Instinct, p.25
Instinct, page 25
Okay, Mary, that’s great and all, but what does it mean? And why is the woman from the video at the heart of this, and not Ang himself?
I rack my brain, still sure I’ve seen her somewhere before. Not just seen, but her voice… I’ve heard her voice. Where?
After several minutes, though, I give up, the memory remaining just out of reach.
What I need to do is stop speculating and focus on getting out of here. The door’s locked, which means I’ll either need to force my way out or wait until someone comes.
I decide to wait. Doc will either come back and give me some task outside this room during which I can slip away, or he won’t, in which case it makes sense to wait until everyone’s asleep before I try to flee.
Back at the window I stand for a while and stare at the landscape. The valley and the mountain beyond beckon like an old friend, and it’s tempting to comfort myself by picking out all the landmarks of Silvertown. That’s not going to help me here, though, so I force myself to study the immediate surroundings instead, starting with the wall at the edge of the property.
Even from this side it’s hard to spot the movable section that Tweaker used to vanish. It’s the ground that ultimately gives it away. Two semicircles of gravel marring an otherwise flawless lawn. There’s a large garden shed to one side of this patch, with track marks in the grass leading up to its door. The ATV must be in there. If there’s only one such vehicle, and I can steal it, their chances of catching up to me are slim. Good, I think. The beginnings of a plan. Now how to get there? Between the shed and the house is roughly a hundred yards of lawn, sun-soaked and offering nothing in the way of cover. Other than grass, all I can see is the weird circle of paving stones, and the edge of a patio just below my window. Leaning until my forehead is against the cool glass, I can see someone’s legs at the very limit of my restricted view. They sit in a lawn chair, and there’s an assault rifle laid across the person’s lap.
Okay, so much for a dash across the lawn. I’d just be target practice.
Movement in the middle distance draws my attention back to the wall. Someone’s walking there. Patrolling the property.
Guarding against me trying to escape, or someone coming after me? The latter seems more likely, given that I’m supposedly part of the gang now. But on the other hand, anyone looking for me here is dishearteningly unlikely. Perhaps my arrival has simply put them on edge. They must have felt pretty safe and secluded here before I rang the buzzer at the gate.
The sun creeps across the sky with maddening slowness, but waiting for dark is my only option, I think. After some time I go and sit on the bed, then lay down to rest. The painkillers are strong, but I suspect they’re also making me tired.
* * *
I’ve no idea how long I slept.
All I know is, when I finally sit up and rub at my eyes, the room’s nearly pitch-black. The only light comes from a faint glow creeping in around the edges of the window blinds.
I smell something. My stomach reacts before my brain can identify the odor, sending a sharp pang of hunger through my gut. As my eyes adjust, I spot the source: a dinner tray in the middle of the floor.
Hunger gets the better of me. In a flash I’m out of the bed and wolfing down the contents of the tray. A room-temperature cheeseburger, corn on the cob, and a bottle of water. This last I chug until it’s half gone, before realizing I should save some. I twist the cap back on.
Despite sitting here long enough to cool down, the burger and corn taste backyard-barbecue fresh, which makes sense. There’s no restaurant in easy driving distance, and having food delivered would only draw unwanted attention to this secluded place. I might be able to use that, I think. A barbecue in the yard somewhere. There’ll be tools, lighter fluid.
I go to the window and glance outside, peering through a gap in the blinds I make with thumb and index finger. A half-moon sits in the western sky, made hazy by thin clouds. Shifting yellow light from the first floor of the mansion casts rectangles out onto the grass. The glow flickers and waves, no doubt thrown by the big fireplace from which I took my nosedive. How quaint.
The most striking source of illumination outside, though, is the candles. One has been placed on each of the paving stones, creating a glowing dotted outline of their circular placement, which only serves to reinforce my earlier vision of some ritualistic purpose.
