Sleight of Paw (34 page)

There was no point in bluffing. “Under the mattress, where you hid it,” I said. “It doesn’t belong to you.”

He squeezed my wrist, twisting outward just a little. I bit my cheek so I wouldn’t make any sound.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t exactly belong to you, either, does it?”

The front door was in front of me, across the open floor. The back door was behind me, through another room. If I ran out the back door Justin could easily go out the front and head me off.

I glanced down. He was wearing heavy boots, much like the ones I’d come in with, so stomping on his instep in my sock feet wasn’t going to work. I swung my foot, connecting with the side of his left knee. He shouted an obscenity and let go of my arm.

I hugged the bag close to my body and ran for the front door, knocking Justin off balance and onto the floor. I grabbed the doorknob, twisted it hard and pulled, but the door didn’t give. I twisted it in the other direction, pulling with both hands, but nothing happened. Justin was already up. I bent my knees, braced my feet and frantically twisted the knob, willing down the panic that was spreading throughout my body.

Justin caught me by my hair and yanked me back from the door. He winced as he shifted his weight onto the leg I’d kicked, and pulled a key from the pocket of his jeans.

He dangled the silver key in front of me. “Ah, gee. I locked up behind myself.”

My eyes flicked for a second from him to the back of the cabin. Justin pulled on my hair, hauling my head back so hard, my teeth came down on my tongue.

“Oh, see, you’ve been thinking you should have gone for door number two,” he whispered, his mouth so close to me I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. “Just to make you feel better about your choice”—he turned my face toward him—“it’s only fair to tell you, I locked that one, too.”

He kept his fingers laced through my hair, gripping tightly on my scalp, and frog-marched me to the sofa. He gave me a push and I landed sideways on the couch, shifting my weight at the last minute so I wouldn’t land on Owen in the bag.

Justin sat on the arm of the sofa, slapping the end of his closed fist against his palm. “Who knows you’re here?” he asked.

“Lots of people,” I said.

“Now, you see, I don’t think so.” His tone was conversational. “Because if lots of people knew, then lots of people would be here with you, and they’re not.” He extended his arms and looked around the room with that same unsettling smile. “Ruby told you I was going to be out of town, didn’t she?”

I didn’t say anything.

He tossed the key up in the air and caught it. “Yeah, I lied about that. Sometimes I just need a little space.”

“How did you manage to get a truck just like hers?” I asked.

Justin laughed. “The fact that my old truck is like Ruby’s is just bullshit luck.” He held up his hands like a doctor who had just scrubbed for surgery. “The fact that it’s running is because I’m good with my hands. I told you that when I was in juvie I learned how to hot-wire a car. I learned a few other things, too.”

“You killed Agatha,” I said.

“Miss Marple.” His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t think I was that well-read, did you?” He shook his finger at me. “The village busybody. I should have guessed it would be you. You are a librarian.” He said “librarian” like the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

Suddenly his hand shot out, pulling the strap of the messenger bag from my hand. “What’s in the bag, Miss Marple?”

I swallowed hard. “A flashlight,” I said. I hoped the cat was invisible, but if he wasn’t, I hoped he’d launch himself out at Justin’s face, because I wasn’t going to waste another chance on either door. I was going to grab the old chrome chair in front of the rolltop desk and launch it through the window.

Justin peeked in the bag and then tossed it back on the couch. Owen didn’t make a sound, but I was guessing he was mightily pissed. And he was probably plotting his revenge.

“Why did you kill Agatha?” I asked. I was going to have to stall him until I figured out what to do. My voice didn’t shake, although I was struggling to keep the rest of me from trembling.

“I didn’t kill her. Not on purpose. It was an accident.”

The creepy joviality was gone like that. He was still fidgeting.

“People will understand that.”

“What the hell was she doing in that damn alley in the middle of the night, anyway?” He yanked both hands through his hair. “It was dark. She was wearing that big, dark coat. How the hell was I supposed to see her?”

