The Searcher (35 page)

T
HE MOMENT
A
NDREWS TURNED AWAY
S
OLOMON GRABBED THE ROPE WITH
his hands and flipped his legs up, turning himself upside down. Pain lanced through his shoulder where the skin had been peeled away, but he used it to help him focus. Feeling pain meant he was alive, so he welcomed it.

He wrapped the rope around one ankle and trapped it with his other foot, holding himself upside down for a moment while he prepared. He would have only one chance at this. The flames were sweeping quickly toward him like a miniature version of the wildfire he had fought earlier in the day. If they caught him, he would be dead. He would get no second chance.

He pushed hard with his foot to keep the rope trapped, then bent at the middle and reached up with his bound hands. The rope was thin and hard for his foot to keep trapped, so his weight pulled him down a little, down toward the flames burning on the spot where he had been standing. He grabbed at the section of rope above his knees and held it as tightly as he could, then loosened his feet and slid them farther up the rope, feeding it around his leg while all of his weight was supported by his hands.

The heat was rising fast, sucking the oxygen from the air and making everything harder. He trapped the rope with his feet again, reached up with his hands and grabbed a little higher, moving up the rope a few painful feet at a time until the steel beam was only a foot or so above him. The heat was building now and the effort of supporting his weight was draining his strength but he resisted the urge to lunge for the beam. The next move would be risky. He had to release his leg from the rope and hook it over the beam while his weakened hands held him. One mistake, one slip, and he would fall headfirst to the burning concrete twenty feet below.

He was having trouble breathing, smoke filling the air as it began to consume the contents of the warehouse. He gripped the thin rope as tightly as he could, released the brake of his ankle, and felt the rope start to slip between his fingers. His strength was gone, he was falling. He threw his leg up and over the steel beam and hooked it there just as his hands let go. The hard edge of the steel dug into the back of his knee and he gripped the rope again to steady himself and hooked his other leg over, hanging there for a moment, batlike, in the smoke and the heat.

The whole section of hangar beneath him was burning now. The fire had consumed the workbench and the body on the floor and was spreading fast to the rest of the building. If he waited any longer, he would be trapped here and the fire would choke him.

He levered himself up, careful to keep his balance, then stood and walked steadily along the beam, as fast as he dared, heading for the part of the hangar the flames had not yet reached. Ahead of him another beam jutted out with a block-and-tackle set resting on steel runners to help move heavy engines and aircraft parts around. Chains dripped down to the concrete floor below, offering him a way back to the ground. He was so focused on it he didn't notice the rope tightening around his wrists until it snapped tight and almost tugged him off balance. He stared down
at the roiling inferno beneath him and managed to steady himself by taking a step back. The rope around his wrists was still secured to a stanchion that had somehow remained untouched by the fire. He was trapped with the fire spreading and the air getting hotter and smokier all the time.

He forced himself to walk back into the heart of the heat though every instinct was screaming at him to run. The rope slackened and he flicked the loose loop of it into the heart of the blaze where it caught fire immediately and started to burn. Solomon hunkered down, bearing the heat for as long as he could while keeping a nervous eye on the spread of the fire. It had almost reached the chains now. He recited the words written on the church wall to help focus his mind and help him endure the heat:

Only those who face the fire yet still uphold God's holy laws

Only those who would save others above themselves

Only these can hope to escape the inferno and be lifted unto heaven

He thought of Holly and the kiss she had given him. The psycho had said they were heading back to the church, something about honoring the last wish of his dead father. He needed to get there, but first he needed to get away from here.

He stood and moved toward the spreading edge of the fire, glancing back at the burning rope as it tightened. He reached the spot where he had been stopped before, widened his stance a little, and tugged at the rope.

It held.

The entire length of the rope was burning now, but the core remained firm. He tugged again, as hard as he dared, wary of it breaking suddenly and upsetting his balance.

Still it held.

He glanced over at the chains, his escape route. The fire was already there and moving past them toward the exit where his folded shirt and jacket lay waiting for him. He had to get there. He had
willed
it to happen.

He squatted down, lowering his center of gravity, and yanked harder, then again, harder still, desperate now, risking his balance. It gave suddenly with a dull twanging sound that rocked him on his haunches. He grabbed the steel beam to steady himself then rose up and practically ran to the block and tackle. His hands were still bound but there was no time to free them. He reached down for the dangling chains and felt the heat in them from the fire below. He grabbed them as tightly as he could then rolled forward and off the beam.

The chains rattled as they took his weight and Solomon swung beneath them, feeling the links digging into his hands. His forward motion sent the tackle block moving along its runners and he swung his body to keep it going. Below him everything was burning and smoke made it hard to breathe and see. He closed his eyes and kept on swinging until the block hit the end of the runners, then he let go of one half of the chain and rode the other half down to the ground in a noisy rattle. He landed on the detached tailpiece of a plane and slid to the floor.

The fire was all around him and the heat radiating off it was extraordinary. He covered his head with his hands and flashed to a memory of Bobby Gallagher, his bones sticking out from charred flesh. He saw the door ahead, the exit bar at waist height, and ran at it. He grabbed his shirt and jacket from the chair and burst out into the night, flames chasing him through the door. He hit the ground and rolled, gulping the cool sweet air. He kept on rolling, using the cooling ground to kill the heat and put out any flames that might have stuck to him, ignoring the pain coming from his back where grit stuck to the wet flesh of his peeled skin.

He came to a stop and looked up at the stars. He could hear the trapped fire rumbling in the building close by and the sound of a car driving away and heading back to town. The church was over a mile away, possibly more like two. It would take him fifteen minutes to run there on a good day, longer in his current state. The mine was on the way though, and so was the corral.

