Above, footsteps running across the floor, then Lee appeared at the edge. Whiteside raised his Glock and fired twice up into the light, and Lee was gone. He rolled onto his side, into the shadows, then up onto his knees.
‘Christ,’ he said, the sibilant hissing through his teeth.
Pain shrieked from his back, threatened to blot out all else, but he willed it to be quiet. He had no use for it now. Suppressing another cry, he forced himself up onto his feet. He backed away from the square of dim light the open trapdoor projected onto the rough concrete floor.
His heel caught the crowbar on the floor and he stumbled back. Something loose and heavy bumped and rolled around the rear of his head. He reached up for it, found a flashlight suspended from a beam in the ceiling. Holding onto it, he turned a circle in the darkness, his eyes scanning the shades of black. He pressed the power switch and a sharp beam cut through the dimness, throwing wild shadows around the basement as the flashlight swayed on its cord.
His gaze swept across the rows of tinned food, the piled blankets and clothes, the chemical toilet. There, behind a stack of boxes at the rear of the room, the boy and the girl. Whiteside staggered toward them, the Glock aimed at the girl’s chest.
He grabbed for both of them. The boy struggled, but Whiteside slapped him hard across the head. He dragged the boy by the collar out onto the open floor, then reached for the girl and did the same. His free arm swept around them as they squealed, gathered them close. He aimed the Glock up at the trapdoor.
‘Mom!’ the boy shouted.
‘Shut up,’ Whiteside said. ‘Be quiet or I’ll kill you all.’
The woman’s head appeared in the opening, peering down at them. The boy shouted for her again.
‘Listen to me,’ Whiteside called. ‘You and your friend get out of here or I’ll take your children’s heads off.’
Her face slipped away from the opening, and for the briefest of moments Whiteside thought she had heeded his warning. Then her feet dropped down and found the ladder.
From above, ‘Audra, no.’
She climbed down, unarmed. Whiteside leveled the pistol at her as she descended. When she reached the bottom, she turned to face him, her eyes blazing as the flashlight beam danced between them. Lee’s face appeared above once more.
‘Audra, what—’
‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘If he tries to leave this basement, shoot him dead.’
‘Audra, listen to—’
‘Just do it,’ she said, taking a step closer.
‘You best back off,’ Whiteside said. ‘I’m taking these children, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘No,’ Audra said, stepping forward. ‘You won’t take them from me again.’
Whiteside backed away, bringing the boy and girl with him, his left arm still wrapped around them both.
‘Goddamn it,’ he said, his voice resonating between the concrete walls, ‘stop right there.’
‘Sean, Louise,’ she said, ‘you’re going to be all right.’
‘Shut up,’ he said, stabbing the pistol’s muzzle in her direction. ‘I’m taking them with me. Don’t make me hurt them. I killed Collins. I killed the old man. You better believe I will kill again, if you push me.’
She moved closer yet and said, ‘Let my children go.’
Whiteside felt a hysterical laugh rise up to his throat, but he swallowed it.
‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘There’s a man will pay me a million dollars a child. Three million for a pair. Now, you can plead and you can beg and you can threaten all you want. But there ain’t a word you can say that’s worth more than three million dollars. Is there?’
Audra stooped down and reached for the crowbar on the floor. It scraped on the concrete as she lifted it and straightened. She held it loose at her side.
‘One last time,’ she said. ‘Let my children go.’
Whiteside looked at the crowbar in her hand. ‘What are you going to do with that?’ he asked.
She looked him hard in the eye and a finger of cold fear touched his heart.
Then Audra swept the crowbar up and across, slamming it into the flashlight. It careened across the basement, its bulb flickering out as it went.
56
AUDRA SAW THE brilliant muzzle flash as she threw herself to the floor, felt the pressure of the discharge in her ears. Through the whine she heard small feet sprint away into the dark and then a hoarse, angry cry.
She got to her knees, kept low as she advanced into the black.
Another muzzle flash, this time aiming in the direction the footsteps had run. She held her breath through the sound of pulverized concrete crumbling to the floor until she heard the footsteps again, running to the far end of the room.
Whiteside fired again, and she felt the bullet zip past her head. She dropped down onto her stomach, remained still as tins fell and rattled, liquid glugging out of a container. The sheriff screamed in rage, his voice rising to a piercing shriek.
Audra crept forward on her belly, her eyes locked on the point of the last muzzle flash, the crowbar held off the floor for fear of giving herself away.
‘Goddamn you,’ Whiteside shouted. ‘Goddamn you to hell.’
The voice above her head, she fixed its position. Another few inches, coarse concrete scraping her elbows and knees.
‘Goddamn you,’ he said again, his voice withered down to a high keening.
Audra got to her knees, swung the crowbar, putting her shoulders behind it. The metal connected with bone, and Whiteside screamed. She heard his body slam into the floor and she rose, the crowbar over her head, ready to bring it down on any part of him it could find.
She saw the flash once more, beneath her now, and felt something hot tug at her shoulder. Before her mind could register the pain, she swung the crowbar hard, felt something break as it struck. A rattle as the pistol skimmed across the concrete, a clang as she lost her grip on the crowbar, and another cry of pain.
Audra roared, an animal fury erupting from the heart of her. She straddled him and raised her fists, brought them down, raised them, brought them down, again and again, each blow sending shocks up through her wrists and elbows and shoulders. She heard the pounding of flesh, and it sounded like music, and she laughed and laughed until she had no air left in her lungs.
Someone cried, stop, stop, please stop, but the voice was far away in the darkness, a pathetic whimpering that meant nothing to her.
A flash of lightning filled the room, a brilliant flickering, and she saw Whiteside below her, his arms raised up to protect his face. Then a slapping and rattling sound, more flashes, making it appear as if Whiteside danced under her, all jerking movements and slashes of red.
‘Mom,’ Sean said.
She froze, her bloody fists above her head, and turned to her son’s voice.
There, across the room, the flashlight in his hands, his sister by his side. He shook the flashlight, smacked it against his palm, trying to keep the bulb alive.
‘Mom, stop,’ he said.
Behind them came Danny, the revolver aimed at Whiteside.
Audra dropped her hands. She crawled off Whiteside’s body, toward her children, onto her knees, stretched her arms out wide. They came to her, the hot damp skin of their faces pressing into hers, her arms swallowing them up, their bodies joining together.
She wept as the flickering light danced around them.
57
THE SUN HAD climbed high above the trees and washed the clearing with warm light. She felt the heat on her skin and relished it. Of all the things that should have been important to Audra at that moment, the sun in the sky should have been the least. But still, there it was.