I nodded. “It was an accident.” The taste of something sour filled my mouth. Even if Justin had hit Agatha by accident, he was drinking and driving and he had literally left her there to die. “You took Eric to the restaurant rather than home. That’s why you were in the alley.”

“I didn’t know she was going to leave me the money in her will.” His eyes darted around the room. I wasn’t sure I believed him.

“But you knew she had money,” I said. “How? No one else did.”

He started smacking his hand with his fist again. “Post office was holding a bunch of mail for her. Ruby picked it up. I saw the return address on one of the envelopes and I knew it was an investment firm. Didn’t mean anything to Ruby.”

“You opened it.”

He shrugged. “You’d think a fancy place like that would spring for envelopes with better glue.”

Maybe if I kept him talking he’d let down his guard and I could make a break for it. “You told Ruby how worried you were about losing your funding, banking on her telling Agatha. What were you planning to do? Use Ruby to convince Agatha to invest?”

“What if I was? What the hell was she going to do with all that money?” he said derisively. “She was just sitting on it.”

I shifted on the sofa, moving a little closer to the edge. “And the truth is, you took the envelope Agatha wouldn’t let out of her sight, because you figured if she was holding on to it so tightly, it had to have something to do with the money.”

He looked past me, out the front window. “You know what’s true? Some people really can’t drink, and Eric is one of them.”

“You spiked his drink.”

His eyes came back to me. “Very good. Yeah, I did. I was trying to make a point.” His jaw tightened. “It didn’t work out quite the way I hoped. Eric’s not like me.”

“You can have a drink or two. You can stop.”

“What? You don’t believe me?”

“You’ve had a drink or two since the accident,” I said. “Haven’t you? I couldn’t tell.”

He came down off the arm of the sofa and paced in front of me. “That’s because I’m not an alcoholic. That’s a load of crap they’ve been trying to feed me since I was sixteen. I’m not like Eric. For God’s sake, he doesn’t even remember Wednesday night.”

“So why don’t you just explain what happened to Agatha? Explain it was an accident.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can’t do that.” His hands were everywhere. “I’m really sorry about the way things worked out for other people. But I can’t do that.”

“You mean Ruby.” I pulled the bag closer. “And Eric.”

“Like I said, I’m sorry, but sometimes stuff happens. Sometimes people have to make sacrifices.”

“Or be sacrificed,” I said softly.

He stopped in front of me. “Yes, or be sacrificed.” He wiped his hand over his neck. “Do you know how hard and how long I’ve worked to make this place”—he gestured around the room, but I knew he meant the camp, not the space we were in—“a reality?”

“I probably don’t.”

“No, you don’t,” he said. “There are so many kids who need a place like this. And everywhere I turned people got in my damn way.”

I nodded.

“This place is going to change lives. It’s going to save lives.” He pulled the chrome chair out from the desk and straddled it. “So that makes it worth it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Aristotle.

“Does it have to be that black-and-white?” I asked.

He laughed. It was a harsh sound in the almost-empty cabin. “You’re one of those people who see shades of gray, aren’t you, Kathleen?” His long, strong fingers were beating out a rhythm only he could hear on the chair back.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly very dry. “Not always, but a lot of the time.”

“That’s what’s wrong with the world; too many shades of gray and not enough black and white. Not enough clear decisions. Not enough absolutes.” He shrugged, swung his leg over the chair and got up.

“I have to do what’s best for the most people. I’m sorry about Ruby and Agatha. I’m sorry about Eric. Hey, I’m even a little sorry about you.” He bent down and hauled me up by my elbow, yanking my arm up behind my back so hard that I whimpered as the pain shot from my elbow to my shoulder.

“Justin, what you doing?” I said, as he dragged me into the kitchen.

“I’m doing what I have to do.”

There was a trapdoor in the kitchen floor. I hadn’t noticed it.

Still holding my arm with one hand, he bent and lifted it. Crude wooden stairs disappeared down into the darkness. The hairs rose on the back of my neck and for a second the room whirled around me. Tight, dark places and I were not friends.

