Blood Brothers (37 page)

On the second floor he quickly made his way
to a bedroom, knowing the bathroom had no window to break. Instead
of taking the time to turn the knob, he kicked the door open and
found just exactly what he expected. An empty room, a broken
window. “Little bitch,” he muttered, flying into the room, across
the floor. He hung his head out the window, careful of the jagged
glass still clinging to the frame. He should have tied the little
shit up, he realized. Hindsight was always 20/20.

He didn’t see Christal Cole on the roof of
the south wing of the house. Maybe she’d fallen off and broken a
leg. Perhaps not. He’d have to check.

But first, he’d check on the mother.

***

Christal’s heart thudded in her chest. She
didn’t even know she was afraid of heights until she’d climbed out
the window and slipped once on the old, worn shingles. That one
slip had made her aware of just how high up she actually was.

She did as her mother told her, but she
couldn’t find any windows into which she could climb. She didn’t
think she’d be able to open one if she did find it, but she hadn’t
brought that up to her mother. Christal was bright enough to know
that hers and her mother’s survival depended on her being brave and
doing the right thing.

She continued on down the rooftop, stooped
low to maintain her shaky balance. The rooftop was about twenty
five feet long, with a width of twelve. At the end of the roof, a
tree, not much more than a sapling, grew wild. Christal didn’t
really trust it to support her. But what choice did she have?

She sat down on her rear and slowly scooted
towards the edge, the shingles were rough and she could feel it
rubbing her skin even through her pants. Christal was no more of a
climber than any other eight year old girl. She’d crawled up and
down the monkey bars at school during recess, she played on an old
apple tree at Mrs. Wylder’s house a handful of times, but she was
not, and did not think herself, particularly proficient at the
skill. Unfortunately, she had little choice at the moment.

She scooted out as far as possible, her legs
dangling over the sharp shingles and across a badly clogged gutter.
Leaning forward, she reached out for the nearest branch, hoping to
pull the tree a bit closer to her. Christal’s fingers didn’t even
brush against the tiny nib of a small limb.

This just wasn’t fair. She did just like her
mother said. She almost fell off the roof, she broke out a window,
she had a knife held on her and even cut her, and she saw her nanny
get hurt bad, maybe even killed. It was all just too much for her.
She just couldn’t take any more.

Christal heard a door bang open and she knew
she was in big trouble. She wasn’t far enough away from the window.
If that mean man looked out, there’s no way he’d miss her.

Christal really hoped that God was up in
heaven and that He was looking down on her. She simply leaned
forward, warms outstretched and fell.

Fast.

She splayed out her hands, praying they found
purchase. They did, but not without consequences. Thin limbs,
barely larger than twine, slapped at her face, her neck, her hands
and legs. And they slapped hard. It was all Christal could do to
not scream out in pain. But she knew that, too, would have
consequences. Dire ones. But her arms finally found the thicker
trunk of the tree and she slid down, out view. She didn’t know how
lucky she was. Six inches higher and the top of her corn silk
blonde hair would have been visible from the bedroom window from
which she had only just escaped. Another thing in her favor was
that her slight weight was not enough to shake the tree enough for
her pursuer to notice. Oh, it moved, but not quite enough.

It seemed, at least for now, her prayers had
been answered.

She made it to the bottom of the tree without
difficulty. A quick scan of her surroundings told her she was in
the rear of the house. In the front lay the driveway, and then the
road, the possibility of help. That’s where her mother wanted her
to go. But though Christal trusted her mother, something told her
that heading that way would be a mistake. Wouldn’t that be the way
the mean man would expect her to go? She thought so. But the only
other choice she had was to run across the weedy law—it looked more
like a jungle than a yard—and hit the tree line. Smashing glass and
climbing little trees was one thing, going through the woods all
alone was another thing altogether.

She was wasting time, and she knew it. But
doggone it, she was scared. Christal wanted her daddy more than
anything in the world right now. If Daddy was here, he’d make
everything alright. She just knew it!

