soul. For what? What could possibly justify that kind of evil? What reward was worth a ticket price that steep?
Lauren Carmichael and her inner circle had to be stopped. Tonight, though, I only had one name on my list. Only one face filled my mind’s eye as I walked out of that house of horrors with ice water flooding my veins. Tony Vance was going to answer for what he’d done. Not to the cops, not to God.
He was going to answer to me.
? ? ?
The lights of the Vegas Strip blazed. Any other night they would have put a smile on my face. Tonight, I only had one destination. One target. I concentrated on the slow-moving traffic, my focus sharp as a diamond scalpel.