Scott Free (25 page)

The hinges.

He heard himself gasp. Could it really be that simple? He knew for a fact that the door opened outward, so didn't that mean, by definition, that the hinges were on the outside? The living room light was only moderately helpful this far away, so he had to feel his way with his hands.

“Yes!” he whispered. Not only were the hinges on the outside of the door, but the pins had already worked themselves partially out. If he could pull them the rest of the way, he wouldn't even need the latch to open the door. It was a trick he'd learned at camp one summer after he and his roommate found themselves locked into their room by pennies crammed into the doorjamb.

Scott pulled on the pins with his fingers, but they wouldn't budge. He needed a screwdriver or a chisel, something to slide under the head of the hinge pin that he could then whack to get it to slide.

A butter knife would do just fine, thank you very much, and here in the kitchen, there was a whole drawerful.

The real trick was to be quiet. With the handle of the knife clutched in his left fist, he tucked the blade under the top ridge of the pin and used the heel of his right hand as his hammer. He didn't hit so much as he tapped, gentle yet firm strokes that he hoped would break the pins loose. The first one turned out to be easier than he'd expected. He felt it budge on the third or fourth stroke, and on the very next, he felt it sliding free.

Yes!

Only one more to go. He stuffed the first pin into his pocket, for lack of a better place to put it, and stooped for a better angle on the second. He'd just settled the blade into place when he heard a door open somewhere behind him. Crouched in the shadow of the kitchen's center island, Scott craned his neck to see Isaac, dressed in his nightclothes, walking out of his bedroom and across the living room toward the stairs.

Scott felt the panic boil in his belly. If he was coming for a midnight snack, Scott was totally screwed.

His heart hammered as he watched Isaac scan the room as if sensing that something was amiss. Scott would have sworn that he looked directly at him, and he was ready to bolt, but then the man looked away and up the stairs. Isaac was disturbed by whatever was on his mind, and Scott didn't like it one bit.

Then, Isaac started to climb to the second floor.
Oh, shit!
Scott's mind screamed.
He's going to find my bed empty!

When he saw the gun in Isaac's hand, his fear turned to horror.

B
RANDON SAT IN THE DARKENED LIVING ROOM
, staring out the towering windows at the ghostly outline of the trees below. In his right hand, he swirled ice cubes in his scotch, waiting for the temperature to get just right inside the glass. It was his fourth, so his lips and tongue were well calibrated by now. He heard a door open, and as he shifted his eyes upward, he caught the reflection of a door opening on the second floor, beyond the railing to the loft. A shapely silhouette in a quilted bathrobe filled the lighted space, and he watched as she glided toward the steps, and on down to the first floor.

“I thought you were sleeping in Scotty's room,” Sherry said softly, her voice barely a whisper. “Scott's room, I meant.”

“That was my plan,” Brandon said. “But between the trophies on the wall and the monsters in my head, I thought I'd sit here and get drunk instead.”

“Is it working?”

“Oh, yeah. Nice scotch, by the way. The Macallan, twenty years old.”

“It's not mine. Mark Olshaker's a great fan of the single malt.”

Brandon's eyebrows arched. “The publisher? This is his house? I never thought to ask.” This afternoon's confrontation had led to an uneasy truce between the two of them.

Sherry nodded. “Uh-huh. He opens it up to his more profitable authors.”

“Nice perk. And what's with all the dead animals on the wall? Are those the disguised heads of the less profitable authors?”

Sherry laughed. “Hunting's his other passion. Behind skiing.” In the awkward silence that followed, Sherry helped herself to a spot on the sofa next to him, close but not touching, and wrapped herself in the blanket that had been tossed on the back. “I just got off the phone with Audrey,” she said. “She twisted enough arms to pull a press conference together tomorrow afternoon around three. After the president is done with his dog and pony show.”

Brandon checked his watch. “It's after midnight.”

Sherry gave a little shrug. “She's her most persuasive when people are too tired to fight back.” Another awkward pause. “Did I hear you on the phone with Chief Whitestone?”

In the dark, she could see his shadow nod. He said, “I want to hate that son of a bitch, but I can't. He's a good man in a bad spot. I look at things from his perspective and I realize I'd probably make the same decisions as his.” He paused for a long sip on his drink. “I just wish I could make somebody understand that he's still alive out there.”