But Daddy, again, wasn’t here. It was up to
her. All up to her. If she ever wanted to see Daddy, or Mommy for
that matter, again, she had to do something. She had to find help.
Christal suddenly thought about the cell phone she’d wanted just a
few weeks ago. Mommy and Daddy both said she was too young for such
a thing. They probably wouldn’t think so right now, now would they?
That kind of thinking wasn’t getting her anywhere.

She looked all around her and up at the house
to see if anyone was looking through a window. She couldn’t see
them all. This was a very big house. Bigger than hers, even. But
standing here waiting to get caught and put back in that room isn’t
a very smart thing to do. Nope, not smart at all.

So she took off.

Christal always ate all the vegetables on her
plate, even those yucky green peas, and she liked fruit a lot.
Mother and Mrs. Wylder told her it was good to eat those things.
It’d make her strong and healthy. So it shouldn’t have come as a
surprise that she made it all the way across the yard and into the
trees so fast. But, she ran fast this afternoon and the bad man
still caught her. As soon as she passed into the trees, she dropped
down behind the nearest one. Looking back towards the house, she
waited to see if the man was in hot pursuit. Thankfully, no one was
in the yard, running through it or otherwise.

Before she could catch her breath, though,
she heard the sound of a car approaching. Could the man not be by
himself? Did he have a partner? If he did, two could search for her
much better than just one.

Christal checked out her surroundings. The
trees, weeds, and vines grew wild, ran rampant. It looked to her as
if she was the first person ever to come in here. She couldn’t help
but think there was a reason for that.

She loved her mother. And she loved her
father. She wanted to see them both again. So she stood straight
up, gritted her teeth and went for help.

* * *

Stephanie had been listening closely to the
house around her. She hoped she had not signed her own daughter’s
death warrant. Really, what choice was there really? They had not
been abducted for anything as innocent as a fraternity prank or an
unpaid parking ticket. No, whatever this man had on his mind was
trouble. Serious trouble. It had to have something to do with
Michael. It had to.

That brought everything down on her. Michael,
the love of her life, and the bane of her existence both in the
same. It might be passé, but she still believed in the vows they’d
taken. No matter what he’d done to her over the years, no matter
how many other women he’d been with, she had never cheated on him.
And it wasn’t like she didn’t have the chance to do so. In her mind
she was aging, but there was no denying that she did so gracefully.
At the brink of forty, she was still enough a looker to catch men’s
eyes. She’d even been approached several times. But no matter how
lonely she got, no mater how hurt, angry, or disappointed she was
in Michael, she just couldn’t do it. She could not betray the
trust, even if he’d used that same trust like another person might
use toilet paper.

But he’d done something now. Something that
she and her daughter were going to have to pay for. If only she
knew that Christal had made it to safety. That’s all that mattered
at this point. As long as her darling little girl got away from
this awful place and horrible man, she could accept her own grim
fate. However, there was no way she would ever know.

She heard the heavy footsteps outside the
bathroom door. There were coming ever closer, closing the distance
so swiftly.

A door somewhere banged open and then the
footsteps again.

Eternity seemed to pass. A silent, horrible
length of time that seemed to stretch on for eons.

And then they were coming her way, she could
feel it, there was no way to deny it. Stephanie Cole was not a
woman to go out without a fight. She’d known he’d come for her
eventually and while she’d waited, she’d scoured the tiny room for
a weapon. The closest thing she could find for makeshift personal
defense was the shower curtain rod. The curtain itself had, by the
look of it, been the meal of several hundred moths a long time ago,
but the heavy metal rod wasn’t any worse for its age. She’d taken
it down and held it close by. Now, with her captor on his way she
gripped the rod tightly. So tight was her grip her fingers turned
white, drained of blood.

She waited a heartbeat.

Then another.

