Since We Fell

She’d hoped humanizing them would reduce her terror but it actually had the reverse effect, particularly once Ned screwed a silencer onto the muzzle of his Glock and Lars followed suit.

“We,” Ned said, “are pressed for time. So I’m going to ask you both to look after your best interests and not go down the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ route. Fair enough?”

Rachel and Caleb stared at him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes for a moment. “I said, ‘Fair enough?’”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” Caleb said.

Ned looked at Lars and Lars looked at Ned and then they both went back to looking at Rachel and Caleb.

“Rachel,” Ned said. “It is Rachel, right?”

Rachel could hear the tremor in her voice when she answered. “Yes.”

“Rachel,” he said. “Stand up for me.”

“What?”

“Stand up for me, hon. Really. Just right here in front of me.”

She stood and the tremor that had been in her voice found her legs.

Ned’s nose, red-veined and pitted, was eye level with her belly. “Good, good. Stay right there now and don’t move.”

“Okay.”

Ned leaned back in his chair so he could get a clear look at Caleb. “You’re his partner, right?”

Caleb said, “Whose?”

“Ah ah ah.” Ned tapped the butt of the Glock on the table. “What’d we say about that?”

“Oh, Brian,” Caleb said quickly. “Brian’s partner. Yes.”

Ned rolled his eyes at Lars. “‘Oh, Brian.’”

“Oh, that Brian,” Lars said.

Ned gave it a rueful smile. “So, Caleb, where’s the key?”

Caleb said, “What key?”

Ned punched Rachel in the stomach. Punched her so hard she could feel the impression of his knuckles as they burrowed under her windpipe and lifted her off her feet. She landed on the floor and lay there, stripped of oxygen, her insides aflame, her mind filled with black gum, unable to process anything. And once she could process, around the time that the air returned to her lungs, the pain intensified. She ground her head into the floor and made it to her hands and knees. She gasped several times. But the pain was nothing compared to the realization that she was going to die tonight. Not soon. Not someday. Probably in the next five minutes. And definitely tonight.

Ned lifted her to her feet. He grasped her shoulders. He seemed worried she might collapse. “You okay?”

She nodded and for a moment was sure she was going to vomit.

“Say it.” His eyes searched hers. Ned, the Good Samaritan.

“I’m okay.”

“Good.”

She went to sit down but he held her upright.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we may have to go again.”

She couldn’t stop the tears. She tried, she did, but she was overwhelmed by the memory of his knuckles, of the loss of breath, of pain so acute and immediate it short-circuited her ability to think, and, worst of all, the advance knowledge that it was coming, that this sad-eyed man with the comb-over and the concerned voice would hit her again and keep hitting until he got what he wanted or she was dead, whichever came first.

“Ssshhh,” Ned said. “Turn around. I want him to see your face.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so that she was facing Caleb. “My first punch, young man, was to her solar plexus. Hurts like hell but it’s not all that harmful to your health. My next punch will blow up her fucking kidneys.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Sure you do. You’re the IT guy. You were part of this from the beginning.”

“Brian went rogue.”

“He did, huh?”

Caleb’s eyes danced. His face was covered in sweat and his lips twitched and he looked for all the world to see like the frightened boy she now realized he’d always been. He glanced at Rachel and at first she mistook the emotion in his eyes for empathy but then realized, to her horror, that it was embarrassment. Shame. Pity. He was ashamed because he knew he’d never have the courage to save her. He pitied her because he knew she was going to die.

He’s going to pulverize my kidneys, Caleb. Tell him what you know.

Ned ran the silencer down the side of Rachel’s right temple and then along her neckline. “Don’t make me do this, young man. I got a daughter. I got sisters.”

Caleb said, “Look—”

“There’s no look, Caleb. There’s no ‘Hang on a second,’ or ‘Let me explain, or ‘This is just a big misunderstanding.’” Ned inhaled deeply through his nostrils, a man trying to retain his cool. “There’s only a question and an answer. That’s it.”

Rachel felt his penis stiffen against the back of her left hip. He was hard, this father of a daughter, this brother of sisters. Monsters, her mother had told her and she had learned herself over the years, don’t dress like monsters; they dress like humans. Even stranger, they rarely know they’re the monsters.

“Where’s the key?” Ned said.

“What key?” Caleb said, his entire face quivering.

It stopped quivering when Ned fired a bullet into it.

She wasn’t sure what had happened at first. She registered the slap of the bullet entering flesh. She heard Caleb make a surprised yelp, the last sound, it turned out, he’d ever make. His head snapped back hard, as if he’d just heard the funniest of jokes. His head snapped forward, except now it was covered in a beaded curtain of blood, and Rachel opened her mouth to scream.

Ned placed the silencer to the side of her neck. It was hot enough to burn if he left it there too long. “If you scream, I have to kill you. I don’t want to kill you, Rachel.”

But he would.

No, Rachel, he will. The moment they’re done here. The moment they get whatever it is they want. A key. What fucking key? Brian had so many keys on his key ring that it would take a mathematical savant to notice he’d added one. But if he did have this key they were looking for, that’s where it probably was—on his key ring.

Which was on his person.

Which was sitting at the bottom of Massachusetts Bay.

Caleb’s corpse slipped sideways in the chair and would have slid all the way to the floor, but his shoulder wedged underneath the arm. For a moment, the only sound came from him dripping.

“So the answer you want to give my next question,” Ned said, “is definitely not ‘What key?’”

No matter what answer you give, he will kill you.

She nodded.

“Are you nodding because you have my answer or because you agree that saying ‘What key?’ would be a big mistake?” He took the gun away from her neck. “You can talk. I know you’re not going to scream.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

On the other side of the table, Lars stood. Clearly bored. Ready to leave. And that was far more unsettling than if he’d tried to be menacing. What was happening here was coming to a close. And the period on the sentence would be another bullet to another face, this time hers.

“So here we go,” Ned said. “Only one answer we’re looking for and that’d be the right one. Rachel,” he said with the utmost delicacy and concern, “where’s the key?”

“Brian has it.”

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