Kneeling down, I put my ear to the floor and listen. At first there’s only the ambient sounds of a large home. Air circulating, water moving through pipes, and the even more subtle hum of electricity. But then I hear the muffled sounds of laughter, and voices in conversation.
They’re distracted, I think. Eating. Not the best time to make my move. Best to wait until they’re all asleep. Only, now I’m not so sure that’s ever going to be the case, not if someone’s sitting with a rifle on the back patio, and another is walking the perimeter. Those kinds of precautions are done in shifts.
Besides, I slept for hours. Time’s not on my side, and here I am hesitating, napping even. I need to get back to Silvertown. Warn them. And then find a way to end this.
Time to stop worrying about cameras.
I try the door again, but of course it’s still locked. Leaving the lights off, I kneel down in front of the handle and try to inspect it, figure out what I’m up against. Picking a lock is not something I ever learned how to do, but I watched my brother once, and he explained the basic principles. He had tools, though. I don’t.
“Think, think,” I whisper. There’s a small bathroom in here. I haven’t looked through it yet. Tools, maybe? Take the door off its hinges? I search under the sink and find nothing but a roll of toilet paper and three extra bars of soap. The paper I leave, but the soap I take. Back in the bedroom I remove the pillowcase from the pillow and stuff the soap inside, then tie it off. I swing it around a few times. The soap’s not that heavy, but as weapons go it’s better than nothing. If I can crack someone in the temple with this, I think they’ll at least be stunned, if not out cold for a bit.
On a whim I take the towel that’s hanging over the small bathroom’s shower stall and roll it into a loose tube, stuffing it under the blanket on the bed. I arrange the pillow to be mostly underneath, too, and plump up the blanket where I can. Let them come in and think I’m still here, asleep. For a few seconds only, sure, but it’s better than nothing.
Now what? Wait for someone to come to collect the food tray? Thump them on the head and make a dash?
Could be hours. Even until morning.
Go out the window? I cross to it again and peek through. It can open, and the screen on the outside looks flimsy, but the only place to go from here is down to the patio, which is illuminated by the expansive windows looking in on the great living room. Someone would see me. I study the ground below. What I can see of it, at least. There is the guy sitting with the rifle on his lap, but he’s a good five feet to the left, so dropping on him is unlikely in the extreme.
I pace for a moment, then sit again, suddenly dejected. It’s no use. I get one shot at this, and none of the options are good. I want to be well away from this place before anyone knows I’m missing. A fifteen-foot drop onto a stone patio is likely to leave me with a sprained ankle, maybe even a broken one, only to then be chased down into the valley. With no shoes or socks on, either. It’s useless. But I can’t think of a better idea.
I go to the window and pry with my fingertips, dragging it aside as slowly as I can, not wanting to make any noise. When it’s finally open all the way I go to work on the screen, lifting the two plastic tabs at the bottom and trying to lift it out of the frame. The tabs are stiff, though, and the screen refuses to budge. I try harder, straining as much as I dare, ignoring the cool early autumn breeze on my skin and the sounds of the night. Crickets, leaves stirred by wind, and the babble of the low river somewhere farther off like a whisper.
And then another sound begins to register, so faint and subtle at first I think I’m imagining it. But the sound grows steadily.
An airplane, I think. Small one, prop engine. Can I use that? Light a fire, get their attention? They’ll report it, and the National Parks Service fire response would come.
As the sound grows, though, it changes. Becomes more like a rhythm, or a pulse. Helicopter, then. The sound is growing by the second now. Police, searching for me?
There’s a flurry of activity downstairs. I hear a door opening, and the voices get louder. From the yard below me I hear Chief Greg call out.
“Ang, it’s them!” he says.
My heart skips a beat as I picture SWAT officers rappelling down from a chopper as a sniper in the doorway picks off the hapless, panicked members of the Broken Nose Gang.
But then I recognize Greg’s tone. It’s not alarm. It’s expectation.
There’s a muffled reply.
The sound of the aircraft becomes a sudden roar, and the yard is illuminated by its landing lights.
