As Night Falls (11 page)

T
he lights in the basement came on when they reentered, bulbs embedded in the ceiling. With just a few of them shining, weird shadows were cast: great wings flung out across the walls. Ivy felt dumb—Darcy would definitely say that she was—because she hadn't thought to wonder why the lights had been on when she and Mac first came down from upstairs.

The man had set them off. He'd been here, following their progress toward the door.

Ivy went on thinking, so hard that it hurt.

Then he'd gone outside to hide in the dark, await her arrival with Mac. Without even getting a chance to zip up his coat first. But if he'd wanted to hurt Ivy, he could've just grabbed her in here. It was like he was trying to prove a point by getting to the cars before they did, demonstrate who was in charge. Which maybe meant that he didn't intend to hurt them.

He hadn't laid a hand on Ivy so far.

She was still shivering, way too underdressed for the temperature, but her heart started to chug a little less violently.

Against a near wall stood the junction box, its door hanging open. Her dad called this his command station, and it did look like something out of a dystopian movie, all blue lights and sheathed wires. Only not right now. The box was half-darkened, and wires poked out stiffly at odd angles, like miniature elephant trunks.

Which, Ivy supposed, explained the Wi-Fi.

She gulped around a clump of something in her throat. She felt as if the controls had died while she was on a chairlift. Here she and Mac and her mom and dad were, dangling in midair, cut off from everyone and everything.

Ivy hunched over, aware of the man's presence behind her as she and Mac walked across the vast space. She pulled her dog close, wanting the feel of his warm flank against her leg.

Her dad's other gun, a rifle, had been taken out of the safe and was lying on the floor. A whole bunch of stuff was arranged there. Ivy took everything in with a confused blur. A rough, thready webbing of rope; then a brighter coil, which her dad used for climbing, along with their carabineers; a roll of silver tape, dirt encrusting its sticky sides; a knotted chain; gleaming metal tools with hooked heads and jagged edges like fangs.

Mac let out a series of high, hysterical yips.

“You're going to lock up that dog,” the man said. He pointed to a room where Ivy's dad kept bottles of wine.

Ivy began to shake her head. “No,” she said. “You don't understand. I can't. He can't—”

“Doesn't matter if I understand,” the guy said, hard and fast.

He looked a lot less attractive now, illuminated by the light inside. His buzz was too short, probably camouflaging gray, and his tat wasn't cool or artistic, just kind of dark and blotchy. He wasn't anybody famous. Who did he look like, then?

“Please,” Ivy said, a totally alien warble in her voice. “Mac's a rescue dog. He was traumatized—we don't know how exactly—but anyway, he wouldn't hurt a bug on the ground.”

Mac rubbed against her, as if corroborating the point.

“Please,” Ivy said again, detesting the strange croak in her voice. “He's not any kind of watch dog.”

“Save your sob story, or your dog's going to die.” The guy twirled the gun so it wound up pointing in Mac's direction. “Do
you
understand?”

Ivy looked down at Mac. She nodded.

“Good,” the man said. “Then do what I said.”

Ivy began walking Mac toward the wine cellar. She turned back once, picturing letting Mac go, the leap he might make for the guy's throat. But more likely was that he wouldn't know how to do it, or be able to even if he did.

The gun stayed aimed at Mac's head. More effective than if it had been pointed at Ivy's.

They reached the little room and Ivy twisted the knob.

Mac stopped walking. He became a lean, pointed dart of pure muscle, unwilling to be budged.

Ivy bent down and wreathed her dog's neck with her arms. “I know, Mackie.” She was crying, stinging pellets on her cheeks. “I know.” She caressed the soft fur on his legs. How much bonier those legs felt since the days when she used to pet them all the time. “But please go, Mac. Please. You'll be safer this way.”

Mac started that high yipping again.

“Mac,” Ivy said, sniffing in a long, rattling chain. “I'll come back for you. I promise—”

When the safety came off, it made a noise like a detonation. Ivy ducked, expecting everything around her to explode.

She turned, and saw the man curl his finger around the trigger.

