“What’s the other reason?” Varney still didn’t see movement out there.
“That’s different,” said Prescott. “That’s for you. Maybe if you got a little time where you would have to stay put and talk to somebody—”
“Psychiatrists?” The anger tightened his throat so his voice came out choked.
“Your own lawyer would call a few in the minute anything about the case looked ominous. It’s your escape hatch if I’m wrong and some real evidence turns up.” He paused. “I really think you’ve had a problem for a long, long time. It must be hard. I’m not interested in killing you, kid. I’ll be satisfied just to make you stop.”
Outrage gripped Varney’s chest, pushing his words out in streams. “You lying bastard. I read about you in the papers. Everybody you ever went after is dead. You’re a fucking snake. Did you tell them all you were going to take them to a nice doctor? Did you get them all to put on handcuffs before you shot them?”
“Neither one,” said Prescott calmly.
“Bullshit!” Varney snapped. “You’re the one who’s afraid. You’re in the same business I am, and you know I’m better than you. I’m going to cut your fucking head off and stick it on a post.”
He heard Prescott sigh. “I guess I’ve said everything I wanted to. If you change your mind, press 1 on your phone. It’s programmed to dial me.” The telephone went dead.
Varney watched the bushes at the edge of the woods more intently, and he saw the movement again. He silently mouthed the words, “I’ve got you.” He was moving before the plan had solidified in his mind. Prescott was out there thinking he had the only advantage that mattered. Varney turned off the cell phone and slipped it into his jacket. As soon as he cleared the doorway he began to run. The upstairs hallway was dark because the doors of bedrooms were closed, but the wooden railing began and he put his gloved hand on it and let the hand slide along it to orient him as he moved forward. The railing made a curve and headed down at an angle into the dark. He took the first stair, lengthened his stride to take three at a time, and his foot stepped onto nothing.
Varney’s body dropped downward, but his right hand tightened in a reflex to stop himself, clutching the railing in a desperate grab. His right arm elongated in a sudden, wrenching tug. His left hand held the pistol, but as his body swung and his chest slammed against the side of the staircase, the hand pawed at the wood to cushion the impact, and his legs swung into the void. He dangled there for a moment, swinging back and forth. He stuck the pistol into his left jacket pocket, and hung by both hands. He looked down.
The staircase had been sawed off just below the first-floor ceiling. The drop to the floor looked to him like fourteen or fifteen feet, but below him the floor was not clear. The stairway lay intact on the floor, as though Prescott had run a chain saw across it where it connected to the upper floor and let it fall. If Varney had not been gripping the railing when he had stepped off, he would be lying across those triangular ridges that used to be steps. He probably wouldn’t be dead, but it would have been impossible not to have broken some bones.
Varney took a second to move through a series of thoughts. Prescott was out in those bushes, but Varney had seen them shake, so he might have been preparing to move on. If he was heading inside, then it was to catch Varney hanging here by both hands. If he wasn’t coming in, then Varney had to get out in time to see where he was going. Varney could pull himself up and go tie bedsheets together to lower himself down, but that would take time. If he dropped from here, the only place he could land was the jagged stairway.
He hung by his left arm, pulled his belt off with his right, slipped it around the base of the corner post of the railing, and threaded it through the buckle. He lowered himself to the end of the belt, where he was clear of the ceiling and the upper steps of the staircase, held it with both hands, and bent his legs to start himself swinging. He swung a couple of times, until he judged that his momentum would carry him out over the part of the foyer he could see was clear of obstacles, then let go. The floor seemed to tilt and rush up at him, but he managed to break his fall by hitting on the balls of his feet with his knees bent and translating his forward motion into a roll. He came to rest near a fireplace at the end of the room, rose to his feet, and realized his pistol must have slipped out of his jacket pocket.
He crawled quickly back toward the ruined stairway, felt the familiar shape of the pistol under his hand, and grasped it, already planning. In order to take down the pipe that Varney had left at the window, Prescott had to have been on that side of the house, hiding in the low bushes that separated the house from the stubble fields. Varney moved to the opposite side, and unlatched a window that faced the woods. He tried to lift it, but it was closed too tightly. He looked more closely and let out a breath through his clenched teeth. Prescott had used six-penny nails to secure the windows. He would have to use one of the two doors, and Prescott would probably have booby-trapped one and be making his way through the brush toward the other with a rifle.
Varney moved to the front door and looked out through the peephole, then stepped to the front window. The place where Prescott had been was not visible from here, so there was no clear shot. If Varney moved quickly, maybe he could slip out to the edge of the porch, go over the railing, and hit the ground before Prescott could aim.
He tried the doorknob, unlocked the door, then pulled his knife. He stood to the side of the door and ran the blade along each side, then above the top, then lay on his belly and slid it underneath. He was startled by the voice from above and behind him: “Front . . . door.” He had rolled to the side and was aiming his pistol at the sound with one hand, the knife still in the other, before he realized the voice had not been human. He was aiming at the alarm keypad on the wall. He stepped closer and saw the slits for a small speaker, then knelt and ran his knife under the door again. “Front . . . door.”
The blade had interrupted the contact between the two magnets set into the door and the floor beneath it. He took a deep breath and regained his composure. The door wasn’t booby-trapped, and that was what mattered. He stood, took two more deep breaths, opened the door, slipped out, and closed it, ignoring the muffled electronic voice. In a few seconds he was at the end of the porch, vaulting over the railing to the ground. He lay still for a moment, listening: no metal sounds, no footsteps. He spider-crawled quickly along the side of the house to the back corner, then lay flat and paused to listen again and stare out into the darkness. He let time pass.
Prescott was devious. He had picked this remote, sparsely populated place just so he could convert it into a field of traps and snares for Varney. He’d had to be in a place like this, where he could run a power saw through a staircase and let it crash to the floor, where he could fire a gun through a helpless man’s head and not have to worry about anybody hearing it, or telling him later he had not done it the way the law said he should. The only way ever to be free was to see Prescott first and kill him.
Varney had to read the trap and use it against Prescott. The brush where Prescott was hiding tempted Varney. He stared across the lawn. The shortest way to the low bushes was across the patio at the back of the house. If he could make it across the open space, he could work his way through the brush and come up behind Prescott. The idea was tantalizing. Prescott would think he was still in the house, probably lying on the ruined stairway with a broken back. He had no way of knowing how good Varney was in a field at night. Varney could move more quietly, more quickly than Prescott could. But moving across an open patio to get to the first cover was a risk.