Suddenly the ring of lit paving stones makes sense. They aren’t for some kind of satanic ritual. They’re a goddamn landing pad.
The vertical blinds before me begin to whip and twist as the great wash of the rotor buffets the back of the house. Shadows dance through the room, the light a brilliant erratic strobe, hitting my face like a physical force as I try to bat the blinds into position and hold them down. I can only hope no one aboard is looking this way.
I give up and crouch below the window. The sound of the helicopter is tremendous, drowning out everything else, and I realize this is the chance I’ve been waiting for. As distractions go it’s magnificent. But not for exiting via my window.
Grabbing the pillowcase with the soap in it, I rush to the door. It takes one swift kick to get it open, wood splintering in the jamb where the latch had been. Between all the activity downstairs, and the thunderous wind of the helicopter, the noise is inaudible even to me. Going to have a hell of a bruised foot, but thanks to Doc my body is still loaded with painkillers.
A quick glance left and right. The hall is empty. I go right, toward the center of the house, running with the pillowcase held low and loose, swinging at my shins. Doors blur by on either side, all closed. I keep going. At the corner I peer around and then move again, finding the next leg of the hall empty as well.
Halfway down its length, the hall reaches the center of the great house and the walls to either side become railings. When I reach that spot I’ll have no cover to either side, so I slow to a stop just before.
The span of hallway before me is really more like an elevated bridge looking down on the living room to the right and the foyer to the left. On the other end of this bridge the hall continues on, mirroring my side. But just before that there is one key difference: a stairway going down, ending in the foyer beside the front door. It’s so damn close. Twenty feet, then down, then freedom.
Just one problem. I’ll be completely exposed as I cross that twenty feet. Everything depends on how distracted my captors down below really are.
Outside the note of the chopper’s blades begins to diminish into a dull rhythmic whump under a high-pitched whine, growing quieter by the second.
I get down on all fours and peek around the corner, looking past the fireplace toward the back wall of the house. It is comprised entirely of glass panels from floor to ceiling. I hadn’t realized it before, but each panel is not just a window but also a door of sorts. They’re installed on rotating pillars, allowing the whole back of the house to be open to nature if the occupant desires. They’re all closed now save the middle one, which is rotated exactly halfway. Ang, Doc, and their broken-nosed henchmen all wait there, watching the spectacle of the helicopter landing.
This is my moment. All eyes on the helicopter, and whomever is getting out of it.
I should run, now. Get away. But I hesitate. My gaze is pulled outside as the rotor finally comes to a stop. The aircraft rests on the lawn exactly in the center of the stone circle. All the candles are still lit, a detail that, despite all that is going on around me, I find stunning. Then I notice the pattern in their flickering and realize they’re fake. Little LED tea-light candles meant to mimic the real thing.
People are getting out of the chopper, but I can’t see them from this vantage point. Ang walks out the back door, though, and I hear him call out a warm greeting.
“Welcome, Mrs. Conaty,” he says. “Welcome.”
And there she is. Sandra Conaty.
The woman who used to own this town. The woman, I now realize, from the video. The woman who’d said the words at the heart of all this: You will do whatever I say.
To Ang, Doc, and all the rest, Mrs. Conaty says, “Prepare rooms for my guests. We’ve had a rough flight. The demonstration can wait until the morning.”
Like dutiful staff, they all turn and set about their tasks. Even Greg—my boss, the chief of police, the man who brought down the Conaty family and drove them from Silvertown—hops to it.
I duck behind cover just in time. There’s a flurry of activity as Conaty’s wishes are seen to. People moving through the house. Back against the wall, I hold my breath and consider options. Crossing this “bridge” to the other wing seems out of the question now. My best chance has vanished.
Words float up from below. Conaty is talking to someone. “… for the use of your beautiful home, Senator.” Then, “Have you all met before?”
A man’s mumbled reply.
Then four clear words, from the senator. “An honor, Mr. Secretary.”