Sherry let the comment hang there, unsure whether to pursue it. “Tell me why,” she said finally. “Tell me about this feeling you have.”

Brandon shook his head. He knew that no one but he could possibly understand. “It's a certainty, not a feeling. That's the best I can do. I just know, beyond all doubt, that Scott isn't dead. Yet.”

Sherry heard the frustration in his voice, took a deep breath as she considered it. “It's not beyond the realm of reason, you know.” What little light there was glinted off Brandon's eyes as he turned toward her. “Psychologists know that there are levels of communication between people that defy rational analysis. I can't count the number of studies I've read over the years where siblings or parents and children are separated by half a world, yet when one is in trouble, the others somehow know it. Usually, it's more of a feeling than a certainty, but it's all part of a continuum.”

Brandon looked at her for a long moment. “So, you're saying you believe me?”

“I've always believed that you believed,” she hedged. “I'm skeptical about a lot of things, Brandon, but too often, the evidence bears out exactly what you're saying. I think it's what the power of prayer is all about.”

“Believe this, too,” Brandon said. “Your saying that means a lot to me.”

A minute later, Sherry said, “I
am
sick with worry, you know.”

“I know you are. Too many people are watching for you to show it.” Brandon chuckled. “I personally prove one of your primary points, you know.” He had her attention. “I'm living proof of what happens when you allow your kid to become your primary focus. Over these past six years, I've allowed Scott to
become
my life—or, mine to become his—and look at me now.”

“You're a good dad, Brandon.”

His eyes glinted again.

Sherry laughed in spite of herself. “Don't gape at me like that,” she said. “You know you're a good dad. Scott knows you're a good dad. Just as he knows that I'm a crappy mom.”

“Oh, Sherry—”

“Don't patronize. I know what I know. I'm not a totally bad mother, mind you; I just suck as a mom. There is a difference.”

Brandon nodded in the darkness. Yes, there was a difference, and he knew exactly what she meant.

For the longest time, they sat there together, staring out the frosted window at the vast expanse of the mountains, each reveling in the first civil words they'd shared in over half a decade.

“Larry's panicking, you know,” she said. “I told him you were staying here in Scott's room and he freaked.”

“What's wrong with me staying here?”

“Not a thing. He's just afraid we might try to get back together.”

Brandon still didn't get it.

“He said that he's very happy with us quietly hating each other. He's afraid that if we reconcile, it's only a matter of time before the cold war goes hot again, and then he'll have to endure the fallout.”

Brandon smiled. “He's probably got a point.”

But maybe he didn't, Sherry thought. Sitting here in the dark, wrapped in her heavy wool blanket, Sherry tried to imagine what it would be like to reconcile, to be a family again. The images came easily. It wouldn't be the same family structure that she'd rejected all those years ago, that was for sure. She could afford housekeepers now, and someone to do the cooking. A new house with Brandon would be the household of adults. Even Scotty was grown now, though only God knew how he'd shot up so fast.

Sherry Carrigan O'Toole was nobody's sentimental sap. She knew the damage that had been done over the years, but sitting here in the quiet, next to Brandon, watching his shadow, she could again see the man with whom she'd fallen in love, nearly at first sight. Somehow, the heat of their crisis here in Utah had smoothed the edges of her anger, and as that poisonous emotion eroded away, she found herself facing a hole in her heart. All the success in the world wouldn't fill the other side of the bed every night.

These thoughts were silly, she told herself—the stuff of desperate battlefield romances. Still, where flames once flourished, surely there was a chance of a lingering spark. Maybe if they took it slowly. It wasn't as if they had nothing in common—

“It won't happen, you know,” Brandon said.

“Huh? I'm sorry?” She could see his scowl, even in the darkness.

“I hope you told Larry to relax. There won't be a reconciliation.”

Sherry scoffed, as if it were the most preposterous thing she'd ever heard. “Of course not.”

“It'd be nice not to be at each other's throats all the time, but to get back together…” Brandon leaned forward, as if trying to get a better look at her face in the shine of the moon. “I hope I haven't signaled otherwise.”

Sherry laughed a little too hard. “I don't care what you've signaled,” she said. “I'm too smart to make the same mistake twice.”

Brandon let the comment hang for a moment, trying to read it. “Good,” he said, finally. Placing his empty glass on the coffee table, he pulled himself out of the sofa and stood. “Thanks for the press conference, Sherry.”

