Chapter 43
When Dana Phelps saw the flames, she hurried down the awful path she had taken too many times before.
Where, she wondered, would be the last place he would look for her?
Back with the boxes.
It was odd about what we consider luck, fate, timing. Her husband, Jason, had grown up in Pittsburgh and was an avid Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins fan. He loved cheering his teams, but he understood better than most how random the whole world was. If there had been full replay rules with HD cameras back in the seventies, many believed that we would see the ball hit the ground before Franco Harris made the catch on the Immaculate Reception. Did it? If so, would the Steelers have then lost that game and not won four straight Super Bowl titles?
Jason loved asking questions like this. He didn’t care about the big stuff—the work ethic, the schooling, the training. Life, he suspected, hinges too often on chance. We all want to convince ourselves that it is about hard work and education and perseverance, but the truth is, life is much more about the fickle and the random. We don’t want to admit it, but we are controlled by luck, by timing, by fate.
In her case, the luck, the timing, the fate had been blood on Bo’s paws.
Checking the dog for injuries had slowed Reynaldo down just a few seconds, but it was long enough. It was long enough for her to drop the phone and run into the kitchen and realize that he would quickly find her because of her bloody footprints.
So what did she do?
There was no time to consider a bunch of cute plans or alternatives. The idea was there and, if she did say so herself, near genius. She walked straight to the cellar door, opened it and tossed her socks down the stairs.
Then, fully barefoot, she managed to hop-sprint outside. She made it to the woods and ducked down to hide. A few seconds later, Julio appeared.
As soon as the fire started, as soon as the flames began to crawl up the sides of the wooden frame, Dana realized that they were covering their tracks. It was all coming to an end. So she ran down the path, remembering that when she had first arrived, when she was first forced to take off her yellow sundress, she had seen something that troubled her.
Other clothing.
The sun was setting fast. Darkness had already started to settle in when she reached the clearing. There was a small tent where Reynaldo hung out. She quickly looked inside. There was a sleeping bag and a flashlight. No phone. Nothing she could use as a weapon.
Of course, she still had the axe.
She took the flashlight although she didn’t dare turn it on yet. The clearing in front of her was flat. The box where she had been forced to live for . . . again, she had no idea how long . . . was camouflaged. Even she couldn’t remember exactly where it was. She walked over, bent down, and finally found the open padlock. Amazing. Without the padlock, she would have passed right over the door.
A crazy idea darted through her head—get into the box and hide there. Who in their right mind would look for her there? But then again, who in their right mind would ever, even if it meant helping themselves, voluntarily go underground again?
Not her.
This was all beside the point anyway. The house was burning.
Darkness had fallen now. She could barely see. She started to crawl across the grass, still not sure what she should do here. She had gone about ten yards when her hand hit something metallic.
Another padlock.
This one was locked.
It took Dana two blows with the axe to break the lock open. The door was heavier than she would have imagined. She needed all her strength to pull it up off the dirt.
She peered down into the dark hole. There was no sound, no movement.
Behind her the blaze was still burning. No choice now. She had to risk it.
Dana turned on the flashlight. She pointed it down to the box and gasped out loud.
The sobbing woman looked up at her. “Please don’t kill me.”
Dana nearly started to cry. “I’m here to save you, not hurt you. Can you get yourself out?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Dana crawled another ten yards and found yet another padlock. She broke that one open on the first try. The man inside was also weeping and too weak to climb out. She didn’t wait. She moved toward a third box and found the padlock. She broke it, opened the door and didn’t even bother checking inside. She moved to a fourth box.
She had just cracked that lock with her axe when she saw headlights by the farmhouse.
Someone had come up the drive.
• • •
Clem opened the gates. Then he got back behind the wheel.
It wasn’t until they were halfway up the drive that Titus saw the flames.
He smiled. This was a good thing. If he couldn’t see the fire from the road, there was an excellent chance that nobody would notify the fire station. It gave him plenty of time to finish up and clear out.
Reynaldo was up ahead, dragging a body toward the flames.
“What the hell,” Clem said. “Isn’t that Rick?”
Titus calmly put the muzzle of the gun against the back of Clem’s head and fired one shot. Clem slumped forward on the wheel.
This had all begun with Titus and Reynaldo. That was how it would end too.
Brandon cried out in shock. Titus swung the gun back toward the kid’s chest. “Get out of the car.”
Brandon stumbled out. Reynaldo was there to greet him. Titus followed. For a few seconds, the three of them stood there together and watched the flames.
“Is his mother dead?” Titus asked.
“I think so.”
Brandon let out an agonizing, primitive cry. He lunged toward Reynaldo, hands raised. Reynaldo stopped him with a deep punch in the gut. Brandon fell to the ground, gasping for air.
Titus pointed the gun at the boy’s head. To Reynaldo he asked, “Why did you say ‘I think so’?”
“Because I think she was in the basement. Like I said.”
“But?”
Bo’s bark shattered the night air.
Titus grabbed a flashlight and moved it around until he located Bo standing on the right. The old dog was looking down the path to the boxes and barking like mad.
“Maybe,” Titus said, “you were wrong about her being in the basement.”
Reynaldo nodded.
Titus handed him the flashlight. “Start down the path. Have the gun ready. Shoot her as soon as she reveals herself.”
“She could be hiding,” Reynaldo said.
“Not for long she won’t be.”
Brandon yelled, “Mom! Don’t come this way! Run!”
Titus pushed the gun into Brandon’s mouth, silencing him. With as loud a voice as he could muster, he shouted, “Dana? I have your son.” He hesitated before adding, “Come out or he will suffer.”
There was silence.
He called out again. “Okay, Dana. Listen to this.”
Titus pulled the gun out of Brandon’s mouth. He aimed for the boy’s knee and pulled the trigger.
Brandon’s scream shattered the night.
• • •
Kat stayed on the road, making sure not to slow down and give the SUV a bead on her. She was in constant phone contact with the FBI now. She gave them the locale and pulled off the road about a hundred yards up.
“Good work, Detective,” ADIC Keiser told her. “Our people should be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. I want to make sure we have enough men to take them all down.”
“They have Brandon, sir.”
“I know that.”
“I don’t think we should wait.”
“You can’t just barge in. They have hostages. You have to wait for our team, let them get a dialogue going. You know the drill.”
Kat didn’t like it. “With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure there’s time. I would like permission to go in on my own. I won’t engage unless absolutely necessary.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Detective.”
That wasn’t a no.
She hung up the phone before he could say more and put it on silent. Her gun was in its holster. She left the car where it was and started back. She would have to be careful. There could be security cameras at the gate, so she entered from the side and hopped the fence. It was dark now. The woods were thick. She used her iPhone—thank goodness the guy with the Ford Fusion had a built-in charger—as a dim flashlight.