“I think you should leave.” He frowned. “Now.”
“I haven’t made my phone call.”
“I don’t care. I would like you to leave now.”
My mind spun.
“I need to pee.” And I dashed into the bathroom before he could object.
I’d backed myself into a corner. But that didn’t matter anymore. The man Sicko wanted us to kill was a judge familiar with the name Danny Hansen.
I was a tight bundle of nerves as I closed the door of the small half bath. Normally I would have lingered on thoughts about the cleanliness of that room—the sink, the toilet, the mirror, the toilet, the floor, the toilet—but all I could think as I flipped on the switch and stared at the image of skinny me in the mirror was that I was in the house of a judge who knew something about Danny. I had to know what and why and how, and I wouldn’t leave until I did.
What was his connection to Danny?
What involvement did he have with Randell?
What were his ties to Sicko?
Why did Sicko want us to kill him?
Why had he gone stiff when I mentioned Danny’s name?
How could he help me save Danny?
I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and pressed the favorites button with a shaking thumb. I thought to turn on the water in case the judge was listening. I had to get Keith in before the judge forced me out. Getting back inside the house would be difficult if not impossible.
I pressed Keith’s name and lifted the phone to my ear. Pick up! Pick up, pick up, pick up!
He did, on the second ring. “Renee? What’s happening?”
It occurred to me that my voice might carry beyond the door. The running water wasn’t loud enough to cover it. If the judge heard me he’d know I wasn’t talking to myself. That my phone wasn’t dead. And any judge with security scanners would also have a gun.
Fear came over me then, as I looked at the brass water faucet, then at the closed door. Then the faucet again.
“Renee? Are you there?”
I shoved the toilet’s flush lever down. The toilet roared and I quickly whispered into the phone.
“Now! Hurry!”
“Renee? Are you there?”
He couldn’t hear me over the flushing toilet!
The sound of the door squeaking behind me sent panic through my bones and I started to turn, but in that moment of raw alarm I remembered that I had the phone to my ear. So I dropped it.
It plopped into the toilet and rattled around the whirlpool of flushing water.
I spun around as the door swung wide.
The judge stood in the opening, goatee jutting from his sharp chin, staring at me, arms down at his sides. There was a gun in his right hand.
But he didn’t lift his gun or threaten me with a scowl or scream at me. He was too resolute for that. He spoke in a calm voice that I could take as nothing less than a direct order.
“Leave this house,” he said.
I couldn’t. I had to stall him.
“My phone fell out of my pocket,” I said. “It’s in the toilet.”
“Leave it!”
“It’s my phone. I can’t just leave it.” Hurry, Keith! He would be running, maybe coming up to the door already. I had to let him know the judge was armed.
“Why are you holding a gun?” I said, loud enough for my voice to ring in the small bathroom. “You invite a girl into your house to use the bathroom and then you pull a gun on her? Are you going to rape me?”
The judge lifted his arm and pointed his gun at me. “Get out of my house. Now!”
I lifted both hands shoulder high. “Okay. Okay, calm down. Just let me get my phone…” I began to reach for the toilet bowl.
“Leave it.”
Something snapped in my mind with those words. When he said leave it, all I heard was leave Danny, and that was sickening. I wasn’t going to leave without this man’s information or one of his bullets in my head.
“I’m not leaving my phone!” I snapped.
“I said leave it! Get out!” A vein stuck out on his temple where his sideburns were graying.
“You’re going to murder me because of a phone?” We stared each other down. “Just let me get my phone and I promise I’ll leave. I’ll find some other house without a maniac and call my husband there.”
“You weren’t going to call your husband! He’s in prison!”
“He’s not the one I was going to call. I don’t know if I’m coming or going here because your gun is pointed at my head. I’m getting my phone.” I lowered my hands. “Shoot me in the back if you want. Judge kills skinny girl who dropped her phone in his toilet. That’ll go over big.”
“Lower the weapon!” Keith’s voice rang through the hallway, and the judge twisted his head to his right.
Keith stepped into view and held his gun to the man’s head. “Put it down. Now.”
The judge slowly lowered his arm. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of this,” I said, stepping forward and jerking his gun from his hand, “is that we’re smarter than you. And if you don’t get smarter really quickly, we’re all going to die.”
23
THE SOUNDS OF shuffling feet and grunting nudged Danny from his dream. But that couldn’t be true; he was still in a drugged fog. It had to be the slap on his face. But that couldn’t be true either. Renee wouldn’t slap him. Neither would the boy. Neither would Godfrey.
The ghosts were groaning in the night. Renee was nowhere now. Vanished. Had someone slapped him?
His eyes slowly opened, and for a moment he stared at the ceiling three feet above him, the surface a dingy gray in the dim light. The sound of his own breathing reminded him that he was still alive. One of Randell’s blows had bruised his ribs.
Why so quiet, Danny?
Cool air drifted over his body. He’d fallen asleep in his blue slacks, shirtless.
Danny closed his eyes and began to drift again. The fog settled and he turned his mind back to the vision of Renee. She was all that mattered now. Through his sacrifice, she had life. Because of him, she was free. If he lost her now, there would be no more reason to live.
Why so still, Danny?
It was a good question, spoken from the fog of his mind. So he opened his heavy eyes and thought about it.
Why so quiet? Prisoners had no privacy. The snores and coughs and grunts of other inmates were never-ending in the dead of night. But now the commons wing was perfectly silent.
He blinked. Why?
Danny listened, heart now throbbing with thickened blood. Not a sound beyond his own breathing. Maybe his ears weren’t working properly because of the drug the warden had given him. Maybe he’d slept through the night and the others were gone to the yard.
Maybe something was wrong.
He pushed himself up onto one elbow and tried to clear his head. It was still night. The clock through the bars on the hall’s far side read ten past midnight. But the wing was lit beyond his cell, not dark as it normally would be after lockdown.
His head felt like a steel ball as he turned it and glanced around the room. Gray. Undisturbed.
“Simon?”
The name chased emptiness around the room. Propped up on his elbow, Danny gripped the thin mattress with both hands and leaned over the edge.
The still form in the lower bunk took shape in the darkness. Its eyes were not closed. It was not sleeping. It was not clothed. It was not breathing. It was not Godfrey.
It was not alive.
Danny reacted without thinking, hurling himself off the top bunk. If not for the drugs, he would have landed on his feet. Instead he hit the concrete floor with his hip and left shoulder. Pain spiked his bones and jerked him to full awareness. He rolled to his left, slammed into the lockers with a loud clatter, and sprang to a crouch, eyes locked on the bed.