“That sounds difficult to prove.”
He was baiting her, smiling. She kept her eyes on Jacks and Woods. She wanted a twitch.
Please, God …
Give me a reason …
“Is everything all right over there?”
That was the neighbor, Mr. Goldman. He stood by the hedge, nervous and worried. Behind him was the same ’72 Pontiac station wagon, and beyond that, his wife. She stood on the porch with a telephone in her hand and a look on her face that said she was a heartbeat away from calling 911. Elizabeth kept her eyes on the guns because things could go downhill fast, and if the slide started, it would start there.
“Last chance, Detective.”
“I don’t think so.”
The warden looked at the neighbor, the wife with the phone. “You can’t hide behind an old man forever.” He showed flat eyes and the same white teeth. “Not in a town like this.”
32
He valued the silo because, like him, it had been made for a particular purpose. It did the job day after day, year after year. Nobody thanked it or even noticed. Now, it was broken down and forgotten, the fields around it grown over with trees, the farmhouse little more than a dark spot in the soil. How many years since someone had cared about it?
Seventy?
A hundred?
He’d discovered it as a boy and in all the years since had never seen another soul come near it. Rumor was some paper company in Maine owned the full ten thousand acres that surrounded it. He could find out for sure if he wanted—a deed of some kind would be buried in a courthouse drawer. But, why bother? The woods were deep and still, the clearing as quiet and lonesome as any place he’d ever known. Concrete was crumbling. Steel was rusted through.
But the structure still stood.
He still stood.
Not all the women made it to the silo, but most did: the fighters and strong-willed, those that needed time to soften. A few had been ready to die from almost the moment he took them, as if they’d wished him into existence, or as if some vital part of them shut down at the mere thought of an ending. They were inevitably a disappointment. But weren’t they all?
Yes, in fundamental ways.
Then, why bother?
Slowing where a red oak hung an arm across the road, he turned onto the narrow track at the property’s edge and nudged deeper into the trees, stopping when he got to the gate he’d installed years ago. Out of the car, he opened the big lock and dragged the gate open. The road behind him was empty, but he moved quickly, pushing the car deeper into the trees, then sliding the gate closed. Once inside, he considered the question again. Why bother at all?
Because failures built one upon the other.
Because all roads led to Elizabeth.
“It is in suffering that we are withdrawn from the sway of time and mere things, and find ourselves in the presence of profounder truth.”
It was one of his favorite quotes.
“Profounder truth…”
“The sway of time and mere things…”
The car bounced through the scrub, and he felt hope’s fitful rise. He loved Elizabeth, and Elizabeth loved the girl. He thought this one would work and in the shadow of the silo felt more convinced than ever.
“The sway of time and mere things…”
Out of the car, he studied the tree line and the clearing. Nothing moved; no one was there. Opening the car, he removed the tarp, the bucket, and ten gallons of water. He’d prefer to give this one another day in the silo, but things were moving fast and would end with Elizabeth.
That would happen soon.
He felt it.
He dreaded it.
Fishing out the stun gun, he closed the door and threw another glance around the clearing. It was small in the trees, a slash of grass and weed and old machines rusted solid.
He looked at the silo, the lock on the chain.
The key made a lump in his pocket.
*
Channing thought he would never come. After hours on the ladder, her muscles were burning, her tongue, dry and swollen. She hadn’t counted on the heat, the constant strain. She was eight feet up, but thought she’d be invisible when the small door opened.
Bright light outside.
Constricted pupils.
Most people would be blind when they stepped into the dark, and she was counting on that, praying quietly as engine noises rose beyond the wall. She told herself this was not the basement. She wasn’t tied up and wasn’t the same person. But, it was a hard line to hold.
He was here.
He’d come.
She heard a chassis bottom out, the grind of an engine, and how it ticked in the stillness, after. He would expect to find her tied and helpless, worn down by heat and fear. But, that’s not how it was going to happen. The broken rung was rusted, yes, but still steel, still solid in places. He’d come in headfirst, blinking.
She held her breath as the chain clattered through the handles, and her legs started shaking. She couldn’t help it.