Chloe had thought the idea was worth trying.
Someone would hear it. Someone had to hear it. If they couldn’t start a fire and set off the smoke alarms, this was the next best thing. As thick as the window glass was, the noise would carry down to the street. Even in a place like New York, where the strangest things could happen and people didn’t bat an eye, the sound of a horn blaring from within a brownstone had to turn some heads, didn’t it?
Jeremy was at the door. He tried to open it and slapped it twice with the flat of his hand.
“Nicky,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the noise of the horn, “stop this nonsense. Unlock the door.”
“No,” she shouted.
Jeremy looked at the security guard and pointed to his desk. “Key,” he snapped. “Top drawer.”
But that was when Jeremy noticed several items from that drawer, including the gun, were on the desk. The guard peered into the drawer, then looked at Jeremy and shook his head.
“This is not funny,” Jeremy shouted. “Nicky, Chloe, get out.”
Chloe had been holding the horn down for a full minute now. She was starting to wonder whether this plan was so brilliant after all. If Jeremy could get that door open before any help arrived, well, there was no doubt about it. They’d be fucked.
Jeremy was shouting something else to the guard. He picked up the gun, walked it across the room, and gave it to Jeremy. Then he ran back to the desk, opened a lower drawer, and started dropping into his hand what appeared to be bullets.
“Oh, shit,” Nicky said.
Jeremy shouted, “Nicky, I’ll shoot this door open if I have to!”
“Fuck you!” she yelled.
“You don’t leave me much choice!” There was a brief pause, and then: “Chloe! Chloe! It’s you I want to talk to!”
Chloe let up pressure on the horn. “What?”
“You know, don’t you? You know what you are to me.”
Chloe said nothing, but she felt her insides turning, as though a virus had entered her system.
She’d been thinking this from the moment she’d left Jeremy’s office. That it had to be him. But she hadn’t wanted to verbalize the question. Didn’t want to ask him, didn’t want to ask Roberta.
Didn’t want to know.
“You knew when I put my hand on your head,” Jeremy said. “I think... I think that you’re the one. Of all of them, you’re the one with potential. You’re the only worthy one.”
“Nicky,” Chloe whispered. “Give me the key.”
“Why?” Nicky whispered back. “You don’t need it for the horn.”
“Chloe,” Jeremy said, “if you’re willing to put this behind us, we can have a future together. We can. You’re my daugh—”
“Don’t say it!” Chloe screamed.
“But’s it’s the truth. Now that we’ve met, that I’ve touched you, it’s different.”
“The key,” Chloe whispered to Nicky.
Nicky tossed the key to Chloe, who snatched it out of the air. She inserted it into the ignition. Nicky had told her the RV had only been installed recently.
Maybe, just maybe, there was still a trace of gas in it. Maybe in the fuel line, if not the tank. If she could start it, she could run it straight into the window. Send a shitload of glass raining down onto the sidewalk.
That would get some attention.
The guard dropped the bullets into Jeremy’s hand and he began to load them.
“Chloe, one day, everything I have would be yours. I’d see to it.”
All these rich dudes, wanting to give me their money.
Chloe, through gritted teeth, whispered, “Burn in fuckin’ hell.”
She turned the key.
The engine rumbled to life.
Jeremy screamed: “NO!”
He ran around to the front of the Winnebago, standing between them and the floor-to-ceiling window. He pointed the gun at the windshield.
Chloe put her foot on the brake, and shifted the Winnebago into Drive.
She thought back to that trip she’d done with her mom. She’d driven a rig like this before. How hard could it be, once you ignored the part about there being no road, and that they were on the third floor of a building.
She took her foot off the brake and hit the gas. Chloe figured Jeremy would leap out of the way, but he held his position for a second longer than she thought he would.
Could she really run someone down?
Could she run her father down?
Instinctively, she cranked the wheel, the tires squeaking on the floor as they did a dry turn. Jeremy vanished from her field of vision, having jumped at the last second. The vehicle was now pointed at the doors, and the broad hallway beyond.
Chloe held her foot over the gas.
Nicky said, “What are you doing?”
“You might want to buckle up,” said Chloe, who had seconds earlier fastened her own seat belt.
Nicky jumped into the passenger seat, grabbed the seat belt, and clicked it into place. Jeremy was running alongside the Winnebago now, banging on the sheet metal below Chloe’s side window.
“Stop!”
Chloe punched it.
The RV shot across the office. It burst through the double doors, ripping them off their hinges. Behind them, a shot rang out. The Winnebago’s rear window shattered.
The vehicle had minimal clearance as it went down the hall. Barely two inches on each side, and that did not take into account the oversized mirrors mounted left and right. They were immediately buckled back toward the vehicle, scraping the street-side window, and on the other side, stripping the framed photos from their hooks. The pictures hit the floor, glass shattering everywhere.
But the RV kept on plowing through.
Heading for the stairs. Almost on them now.
Nicky was too terrified to scream.
“Are the stairs wide enough?” Chloe shouted above the clatter. Nicky did not respond. Chloe thought, I guess we’re going to find out.
The front wheels dropped over the top step. From the two seats up front, it felt like going over the edge of a cliff.
Nicky’s eyes were wide, her mouth open. She spoke:
“No no no no no!”
Chloe took her foot off the gas and feathered the brake. Gravity would be doing most of the work here.
KATHUMP KATHUMP KATHUMP.
The rear tires were now on the steps, the rig fully committed to its downward, forty-five-degree plunge. Chloe believed she’d heard another shot — Jeremy was evidently in pursuit — but it was hard to tell, what with the noise of the engine, people screaming, the RV crashing into walls and banisters.
The RV was half a dozen steps from the landing. Chloe was going to have to execute a left, followed by another left to get her on the second descending flight.
She turned the wheel, putting her shoulders into it.
The front left fender of the Winnebago ripped out the railing, the tire an inch from going over the edge of the stairs and dropping into the open atrium. If that happened, if the wheels lost purchase, their ride would be over.
The vehicle made the turn, the right side scraping the wall of the landing area. Chloe kept turning left, fighting the obstacles in her path, holding the wheel firm.
She made it to the flight of stairs that led to the first floor.
KATHUMP KATHUMP KATHUMP.
The security guard had somehow gotten ahead of the vehicle. He must have fled the third floor before Chloe turned down the hallway, and was now trying to avoid being run over. Ahead of the security guard was a frazzled-looking Roberta, limping as she descended the stairs on her towering heels.