When the door finally opened it caught her by
surprise despite all her preparation. Perhaps it was the way it
eased open instead of exploding inward like the door to the room
Christal had so recently vacated. The slow deliberate way it swung
in gave her pause. A delay she didn’t need.

She saw a shadow pass over the threshold and,
with grip still tight, she swung like her name was not Stephanie
Cole, but Babe Ruth.

Thirty-Five

Now

Michael saw the rod coming straight at his
face. With the reflexes of a much younger man, he ducked. But with
the balance of a man his age, his hurried squat took away his
balance and he fell backwards, hard. He scrambled back, trying to
avoid another swing.

He’d arrived just seconds before. With Kimber
in hand, he’d jumped out of the car and approached the house all
too fast. He knew he should have at least attempted stealth, tried
to be inconspicuous. But his family, his wife and his daughter were
here. And besides, Jerry knew he was coming. The lawn was wide,
wild and not even the wilderness that had reclaimed the lot could
mask his arrival. He’d decided to play it straight.

The porch steps, rotted for years now, had
sagged under his feet like wet cloth as he mounted them. On the
front door, a scrap of paper was affixed by a lone thumbtack.
Second story bathroom, it’d read.

Michael didn’t know what he’d find. But he
was tired of waiting. No, that wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t wait
anymore.

Inside the house, he tried not to think about
the memories he’d had here. Under the circumstances, it shouldn’t
have been too hard, but Michael found those ghosts of yesteryear
calling back to him.

He walked across the great room carefully,
remembering that the last time he’d been in this house was the
first time he’d killed a man. Until today, that’d been the only
murder on his conscience. If all went well, he would not take
another life today. But, to be totally honest to himself, he didn’t
see things going all that well.

He was on the landing, the Kimber gripped
tight and his eyes furiously darting, taking in everything at once.
A few more steps and he was on the second floor.

No sign of anyone or anything. Nothing but
quiet. Not complete silence; there was the low hum, the steady
drone of something in the background. A motor of some kind.

This was a trap. The thought came unbidden
but once it formed he knew it to be true. Michael was not a stupid
man, but neither was he very experienced in this particular thing.
Gun wielding, hunting down psychos, and saving the lives of his
family was a very new thing to him. He would fall right into
Jerry’s trap and none of them would make it out alive.

If Stephanie and Christal were still alive,
that was. He had no way of knowing. He was putting his faith in a
man who clearly hated him, one who wanted nothing more than his
death. Oh, it might have been simply about the money at first, but
things had changed, hadn’t they?

The house was just too big. Jerusalem Garrett
could be in any of a million hiding places waiting for the
opportune moment, the instant Michael let his guard down.

On the second floor, Michael walked with his
back to the wall. He’d seen it in movies, and it seemed like the
safest means of approach.

Twenty years was a long time and despite his
familiarity with the house, he wasn’t quite sure which door led to
the bath. There were doors on both side of the long hall, which
stretched on into darkness. If not for the skylights at the front
of the house, the dusty, dingy glass allowing slices of sunlight
in, he would be in complete darkness.

Slowly, he moved to the first door, put his
hand out to the cut crystal knob, but stopped short when his eye
caught something on a door a little farther down. He moved quickly,
caution out the window.

Another piece of paper, similar to the one
tacked to the front door read: Here. He reached for the knob,
turned it slowly and eased the door open.

And was about brained for his efforts.

He hit the ground hard and was just bringing
the Kimber up when Stephanie moved over him.

“Michael,” she exclaimed. The excitement in
her voice and the joy plastered all over her face gave him the
feeling of fire in his chest.

“Stephanie,” he said as he got up. As he
moved he noticed his finger was wrapped tightly around the gun’s
trigger. Just how close had he come to shooting her? Too close, he
knew. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. She dropped the
rod she’d been carrying. It thunked to the floor and she ran to
him. He was raising his arms to receive her when the powerful arm
came up behind him and yanked him up by his neck.