Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(106)

I grab a dishrag and stuff it into the wound. Another haze comes over me, but only for a second before adrenaline comes roaring back to erase it. I start to grab the shotgun, but then I realize that I can hear her just reaching the wood of the hallway, heading for her brother’s office.

I don’t need to catch her. I just need to stop her.

I pull the remote control out and hit the button to power-lock the office door. As I put it back and take the shotgun, I hear her impotent scream of frustration. I try my right hand. My fingers respond—not perfectly, they’re shaking and weak, but they’ll do. They have to.

I go after her.

I’m not fast enough; by the time I make it through the dining room, Mrs. Pall is at the top of the stairs and running hard to the left side of the house. I follow. If I can get a clear shot, I will take it. I need to bring her down. I will.

When I get to the top of the stairs, she’s already gone. It’s a long, narrow hallway with doors on either side. Dangerous. I take a step. The floor creaks.

She’s going to hear me.

I take a breath and run, making it past two of the closed doors.

She shoots through the one on the left, leaving three jagged holes in the wood and flinging splinters onto the floor. I stop, put my weight as close to the wall as I can, and ease back. Then I crouch low and fire a shotgun blast through the doorknob to knock it open. God, the recoil nearly sends me sprawling, and the haze comes back in thick, red pulses.

The kitchen rag is soaked through now. Blood is drizzling from the matted fringe on the end of it. I stuff it in harder, and rise up.

I see the blur of a bright pink-and-orange bedroom, the kind a teen girl of twelve might love. Aging Madonna posters on the walls. Stuffed toys. I aim the shotgun around the room, but I don’t see her. She’s not here.

Closet. Or under the bed. Or behind the door.

I check the door and get nothing. She’ll shoot for my legs if she’s under the bed; I lunge forward and shove hard, and the whole bed slides. Nothing underneath, not even a dust bunny.

Has to be the closet.

I don’t want to do this, I don’t, but I have to. I’m all there is. For all I know, she’s trying to get to another shotgun, or she has another remote she can use to unlock that office and get to my kids. I need to stop this woman. She was once a kid who loved Madonna and fluffy stuffed bears, but that doesn’t matter anymore. It can’t.

I breathe for a second, building strength I know is ebbing away, and I fling open the door.

It isn’t a closet. It’s a pass-through to the next room. A boy’s room, just as frozen in time as this one. The door’s hanging open to the hall; she drew me in here and then she ran for it, and I’ve missed her.

What I don’t miss are the shackles at the corners of the boy’s twin bed. They’re hanging down, swinging slightly, and they’re stained with old blood. I turn and look at the pretty little bed behind me.

There are shackles there, too, hanging from the bedposts.

What happened here? I don’t know. I can’t imagine.

I check under the boy’s bed too. Nothing.

There’s a closet full of children’s clothing. The girl’s stuff is kept on one side, the boy’s on another. It’s all old and dates back at least thirty years . . . but there’s another section. Newer clothing, carefully draped on hangers. A pair of blue jeans. A tank top. A flannel shirt. Another pair of khaki shorts.

The clothing of abducted women. That’s where Mrs. Pall got Vee’s new clothes. A joke. A dark one.

She almost gets me as I exit the closet. I see a flash of movement and duck; her bullet punches the wood over my head. I want to fire back, but I know I’d be wasting the shot; she was already on the move when she pressed the trigger. I hear her shoes hitting the wood of the hallway. Then muffled thumps.

She’s going down the carpeted stairs.

I follow, because if she’s going downstairs, she must have a way into the cellar.

By the time I get halfway down, I can see her turning toward the office door, and I aim and fire.

I miss.

The recoil throws me back, jars loose the kitchen rag I’m using as a plug in the wound, and this time the haze descends and buries me in fog. I struggle up again. This isn’t a pump shotgun; I have no more shells. I drop it and stumble down the rest of the steps, turn the corner, and see that she’s got the office door open.

She’s at the bookcase. She has a remote in her hand.

I grab the letter opener from Hector Sparks’s desk, and I bury it in her back. It punches all the way through and emerges from the other side, filmed with blood. She screams, drops the remote, and turns the gun on me. I have no choice; I grab for it. We struggle. I hear the bookcase click open, and I think, No, no, but she has her way to her brother now, and if I don’t get this gun away from her, my kids will stand no chance at all. The fog is thick. My body feels heavy and slow, my brain oddly weightless. But the image of my daughter in shackles on that little girl bed digs one last ounce of strength out of my failing muscles, and I bend Mrs. Pall’s arm sharply up and in . . . just as she fires.

The bullet goes straight up under her jaw and out the top of her skull. Her mouth falls open, and suddenly she’s deadweight shuddering in my arms. I’m looking into her eyes, and for just a second, I see utter confusion in them. And fear.

I see a child.