As Night Falls (12 page)

H
er daughter let out a yelp, muffled by a slash of silver duct tape, and Sandy blinked away the afterimage of the gun lying on the floor across the room. Too late to try and get it now; Sandy needed to concentrate on her child. Ivy had twisted to get a look at the enormous man holding her aloft. Harlan frowned upon seeing the tape. With the fingers of his free hand, he nudged the tape loose, pulling it off as gently as if he were peeling a slice of fruit.

Sandy felt a pulse of bitter, throbbing regret. Ivy never should have had to face this. If there was one thing Sandy would've wanted for her daughter, it was to preserve her from this.

What kind of denial had she been in to imagine Ivy tucked away in her room this whole time? Sandy helped her patients dismantle walls in therapy every day, yet she herself had bricks enough to fortify a whole city. How stupid was she, picturing Ivy upstairs, doing what? Playing with dolls? While her parents were taken prisoner below. Did Sandy even know her own daughter anymore? Ivy would never be so out-of-it, so unknowing. Ben, yes. Sandy herself maybe. But not Ivy.

A sob crawled up Sandy's throat as her gaze roved over Ivy's dangling form. Sandy knew every inch of her daughter. Had watched her go from a round nugget of baby to a teetering toddler; grow from a coltish, overlong little girl into a lithesome teenager. She'd noticed the changes, seen them coming before anyone else—before Ivy herself did.

And so she saw what was different about Ivy, what hadn't been there when her daughter flopped down on her bed earlier that night. There were red streaks on Ivy's fingertips, muddy half-moons beneath her nails.

Sandy's gaze traveled to the cut on the other man's face.

Ivy had fought.

It explained the strange way her daughter held herself as she hung from Harlan's hand. Cradling one arm, keeping her legs from swinging. She looked stiff, as if she'd taken too challenging a yoga class, or gone on too long a run. Or as if someone had hurt her.

Sandy felt a searing, sucking pain in her chest. A heart attack, an attack on the heart.

Ben stood nearby. She saw him looking at the floor, scouring it for new shears of wood. And mixed with love and admiration for her husband's strength came a poisonous rinse of rage. Sandy had always counted on Ben to guide and steer things, allowed him to at least, but now those traits were putting them all in danger. The loss of her reliance on him was as vast a shift as any she'd had to make since the intruders had entered her house.

“Ben!” Sandy screamed. “Stop! Don't you see?”

The cry had a cruelty to it because Sandy realized that Ben really might not be able to make sense of this situation. He was acting on instinct—fight not flight was Ben's way—but that sparkler of red persisted in his eye.

Now he executed a wobbling turn, and Sandy pointed to Ivy.

Ivy went still, her legs dangling eight inches above the floor. Harlan held her by the scruff of her shirt like a kitten.

Ben's good hand rolled into a fist again, and Sandy suppressed a shriek. But Ben just stood there, blinking up at Ivy, as dazed and disbelieving as Sandy.

The other man had been eyeing them both. Now he bent to shove the gun into his sock, and crossed the room in a few swift strides. Something seemed to make him flinch; he looked down at his foot. Then he swept up the pieces of chair with a clatter. Using the sole of his left shoe, he broke the wood into shorter lengths, one dry, bone-cracking split after another. The stove let out a baked gust of breath, greedily gobbling the fresh fuel as the man fed it.

Sandy watched the blue-green flames shoot out, reaching for the air beyond the door.

Ben readopted his defiant stance, thighs slightly bent, good arm raised, panting as he confronted Harlan.

“Ben,” Sandy pleaded. “Stop. Just stop fighting and see what they want.” They had to want something, right? Harlan had said they planned to leave soon.

The other man kicked the stove door shut with a
thud.
“I would listen to the lady,” he drawled. “She sounds pretty smart.” He made no move for the gun he had stashed. He didn't consider Ben a threat, or perhaps he simply knew that Harlan could handle any threat.

“If I tell Harlan to dislocate one of your daughter's arms, he will do it,” the man went on, in a voice flat as an untouched sea. Numbingly cold, depthless, devoid of any emotion. “If I tell him to dislocate the other one just to make it match, Harlan will do that, too. If I instruct him to break your daughter's neck…” The man stooped for a final shard of wood, snapping it in half to demonstrate. “…no problem. Are you getting the pattern here?”

Any lingering trace of defiance left Ivy's face, and her body went rigid in Harlan's grasp.

Sandy reached in her direction. “No, honey, it's okay—” Laughable words, ridiculous, to tell her daughter all was well while she dangled from King Kong's fist.

“Ah-ah.” The other man held up a hand. “I'd really prefer that everyone stay right where they are until we get things straight between us.”

