She crossed the dogs off her mental checklist and thought about the next step. The easy part was done. Now she had to do a couple of things out in the warehouse, go back inside, and get Elijah. If she remained calm, followed her plan, she would be outside the warehouse within ten minutes or so. That, or she would be a four-letter word for “no longer among the living.”
53
Winter Massey sped to the clinic, darted from the truck, swung open the pole gate, and parked his truck on the lot. Still wearing the camo coat, he sprinted down the steps, crossed the bridge over the creek, unlocked the front door, and hurried to disarm the alarm system. He ran back to the lockup ward, opened the door, and flipped the light on in Click’s cell right before unlocking and jerking it open.
Click was wedged in a corner, frozen, his blank eyes as wide open as his mouth.
He looked up at Winter and started crying. “I’m soooo sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you. I’ll take you to find them. .”
“Tell me where they are,” Winter said, kneeling beside the sobbing boy.
Click put his hands on Winter’s forearms and squeezed. “And you’ll. . you’ll let me go? You. . prom. . prom. . ise?”
“Tell me where Lucy and her son are, and I will take you out of here. Show me where they are. As soon as I have them, you’re as free as a bird. Word of honor.”
Winter lifted Click to his feet. He felt a sharp pang of remorse when he realized that the kid had urinated on himself. Winter led him out of the padded room and down the long hallway. They stopped at the counter just long enough for Click to blow his nose and tell Winter how to find the land in South Carolina where the Dockerys were almost certainly being held. Winter gave Click a sheet of clear plastic from the floor to keep him dry on their walk to the truck. Turning off the lights, he set the alarm, after which, he led Click though the door, closed and locked it. Reflexively, Winter checked out the route up the slope, holding Click by his left arm to support him and to make sure he didn’t try anything. The kid might have lied to Winter about the location, figuring it would be a while before his deception was discovered. Click was extremely intelligent and crooked as a sow’s tail.
“So, tell me the truth, are you a cop?” Click asked him as they walked.
“I used to be.”
“Ever really killed anybody?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll really let me go?”
“As soon as I know for sure you’ve told me the truth.”
Winter opened the truck door and let Click climb in, crossing the console and buckling his belt before he followed him in. He cranked the truck and started out.
“They’ll kill me if they find out it was me,” Click said. “Kin or not. I’m breaking the code.”
“I won’t tell them,” Winter said.
“How many people you taking in there?”
“Just me.”
“In that case, if they don’t kill you outright, you’ll tell them I did.”
“You can tell them you knew they’d kill me so you tricked me into coming to them.”
Click was silent a moment. Then he said, “You said I could go free.”
“You will. But while I’m getting the Dockerys, you’re going to be cuffed to my steering wheel.”
Click looked down at the floor. Winter raced down the winding driveway.
“So, knowing that,” he told the kid, “you maybe want to make any amendments to the directions you just gave me?”
Winter came around the final bend and saw that the heavy yellow pole was back in place. His gut twisted because he’d intentionally left it standing open.
“Duck!” he yelled, flooring the accelerator. He cut the wheel at the last second, aiming at the boxwoods between the security pole’s upright steel post and the sign kiosk. He saw a head rise above the shrubs, and he ducked lower just as the automatic weapons opened up. He felt the impact as the truck exploded through the shrubbery and caught the shooter behind it, punting the man’s body in a high arc. Winter’s tires bounced as he ran over the assailant’s body. He jerked the wheel and skidded sideways, straightening as the automatic weapons shattered the rear windshield and then the front one.
“Shee-at,” Click said, straightening to peer over his shoulder.
“Down!” Winter yelled. There was a sound like a bottle of cola being dropped. The back tires went flat and what remained of the front windshield was peppered with gore as Click folded at the waist. The truck crested the hill.
They would be coming after them.
He didn’t have to look at the gauges to know the truck was mortally wounded. He smelled the radiator fluid, and it was all he could do to hold the truck in the road with two flat tires that would be sliced off the rims in a matter of seconds. He turned onto a narrow county road, waited until he saw the headlights swing onto the road behind him, then he jammed the accelerator and aimed the truck at the tree line beyond the ditch.
Winter’s truck went into the ditch, came up the other side, and went airborne. Tumbling, it finally stopped on its left side in the muddy field, its headlights illuminating the scraggly trees fifty yards ahead.
54
The pursuing Tahoe came to a stop, and the driver got out to look at the wreck. He spoke into his cell phone. “Massey’s done. Truck’s finished. We’ll just make sure and we’re out of here. Yeah, I know how dangerous he was. You get Blocker out of the street, we can handle this. Meet you back at the place in an hour.”
The passenger climbed out of the Tahoe and walked in front of the headlights, carrying an MP5-SD. The driver came slowly around the SUV holding a tactical shotgun with a high-intensity flashlight mounted under the barrel.
After the killers crossed the ditch and were advancing toward the overturned truck, Winter sat up behind them. He had been lying on his back since jumping out into the mud as the truck left the ground. Silently, he put a pair of.40-caliber rounds into the back of the SUV passenger’s head. As the driver pivoted at the sound of his shots, Winter put one into his right ear and a second into his neck below his jaw. He knew neither man was Randall or Sarnov because he’d seen them in the headlights.
Winter sprinted to the running Tahoe, turned it around, and drove away. He needed to catch Max Randall before he picked up the run-over corpse and left. When Winter got there, Randall was gone. Only a dark circular oil-slick-looking stain showed where the dead man had been. Winter itched to chase Randall down and kill him, but he had more important things to do. He had to find a pay phone.
55
Lucy Dockery went directly from locking the dogs’ door to the gasoline drums lined up against the warehouse wall. She took the pee bucket off her arm and set it down. Taking the nozzle in one hand, she moved the lever up and down to pump gasoline into the bucket. Luckily, the pump mechanism was well greased, so the only sound was the jets of gas shooting into the container. After filling the bucket, she also filled a large-mouth gallon jar almost to the rim with gas. She carried the containers over and set them down beside the porch, where she could get to them after coming out the door with Eli.
A pickax and a pair of shovels leaning against the little porch hadn’t been there earlier or she was sure she would have seen them. Her heart fell when she realized that the twins had probably brought them inside after digging the graves they intended for her and Eli. The pickax sparked an idea that added an additional facet to her plan-one that brought a painful smile to her split lips. This could actually work.