Corey slammed the gears into Reverse. The tires screeched against the wet pavement, found traction, and rocketed backward. The truck’s tailgate crashed into the side of the sedan, knocked the vehicle back.
Corey winced, worried fleetingly about how he’d explain the damage to Otis.
The agents had their guns out. Corey spun the wheel and slammed the gears into Drive, and the pickup leaped forward like a kicked mule. The men fled out of the way.
Standing on the accelerator, he thundered across the parking lot. He clipped a small dogwood, a flurry of blossoms raking across the windshield. He flipped on the wipers.
Gunfire shattered the night.
He cursed and ducked low in the seat, trying to keep the truck on course. Rounds ricocheted off the bumper, and then a tire burst with a boom.
The truck slewed hard to the right. Popping up in the seat, Corey wrestled the wheel.
In the rearview mirror, he saw the agents getting in their car, red taillights flaring.
They wouldn’t have been working alone. They had been dispatched by Falco to keep a stakeout on his office, and would be on the horn with her that second to report the incident. She would loop in local cops, and they would issue an all points bulletin, throw down a net, and reel him in like a hapless fish.
No. To hell with that.
Rubber flapping from the ruined tire, he careened out of the parking lot and onto the street. The truck fishtailed, and he narrowly avoided hitting a Mustang speeding past. The driver honked furiously.
He risked a look behind him, saw the sedan stalled in the parking lot. The collision with the truck might have disabled the vehicle.
But more would be coming soon, and to have any chance of getting away, he had to find a new car.
57
The door Jada discovered in the closet when the piece of wood fell to the floor behind her was a small door, not a big one, but tall enough for her to go through if she crouched or crawled. When she pulled it open, it led to a dark tunnel full of thick, warm, musty air. It was much too dark inside for her to see where it went.
But she guessed: attic.
They had an attic in their house, too. Daddy was the only one who ever went into it, though she had gone with him once. He would pull a ladder out of the ceiling in the hallway outside her bedroom and climb up there to change the what-ever-you-called-it, something that he said kept the air in their house clean. The one time she had gone into the attic with him, a piece of the fluffy pink stuff that covered the wood beams up there got stuck under her collar, and it itched terribly.
But she had never seen an attic like this one. How big was it? How far did it go?
She only wanted to go home. If the attic tunnel could only help her get out of this house, she would be happy with that. Then she could find her parents or get help, and go home.
But as she stared into the passage, she held back, brow furrowed in thought.
What if she got outside the house and didn’t know where she was? What if she got lost in the woods? There was a forest around the house. She knew that for sure from what she’d seen outside the window.
To be prepared for anything that might happen, she needed a phone.
Although she didn’t have her speech processor on, she could still talk and make someone understand her. She could call Daddy.
She remembered yesterday-was it yesterday? — when she and Mom and Daddy had talked about letting her get her own cell phone. She wished they had done that before this happened.
But Giant had a phone.
She had seen it clipped to his belt. She had never seen him talk on it, but he always had it with him, maybe so Mr. Leon could call him and tell him what to do.
She crept to the closet door. She peered out of the doorknob hole.
Past the glowing lantern, she saw Giant’s huge, dusky shape in the shadows on the other side of the room. He sat in the chair, blocking the door.
It had been a while since Mr. Leon had made Giant leave her alone. Giant didn’t appear to be moving.
Was he asleep?
She realized that she was sucking her thumb again. Annoyed, she pulled it out of her mouth and wiped it on the front of her nightgown.
She decided to keep track of how long Giant went without moving. Watching him, she counted silently to herself: one one hundred. . two one hundred. . three one hundred. . four one hundred. . five one hundred. .
By the time she reached fifty one hundred, Giant still hadn’t moved. All she saw was the gentle, rhythmic rising and falling of his broad shoulders.
He had to be sleeping. This was her chance.
She started to open the closet door, but her knees were trembling so bad that she didn’t trust herself to walk. She bowed her head, put her hands together in a steeple, and whispered a prayer.
Dear Lord, please keep me safe, please keep Mom and Daddy safe and help us get home so we can be together again. Okay, God, please? I promise to do anything you want me to do if you bring us home safe. Thank you, God. Amen.
She was never a hundred percent sure God was listening when she prayed, but her knees quit shaking.
She slowly pushed open the door, hoping it didn’t make a squeaky noise. She couldn’t have thought of a better time for her to be able to hear, but she had to do the best she could and try to feel what was going on.
Giant didn’t stir, so perhaps the door was quiet.
She was glad she was wearing her house shoes. She remembered that they never made any noise at all. You’re like a ghost, Pumpkin, Daddy had told her one day, when she came upon him in his office at home and he turned to see her, startled.
That was how she imagined herself. Like a ghost. Floating quietly across the room.
As she drifted closer, she confirmed that Giant was definitely asleep. His eyes were shut, his face slack. A strand of drool hung from his parted lips, and chocolate stains spattered his white T-shirt.
Her nose wrinkled. Jeez, he smelled so bad it gave her a headache.
Giant’s tree-trunk legs were sprawled in front of him, thick arms crossed over his belly. She remembered how he had shown her the girl’s names tattooed on his big stomach, and she felt such a chill that she had to stop thinking about it.
The cell phone was in a holster on the waist of his jeans, right beneath his elbow.
Holding her breath, she tiptoed closer. She reached for the phone. She closed her fingers around it.
Giant stirred.
Arm extended, she froze, breath trapped in her chest.
I’m a ghost, he can’t see me, I’m a ghost, he can’t see me, I’m a ghost. .
Smacking his lips, as if in his dreams he were eating candy bars, he sleepily wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, drool coming away.
His hand dropped from his face and fell across her outstretched arm.
She choked down a scream.
Giant’s fingers were cold and wet with saliva. But his eyes remained shut.
Slowly, she lifted the phone out of the holster, his hand resting against her arm. Very, very slowly, she backed away.
His hand slid away from her and hung loosely at his side. He didn’t wake up.
She let out a slow breath, and retreated to the closet.
She knelt to the attic hatch, but before she crawled inside, she thoroughly scrubbed her skin where Giant had touched her.
58
The blown tire grinding against asphalt, Corey swerved off the wide thoroughfare, with all of its strip malls, car dealerships, traffic lights, and street lamps, and turned onto a darker, quiet residential street. As he rattled down the road, the truck’s back end shimmied, and the steering wheel shuddered in his grip.