My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(105)

“Shut up.”

“You haven’t learned anything. You were in the clear. They weren’t even going to retry you. You were going to walk away free, but you let your ego get in the way.”

“I didn’t want to get away. I wanted my revenge. And I’m getting it. I’ve had twenty years to think through what I would do to them and to you.”

“Which is why you’re a two-strike loser. Because you’re an idiot.”

“Stop calling me an idiot!”

“You had the chance every convict hopes for, dreams for, and you blew it because you’re too stupid.”

“Stop calling me—”

“You haven’t won anything. You’ve lost, again. You’re just too stupid to know it. You’re an idiot.”

He dropped the wires and rushed her, eyes wide, enraged. Tracy waited, letting him come, her hand on the flat end of the spike in her boot. When House was nearly upon her she rose up, pushing off her back leg with all her strength, her arm swinging up from the ground. She drove the sharpened tip of the metal stake just beneath House’s rib cage, his momentum and all of her strength embedding it deep in his flesh.

House roared in pain and fell back.

Tracy spun, shoved a boot against the wall, wrapped the length of chain around her hands, and yanked hard on the metal plate. Bits and pieces of cement and plaster dust sprayed the room as the rusted bolts ripped free of the wall. Her wrists still manacled, the foot-long piece of chain between them, she lunged for the big revolver on Roy Calloway’s hip. She was fumbling to free the snap on the holster when she was yanked violently backward. Edmund House had grabbed the chain and tugged on it like a leash. She fell onto her ass, got to her knees, stood, and reached again for the gun. House wrapped the chain around her neck. She lifted a boot against the beam and shoved off, propelling herself backward into him.

They crashed into and overturned the makeshift table, sending the generator to the floor. Tracy landed with her back atop House. He continued to choke her. She whipped her head backward, trying to butt him, and kicked and elbowed behind herself too. The chain tightened. Tracy fought to dig her fingers beneath the links, but House was too strong and her fingers wouldn’t fit. She lowered a hand, searching, felt the head of the spike and applied pressure. House screamed and cursed but the chain remained tight.

She yanked up on the spike, hard. House screamed. The chain loosened. This time, when she whipped her head back, she struck something solid, and heard the bridge of his nose crack. The chain slackened more, enough for her to pull it over her head. She rolled off, fighting to catch her breath, her throat on fire. She crawled across the ground, hoping there was enough slack in the chain, which remained wrapped around House’s hand. She reached Calloway and freed the snap on the holster. This time she’d gripped the handle of the revolver before the chain pulled taut, yanking the manacles around Tracy’s wrists and violently jerking her arms. The gun flew from her hands, landing somewhere in the shadows across the room.

House had staggered to his feet, the chain wrapped around his massive forearm. Blood stained his shirt where the end of the spike protruded and dripped from his nose down his chin.

Tracy tried to stand but he yanked the chain again, causing her to sprawl onto the floor. He came toward her. The generator lay on the ground beside her. She grabbed the two copper wires and started to her feet. House tugged again. She did not resist.

She flew into him, knocking him backward. When they landed, she pressed the stripped copper wires to the iron spike, creating a spark. There was a loud snap, and the smell of flesh burning. House quivered and twitched and jerked as the electricity passed through his body. In her head, she heard her student Enrique at Cedar Grove High shouting conductor. She lost the connection, found it again. House’s body jolted. Then he went limp.

Tracy rolled off. This time she pulled the chain from his arm as she scrambled across the room in search of the gun. House moaned behind her. She looked back over her shoulder and watched him somehow roll to his hands and knees, like a bear struggling to get up. She felt blindly along the ground where it met the wall.

House rose.

Tracy’s hand swept the ground.

House stumbled forward.

She swept along the wall and felt the gun.

House quickly crossed the room, too quickly for almost anyone to get off a shot. Almost.

Tracy rolled onto her back, already pulling back the hammer. She fired, cocked the hammer, fired, cocked, and fired a third time.





[page]CHAPTER 70





Tracy used her own body weight to counter Roy Calloway’s dead weight on the other end of the chain. When she had enough slack to free the chain from the hook that had been holding him up, she slowly lowered him to the ground. Calloway muttered incoherently. His breathing came in short, raspy breaths. He seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness. He was alive, but Tracy did not know for how long.

Across the room, House lay face down on the ground. The first bullet had pierced his sternum, stopping his forward progress. Before he’d hit the ground, Tracy’s second shot had pierced him two inches to the left of the first bullet, exploding his heart. The third bullet had left a hole in his forehead and blown out the back of his skull.

She found the key to the manacles in House’s pants pocket. After freeing herself, she cut House’s discarded clothing into strips and tied a tourniquet around Calloway’s leg. She did not attempt to remove the bear trap, fearing that she would further open the wound and Calloway would slip into shock, if he did not bleed to death. She cradled Calloway’s head in her lap. “Roy? Roy?”