The Comfort of Black (30 page)

“I need them to know they didn't win,” Hannah said. “And that I'm not like them. Not truly.”

“You're not. Of course you're not.”

But his words didn't convince her. It was Billy's words she heard, the words he spoke to her as she stood in front of him years ago, gasoline splashed around his legs, the Bic lighter a lead weight in her hand.

With my last ounce of life I will make you suffer, baby. But you do what you gotta do, Hannie. This is your moment
.

But Hannah had failed. Failed to rid the world of a monster, because for some, prison wasn't enough of a shackle to contain a blackness that would continue to spread. Billy had the blackness. And he was spreading.

She stepped forward into Black, and his arms folded around her. “Will you really help me?” she asked into his chest.

“Yes. But if we're going to do this, we need to get something else out of it. We can record the meeting and, if they say anything incriminating, we'll at least have some proof of innocence if we're ever found. I don't plan on getting found, but it would be a good thing to have. So whatever you feel like you have to say to them, get either of them to admit to what they did. Especially regarding Dallin's involvement.”

“And then we can leave,” she said. “I promise.”

But Black said nothing, and to Hannah, it felt like a silent acknowledgment that nothing would turn out the way they were hoping.

In the room down the hall, the once-crying baby burst into an infant's fit of laughter.

D
AY
30

Black snapped the handcuffs closed around Hannah's left wrist, cool metal squeezing against bone. She sat on the floor where he directed her, near the far corner of the cabin's only room other than the bedroom. It was the second time she had been there. The first time, she woke to the smell of bacon, dizzy and disoriented, and she had promptly escaped through the window at the sight of Black.

Now she was back, and this time, despite the handcuffs on her, she was in much more control. As she walked inside the cabin a few minutes earlier, she had seen the bullet holes in the frame of the front door, a reminder of the elaborate hoax all planned around her. Real bullets expertly fired expressly to narrowly miss killing her. Real bullets, real fear.

You're just a rube, Hannie
.

Black unlocked the other end of the cuffs and handed her the key. “Here,” he said. “You hold on to this.”

She took the key and slipped it in the front pocket of her jeans and then pulled her gray sweatshirt down over her waist. Black then cuffed her to the old radiator next to the wall. The restraints were part of the stage setting: when Billy and Justine came inside the cabin, they needed to believe Hannah wasn't actually on Black's side. The cuffs might not be the thing to convince them, but they wouldn't hurt.

The heat from the radiator warmed the back of her hand.

“Want me to turn it off?”

“No,” she said. “It feels good.”

“Comfy?” he asked.

“Couldn't be more so,” she replied.

“Good.” He took a few steps over to the kitchen table and set his backpack on top of it. He unzipped it and removed two guns and a small digital video camera. He took the smaller gun, walked back, and handed it to her. She took it with her free hand.

“Slide it under the radiator,” he said. “He won't be able to see it there.”

She turned the gun over in her hand, re-familiarizing herself with it. Stock. Safety. Grip. Sight. The gun—a Beretta Nano 9mm—was one she'd used and been most proficient in at short-range shooting in her training with Black. The weapon felt solid, smooth, and light. A month ago she would have held a gun as she would a dead rat by the tail. Now it felt comfortable, and the mere graze of the stock against her palm gave her a sense of security. Power.

She slid it into the gap between the radiator and the hardwood floor, where it fit perfectly. Hannah brought her free hand back to her lap and then practiced reaching for the gun. She fumbled it at first, but on her second try she retrieved it in one quick and smooth motion.

“I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you with Dallin,” Black said. “Killing them isn't going to make things any easier for us.”

“I won't kill my sister,” she said immediately. As much as the idea of causing Justine pain filled her with grim satisfaction, she couldn't do that to her kids.

“What about Smooth?” Black asked.

She mumbled to the floor. “One less person looking for us.”

“Trust me, your father will never find us. He's smart, I suppose, but not to the level of picking up our trail.”

Black waited for a response from her and, getting none, walked back to the kitchen table and picked up the video camera.

“Why won't you tell me what you're planning?” he asked.

“I told you, because I don't know.”

“I don't believe you.”

“That doesn't matter to me.”

“But it matters to
me
,” Black said. “This is dangerous, Hannah. For all of us. And pretty damn unnecessary.”

Unnecessary
was the last thing it was, Hannah thought. Nothing in the world felt more necessary than looking into Billy's eyes and telling him that he was a failure. All he had hoped for had gone away. If anything, he was setting Hannah free, free from a husband she didn't ever really know. Free from a poisonous family. Hannah had restarted life in Seattle, but she had never really known what kind of person she was. In the last month, she had discovered the real Hannah, but only after she'd been stripped of all she had known. The ultimate irony was that it took her assumption of a new identity to find out who the real Hannah truly was.

“I'll get them to say something incriminating,” she said. “Then we can go.”

“Just like that?” he asked.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Black studied her a moment longer and then turned away. He took the video camera and attached it to the lens embedded in one of the kitchen cabinet doors. He then plugged a cable from the top of the cabinet into the side of the camera.

“It's attached to mini microphones in the ceiling. And it's a fish-eye lens. It'll pick up anything that happens in this room.”

“How long can it record for?”

“Couple hours. It's already going.”

“Shouldn't need that long.”

“God help us, no,” Black said. He looked at this watch. “Any minute now.”

Black walked to the front window, pulled back the drapes, and lifted the window. “We can hear outside better this way,” he said. “Sorry if it gets cold in here.” The early morning softened his face, illuminated his eyes. Hannah looked up at him from the floor and suddenly questioned the idea of all of this. Was it worth the risk? No matter what, there would be a confrontation.

