Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(46)

‘Don’t open the doors!’ Zac cried. ‘I don’t wanna die! Oh God! Please!’

‘Let’s go with the front passenger side,’ Kash said. ‘Just in case.’

We ran to the other side of the car. Kash pushed me back.

‘I’ll do it.’

He eased the handle of the passenger door out. There was a click. My mouth was dry as I cringed, waiting for the blast.

There was none. I rushed forwards to the doorway beside Kash, reached out and grabbed Zac’s hands.

‘It’s OK.’ I squeezed his hot fingers. ‘Don’t move. We’re gonna figure this out.’

Kash leaned in the doorway, trying not to touch anything, and shone the light quickly around the seats, the console, the back of the cabin.

‘Christ,’ he breathed. ‘It’s all wired up under the seats. I can’t get to it from this angle.’ He stood back, kept his voice low. ‘I can hear a timer ticking.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘No, it’s tucked up underneath. All the wires are. I can’t get at it unless I put my hand in there, and we have no idea where the switch is. If I disrupt the connection at the wrong point the thing will blow.’

We were walking unconsciously away from the car, taking steps out of the blast zone. Zac sat in the driver’s seat, reaching for us, sobbing.

‘Please don’t go! Don’t leave me here!’

‘What can we do?’

‘We can try to replace his weight on the seat,’ Kash panted, looking wildly at the house. ‘It’d have to be at least the same weight as the boy. We don’t know how sensitive the switch is. If it’s too light it might –’

‘I got it.’ I ran towards the house. In the hall was a backpack hanging on a row of hooks cluttered with hats and coats. I grabbed it and sprinted into the living room, almost slipping on the floorboards, and dumped the contents of the bag on the floor. I grabbed at anything heavy and started shoving. Wine bottles. A huge dictionary. A cast-iron sculpture on a shelf. Things were crashing everywhere as I went along. My hands were shaking so hard I could hardly use them. Zac’s screams burned in my ears.

‘I’m coming!’ I screamed. ‘I’m coming, Zac! Hold on!’





Chapter 67


CAITLYN’S KNEES BUCKLED beneath her. It was the only thing that saved her from his full arm swing, the punch sailing over her head as fear consumed her completely. She flopped against his legs, defeat turning her limbs to jelly. He grabbed her waist, hair, tried to get a hold of her. He was standing too close. Stepped back.

‘Stupid bitch,’ he snarled. He flipped her, hands beneath her arms, gripping painfully at the tender flesh. ‘Get back in there!’

It was the sight of the doorway that awakened the fury again in Caitlyn. The enormous sucking weight of the room beyond it. The hours, days, weeks she had lain awake in that concrete nightmare, dreaming of release. Her limbs suddenly hardened. She lifted her leg and slammed it into the doorframe, shocking him, sending them both staggering backwards.

‘No!’ she snarled, facing him, her body bent with pain and exhaustion. ‘Never again!’

She didn’t know how to fight. She’d never so much as been in a loud argument with a stranger. It was raw animal terror taking over now. Her hands sprang into claw-shapes, her jaw set and teeth bared. She threw herself at his middle with all her might. They hit the ground hard, his legs coming up and around her waist, arms and hands gripping at her face. She let him pull her into his embrace, bit some part of him hard through his shirt – his shoulder or upper chest. She was blinded, wild, tugging at his face and ears, scratching at his eyes.

He rolled and she was suddenly free, stumbling into the walls. She ran as though through water, trying to pull herself along. His footsteps pounded after her.





Chapter 68


I RAN OUT the front door of Snale’s house, stumbled, caught myself and rushed to the passenger-side door of the four-wheel drive with my arms full of the bag. Snale was standing on the lawn not far away, her face twisted in anguish. Kash stood dazed, his hands by his sides. The bag in my arms was spewing items. I dumped it on the passenger-side seat. The kid was wide-eyed, teeth chattering, his legs drawn up and arms gripping the ceiling of the car. Shock and terror.

‘Zac, slide this between your legs. Don’t get up until it’s on the seat,’ I stammered. ‘I … I think it’s heavy enough. I think …’

I remembered seeing a loose house brick by the front door. Zac grabbed the bag. I turned towards the house, stepped back, already twisting, already seeing the brick in my hand, only metres away.

I heard the timer scream.





Chapter 69


HE WAS BEHIND her. Right behind her – his fingers tangled in the very ends of her hair, yanking some of it free. Caitlyn ran through the labyrinth of halls searching for light, seeing only boarded-up windows and locked and barred doors. What floor were they on? What time of day was it? A part of her frantic brain throbbed with denial that any of this was real. She had dreamed so many times of escape. Part of her wanted to stop pushing her body, lie down, give in, wake again in the cellar room where she belonged. Her whole life outside the room had been a dream. She had no mother, no job, no apartment. She’d been born in these dark depths. She needed to stop fighting.