“Please,” Ivy said in a calm, level tone. She knew Mac wasn't fooled, could smell the fear inside her. But maybe he also scented the sense of her words. “It's just a little while in a nice, quiet room. I'll turn on the light.” Her dad hardly ever used it, just ducked inside to grab the bottle he wanted. Ivy found the switch and flicked it. “And I'll come back. Just like I said.”

She went on, varying the repeated reassurances, stringing them together like beads. She didn't hurry, even though she had no clue what might be going on behind her, where that gun was trained and when the guy might fire it.

The slow drum of her words finally took effect, and Mac began to move. Backing up, he entered the room, holding Ivy's gaze.

“Good boy,” she said in the same voice.

It sounded like the one that came out of her mother's mouth. Ivy listened to its echo and despite everything going on around her, a distant memory came into her head. Two winters ago, her jacket had gotten soaked when she'd gone sledding. Ivy had forgotten to put it in the dryer and when it came time to leave for school the next day, her mother went and found one of her own coats instead of scolding Ivy about
responsibilities
and how could she be so
forgetful
. Ivy had expected the coat to billow, for her arms to be lost in its sleeves, but when she slipped it on, it almost fit. When she got compliments during the day, she'd replied casually, “Thanks, it's my mom's,” and the words had felt natural, too.

At a certain point that connection had been lost, like a dropped call. Lately, the last thing Ivy had wanted was to be like her mom.

Mac turned in a slow circle, then lay down on the floor and wound his tail around him.

He looked at Ivy, and she expected the room to be shook by another volley of yelps, for the wine bottles to shatter from Mac's high weeping, which she knew she had heard even if everyone said that dogs couldn't cry.

But Mac only closed his eyes, and Ivy was able to shut the door.

It had just latched when the man came up from behind and grabbed her around the waist.

He tilted her backward until Ivy's feet left the floor. His arm felt like an iron band.

Ivy wrenched and twisted the top half of her body, one hand clawing at his face.

The man grunted, reaching for Ivy's arms, and succeeding in clamping one of them. But the man had use of only one hand—he was holding on to something with the other—and so Ivy was able to keep her left arm free. She used it like a lever, throwing it upwards and making contact again with the man's face.

He roared at a volume that in any other house would've carried, brought Ivy's parents dashing downstairs to see what was the matter. Tears of sheer, hopeless rage blistered in Ivy's eyes. In any other house, at any other time, her parents would've come running.

She kept pinwheeling her arm around, hitting the man, hitting herself, until the man hurled whatever he'd been holding. It spun through the air, coming to a stop when its snub metal end hit the cement wall. A volcano of dust erupted, then the object dropped. A hammer.

The man had both arms available now, and he used them to try and wrestle Ivy still, but Ivy kept fighting. He almost had her, though. She was no match for those humps of muscle, which ground against her with lethal force. But just at the moment that Ivy was about to wilt in his hold, the man let out an enraged shout, and threw her down onto the concrete floor.

Ivy landed with a
thud
that jarred her, kept her from getting to her feet. All she could manage was her knees, which ached, every part of her now ached, and tears began to fall as she tried to crawl.

She tore a look back over her shoulder—oh, how it hurt her neck to do that; Ivy felt like an eighty-year-old woman—as she lurched forward.

The man reached for her, and now he appeared totally different. No longer a hot older guy; in fact, hardly a man at all. More like one of the boys in Ivy's school when they lost a game, or even one of the kids she babysat for, red hot and tantruming over something they'd smashed.

Ivy began scrambling faster, and the man grabbed her leg, pulling her backward.

She screamed, loud and long.

He dragged her like a sack behind him, headed in the direction of that awful array of items, rifle and rope and tape and tools. Lengths of wood, too; Ivy saw two-by-fours her dad had never gotten around to using. Ivy kept screaming the whole way, until finally the man whipped his body around, maintaining his hold on her leg so that it twisted at a pain-splitting angle. He dropped her just before the bone would've cracked, but Ivy's sudden freedom meant nothing. Her leg throbbed so badly, it might as well have been broken. She couldn't scream anymore; she could hardly even whimper.

The man lunged toward the pile on the floor. Then he came for Ivy.

