My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(90)

“Jesus,” Ronkowski said.

“I need something to pull them out.”

“You pry those nails out and the pain will kill him,” Ronkowski said.

“What if we drive the points out from the back?” one of the firemen said.

“Same problem.”

“We could cut around the spikes,” Calloway said.

Ronkowski wiped a hand across his face. “All right. Let’s do that. We can lift him to take the weight off his hands. Dirk, get the saw.”

“Forget that,” Armstrong said, stopping the fireman. “Just pull out the hinge pins and take down the whole damn door. We can use it like a stretcher.”

“He’s right,” Ronkowski said. “That’s better. Dirk, get a hammer and screwdriver.” Ronkowski stepped closer to DeAngelo. “He’s having trouble breathing. Lift him up to take the weight off his rib cage.”

Calloway lifted Finn by the waist. The old man moaned. Armstrong returned with a chair from the kitchen and slid it under Finn’s legs, but Finn was too weak to push himself up. Calloway continued to support his weight as Dirk returned with the hammer and chisel and started on the top hinge pin.

“No,” Armstrong said, “take out the bottom bolt first. We’ll brace the top.”

The fireman knocked the bottom pin out of the hinge, then the bolt from the middle hinge. Armstrong and Calloway steadied the door.

“You got him?” the fireman asked.

“Do it,” Armstrong said.

The fireman knocked out the top pin. Calloway braced against the weight of Finn and the door as he and Armstrong managed to turn the door and slowly lower it onto the bed.

“Get the tie downs,” Ronkowski said. “We need to strap his body to the door if we’re going to carry him out of here.”

Ronkowski fitted an oxygen mask over Finn’s face and checked his vitals. When a fireman returned with the straps, they removed the belt from around Finn’s waist and maneuvered the straps under the door and cinched Finn about the ankles, waist, and chest.

“All right. Let’s see if we can get him out of here,” Ronkowski said.

Calloway took the end of the door by Finn’s head. Armstrong grabbed the end near his feet.

“On three,” Ronkowski said.

They lifted in unison, trying to avoid any sudden movements. Finn groaned again.

As they maneuvered the door through the jamb, Armstrong said, “Who would do it, Roy? Jesus, who would do something like this to an old man?”





[page]CHAPTER 55





The cold bit at her, finding every seam in her clothes and pricking at her skin like dozens of needles. Tracy lowered her head into the wind, stepped over a fallen tree, and followed the tire tracks up the slope. She stayed in the ruts left by the tires, but her boots still sank up to her calves, making every step a struggle. She became quickly winded but trudged on, afraid to stop, pushing aside any thoughts of going back, telling herself it was futile since she could never reverse her car down the hill and turning it around was not an option. Besides, she’d put these events in motion. She needed to stop them.

Two hundred yards up the slope she came to the edge of a clearing. In the near distance, through the swirling snow, she could just make out the faint glow of a light and the shadows of buildings and snow-covered humps. She recalled the aerial photographs at Edmund House’s trial, which had depicted multiple metal-roofed buildings, as well as cars and farm equipment in varying stages of restoration littering Parker House’s yard. She didn’t imagine it would change much. This was the right place. She turned off the flashlight and crept toward the light at the back of the property, stopping behind the bumper of the one vehicle not buried beneath snow—the flatbed she’d seen at the courthouse. She scraped the snow and ice off the license plate and confirmed it to be the same as the plate number that Kins had provided. Satisfied it was the same truck, she studied the ramshackle wood-plank structure. Two feet of snow had piled atop the roof. Foot-long icicles hung like jagged teeth from its eaves. No smoke came from the flue.

The wind found a space between the collar of her jacket and hat and sent a chill down her spine. Her fingers had gone numb inside her gloves. She feared losing more dexterity if she waited much longer.

She shuffled from the flatbed to the wooden steps, which had been recently shoveled. The wood sagged beneath her weight. On the tiny porch, she pressed her back against the siding and waited a beat before leaning to look through a window’s glass panes, which were icing over on the outside and fogged on the inside.

Using her teeth, Tracy pulled off her gloves and unzipped her jacket. She reached for the Glock and felt the cold numbing her fingers. She alternately blew into each of her fists and reached for the doorknob. It turned. She gently pushed. The door stuck, and for a brief moment she thought it was bolted. Then it popped free of the jamb. The windowpanes rattled and she again waited a beat, the wind shoving hard at her back, nearly pulling the knob from her hand. Then she slid inside and, quickly and quietly, closed the door. She was free of the wind, which whistled through the house, but not the cold. The room was freezing and held the pungent smell of fermenting garbage.

She flexed her fingers, trying to improve circulation while quickly orienting herself. A table and chair sat beneath a small four-paned window. An L-shaped counter with a metal sink led to an opening to another room, in which was the source of the light she’d seen through the cabin’s window. Though she stepped cautiously, the wood planks creaked beneath her feet, the sound only partially dampened by the muffled whirr of a generator—the likely source of power for the light. Tracy slid along the counter to the doorjamb between the rooms. Gun in hand, she leaned around the corner.