Secretary? My mind races as my stomach goes hollow. This is big. This is really fucking big. I start to lean back, hoping for a better look at the guests. I need to see them. I need to remember faces. But a sound stops me dead. Footsteps on the stairs. Someone’s coming up.
On tiptoes I dart back down the hall toward my room, quietly trying doors as I go. They’re all locked, but from this side. Dead bolts, no doubt installed recently because who the fuck builds a mansion with six guest rooms that lock from the outside?
Choosing one at random, I flick the dead bolt and slip inside, closing it behind me. No way to lock the door from within, so I’ll just have to hope no one notices. Maybe they won’t, but what’s definitely not going to go unnoticed is the smashed door to my room, with its splintered jamb and shards of wood on the carpet. Nothing I can do about that.
The room I find myself in is identical to my own, but on the north side of the hall. Its window blinds are open, and I can see the long paving-stone driveway snaking off through the trees into the distance, little pools of yellow from landscape lights dotting its length.
I’m alone, the bed empty. I check the bathroom just to be sure. No one here.
The room is like mine: a bed, nothing more. The bathroom contains the bare minimum of supplies. Soap, toilet paper.
I check the window. This room is, if anything, worse than my own. A similar drop, but with rosebushes waiting at the bottom, and nowhere to go except the well-lit circle where the driveway reaches the front door. Someone stands in that doorway, just a shadow. The woman I saw earlier, I think. Keeping watch. Armed, probably.
The fountain in the center of the driveway’s circle glistens in the moonlight, patterns of light pushing up from beneath the water’s surface to dance across the sculpted statue and the facade of the mansion. Beyond, the six-car garage is exactly as before. All doors closed, the lone Ferrari parked in front, its red paint glinting as light from the fountain plays across it.
Where would the keys be? Kitchen, hanging on a hook? In Ang’s pocket, or on his bedside table? Of course, from what Conaty just said, this isn’t Ang’s house after all. It’s not even hers. So perhaps the keys are with this Senator. No, I think. Who walks around their own house with keys in their pocket?
With a six-car garage I imagine a set of hooks mounted on a wall inside, probably even labeled so the senator doesn’t have to suffer the inconvenience of trying to remember which key is for which supercar. The question is which wall? In the garage itself? His den? The kitchen?
The garage, I decide. Even if there are no keys, I can’t go deeper into the house, not with all these people around. But I sure hope there’re keys, damn it. The idea of roaring out of here in a growling red sports car, flipping Ang and all the rest of them the middle finger as I tear down the mountain, is tantalizing. But then I remember they have a helicopter, and rifles, and I wonder just how far I’d really get.
Someone’s in the hall outside, walking swiftly.
I pad to the door and stand behind it. They approach. I hold my breath again. But the footsteps move past without breaking speed. I let out my breath, just long enough to realize they’re only steps from discovering my escape.
Time to go.
I slip from the room. In the hall I find I’m four steps from Captain Tweaker, who stands with his back to me, staring at my door. He’s frozen in place, on the cusp of crying out an alarm.
Yet he hesitates, steps forward. Pushes my door open, not with his fingers but with the barrel of a pistol.
I pad up behind him and swing the pillowcase. There’s a dull thud, and as he crumples to the floor he lets out an involuntary sigh. His collapse is otherwise whisper quiet.
“Good thing you weigh almost nothing,” I mutter, dragging him into the room.
Out of habit I check for a pulse, finding it quickly. Strong and steady. A brief temptation comes over me to strangle him, but the cop in me can’t do it.
I take the gun and set it aside, then make quick work of binding his hands with the bedsheet. It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got. The pillowcase weapon no longer needed, I remove two of the soap bars and, with the third still tucked inside, stuff it into his mouth, tying the fabric tight behind his neck. A passable gag that might buy me an extra minute when he wakes.
His pants and shoes are next. Good hiking boots and a pair of jeans. The boots are, surprisingly, too small for me, but the jeans fit okay as long as I leave the fly undone. Better than nothing.
