Redemption Road(48)
“My problems are not yours, Channing. You’re so young. You can do anything, be anyone.”
“But, it’s not about age anymore, is it?”
“It can be.”
“It’s too late to go back or stay the same.”
“Why?”
“Because I burned it all.” A spark flared in Channing’s eyes. “The stuffed animals and posters and pink sheets, the photographs and books and notes from little boys. I burned it in the garden, a great, giant fire that almost took everything else with it.” She dropped the hood to show cherry-red skin and hair burned away at the tips. “The garden was burning, two of the trees.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why did you get so close to the quarry’s edge?”
It was softly said, but broke Elizabeth’s heart.
“My father tried to stop me. But I ran when I saw him. I think he hurt himself going over the fence. He was screaming, angry maybe. Whatever the case, I can’t go home.” The girl’s defiance dwindled to desperation. “Tell me I have to leave, and you’ll never see me again. I’ll burn the world. I swear it.”
Elizabeth poured a drink and spoke with her back turned. “Your parents should know you’re okay. Text them, at least. Tell them you’re safe.”
“Does that mean you’ll let me stay?”
Elizabeth turned and smiled wryly. “I can’t have you burning the world.”
“Can I have one of those?” Channing pointed at the drink. “If it’s not about the age…” Elizabeth poured a single finger in a second glass and handed it over, wordlessly. The girl swallowed it, choking a little. “I saw a bathtub.…”
She let it hang, and Elizabeth pointed down the hall. “Towels are in the closet.”
Elizabeth watched her down the hall, then poured another drink, turned off the lights, and sat in the dark. Twice her cell phone vibrated, and twice she let it go to voice mail. She didn’t want to talk to Beckett or Dyer or any of the reporters who found their way to her number.
For another hour, she sat and drank and held herself still. When she finally stood, the bath was empty and the guest-room door was closed. Elizabeth listened, but there was no noise beyond the tick and creak of an old house finding its way deeper into the earth. She checked the locks, anyway. The doors. The windows. Stepping into the bathroom, she locked that door, too, then removed her shirt and examined the cruel, thin cuts on her wrists. They went all the way around and were deeper in some places than in others. Red lines, partly scabbed. Memories. Nightmares.
“Past is past.…”
She took off the rest of her clothes and filled the tub. She was hiding the truth, yes, but there were reasons. That should make her feel better, but reason was just a word.
Like family was a word.
Or faith or law or justice.
She slipped into the tub because hot water seemed to help. It warmed her through and made her weightless. Water was good like that, but it was water’s nature to rise and fall and rise again; that was its purpose, so that when she closed her eyes, the world fell away, and she felt it again: the basement around her, like fingers on her throat.
*
The man was choking her, one arm locked around her neck, his hand tight on her wrist, smashing her gun hand into the wall. Channing was a doll on the floor, screaming as the gun struck concrete three times, four times, then skittered into the dark.
Elizabeth felt the gun go, tried to turn.
Who was he?
Who the f*ck…?
She could tell he was massive and unwashed, but that was it. He was an arm around her neck, a scrape of whiskers as he squeezed harder and blackness crowded in. She kicked down, looking for the instep, the shin. She flung her head back, but the contact was small and weak.
“Shh…”
Breath found her ear, but she was fading. No blood getting through. Eyes tight.
She clawed at his arms, and in the dark there was movement. The second man, broad and hunched. Channing saw him, too, her heels scrabbling in the grime, her back finding the wall.
Channing …
No sound came out. Elizabeth saw her own hand outstretched, the fingers doubling as her vision blurred.
Channing …
The second man snaked big fingers into the girl’s hair, dragged her across the floor and into the dimness of another room.
Where was the gun?
Elizabeth was forced to her knees, saw high-top sneakers and grimy jeans, the place her fingers smeared mold on the floor. His weight settled on her back, pushing her forward, pushing her down. Whiskers ground into her neck, and the same breath licked her ear.
“Shhhh…”
It was longer that time.
Then fading.
Then blackness.
*
In judo, it was called a blood choke or a carotid restraint or a sleeper hold. Cops called it a lateral vascular neck restraint. The name didn’t matter. The purpose and function did. Simultaneous compression of the carotid and the jugular could render an adult unconscious in seconds. Do it right, and it didn’t take much strength. Do it wrong and it fails or somebody ends up dead. It’s not like the movies. You have to know what you’re doing to do it right.
Titus Monroe knew what he was doing.
Elizabeth played it over for the millionth time: how it started and ended, the minutes in between. Channing was off the mattress, and they were backing out of the room, the girl’s hand hot and wet and twisted into Elizabeth’s own. Elizabeth kept her gun trained deeper into the basement. She would shoot if necessary, but the door was empty, the basement quiet behind them. They managed three steps before the girl stumbled and went down, but that was okay. Elizabeth’s gun was up, and the last hall was ten feet away. There were some closed doors, some stairs; but they were going to make it.