Tilting back my head, I see a dark oval staring down through the mesh screen. It’s Crew Cut. “If you get turned right,” he says, “maybe she can unzip you. I’d give it a go, man, considering the circumstances.”
“Why don’t you blow your partner while he drives?” Caitlin snaps. “We could use some privacy.”
I guess she figured sarcasm might make him lose interest, but instead of facing forward again, Crew Cut starts telling her what she can expect when we get where we’re going. The gist is that a quick bullet would be infinitely better than what awaits us, but we won’t be lucky enough to get one.
“You’re pretty damn hot, girl,” says the shadow face. “But you’re about to get a whole lot hotter, where you’re going.”
As he sniggers, the invisible driver busts out laughing. Crew Cut is still talking when his partner hits the brakes, makes a right turn, then cruises slowly for a couple of hundred yards. “Showtime, boys and girls,” he says, cackling softly through the mesh.
When the engine dies, I press my forehead against Caitlin’s. “Listen to me. That razor—”
“Turn over!” she hisses. “Hurry! Let me cut your hands loose!”
“There’s no time. Listen, Caitlin, that razor is useless against guns.”
“What?” Her eyes are frantic. “You want me to leave it here?”
“No. Hide it if you can.”
The sound of slamming doors reverberates through a closed space.
“Hide it for what? When do I use it?”
I don’t want to answer, but her mind has not yet allowed her to face the final extremity. “It’s for you now,” I tell her. “Not them. Do you understand?”
In some terrible fraction of time, confusion becomes comprehension, and her head begins shaking as though from a nerve tremor.
“No,” she whispers, but it’s only a token denial. At last she has glimpsed what the end might be, what she might have to do to find a humane death.
Before I can speak again, our guards jerk open the doors and heave the dead cop out of the van. Then they slash the tape binding our ankles, drag us out by the feet—past the prone policeman—and stand us up beside a brick wall.
We seem to be in a closed residential garage. A blue Range Rover is parked beside the van. Prodding us with pistols, they force us through a door and into a spacious pantry, which leads to a kitchen gleaming with stainless steel and granite. Caitlin and I share quick glances, but I can tell she’s never been to this house, either. Just past the kitchen is a door that opens onto a staircase.
“What’s down there?” I ask, stopping at the head of the stairs with a pistol jammed into my back.
“A basement,” says the older guard behind me. “What’s it to you?”
As an assistant DA in Houston, I visited dozens of murder scenes and saw hundreds more on police videotape. The majority involved journeys like this one: a walk into a basement, an industrial freezer, or a rented storeroom where screams could not be heard, smells would not be noticed, and cleanup could be carried out in peace. This terrible knowledge compels me to repeatedly warn both Caitlin and my daughter: If a man ever tries to get you into a vehicle, run, even if he has a gun. The odds are, he won’t hit you. Even if he does, he probably won’t hit a vital organ. But if he ever gets control of you … if he ever takes you to some isolated place … you’re dead. Or worse—
“Don’t even think about it,” says the man behind me, sensing rebellion. “I’ll shoot you in the spine. Start walking. You first, then her.”
We descend the stairs single file, me leading the way. The steps end at yet another door.
“Open it,” says the man behind me.
Few homes in this part of the country have basements. I have no idea what I might find beyond this door. When I open it, I see an oak-floored room furnished like a British gentlemen’s club. Glass-fronted display cases line three walls, within which hang an astonishing assortment of military weapons. At the center of the room, Brody Royal and Randall Regan sit on a leather sofa, watching us expectantly.
“Well, well,” Brody says with a sly smile. “We have company.”
CHAPTER 91
BRODY ROYAL IS still wearing the suit pants he had on at the hospital, but he’s stripped down to his shirtsleeves. Randall Regan has a notebook computer on his lap and a cigarette in his mouth. The bruise marking his throat looks even darker, and he stares at me with barely contained rage.
Turning to one of the guards, Brody says, “Give Randall their phones, then wait upstairs. Let me know immediately if you hear from Chalmers.”
“Yes, sir.” Crew Cut hands Regan a paper sack. Then the pair move back to the staircase. As the door slams, I look past Royal and Regan. Unlike the other walls, which are lined with glass-fronted gun cabinets, the far wall has six recesses like library carrels set in it. Suddenly, I realize what I’m looking at: an indoor firing range—a wealthy sportsman’s toy. I’ve seen less lavish versions in several homes. Five of the “doors” are actually shooting stations. Only the portal on the far right is a true door. Beyond those shooting stations will be long lanes with human silhouette targets hanging from automated tracks.
Looking back at the luxurious seating area, I catch Brody appraising Caitlin’s lithe body while Regan extracts the SIM card from my cell phone and slips it into a USB device connected to his computer. With the smoldering cigarette dangling from his lower lip, he taps the keys with surprising speed and dexterity. I’ve always thought of Randall Regan as a killer, but I suppose he learned some other skills during decades of running an insurance company.