Please God, her faith would be justified. Yet I had no surety of success. Even if I were able to find a weapon—that scythe in one corner? the ax handle without a head?—there was no guarantee I could wield an awkward tool quickly enough to forestall a gunshot.
I glanced toward the stairs. A push? I felt a bone-deep chill. I could defend, yes. I could protect, yes. But could I be the instrument of injury or worse?
The loft was cold, cold with my foreboding, cold with the chill of a late October night, cold with the emptiness of an abandoned building. The loft was a repository for discarded household goods.
Cotton wadding poked from holes dug by mice or rats in an old sofa and a stained mattress. A refrigerator door lay next to a rusted plow.
The ax handle leaned against a worn saddle. Thick dust covered everything.
Anita gave an abrupt nod. “Come here, kid.” Bayroo reluctantly took one step, another, came nearer, the handcuff links clinking.
Anita gestured at the mattress. “Sit down.” Bayroo’s face wrinkled in distaste. “It’s dirty.” Anita gave her an odd look. “Dirt won’t hurt you.” Bayroo glanced toward me.
I nodded, made a tamping-down gesture, hands outstretched, palms down.
Obediently, Bayroo sank down. She sat with her knees hunched to her chin, her body drawn tight.
Anita moved fast. She dragged the refrigerator door to the mattress, knelt next to Bayroo. In an instant she loosed the handcuff from Bayroo’s right wrist, snapped it in place around the door handle.
She pushed up from the floor, strode to the table, reached for the flashlight.
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As she started for the stairs, Bayroo cried out, “Please, don’t leave me in the dark.” Her young voice quavered.
I stood at the top of the stairs. Slanting steps plunged into gloom.
Anita came even with me; her face looked old and empty. She hesitated for an instant, hunched her shoulders, started down.
I raised my hand. If I caught Anita in the middle of her back, pushed with all my might, she would tumble head over heels.
My hand slowly fell.
The light went with her, fading as she thudded down the wooden steps, her hurrying feet pounding. The golden glow diminished, less and less, and then was gone. Blackness, thick and heavy, enveloped us, pressing down with the weight of the unseen.
“Auntie Grand!” Bayroo’s thin voice rose in a wail. .
I whirled, went to Bayroo, wrapped her in my arms. She sobbed, hiccuping for breath, her body shaking in uncontrollable spasms.
“. . . hate the dark . . . always hated the dark . . . mean things . . . awful things in the dark . . . Oh, Mom, I want my mom.”
“Hush, dear child.” I pressed my cheek against her sweet-scented hair, held her tight. “We’ll find a way. She’s gone now. I’ll open the loft window and it won’t seem so dark.” I loosed my hold, started to get up.
Immediately her fingers closed tightly on my wrist. “Don’t leave me.”
I squeezed her shoulders. “We’re fine.” I kept my voice easy. “I’ll get us out of here.”
“What did I do wrong?” Bayroo cried harder. “I just hid so I could watch for Travis.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I held her tight. “Not a single thing. It’s Mr. Murdoch’s murder. You see, she shot him and she’d hidden the police car there.”
Bayroo gasped. She sat up straight, her breaths coming quickly.
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“Anger. ‘Anger is a weed; hate is the tree.’ ” The words came readily. I’d learned that and much more in a recent class I’d taken with Saint Augustine. “She was angry for things he’d done and she let anger take over her life.” There would be, please God, time and enough to try to explain to Bayroo the noxious growths that can squeeze out love and forgiveness and grace from our lives.
“Now she’s mad at me?” Bayroo’s voice was small, but no longer shaken by sobs.
“Not you.” Not at a child, a pretty girl who baked a special cake for her new friend, a beloved daughter, a friend. “At what’s gone wrong in her life.” At the loss of choice and hope and a future.
Bayroo moved uneasily. “What is she going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Had murder been in Anita’s heart when she enticed Bayroo away? I feared so. She had come close, desperately close, when the gun was aimed at Bayroo. What would she do now? Her only chance was to make a run for it, perhaps drive to Dallas, lose herself in that sprawling city. For now, she’d left Bayroo alone.
I needed to make haste, find a way for Bayroo to escape. ”You can help me figure out how to get you out of here.”
“Out?” She moved and the links of the handcuff clinked. “I’m fastened here.” Her voice wobbled.
I spoke easily. “Let’s get a little moonlight. That will help. I’m going to move that chest away from the loft window, open the shutter. I’ll be right back.” I gave her a reassuring pat. Her body stiffened, but she made no complaint.
I pulled the drawers from the chest, placed them to one side. I gripped the sides of the chest, edged it away from the shutter. The bottom scraped against the floor. I paused to listen. Would Anita hear the noise, return to discover the source? Or did she feel confident that Bayroo was stuck and noise didn’t matter? No sound came from the stairs. In a moment I’d shoved the chest to one side.
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wedged something to keep it in place or if an old hinge had jammed.
I pulled and struggled and finally, with a desperate yank, the shutter splintered and gave way. I tumbled backward.
Moonlight splashed into the loft. Night air swept inside, cool swift air threaded with wisps of smoke.
“I smell smoke.” Bayroo’s voice was puzzled.
I smelled smoke, too, thicker and stronger. Now that it was silent in the loft, the scrapes and bangs and screeches ended, I heard a faint crackling sound, the insidious rustle as flame devoured desiccated wood. Now a rustle, the fire would soon be a roar.
“Auntie Grand!” Bayroo yanked her arm. The bracelet rattled against the handle. “I can’t get loose.” In the spill of moonlight, she was a small, dark shape jerking frantically.
In a sudden, frightening rush, hot, oily smoke clouded the loft, obscuring the moonlight, turning our world dark again with no glimmer of light from the loft window. Bayroo began to cough. “Auntie Grand, look at that funny glow.”
Orange-tinted smoke swirled into the loft, rising from the barn floor. Flames could not be far behind.
“Auntie Grand, did she set fire to the barn?” Bayroo’s voice was stricken.
“Yes.” Away from Bayroo’s young face, Anita Leland had made a fatal decision.
Bayroo choked and sputtered, words coming in short gasps. “. . .
stuck . . . can’t move that door . . . chest hurts . . .”
“I’m coming.” I pictured the ax shaft and I was beside it, my grasping hand tight on its splintery handle. Bayroo was not far away.
I dropped down beside her.
Thin arms reached out, clung to me. Bayroo breathed in quick, desperate gasps. Acrid fumes clogged our throats.
“I’m here.” I wedged the shaft into the space between the handle and door, used the ax handle as a fulcrum, and applied my weight.
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I pushed and pushed and pushed. Abruptly the refrigerator door handle snapped. The ax shaft went flying and I fell in a heap, but I was laughing and crying and hugging Bayroo. “The window,” I shouted. “We’ve got to get to the window.” Bayroo wobbled to her feet. I clutched her arm and we blindly moved forward. How far? Ten feet, perhaps twelve. Blessedly, the smoke thinned in time for me to see the opening. Bayroo hung her head out, drawing in deep breaths. The rush and hiss of flames crackled ominously.