Long silence. She prayed a true prayer, for the first time in a dozen years. Please, God, please help me now. Please.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait outside. But don’t try anything.’
‘I won’t.’
She heard him step out and the door gently close.
She yanked off the cloth hood and ripped the silk blindfold from her head. The bathroom was small, decorated in sea-foam green tile at least thirty years old. The shower was a stall, and the shower rod was bolted to the wall.
There was a small bolt on the door. If she locked it he would hear.
‘Hurry up,’ he called.
‘I am!’ she yelled, putting a teary tone in her voice. She groaned, as if troubled by a pained stomach. ‘Just a second.’ If he heard her rummaging he’d crash in. She almost wept in anger. Nothing, nothing to fight with.
She knelt, gingerly opening the cabinet under the sink. Cotton balls. Toilet paper. Disinfectant spray.
Yes.
He shoved the door open. She sprang to her feet and jetted disinfectant hard into his eyes. He shrieked and fell back.
‘EEAGGGGH!’ he screamed, clutching his face.
Velvet shoved past him and ran down the hallway. To her left the hall opened up into a den and she saw a front door. She threw herself at it.
Locked.
‘YOU BITCH BITCH BITCH.’ He staggered to his feet, clawing at his seared eyes.
Six locks on the door and three were dead bolts. These she clicked open and tried the door again. Still locked. The other locks required a key.
Where would he keep the goddamned keys? Fighting a surge of panic, Velvet scanned the den. Nothing on the table except a plate dirty with sandwich crumbs and a milk-smeared glass. Nothing on the small kitchen counter.
She had heard the jingle earlier when he tossed the keys on the bedroom floor.
She turned and he charged at her, his face set in fury, his eyes red slits.
She grabbed a lamp from a side table and swung hard. It nailed him on the shoulder. He went down, and Velvet raised the lamp to smash it on his head.
He seized her legs, trying to topple her, and she slammed the lamp’s base against his neck, then against the back of his head.
Don’t let him get you down. He wins if he gets you on the floor.
Teeth closed around her ankle, biting hard and deep, down to the bone.
She screamed and fell to the floor, kicking him. His teeth tore the flesh of her ankle.
She grabbed the fallen can of disinfectant and fogged him again, trying to loop the lamp’s cord around his throat. He sobbed and lashed out with a punch that caught her hard in the windpipe. She gagged, gasping for breath. He swung the lamp hard, connecting against her skull, the lamp breaking, and she went down, eyeballs rolling up. Her final thought was, Not like this, no.
The Blade stood, then sank down again. His eyes burned like the bitch had poked hot matches into the irises. He crawled to the sink and splashed water repeatedly into his aching eyes. She hadn’t gotten him so good with the last cloudy burst of disinfectant, but the first had been unadulterated hell, toxic waste hitting his eye tissue.
She might have blinded him. Maybe even caused permanent damage.
He puked into the sink. He rinsed his eyes for what felt like an eternity. The pain subsided down to a dull roar, enough to where he could read the instructions on the disinfectant. Call a physician. Not an option right now. God, he would make this bitch pay. He went back to the rinsing.
Thirty minutes later, his hands still shaking, he could see well enough to relock the dead bolts and to drag her back to the room. Her left ankle was a meaty mess and she wheezed, but she was still unconscious.
This is what being nice brought, he thought. But none of the others had fought him so hard, and when the pain faded, that fire of hers would make punishing and crushing her sweeter than killing Mama. Oh, the fun. He hardened at the images, even with the pain in his eyes and his head. He’d hold her eyes open and spray till the can was empty. He put on his knife sheath so she could see what waited for her after their chemical games.
He choked down a half-dozen aspirin and slung Velvet over his shoulder. He tossed her onto the bed and started to retie her to the posts.
A knock pounded on the front door.
39
‘You’re in a bad situation,’ Whit said softly.
Kathy Breaux sat in one corner of Corey Hubble’s room, watching Whit. Her soap-roughened hands lay in her lap, fingers laced together. Her fingernails were short and bitten, and she smelled of the antiseptic that wafted through the home like souring perfume. Hair dyed a slightly too-bright red, a starved look about her face and hips. Gooch had left them alone, to go perform an important errand at Whit’s request.
Kathy said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
There’s several different ways this can play out,’ Whit said. ‘Pretty much all of them involve me calling the police. And me calling the FBI. What happens between now and then will make a big difference.’
‘Look, I just work here, okay? I just do what I’m told.’ She kept her voice hushed, accustomed to talking around the napping old. She glanced at Corey, propped up in the bed, eyes shut, breathing slowly, abandoned to a world of his own.
‘Just following orders? That didn’t work at Nuremberg, why do you think it’s gonna work here?’
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘I want to know how this man got here.’
Kathy swallowed. ‘John’s been here at least five years. I don’t know much about what happened to him.’
‘John?’
‘John Taylor.’
‘I think his name’s Corey Hubble.’
‘I said I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I want to see his files. Go get them and bring them back here.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘I can either tell these folks you attempted to extort money from Pete to reveal his brother’s whereabouts, or I can tell them you discovered this man’s real identity and sought to help his brother find him. Your choice.’
Kathy Breaux stood and said, ‘I’ll be right back, then.’ She hurried out the door.
Whit got up and went to Corey’s bedside. He took Corey’s hand; it was limp and bony and pale. Someone had created a new identity for him. Someone had financed his care all these years. That narrowed the suspects considerably. He had trouble visualizing Junior filling out insurance forms for a guy he turned into a vegetable.
It had to be the Hubbles. He tried not to think of Faith’s face on the pillow next to him, smiling, tracing his lip with her fingernail.
‘Hey, Corey,’ Whit said quietly. Corey gave no answer. A thin dribble of drool collected in the chapped corner of his mouth, and Whit wiped it away.
‘I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me what got you here,’ Whit said.
Corey kept his silence. The vicious trench of scar on his head looked like a bullet wound, long healed. Corey had been shot. The bullet must have obliterated his mind but not his functions, trapping him in this limbo.
If someone had tried to kill him, why keep him alive? Attempted homicide made no sense. It must have been an accident. But then why the secrecy? Because the accident and its circumstances, if revealed, must threaten someone powerful.
He searched Corey’s room: neatly folded sweats from Wal-Mart, white tube socks, vanilla-scented hand lotion, an uncracked Bible. In the back of the closet lay a plastic bag of new sweats, also bought at Wal-Mart, a sales slip still inside. Paid with cash, but bought twelve days ago. He figured that was a Monday, an exact week before Pete’s death.
He had no idea about Lucinda’s schedule, but it would be easy enough to find out if she was out campaigning and where she was. Or where Faith was. He pocketed the receipt from the clothes bag, careful not to get his own prints on it.
So what did he owe Faith? A consideration phone call? Honey, I’m about to reveal to the press that your long-missing brother-in-law isn’t so missing anymore. You want to tell me what you know before I call the cops?