Sandy stopped. Better to be still anyhow. So that she could hear, and figure out what needed to be done to save her family.

“Listen,” the man went on brightly. “This is a good-news/bad-news kind of thing. If I don't tell Harlan to act, he won't. And that means that your precious princess should be all right, so long as the two of you cooperate.”

Ben turned slightly, settling narrowed eyes on the man.

“Would you like a demonstration?” the man asked.

Sandy instantly swung back around. “What?” she said, an awful whisper, alive and frantic. “No, please—”

“Harlan,” the man said. “Let go of her.”

Harlan's huge hand opened, and Ivy tumbled from his grasp.

As soon as she was on the floor, Ivy scooted backward as far as she could go. Her back banged against the kitchen wall, and Ivy hunched over, trying to catch her breath. She gingerly felt for her shoulder, then her leg. A small whimper left her mouth.

The tattooed man looked down at her. “Quit complaining.”

Sandy needed his eyes off her daughter. “What is it that you want from us?”

He turned in her direction. “Too bad you didn't ask that an hour ago. Then maybe all of this—” He wafted an arm out over Ivy on the floor, Ben's pain-bent form, and the destruction of the kitchen. “—could've been avoided.”

“What do you want?” Sandy repeated, enunciating each word.

The man pointed to Ivy on the floor. “Make sure she stays there, Harlan.”

Harlan got down beside Ivy, carefully lowering his big body. Still, the room trembled when he sat, and Ivy curled into a smaller ball. She was moving more ably already. The resiliency of youth. But Sandy knew that things had happened tonight from which her daughter wouldn't rebound so readily.

Sandy could at least cap it at this. She clenched her hands, awaiting the man's response.

He regarded her. “Well,” he said, the same empty brightness in his tone. “You've probably already figured out that we—Harlan and me, that is—have got ourselves a bit of a situation. Kind that says we can't stay around too long.”

Sandy glanced at Harlan. Seated on the floor, his eyes met hers straight on. His cheeks looked swollen and flushed; he didn't like this topic.

“So we came here for some help,” the other man went on. “Equipment. A little route-planning. Due north should do it.”

So Sandy needn't have bothered pretending she didn't know the combination to the safe. Ben had the knowledge these men required to complete their escape. Sandy's family might have gotten out of this without a scratch if only Ben had been less of a combatant.

The realization was a slug to the chest.

She lifted her chin, emboldened by the role her husband was to play. “I need to treat his arm before anything else,” she said. “Splint it, I guess. He's in a lot of pain.”

The man widened his eyes. “You some kind of nurse?” he said in a tone that told her he knew exactly what she was, and wasn't.

“I work in a hospital,” Sandy replied curtly. “I'll figure it out.”

“Eyes,” Ben said, the
s
drawn out into a leaf's autumn rasp.

“Eyes?” Sandy echoed. “Honey, what do you mean?” She struggled to make sense of the word.

Not
eyes. Ice
. A bandage or splint wouldn't do much for Ben's fractured wrist, but the plum-sized swelling on his forehead, visible even through his hair? That had to be brought down fast, especially if Ben was to give these men what they needed, and make them go away.

“Ice,” she told the other man, walking toward the freezer. He followed her, but even if he hadn't been standing right there, Sandy didn't bother to consider the clump of cubes in a towel as a potential weapon. The time for fighting was over. They never should've fought at all.

She walked back, applying the ice light as a whisper to the rising hump on Ben's brow.

Her husband didn't wince.

“Honey,” Sandy said, “tell me what they need so I can go get it. I'll pack everything up, and then they can be on their way.”

The man studying her gave a single nod.

Sandy switched her gaze to Ivy, still on the floor, Harlan a living, breathing mountain beside her.
Just a few more minutes, honey,
Sandy said, a silent message she hoped her daughter would pick up on. They used to communicate so seamlessly, the two of them, with smiles and raised eyebrows and head shakes. Words were all but superfluous.
Then they'll be gone and we can put all this behind us.

Ben held his head perfectly still beneath the bundle of ice. Every now and then his eyes would close, more slowly than the usual reflexive blink, and a wash of tears would spill out.

Sandy suppressed a swell of nausea. She may not have worked on the medical side of the hospital, but still she knew Ben needed an ambulance. Now.

Her husband rallied, though, replacing Sandy's hand with his own on the ice-filled cloth, and gingerly readjusting it to a spot on the back of his head. “Is she right?”

Ben didn't seem aware of how his words slurred—he'd dropped the last
t
in
right
—but the other man had no problem comprehending him.

“You give us the gear we need, map out a nice little route that will get us across the border,” he said, shrugging. “That's all I want. Get us on our way and we'll be out of your hair. Out of this pretty house.” He swung an arm around as if the place were his. “And you never hear from us again.”