Black had contacted Billy, telling him that while he wouldn't kill Hannah, he
would
turn her over for the same fee. He also told him he was holding Dallin somewhere as insurance that fee would be paid.
You and Justine meet me at the cabin
, he'd told him.
Bring the money, and I'll give you Hannah. When I'm safely on my way, I'll call you with Dallin's location. Then you can do with Hannah whatever you want. I'll be gone
.

That clearly wasn't going to happen, and when it didn't, Billy and Justine were going to be upset. Which is why both Hannah and Black each had a gun.

“I thought Peter was going to be here,” Hannah said.

“He's supposed to be,” Black mumbled to the window. He looked at his watch. “I told him to be here thirty minutes ago.”

“Are you worried?”

“I'm always worried. That's part of being an escaped convict.”

Hannah saw the thin cloth drapes wisp in the breeze coming through the window screen in front of Black. There was a cacophony of bird chatter outside.

“Is this stupid?” she asked. “Am I crazy for wanting this?”

“No, you're not crazy. But yes, it's stupid. It's a risk, although a calculated one.”

“Just make sure Billy doesn't have a weapon. Or Justine, though I can't imagine. But will you do that? First thing?”

“You don't need to ask,” he replied. “They aren't getting close to you with any kind of weapon. That was the part Peter was going to help with, but I can take care of it.”

The cool air from the window spilled down to the floor and trickled over her, raising the hairs on her arms. She moved her cuffed hand an inch closer to the radiator.

“Something's wrong,” Black said. “I'm calling Peter.” He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out his disposable cell phone. He thumbed in a number and held it up to his ear, then turned to her as it rang. “There could have been traffic coming out of Seattle, but he should have—”

Then he stopped talking. His words cut off the same moment
Hannah heard the sound of something breaking, as if a very old and fragile tea cup had fallen to the floor and shattered. What looked like rain fell onto the oak floorboards next to Black's feet, and it took Hannah's brain a moment to process that it wasn't rain, but shards of glass. Falling, sprinkling to the floor, dancing around his feet.

She looked up to his face. Black's mouth was stuck open, the last word frozen on his lips. His gaze seemed to be beyond her, beyond the walls of the cabin, his eyes looking at something far distant. Something only he could see.

Then his hand went to his chest and with it, her gaze. That's when Hannah saw the blood expanding along his white t-shirt, blossoming like a red rose filmed in high speed. Opening wide, bright red against faded white, drips of blood creeping over his fingers, hanging for a moment, then falling to the floor, painting the broken glass.

And then he collapsed to his knees.

Hannah didn't scream. She couldn't, because she couldn't even move. She just stared at him, looking in a face that became whiter by the second, processing the flow of blood that wouldn't stop, and knew the father of her child was going to die as she watched.

“Run,” was the only word Black said before his body slumped facedown to the floor, his right arm outstretched as if trying to reach something that could have saved him. Hannah was still frozen, first by the look on Black's face, now by the sight of the small pool of blood that widened beneath him, the edge of it creeping toward the side of his head until his thick hair began to soak it in.

Her stomach lurched just as it had at the motel yesterday. She leaned over to vomit but nothing happened except a dry heave so intense she struggled for air. When she finally recovered, she sat up and filled her lungs, then exhaled slowly and steadied her breathing.

Go, Hannah
.

When she finally unfroze, she did so with such a rush of thoughts that she ended up just kicking her legs out uselessly. Everything was suddenly clear to her, but the jolt of panic wouldn't let her body cooperate. Black was dead, which meant the plan had failed. They had probably killed Peter as well, which is why he didn't show up. Which probably meant she was next to die. She had to get out of the cabin
this minute
if she had any hope of surviving.

The key. The key. The key
.

She said it out loud. “The key.” She shoved her hand in her jeans pocket as she kept talking, as her heart kept pounding faster and harder in her chest. “Get the key. Open the cuffs. Grab the gun. Not the front door. Bedroom window.”

Yes, bedroom window. Same place you escaped from last
time. Run to that dry creek bed, then follow that down. Don't rivers always lead to somewhere?

Where is that fucking key?

She felt metal for a brief moment with the tip of her forefinger, but her jeans were tight enough she only managed to get two fingers to slide inside. That only resulted in her pushing the key deeper into the pocket.

“
Come on
.” Hannah pushed harder against the opening with the rest of her hand and managed to get all but her thumb in the pocket.

Deeper. There it is.
God, why is it so small?

It seemed impossible to grasp, and her leg kept twitching involuntarily, kicking out as if her brain were hooked up to electrical impulses, making the key push just out of reach every time she was seemingly close to it.

Finally,
there
. She bent three fingers around it, clawing against her thigh as she did. She pulled to bring the key out, but now her knuckles held fast against the seam of her pocket.

Relax
, a distant voice told her.

Hannah didn't know if the voice was her own or of something otherworldly watching over her. But it was so calm, so assuring, that Hannah immediately obeyed. She loosened the ball of her fingers.

Slide it up with your fingers. Don't grab it.
Slide it
.

“Okay,” she said, straightening her fingers. Then she used her forefinger and middle finger to coax it up along the inside of her pocket.

“Okay,” she breathed. She almost had it. A strand of sweat-stained hair fell in front of her face, and she twisted it away with a shake of her head.

And she almost had it. She was close. Very close.

But close wouldn't save her. The door burst open, and Hannah suddenly saw her father for the first time since she was fifteen.

Billy held a rifle in his hands, and he was smiling.

Billy didn't stand in the doorway for more than a second. If he had, Hannah might have had time to put the key in the cuffs and release herself from the radiator. Instead, he rushed at her. As he did, Hannah's fingers pulled the key from her pocket and the small piece of metal tumbled to the floor next to her thigh. She grasped for it just as Billy reached her. Her hand seized the key at the same moment his large work boot crashed down on her fingers, scattering tiny clumps of dried dirt on the floor around her hand.