N
ot a second passed between the moment Sandy registered the bud of Ben's recovery and the time when her gaze shot back to Harlan, to her lap, anywhere but the other side of the room. It was as instantaneous as fire igniting. She had to keep Harlan distracted so that Ben would be able to take him from behind. If he acted quickly, her husband would have the advantage of surprise this time. Or would it be better for him to simply run out of the house, go and get help?

Ben would never run.

It occurred to Sandy that it was taking an awfully long time for Harlan's companion to return from the basement, and just as swiftly followed an explanation as to why.

Maybe he'd found Ivy.

Sandy suppressed the idea before it could take hold of her. Time got distorted during crises, slowed and pulled like rubber cement, or hastened to the speed of a lightning strike. It was possible that far less had passed than it seemed.

More than likely, Ivy was still upstairs, blithely texting away and hanging out online. Her daughter could spend an entire night this way, even if she hadn't been trying to prove a point by not joining her parents for dinner.

Sandy took another look at Ben.

Her husband wasn't going to be able to act fast.

He had risen to his feet, but barely, bracing the overturned chair with both hands for assistance. His legs wobbled as he tried to take a step toward Harlan.

A megaphone seemed to magnify each noise Ben made as he stumbled, although Harlan appeared ignorant, focused on whatever Sandy had unleashed inside him during their talk.

She had to keep him occupied, give Ben time to recover. Sandy opened her mouth, and the question that came out had been rising inside her ever since Harlan took off his coat.

“Why did you get sent to prison?” she whispered. Making Harlan lean down, get closer to her.

“Armed robbery,” he said. No pause, as if a question required a response whether Harlan liked it or not. “I'm a bandit,” he added with a slower bloom of pride.

Sandy nodded, hardly hearing. Ben was walking on his own now, but wavering, as if someone were tugging at him. His vision looked unfocused; a starfish of red floated in one eye.

Sandy clutched at something else to say. “How much time did you serve?”

Harlan's features bunched. “Enough with the questions.”

Ben took another step before his knees buckled and he went down. His flattened hands hit the floor, which at least spared his head.

Harlan began to turn around, his body moving slowly, like the barrel of a cement mixer, and Sandy lashed out for something, anything that would summon him back.

“Sorry. Stupid question,” she said.

Harlan gave her a nod, then began to frown.

“I mean, you escaped,” Sandy offered casually. “So what does it matter what your sentence was supposed to be?”

Harlan bent down, and Sandy got a whiff of the threat he could apply without even intending to. His torso was so big, it overtook her own. Harlan could cut off air, constrict her like a python, just by leaning in too close.

Ben got back to his feet. He pressed both temples so hard that it looked as if his fingertips would penetrate his skull. Then he gave a hard shake of his head, wincing with pain.

“It's okay,” Sandy said wildly, speaking as much to her husband as to Harlan. “I don't care if you escaped. I'm not going to tell anyone.”

Mollified, Harlan straightened.

Sandy slid her chair forward, trying to shift Harlan within reach of Ben. Harlan took a step back when the wooden seat touched his shins, and Sandy went on, gathering words that were sure to please, the reflecting phase of therapy where you didn't challenge a thing. “Sounds like you were right to escape. I mean, robbery isn't such a bad crime.”

“That's what my daddy says,” Harlan replied.

It took Sandy a moment to parse that. “Is your father a rob—a bandit, too?”

Harlan's fists began to knot, great coils of roped fingers. “How do you know so much?”

“I just like to talk to you,” Sandy said. Another few inches with the chair, another few steps backwards on Harlan's part. “You're interesting to talk to.”

No longer any kind of therapy; this was sheer, blunt flattery.

“Me?” Harlan said.

Despite everything, Sandy felt a bolt of sorrow at how completely he seemed to doubt it.

Ben took a look around the kitchen, flinching with pain as his neck and shoulders swiveled. Ben had been knocked out for the part where Harlan had rid the room of anything remotely resembling a weapon. Now he bent down, as slowly as an old man, and tried to hoist the only object left, one of the chairs.

