But Susan had crossed the room then.
The next room was bigger, the old manufacturing floor. A single light hung from an extension cord in the center of the room. Archie was naked, on his hands and knees, trying to stand. He looked up and saw her and she ran to him.
As she got closer she saw the bandages on his back, the white already soaked through with blood. He tried again to stand, putting his hands on his knees for leverage, and he managed to get unsteadily to his feet. His legs were lacerated and bleeding. He was buck naked. But this was not what shocked Susan. What shocked her were the scars. Susan had read the case files, the newspaper clippings—she’d even read The Last Victim. She knew what Gretchen had done to him. She knew about the basement splenectomy. She knew that Gretchen had driven nails into his chest, broken his ribs, played doctor on him with an X-Acto knife and scalpel. She knew she’d cut a heart into his chest.
But she had never seen the aftermath. His torso was brutalized, webbed with scar tissue; the slight brown hair grew in patches, around slick white new skin. There wasn’t a square inch on his chest that hadn’t been marked by her. The largest scar, the one that split him in two up the midsection, was a knotty pink rope, umbilical-like. But the one that her eyes fell to, that she had to force herself not to stare at, was the heart-shaped scar below his left scapula. Two years old, and it still looked raw, like he had spent months picking at it.
She stepped close to him, lifted one of his arms around her shoulder, and wrapped her arm around his waist, the spray can still clutched in her hand. He cringed from her touch, and she saw the deep purple bruise on his side where he must have been Tasered, and she adjusted her hand lower on his hip. He swayed and his weight shifted and it was all she could do to hold him up. But his eyes were clear and focused. “I heard a shot,” he said.
“Henry came in first,” Susan said.
“I didn’t see him,” Archie said. He nodded, like he was trying to make sense of things. “My legs aren’t working yet.” He looked over at Susan. “Can you get us out of here?”
A police megaphone crackled to life outside and Susan could hear someone shouting orders, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
She kept her focus on the door. Archie could barely walk, and it took all her effort to guide him, step by step, toward the exit. “Will they come in?” she asked.
“They need to secure the perimeter,” Archie said. “Determine hostages. They won’t come in unless they hear another shot.”
To the left of their path, just at the edge of the circle of light, sat a massive pockmarked anvil. It was the only manufacturing tool they’d left in the place, like they’d cleaned out the building and decided it was too heavy to move.
“What was this place?” Susan asked.
“They made axes,” Archie said.
She saw the glint of it before she saw the weapon itself. The steel head was orange with rust and the wooden handle had faded to a soft gray. Jeremy was moving fast, and the axe was held high. He came at them, a blur. Susan thought Jeremy screamed, but it was so loud in her head, the scream might have been coming from her.
She untangled her arm from Archie’s waist, held the spray can high, squeezed her eyes shut, and pushed down on the nozzle.
Spray. Move.
She couldn’t move. She tried, but she was rooted to the floor, bracing for the blow from the axe. She could still hear the screaming.
Lizzie Borden took an axe.
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done.
She gave her father forty-one.
Lizzie Borden had murdered her stepmother, not her mother. And she’d done it with just nineteen whacks.
Archie threw her to the ground. How he did that, since he could barely walk, she didn’t know. Maybe he just stopped trying to stand and took her with him when he fell.
She opened her eyes just as the axe hit the concrete by her head. The floor shook and sparks exploded from the blade.
The axe lifted again and she covered her head with her hands.
And then there was another gunshot—this one much, much closer—and then the thud of a body hitting concrete along with the metallic slap of an axe head.
Susan did a quick mental inventory of limbs. No blinding pain. Her head still seemed attached to her neck.
She opened her eyes and lifted her head. She was panting. Archie was on top of her, shielding her from the axe blow. He rolled off her and sat up.
Henry was moving toward them, his gun still trained on Jeremy, who now lay facedown on the floor.
Cops rushed in from everywhere—impressive, because as far as