They paused.
"Maybe if he puts his arms around our necks," Amanda murmured. "If he helps to lift, we can support him with our arms around his back and our other hands under his thighs."
They tried it, raising Vinnie's hips so that he was now in a kind of chair formed by their hands, his knees bent painfully. Inching ahead, they reached the trapdoor in the dining room and set Vinnie down.
Balenger aimed as Amanda unlocked and opened the hatch. His goggles detected only a green-tinted stairwell. The only sound was the rain outside.
He studied the opening. It wasn't large enough for two people, so he descended the stairs until his head was below the trapdoor. Amanda went to Vinnie's shoulders and pushed him legs-first toward the opening. The pain made Vinnie hiss, but otherwise he had the resolve to keep silent. Balenger gripped Vinnie's belt and pulled him into the staircase, trying to be gentle, aware of what Vinnie suffered.
The stench of scorched flesh made him gag. He set Vinnie's hips on the steps and waited for Amanda to enter the stairwell. Then he turned his back to Vinnie and felt Amanda place Vinnie's arms around his neck. Clutching them, Balenger stood and bent forward so that Vinnie's torso was over his back, the injured legs dangling behind him.
About to descend, Balenger suddenly thought, No, we're doing this wrong. "Squeeze past me," he whispered to Amanda. His voice was almost inaudible, but it made him cringe, as if he were shouting. "Wave the hammer in front of you. Check for wire."
Her goggles hiding whatever apprehension was in her eyes, she took the hammer from his belt and edged past him. Vinnie tensed from the pain. As they moved in a downward circle, Balenger became aware of their hoarse breathing. Too loud. Ronnie'll hear us. His stomach hardened. He had to balance himself carefully, lest Vinnie's weight topple him forward.
Ahead, Amanda stopped. They were almost at a corridor on the sixth level, and Balenger stared down past her shoulder. Her hammer tapped on something.
Razor wire.
Balenger saw it tremble.
He leaned back and set Vinnie on the stairs, momentarily grateful to be free of the weight. "Lie on your back," he whispered to Amanda. "Squirm under it. Then I'll slide Vinnie down the steps."
Without hesitation, she proceeded, then turned, and this time did hesitate when she understood that she'd be reaching for Vinnie's charred legs. But the hesitation lasted only for an instant. Readying herself, she waited as Balenger eased Vinnie under the wire.
But Vinnie's body thumped on the stairs. To Balenger, it seemed that the excruciating sound came from a loudspeaker.
He shoved his hands under Vinnie to cushion the impact. Vinnie couldn't see the obstacle and didn't know why it was necessary to slide him. But Balenger gave him credit. Vinnie didn't resist. He followed orders.
Then Vinnie was through, and it was Balenger's turn to go under the wire. Seconds later, he rose beyond it, put Vinnie's arms around his neck, and stooped forward once more with Vinnie's weight on his back.
Amanda continued downward, using the hammer to check for more wire.
Suddenly, the stairs wavered. Bolts popped from the wall, the staircase pulling loose from its moorings. Balenger swayed. As the bolts clanged onto the lower stairs, he grabbed the unsteady railing. The stairs were a huge bobbing coil anchored at the top but not at the sides, banging against the walls.
Vinnie's legs hit the railing. He screamed. Amplified by the stairwell, the noise seemed to fill the hotel. Ronnie couldn't fail to hear it. Balenger pulled the crowbar from his belt, turned, and swung toward the razor wire. He hit it with all his strength, the wire so taut that it snapped from the impact.
"Upstairs!" he shouted to Amanda. "Now!" Pellets blasted through the wall. More bolts popped, the staircase wobbling. Sweat dripping from his face, Balenger groped for the trapdoor's opening. Grateful to touch something that was solidly anchored, he scurried up and yanked Vinnie through, trying to ignore his screams. He stopped in the kitchen, hoping for safety against the outside wall. The trapdoor banged shut, and Amanda was suddenly next to him.
57
"We'll try another stairwell," Amanda said, hoping.
"Hardly any left."
Amanda sank wearily, her hips on the floor, her back against the wall. "He has a good chance of finding us."
Balenger slid down next to her, sounding as exhausted as she did. "Probably has traps in them."
"Yes," Amanda said. "Probably." She looked down at Vinnie, whose pain had caused him to pass out. "Any other ideas?"
"Not at the moment."
"Me, neither."
In the surveillance room, smoke drifted past the wet towels that sealed the edges of the trapdoor.
"But there must be something," Amanda said. "I won't give up."
Yes, just like Diane, Balenger thought. "That's right. We won't give up."
Static from the walkie-talkie.
"Still alive?" the voice asked.
Balenger pressed the transmit button and squeezed his elbow against his holstered pistol, trying to draw reassurance from it. "Waiting for you."
"Waiting for the fire," the voice said.
Waiting will get us killed, Balenger thought. We need to do something. We're not going to let ourselves die here. He was conscious of the rain lashing against the metal shutter above him.
Something. There's got to be something.
Amanda stared up toward the shutter. With a chill of hope, Balenger realized the thought that came to her. Slowly, they stood and examined the shutter. Like the others in the hotel, it had rollers that rested on a horizontal bar above the window. In theory, a sideways sliding motion was the only thing necessary to open it. At the bottom, a lock secured it.
But unlike the shutters downstairs, the rollers on this one were rust-free. As with everything else in the penthouse, Ronnie kept the shutters scrupulously clean.
Balenger shoved the end of the crowbar under the lock. He started to apply leverage, then worried that Ronnie might hear.
"I'll distract him," he whispered to Amanda, putting her hands on the crowbar.
He eased into the dining room and pressed the transmit button on the walkie-talkie. "Walter Harrigan. Ronald Whitaker. Ronnie. Did your mother call you 'Ronnie'? Is that why you want your girlfriends to call you that? So they'll be like your mother?"
"You're guaranteeing more pain for yourself."
Balenger looked into the kitchen, where Amanda tugged furiously at the crowbar.
"Walter Harrigan. You're Ronald Whitaker, and yet you're… Of course." Balenger felt a thrill of understanding. "When you left the juvenile facility, did you change your name? Is that what happened? With a new name, you wouldn't be stalked by your past. No one would connect you with that Fourth of July. No one would know you killed your father. No one would know he abused you."
Balenger watched Amanda. The lock's plate seemed about to separate from the wall.
"Was that it, Ronnie? Was it Carlisle's idea to change your name? Was that another way he helped you?"
"Oh, he helped, all right," the voice said. "He couldn't stop helping."
"Or making excuses? Even when he suspected what you were doing, he still made excuses for you, didn't he? He didn't really believe what you were capable of. Why would-"
Amanda strained against the crowbar. As the lock's plate pulled from the wall, Balenger returned to the kitchen and grabbed the plate before it could strike the floor.
"Why would he make excuses for you, Ronnie?" Balenger felt sick as the answer occurred to him. "He watched through the wall. He saw your father… He saw the pervert your father took money from come in and… After a lifetime of watching, Carlisle finally got disgusted with being a watcher. He could have done something to stop it, but… He was a god who observed without intervening in this hell he created. But when he saw you bash in your father's brains, he finally felt more than curiosity. Maybe because he was alone so much as a child, he identified with you. He felt guilty. He wished he could have stopped what happened. The only thing left was to try to make amends. He spoiled you, and then one night, he discovered the consequences."