Redemption Road(30)

A voice?

A cry?

On the porch, she thought for the last time about calling Beckett or Dyer or someone else. But Beckett was with his family and the city was burning. Besides, if people were inside the house, it would be kids smoking pot or screwing. How many calls like that had she taken in her uniform days? A dozen? A hundred?

She drew her weapon and felt the knob turn. Inside, it was pitch-black, the air heavy with the stink of mold and cat and rotten carpet. She closed the door and turned on her flashlight, sweeping the room.

Rainwater pooled on the floor.

The ceiling was a soggy mess.

She cleared the living room and kitchen, the back rooms and the hall. The stairwell going up was rotted through, so she ignored the second floor and located the stairs to the basement. She kept the flashlight low, her back against the wall. Eight steps down she found a narrow landing, a turn, and then a door that scraped when it opened.

Elizabeth led with the gun. The first room was empty: more water on the floor, mounds of rotted cardboard. She followed a hallway into a square space that felt dead center of the house. Channing was to the right, facedown on a mattress. Beyond her was another hallway, doors to other rooms. A candle burned on a crate.

She should back away; call it in. But Channing was looking at her, eyes desperate and black.

“It’s okay.”

Elizabeth crossed the room, weapon up as she checked doors, the hallway beyond. The place was a warren of passages, closets, blind corners.

“I’m going to get you out of here.”

Elizabeth knelt by the girl. She untwisted the wire where it cut her skin, first one wrist then the other. The girl cried out as circulation returned to her hands.

“Be still.” She tugged the gag from Channing’s mouth, watched the doors, the corners. “How many? Channing? How many?”

“Two.” She sobbed as Elizabeth removed wire from her ankles. “There are two of them.”

“Good girl.” Elizabeth hauled her to her feet. “Where?” Channing pointed deeper into the maze. “Both of them?”

Channing nodded, but was wrong.

Terribly, awfully wrong.

*

Elizabeth woke with the girl’s name on her lips, and her fingernails dug into the arms of a chair. The same dream came every time she fell asleep. Sometimes, she woke before it got really bad. Sometimes, it went the distance. That’s why she drank coffee and paced, why she never slept unless it crept up to drag her down.

“That was fun.”

Elizabeth scrubbed both palms across her face. She was soaked in sweat, her heart running fast. Looking around, she saw hospital green and blinking lights. She was in Gideon’s room, but didn’t remember taking off her shoes or closing her eyes. Had she been drinking? That happened, too, sometimes. Two in the morning, or three. Tired of coffee. Tired of memories.

It was dim in the room, but the clock said 6:12. That meant a few hours sleep, at least. And how many dreams? It felt like three. Three times down the stairs, three times in the dark.

Finding her feet, Elizabeth moved to the bed and stared down at the boy. She’d come in late and found Gideon alone in his room. No sign of his father. No doctors at such a late hour. The night nurse filled her in and said she could stay if she wanted. It broke a few rules, but neither of them wanted Gideon to wake alone. Elizabeth had held his hand for a long time, then sat and watched long hours walk up the face of the clock.

Leaning over the bed, she pulled the sheet to Gideon’s chin, flicked the curtain, and looked outside. Dew hung on the grass, and the light was pink. She’d see Channing today, and maybe Adrian. Maybe, the state cops would come for her at last. Or maybe, she’d get in the car and leave. She could take the Mustang top-down and drive west. Two thousand miles, she thought, until the air was dry and the sun rose red over stone and sand and views that went forever.

But Gideon would wake alone.

Channing would be without her.

Elizabeth found a different nurse at the station beyond the door. “You were here yesterday, weren’t you?”

“I was.”

“What happened to Gideon’s father?”

“Security escorted him from the building.”

“He was drunk?”

“Drunk. Disruptive. Your father took him home.”

“My father?”

“Reverend Black was here most of the day, and half of last night. Never left the boy’s side. I’m surprised you missed him.”

“I’m glad he could help.”

“He’s a generous man.”

Elizabeth handed the nurse a card. “If Mr. Strange causes problems again, call me. He’s too pitiful for regular cops, and more trouble than my father should have to handle.” The nurse looked a question, and Elizabeth waved it off. “It’s a sad story. And an old one, too.”

*

Elizabeth spent another twenty minutes with Gideon, then drove home as the sun broke above the trees. She showered and dressed, thinking again of the desert. By nine o’clock she was deep into the historic district, twisting down shaded lanes until she reached the street where Channing lived in a centuries-old mansion that towered over gardens and hedgerows and wrought-iron fencing.

The girl’s father met Elizabeth at the door. “Detective Black. This is unexpected.” He was in his fifties and handsome, a fit man in jeans, a golf shirt, and loafers worn without socks. They’d met more than once, each encounter under difficult circumstances: the police station on the day Channing disappeared, the hospital after Elizabeth brought her out of the basement, the day state police opened an official investigation into the shooting of Brendon and Titus Monroe. A powerful man, he was unused to powerlessness and police and wounded daughters. Elizabeth understood that. It didn’t make him any easier to deal with.