She waved him off. “I'm just glad to help.”

“Well, I know you're not completely comfortable with it, and I wanted you to know—”

“Really, it's nothing.”

Brandon felt uneasy, confused by the change in the atmosphere. “Okay, then,” he said. “I'm going to try to get some sleep.” He paused. “Are you okay?”

“Good night, Brandon.”

When she was alone again, Sherry lay down on her side, her head resting on the warmth of the pillow where Brandon had been sitting. Pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders, she stared out at the vastness of the night. The tears came from nowhere. Once they started to flow, she was powerless to stop them.

 

F
OR WHAT SEEMED LIKE MINUTES
, but couldn't possibly have been more than a few seconds, Scott stared at the pistol dangling from Isaac's hand.

I'm dead,
he thought.
He's going to kill me!

Just like that, all options evaporated. This was no longer about whether he should stay or leave, it wasn't about shoes. It was about getting the hell out of there. In the flash of an instant, his mind calculated the options. He had what, thirty seconds? Probably less. That's the time it would take for Isaac to enter Scott's room and discover that he was no longer there. Then the chase would be on. If he dashed for the front door, he'd have to run through wide open spaces, and Isaac would be able to drop him with a single shot. The very thought of it turned his stomach.

That left only one option, and before he'd even made a conscious decision to use the tunnel, he was already on his way. He had one hinge pin to go, and a whole life to lose.

 

Y
EARS OF EXPERIENCE
had proven to Isaac that speed mattered in these things. From time to time, particularly in his dealings with organized crime, his clients specifically ordered a torturous death, but they were rare. Fact was, Isaac took no more pleasure out of his victims' pain than a dentist did from his patients'. The job was a messy one, and a certain amount of pain was inevitable, but except in the most unusual circumstances—and for the highest prices—he liked to keep things fast and simple. Certainly, that was what he intended for the boy.

He reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway. Isaac had assigned Scott the second door down on the right for no real reason, other than the fact that it was the largest of what he imagined once were guest rooms. Isaac had acquired the place fully furnished, and hadn't entertained a single guest since. Until yesterday.

He paused at the bedroom door, gathering himself for what arguably was the most disturbing hit of his career. But waiting made nothing easier for anyone. He turned the knob and glided silently into the darkness.

His own shadow, cast by the dim lamplight from below, blocked part of the bed, where nothing moved as he entered. Among the shades of black and gray, he clearly made out the pillow, and what he thought was the outline of the sleeping boy under the covers.

It was important to Isaac that the boy not awaken to understand his fate, that he be taken in his sleep. Rather than risk getting too close, then, he fired from just inside the door.

 

I
N THE SILENCE OF THE DARK CABIN
, the pistol shots sounded like hand grenades. There were three of them altogether, fired quickly, just as the pin cleared the bottom hinge.

Stealth meant nothing anymore. From here on out, it was all about speed and distance.

With the hinges free, he jammed the knife blade into the thin crack where the side of the door met the jamb and he pulled hard, trying to pry them apart. The knife bent from the effort, and with no time to switch it out for a new one, he just flipped it around and pried in the other direction.

If the door panel had been made of stouter stuff, it never would have worked, but as it was, Scott pried it out just far enough that he could slip his fingers behind. From there, it was just a matter of pulling it open. He never even saw the alarm sensor. Nothing fancy, just a stupid buzzer like you could buy in any RadioShack. But God, the noise. Imagine ripping the skin off a live cat.

Two seconds later, the living room erupted in a sunburst of light.

•  •  •

“W
ELL,
I'
LL BE DAMNED
,” Isaac muttered. He thought he'd seen it in the glare of the muzzle flashes, but it wasn't till he turned on the bedroom light that he saw it was true. The kid had bolted on him. There was a hint of admiration in the thought. And a renewed commitment to kill him before he could do any damage to his plan.

Isaac sifted all the available options in the span of two heartbeats. Every shoe in the house was locked in the closet in Isaac's room, so that part of the plan hadn't been violated. That meant the boy was wandering the countryside with feet that would soon freeze to uselessness.

Funny, he thought. He'd had a sense that something was different in the living room when he'd crossed through it just a moment ago, and at the time he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Now he knew what it was: Scott's coat was missing from its spot on the peg. But the door was still locked, from the inside. That meant he was still in the house somewhere.