The man went over to the steps that led to the basement, bits of grit and shards of wood popping beneath his shoes. He squatted to pick up a bulbous roll of duct tape he'd brought from downstairs. “Harlan,” the man said. “Tear this for me.”

Sandy didn't even register the order Harlan had been given. As soon as he stood up, abandoning his post by Ivy, Sandy raced forward. She wrapped her daughter in her arms, Ivy's slight form quivering, her shirt scant wisps around her. Sandy buried her face in her daughter's hair, breathing in its elixir and letting the tangle of silky strands block out sight.

Harlan's voice was a rumble across the room. “What next, Nick?”

Something began to break apart inside Sandy. Bricks crumbling red hot; she was choking on their dust. She let go of Ivy without feeling her daughter leave her grasp. The two men were occupied now, but Sandy felt drained, rid of all thought and action, as if a plug had been removed. Could she manage to drag Ivy out without attracting attention? Sandy's thoughts seized then, and her mind could move no more. It was a screw finally wound too tight, a lid impossible to turn.

The man—Nick—kicked Ben's ankles into place. Again, that passing wince, a certain constriction in his jaw. He dug the bottle of Advil out of his pocket, uncapping it and swallowing a few pills while Harlan tore piece after piece of duct tape, as steadily as a machine.

Nick pulled three strips off the bulb of Harlan's thumb, then yanked Ben's arms behind his back. He mummified Ben's wrists before setting to work on his ankles, bonding them while keeping Ben upright on the floor like a mannequin.

Nick ducked to test the seal around all four limbs.

“All righty,” he said. “Let's get to work.”

I
vy didn't look up at first because she didn't want to see what they were doing to her father. When she finally did lift her head, it turned out to be even worse than she'd feared. Her big, strong dad, who mounted summits and raked whitewater with a paddle, taped up like some kind of package. He stood in one spot, completely helpless to walk, or even crawl.

“So now you want your gear?” her mom said. “I'll go get it.”

“Not you,” said the man from the basement. Nick was his name. “Her.” He pointed in Ivy's direction, then held up an admonishing finger. “Accompanied by Harlan.”

The aches and pains Nick had inflicted upon Ivy were basically gone, and his hailstorm of temper seemed to have receded, too. After he had taped Ivy's mouth in the basement, Nick had gone to pick up the hammer he'd thrown, and used it to nail two-by-fours over the door that led outside. Ivy had sat there, fingering the lump of keys in her pocket, and watching this escape route disappear one board at a time. Now she looked at the scabbing-over cut she had managed to deliver to Nick's face, and refused to feel afraid.

“I have to hear what you tell him before they go,” her mother said, words Ivy could make no sense of.

Nick walked over to Ivy's mom. “When you lied to me about the safe, it was for two reasons, right? To delay me, and to supply a reason for your husband to live.”

Ivy had no clue what was going on, but her mother nodded.

“You can see now that deceit is unlikely to work,” Nick continued. “Neither will giving me orders. Luckily you don't have to.” He turned in Ivy's direction. “I have no desire to hurt any of you, or have Harlan do it either.” When he smiled, there was a trace of that familiarity again. Ivy actually felt herself smiling back. “So why don't we just play this straight from now on?”

Ivy was trying to understand what Nick was saying when she saw her dad's bound form start to waver.

“Please,” Ivy's mother said. “Can I help my husband sit down?”

Nick blinked, a fake look of surprise. “Of course.”

Ivy's mom led her dad over to the couch by the sliding glass doors. Ivy turned away, unable to tolerate the sight of her father looking like some handicapped person, or worse, really, really old.

“Nice,” Nick said once Ivy's mom had gotten her dad settled. “You seem to have a pretty good hold over your husband. Which is why I want the pretty princess to go scavenger hunting while you stay here with us.”

Ivy's mom looked at him.

“Don't worry,” Nick went on, pointing to the floor. Dirt and woodchips from the stove were crumbled across it. “You'll have plenty to do.” He gestured to a plastic dustpan and broom that had been in the pantry before their entire kitchen got thrown about. “Pick up the chairs when you finish.” A pause, then: “Princess?”

Ivy looked up, slowly, effortfully.

“Think you can get us what we need?”

Ivy was about to reply when someone else spoke up.

“Eye…vee?”

Ivy had no idea who it was for a second, even though she had just seen her father sit down. His voice sounded strange, like an engine that couldn't get started. She ran for the couch and fell to her knees, placing her head on her father's shoulder. Where was he hurt? She didn't even know.

“Daddy?” Her own voice was also just shadings of its former self.

“Gore-Tex,” he said, and Ivy looked at him and nodded.

“You won't have any outfits to fit him, though,” she said, indicating Harlan.