Justin patted the pockets of my coat and pulled out my cell phone. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you keep this,” he said. He dropped the phone and then stomped on it with the heel of his heavy boot. Then he pushed me on to the first step.

“Please . . . please don’t put me down there,” I stammered. “I . . . I . . . I’ll help you with the police. I’ll help you with Ruby. I don’t . . . I don’t like small spaces. Please just don’t put me down there!”

He studied my face, looking at me with something close to pity and regret. “You shouldn’t have come out here. You really shouldn’t. There are so many kids who need help.”

He sighed. “I can’t let you ruin that. I don’t have a choice.” He let go of my arm and at the same time gave me a shove. I tumbled down the stairs, instinctively holding Owen in the messenger bag close to my body.

The trapdoor slammed shut over my head.

And I couldn’t breathe.

I was sprawled on the steps, about two-thirds of the way from the bottom, as far as I could guess. I couldn’t tell for sure because it was so dark.

My chest was tight and my breath came in ragged gasps as my lungs tried to suck in air. There was a rushing sound in my ears, as though I were trapped under the tumbling water of a waterfall.

Owen twisted in the bag and pushed his head out the top. He laid it against my chest, over my racing heart. I slid my hand up the bag and onto his fur. He kept his head against me, and slowly I could breathe again.

I was in a small, dark basement but I wasn’t alone. I had Owen. He was fierce, he was loyal and he had claws. I knew from past experience that when something bad happened Owen would fight back.

“We have to get out of here,” I said. “I have to see if I can get the trapdoor open.”

I worked my way up the stairs, step by step, bumping from one riser to the next, holding Owen with one hand and feeling my way with the other.

A couple of steps from the top I stopped and reached over my head for the outline of the trap. “Okay we have to get you out of the bag.” I said.

Owen started to pull himself up, and I remembered the flashlight. “We have a flashlight.” I fished it out of the bag, held on to the cat and let the bag fall over the side of the steps. I turned on the light with my free hand.

Owen blinked his golden eyes at me. “We’re going to get out of here,” I said. He meowed softly. “I’m going to put you on the steps so I can use both hands on the trapdoor.”

I set him on the step below me, shrugged out of my jacket, braced both feet on the wooden stair and pushed the trapdoor over my head with all my strength. The muscles in my neck and shoulder strained and sweat popped up along my hairline.

The hatch didn’t move.

I dropped my arms, hung my head and caught my breath. And muttered a couple of swear words. Then I took a deep breath and tried it again. I leaned back and the edge of the step dug into my back as I pushed with everything I had.

It wasn’t moving. My best guess was that Justin had latched or locked the trapdoor in some way.

I edged up another step and turned on the flashlight. The hatch was a solid piece of plywood and it fit flush into the hole. We weren’t getting out that way.

My throat squeezed shut and the darkness began to blacken. Justin wasn’t just holding me in the basement. He’d left me there to die.

I pressed my head between my knees and put my hands over the back of my head. I wasn’t going to die in this damp, dark basement in the middle of nowhere. Neither was Owen.

I felt behind me for the papers I’d managed to get out of the envelope. They were still safely tucked in my waistband. And they were the only shot Harry had of finding his daughter.

“Okay, puss,” I said. “We have to figure something else out.”

I looked down at the stair below my feet. Owen was gone. He wasn’t on any of the stairs below either.

“Owen, c’mon,” I called. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could see the steps went down to a dirt-floor cellar. I couldn’t see the cat at all. In fact, nothing moved in my range of vision at all—both a bad thing and a good thing.

“Owen,” I called again, leaning forward. This time I got a faint meow in return.

“Come back here.”

He meowed again. That meant I was going to have to go get him.

I eased down a couple of stairs. My skin crawled as I concentrated on not looking at how close over my head the floor beams were.

The basement smelled musty with a sweet, fetid odor, like something had started to rot. I made myself think of rotting apples or rotting potatoes with dark mold and soft white patches. I didn’t let myself think of all the other things that might be decomposing down there.

I worked my way to the bottom. The dirt floor was cold even through my heavy socks.