“Stay here,” Kevin said, holding the phone up to his ear. “Don’t fucking move.” He turned and walked out of the kitchen and into the back hall. Clearly he wanted to talk to Greer in private. I let out a long, shaky breath. My hopes didn’t exactly rise once Kevin left, but they lifted a bit. I figured Kevin would talk to Greer to corroborate my story with the voice recording. What Greer would have to say, I didn’t know. And I didn’t think for a second that Kevin would truly consider my insane offer. But it gave me time. The problem was, I had no idea what to do next. Maybe I could reach the baton under the refrigerator, or find a knife of my own in a drawer? Or I could run out the back door. I recalled Kevin saying he had security cameras, but I could hide in the woods.
I stood up and started for the back door, and then nearly cried aloud. Lester Briggs was peering in through the back door window. I darted a glance at the back hall, but I didn’t see Kevin. Now Briggs gestured at me to open the door. I looked again at the back hall, the thought of that knife causing my skin to crawl. I got up and went as quietly as I could to the back door and turned the bolt to unlock it, letting Briggs in. He wore a heavy red-and-black-checked wool coat and a black knit cap, and his nose was red with cold, although he grinned at me.
“How the hell did you find me?” I whispered.
He actually chuckled. “Think I don’t know how to follow a car?”
“There’s a man in here, Kevin Kelly. He’s got a knife. He’s on the phone with Pelham Greer and coming back any second.”
Briggs shook his head. “I doubt he’s talking to Greer. State police should have him in custody. I called in a favor.” He peered around the kitchen. “You say he’s got a knife?”
“A big one.” I looked back down the hall but still didn’t see Kevin. I could still hear that low, throbbing hum from somewhere in the house. When I looked back at Briggs, I saw he had a revolver in his hand.
“Did he have a gun on him?” Briggs murmured.
I shook my head. “Don’t know. Didn’t see one.”
Kevin had to have heard us by now. Where was he? The rest of the house was silent, dark.
“Let’s go,” Briggs was saying.
I shook my head again. Kevin hadn’t said anything about where Fritz was. Now that Briggs was here, I felt together we could persuade him to talk.
“Matthias,” Briggs said.
“He’s in here somewhere,” I said, stepping into the back hall. I could barely make out something in the hall—a slightly open door. The throbbing sound was louder. Behind me I could hear Briggs bite back a curse. I reached the door, looked down the hall again, and still saw no sign of Kevin. I pulled the door all the way open. That hum grew louder—definitely some kind of machinery—and I saw a set of stairs leading down to a basement lit by a dim light. Quickly I went down the steps, keeping an eye out for any hands reaching for my feet.
The room at the bottom was small, about fifteen by fifteen, with a concrete floor and a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. A set of metal shelves lined one wall and reached to the ceiling. The shelves held plastic containers with labels I couldn’t read. There was a closed door across the room—the throbbing hum I heard was coming from behind it. Between me and the door were a pile of junk and bric-a-brac, moldering boxes, and more broken furniture.
“Anything down there?” Briggs said from the top of the stairs.
“There’s another door,” I said. “Maybe—”
I heard a sharp scuffling on the stairs. I turned to see Briggs seem to launch himself down the stairwell, arms out in front of him as if he were diving. He hit the floor like a sack of wet cement, and there was a muffled crack, like an old tree branch snapping in two.
Kevin Kelly came down the stairs, the knife in his hand. Backpedaling away from him, I stumbled over the pile of garbage in the center of the room. Frantically I looked around me for something I could use as a weapon. Damp boxes of magazines, blooming with mold. A disintegrating rattan side table. An empty, rusted paint can. Broken pieces of terra-cotta pots. A sagging leather golf bag, stained and worn through at the bottom. Groping inside, I grasped and then withdrew a golf club, its head a flat-faced wedge. Kevin had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs. I continued backing away from him, holding the golf club up in front of me like a sword. Then I bumped into the door on the wall opposite the stairs. As Kevin stepped over Briggs, a snarl on his face, I threw open the door and ran over the threshold.
The sound and the dank heat hit me simultaneously. That throbbing hum I had been hearing was now sharper but still muffled, like the sound from a lawn mower encased in bales of cotton. In front of me was a long room full of brightly lit bulbs hung over a small forest of spiky green plants. The marijuana seemed to be growing out of large trays of water arranged neatly in rows down the length of the room. At the far end of the room, on the left, was another doorway, this one with no door, and the hum seemed to emanate from there. A generator. There were no other doors or exits.
Kevin Kelly came through the doorway behind me, knife raised with the tip up. The golf club forgotten in my hands, I ran down the middle aisle away from him, knocking marijuana plants over to try to slow Kevin down. He gave an angry cry as I threw down an entire tray of plants, leaves thrashing and liquid spilling onto the floor. He kicked the tray out of the way as I continued to run down the aisle. “Where you going?” he asked, waggling the knife at me. With my left hand, I grasped the top of another plant and flung it backward at him. He ducked and batted it away with a forearm. He was laughing. Fuck this, I thought, and I raised the golf club and swung at him. Kevin spun to the side, and my club smashed another tray of plants. There was a searing pain on my right arm just above my elbow. I stepped back and saw blood welling through my sleeve.
“That’s for the damages,” Kevin said. The tip of his knife was wet, and although he was smiling at me, his eyes were furious. “I’m going to hurt you down here. No one will find you. You’ll just disappear like your precious roommate.”
I swung the club again, backhanded, and struck his left knee. He cried and stumbled, but didn’t fall. Instead, he jabbed at my face with his knife. I backpedaled and swung at him again. He bobbed out of the way, and instead of hitting his forehead, my club smashed a low-hanging lightbulb with a spectacular pop of light, showering him with glass. Raising his hands to protect his face, Kevin staggered back and tripped over another tray. I tried to angle around him for the door, but he scrambled to his feet and swung his knife in a vicious arc, forcing me to leap back. Gripping the club, I swung hard and up, as if hitting down the fairway, and he sidestepped, the club missing his chin by inches. The follow-through of my swing made me lose my balance, and I planted a foot to regain it, but my foot splashed down into a puddle of liquid from the overturned grow trays. Something hit the back of that foot near the heel, and pain flared up my calf, my ankle suddenly numb. My leg crumpled beneath me and I fell, crushing yet another tray of marijuana, the heavy, pungent smell of the plant, like citrus and skunk, filling my nostrils. I lay on my back on the floor, the club gone from my hands and my foot aching—I could already feel the swelling. Kevin Kelly stepped forward, looming over me, the blade of his knife now reversed and pointing down at my chest.