“Next best.”

After a moment, Ivy nodded rapidly. The next best thing would be wool and layers in as large a size as she could find. Her father brought extra clothes on expeditions for emergency changes, or for clients who arrived less than prepared.

“Matches, camel packs, filtration system, iodine tabs, dried food,” she recited, sparing her father the effort. “Double socks, outerwear, poles.”

Her dad didn't nod, but the look in his eyes was clearer than a
yes
. It said that Ivy was not only right in her listing, but also that she had replaced the terrible glisten of pain and something even worse—fear—in her dad's eyes. They now shone with pride.

Ivy felt her own eyes fill.

“Topo,” her dad said.

“Maps,” Ivy filled in. “And a pen so you can mark them.”

That expression again. Ivy swiped at her face.

“Nav,” her dad said, and Ivy nodded, understanding. The GPS. Maps would only go so far when these men entered the wilderness. But her dad seemed to be struggling to add something. “Get both…kinds of…devices.”

Sweat had broken out on his forehead; it slid down in slimy streaks. After a second, Ivy realized that her dad couldn't wipe it.

“Hey,” Nick said from behind. “Enough of the daddy's-little-girl crap.”

Fresh tears started in Ivy's eyes as she dabbed at her father's face. She wanted to see that look of pride again so badly that her hands shook. But she had no idea what he was asking her to do.

“Harlan,” Nick beckoned, and the big guy came to life. Ivy led him in the direction of her father's workshop, which was part of the garage. Just as Ivy opened the kitchen door to allow access, Nick called out casually, “Don't let her leave your side.”

Her mother's voice rose in a completely un-mom-like shriek that made Ivy feel like a swimmer drifting out of sight of land. “Ivy! Don't try to get away from him! Not for one single second, do you hear?”

Ivy gave a tremulous nod and stepped through the doorway.

The temperature in the enclosed space was freezing; the heat hadn't been turned on for the season yet. Ivy wondered what it looked like outside, if ice had come to encase everything in marble. She maneuvered into her father's workshop, walking away from Harlan on wobbly legs.

Packs, food, water, clothes, outer gear. Most of the list was simple. Only, what had her father meant about two navigation devices?

A hand settled around her arm, although this didn't feel like a hand; it was altogether too big and strong for a body part. This was more like a piece of equipment, maybe something on a farm. It pulled her back, and Ivy's feet left the floor; she was airborne until she returned to earth on the spot she'd started walking from.

“Ow,” Ivy said in a little squeak. She couldn't help it.

Harlan spoke so low she almost couldn't make it out. “Stay by my side, remember?”

Ivy imagined ways he would be able to keep her close. Harlan might break her arm or squeeze the life out of her simply by trying to restrain her.

“Okay,” Ivy said softly. “I get it. I'll stay.” She pointed into the dim recesses of the garage, where her dad had installed racks of shelving. Harlan would be able to reach the top shelves just by standing on tiptoes.

The two of them walked, Ivy taking three quick steps for each one of Harlan's.

Squatting and loading everything into two thick-skinned packs, compressing sleeping bags, balling up socks, Ivy felt as if she might've been preparing to go on a hike or a climb with her father, just like they'd always done.

Just like they'd do again so long as Ivy got her dad what he wanted.

She rolled one set of garments in a size XXXL and another from the stack of regular larges, also taking out a suit of Gore-Tex to be put on by Nick. Extra clothes were key. Ivy hadn't done many winter expeditions, but she knew from listening to her dad. The greatest risk was getting wet. Whether from falling snow or a slip off a mossy rock into a creek, clothes that were so much as damp had to be removed and exchanged right away.

She wondered why she was trying to protect these two men. Why not let them freeze to death once they were a few miles from their house?

Ivy carelessly scattered a handful of iodine tablets over the pouches of food she'd provided. She attached two camel packs to the side straps of the sacks, then opened a filing cabinet, and began to thumb through a folder of maps. Nick had said they were going north, which meant she had to look for Franklin County, southern Quebec, might as well throw in western Vermont for good measure. Then a Sharpie for marking and a Ziploc bag for storing. Harlan watched her preparations without questioning, or even seeming to register them. At last, Ivy rose and unlatched the lockbox.

There were different navigation devices in here, from a top-of-the-line GPS to less expensive ones with fewer features. Was that what her father wanted—to figure out the cheapest one he could get away with losing?

That seemed crazy. They stood to lose a lot more than a GPS.

Ivy cast her gaze up at Harlan, looming like a mountain above her; then she squinted into the deeper shadows of the garage.

Her dad hadn't said two nav devices, she realized. He'd said two
kinds
of devices. Ivy's gaze flicked back to the assortment contained in the box.

And she saw what her father wanted, and why.