“Yes!” Sandy said, though she was no longer sure what she was responding to. The cry was both an answer to Harlan and a cheer for Ben.

She scooted her chair a final few inches forward. Harlan stepped back, clumsy but unresisting, as if getting moved around was the condition of his life.

The chair leg pitched forward in Ben's trembling grasp. It was going to drop, alerting Harlan, surely, maybe even reverberating all the way down to the basement.

An idea slammed into Sandy.

Harlan followed instructions. Yet there was one he had failed to heed.

“You were supposed to decide,” she said, in a tone of command.

Harlan's gaze traveled a long way down. “What?”

“You were supposed to decide what to do about my lying,” she said. “Remember? That's what your—” She broke off, swallowed. “—friend said before he left.”

With quivering arms, Ben lifted the chair into the air. Not high enough. It would splinter against the massive wall of Harlan's back. Ben needed to go for the soft spot just below Harlan's skull. But any blow would be better than none, at least catch Harlan off guard.

Her husband's biceps shook as he sought altitude.

“You'd better do it now!” Sandy shouted, the message applying to both men.

Harlan gazed down at her, unaware of the missile level with his shoulders.

Sandy could see her husband's chest heaving. His vision still appeared cloudy and unfocused, but luckily his target was huge, not requiring precision.

“I did decide,” Harlan said. His mouth lifted in a rusty smile.

Ben gained a final margin of height.

The movement of his body changed subtly though detectably then, at least to Sandy, who sat forward in her own chair, clenching its lifeless wooden sides.

“Don't make me change my mind,” Harlan added, but his words sounded listless. Harlan appeared to be somewhere far away, carried there on the wings of what had transpired between him and Sandy, a brute misuse of her training.

Ben started to bring the chair down. Arms still wobbly, shaking, but gaining strength as gravity aided his swing.

At the moment Ben began to attack, the flinty-eyed guy entered the kitchen. His timing was pinprick accurate, as if he had been standing nearby for a while, allowing Ben to struggle, and for Sandy's hopes to rise. One hand was twisted behind his back, its contents concealed by the pantry door. The other swung the butt of the gun in a high, arcing trajectory through the air, knocking the chair out of Ben's hands, and breaking a bone in his wrist with a firecracker snap.

Ben appeared to consider his useless right arm for less than a second, a field examination when the conditions that had led to the injury continued to pose a threat. Then he wheeled around, lingering unsteadiness gone, and slammed his fist into the other man's firing hand before the man was able to pirouette the gun into position.

The gun flew across the room, landing with a metal
thwack
.

The man had been slowed because he was still one-armed, keeping hold of something at an odd angle, by the pantry. Sandy made out a slash of red across his cheek. He'd gotten cut.

Harlan would be distracted now, awaiting his orders.

Sandy assimilated all of this in the cluster of seconds it took for her to stand up. It felt as if she'd spent her whole life yoked to that chair. Freedom beckoned, but like any longtime prisoner, she was at first unable to conceive what to do with it.

The gun. She had to get the gun.

She raced forward, but skidded to a halt when she heard a second crash. She tore a look over her shoulder.

Ben had gone down, stumbling as he aimed for one of the wooden daggers on the floor, pieces of the broken chair. He got up, right arm hanging by his side while the other wielded the makeshift weapon. Ben lashed out with the piece of wood just as the tattooed man yanked hard and brought out what he'd kept hidden.

Sandy whipped around, fast as the strike of a snake, all thoughts of the gun instantly expunged from her mind.

“Ben! Stop!” A paralyzing shriek, sufficient to freeze everyone in the room.

But Ben had a plan to pursue, and the enemy in sight. In the wake of Sandy's cry, he lifted the spike of wood and drove it forward.

There came a ferocious shout—“Take her!”—and the call to action animated Harlan.

Then the man with the deadened eyes spun around, and Ben tripped as his spear met air instead of a body. The wood left his weakened grasp like a bar in a relay race, winding up in the other man's stronghold.

Sandy scarcely registered the smooth exchange because her gaze was pinned to Harlan, who had reached down to pick up Ivy as if he were plucking a weed out of the ground.