Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(117)

I finally located Victoria’s hands. I stabbed her twice, myself three or four times. My fingers grew slippery with blood. I heard Victoria whimper once in pain. Just when I thought I was going to scream in frustration, I felt the jaws of the scissors slide around the plastic tie. I squeezed the handles, sawing the blades back and forth, back and forth…. The tie snapped. One of us was freed.

How much time left? Six minutes?

“Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl!” Andrew sang again, megavoice warbling down the hall.

His voice was all wrong. Too gleeful. My father hadn’t sung like that.

As he stood in the glow of the hallway light, his hand raising the gun. Pointing it at me, pointing it at me …

“Oh Danny girl. My pretty, pretty Danny girl!”

“Put the gun down. Joe. Wayne. Stop it. Not like this. This isn’t what I wanted.”

My head hurt. I had that feeling again—like my family was standing right beside me. If I concentrated hard enough, I could see them, maybe even reach out and touch them.

I dropped the scissors on the bed. Victoria sat up, shaking out her hands. Then she cut my bindings, as well as the ones around her ankles.

We stood side by side, two women armed with one pair of scissors in a darkened master bedroom.

“Evan,” she said.

I heard him, still muttering gibberish down the hall. Then I glanced at the bedside clock. Three minutes left, give or take.

“Evan can’t help us,” I told her.

“He can’t help me,” Victoria agreed. Then, after a heartbeat of silence: “But I think he can help you.”





| CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE





VICTORIA


I remember a story Michael and I once saw on the news: Two men in ski masks had broken into an upscale Boston townhouse and killed the entire family before fleeing with a jewelry box. Evan was nine months old at the time. As a new mom, I was appalled by the violence, shaken by the ruthless unfairness of it.

Michael had turned to me during the commercial break. “Anything happens in our house,” he said, “you get Evan and get out. Don’t worry about me. Save Evan.”

So here I am, under siege in my own home, and the stranger I just met is going to find my son, while I search for Michael.

Time is ticking, and I don’t see where we have many options. Andrew wasn’t lying to Danielle—my house is a fortress, every detail designed to contain a troubled child.

The phones are dead, the electricity out. I have no idea what happened to my cell phone, and my laptop is downstairs in the family room. We’re isolated, and according to Danielle, Andrew has a gun.

He’ll start shooting soon, I know that, and I can’t leave Michael to be his first target. I need him. He may be a pretty suit these days, but Michael grew up hard. He can take a punch and deliver in kind. He might be a match for Andrew, at least more of a match than two women and an eight-year-old boy.

Danielle heads for Evan’s room. I scoot toward the staircase, scissors clenched like a weapon in my fist.

I can’t hear Andrew anymore. No voice booming down the hall. The silence is unnerving. What’s Andrew doing? Where is he hiding? What’s he plotting next?

My hands are trembling. I want to stop, huddle like a small animal caught in the open by a bird of prey.

I won’t do it. My house, my child, my ex-husband. I started this mess. I’ll finish it.

Here’s the home court advantage—I have spent years learning how to navigate these stairs so that I won’t wake Evan in the middle of the night. I know each squeaky step, each groaning floorboard. Unfortunately, my stab wound isn’t doing so well. I’m pretty sure I’m bleeding, and beneath the ache I feel an itchy burn. Infection, most likely. I grit my teeth, picture my family, and push forward.

I hit the bottom step and pause to get my bearings. Daybreak lightens the glass panes beside the door. I can just make out each corner of the foyer, the empty space behind the ficus tree, the yawning archway leading toward the kitchen. No Andrew. I slip away from the stairs, hugging the wall for support, heartbeat quickening.

I hear a groan from the living room. Michael. I want to rush to his side. I force myself to take small, measured steps, listening carefully. The silence terrifies me.

Then I hear rustling from down the hall. Maybe from the downstairs lavette, maybe the front study. I dart into the family room, ducking beside the entertainment center. From here, I can see the sofa. Michael is sprawled on the floor in front of it. His wrists and ankles are bound. His head is moving fitfully, as if he’s struggling to wake from a nightmare.

For one second, I’m tempted to leave him. He’s better off unconscious, not knowing what’s happening to his wife and child, never seeing the bullet coming.

A glow appears in the hallway. Flashlight, coming toward the living room, on course to pass directly by me.

I bolt, racing to the other side of the entertainment unit, where I cover myself with the curtains. One of Evan’s favorite hiding spaces.

“Danny boy,” Andrew is crooning as he appears in the living room. “Oh Danny boy.”

He stops, studying Michael’s prone body on the floor. When Michael doesn’t move, Andrew continues on to the foyer. “Time’s up,” he calls out. “Know where the gun is yet, Danielle? Because I do.”