He staggered to his feet and walked over to the nearest plane. It was a P-51 Mustang, polished to the same shine as the plane that had crashed. He crouched by the wheel and started rubbing the rope binding his wrists against the sharp edge of the landing-gear housing. He glanced up and saw himself reflected on the underside of the wing, his white skin and hair darkened with ash and dirt. He looked like a creature of soot and smoke.

The rope frayed and fell apart and he stood and rubbed blood back into his wrists. What were they planning in the church? he wondered. The fire was pouring out of the hangar door now, a tongue of flame curling out to lick at the night. He knew what they were planning. He grabbed his shirt and jacket from the ground and tied them around his waist by the sleeves. Then he started to run as fast as his exhausted body would allow him, through the gate, onto the road, and back toward the town.

M
ULCAHY SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF THE TRANSPORTER, STARING
DOWN
the pathway to the church door. The radio was turned low and filling the cab with the burble and crackle of local emergency traffic. Andrews had tasked him with listening out for any incoming units that might cause them problems, which was fine with him. It got him away from Ramon and gave him time to think.

He'd expected to feel relieved once his father was out of danger but instead he felt empty. Killing Tío hadn't brought him peace either. He had quite liked him, oddly enough, despite the hold he'd had on him and his asshole behavior on the journey over.

He thought about their conversation in the car and the picture he'd shown him of the mother Mulcahy had thought was long dead. He wondered if his Pop knew about her and felt a strong desire to call him up, but he couldn't. They were running a cell-phone jammer to stop all calls and the landlines had been cut too. He'd have to talk to him about it when he caught up with him. Maybe. He didn't want to break the old guy's heart again, not after all he'd been through. At least he was a free man now, no more
ties to the cartel. That was the deal he had done with Ramon, the price of his betrayal.

He wondered whether his Pop might regard it as a betrayal if he told him he wanted to look up his mother. Perhaps he'd go anyway and not tell him, visit her and her country club husband, stir a little trouble into the neatly tucked-away life she'd made for herself, walk up to her front door and say, “Hi, Mom, remember me? I'm the kid you had when you were a stripper, the one you dumped with a traveling salesman so you could start your life all over again.” The thought of it was appealing, but he knew he wouldn't do it. No point. What would she do, cry? Slam the door in his face? It would probably only make him feel even more empty, worse than he did now.

The radio chatter punctured his thoughts and he listened to a state trooper out on the highway, killing time with the dispatcher from another town. Simple little lives, all squared away in their own little worlds, the way his used to be. He wondered about Ramon. He couldn't imagine that working for him would be the same as working for his old man. He'd already seen enough evidence of the chaos in him, the lack of control, and it worried him. There would be a bloodbath somewhere down the line with Ramon in charge and he didn't want to be anywhere near him when it happened. He needed to get out, break the cycle. That's what they told you in therapy when you were trying to kick the booze or the drugs. You needed to break the cycle. And that was what he had been thinking about ever since Ramon first approached him. Because a window of opportunity had opened up here and he had planned all along to escape through it.

He checked around, making sure none of the others was close by, and unhooked the hand transmitter on the radio. When he was still on the force, he'd had to learn a whole bunch of emergency frequencies and their various uses for fieldwork. He punched one into the radio
and raised the mic to his mouth. “Emergency, this is an emergency, over.” He spoke low, his restless eyes scanning the night.

Nothing.

He switched to another channel and repeated the call.

Still nothing.

He was about to switch again when a voice buzzed back. “State your situation, over.”

“This is retired captain Michael Mulcahy,” he said, and he gave them his old badge number so they could check him out. Then he told them exactly what his situation was.

M
ORGAN LED THE WAY THROUGH THE
C
ASSIDY RESIDENCE, FEELING KIND OF
thrilled about it. He had only ever been in the entrance hall and the library before, never anywhere else. He'd never even used the john, and lord knows there were enough of them.

They hadn't found Mayor Cassidy lurking in the tunnel or in his office, and the guards had already searched the rest of the house, but Ramon seemed in no hurry to leave.

“This is some nice place,” he said, walking up the grand staircase and taking it all in, the wood paneling, the crystal chandeliers, the oil paintings of desert landscapes. “My old man lived in a shitty shack on the top of a dusty mountain. All that money he had and he still lived like a
gomero
.”

He stopped by a huge canvas showing a nightscape. A solitary figure stood with his back to the viewer, facing a bright shaft of light coming through what looked like a doorway cut into the dark. “What's the story?”

“Jack Cassidy painted it,” Morgan said, “same man as built this house—church too,” he added, hoping to steer Ramon back to the subject of not destroying it.

“What's the story though?” Ramon said, studying the painting. “Who's the guy?”

“I don't know. Maybe it was him. I think the shining doorway is supposed to be a mirror, though. He built one into another painting he did—in the church.”

Ramon ignored the hint and continued walking along the upper hallway, opening doors and checking the rooms like a man thinking of moving in. He reached the end of the hallway and opened a final door into a large bedroom with an old, solid bed sitting in the middle by a fireplace with two chairs arranged in front of it. A door was set into the far wall through which an old-fashioned, roll-top bath could be seen.

“Now that's what I call a bedroom,” Ramon said, walking right in and looking around. “Bit old-farty for my tastes, but I guess you could rip it all out and pimp it up—hot tub back there in the bathroom, some mirrors on the ceiling. What do you think?” He looked directly at Holly.

Holly said nothing.

Ramon smiled and turned to the guards. “Make yourselves useful. See if you can't find this mayor. Me and the lady, we're going to hang here awhile. Test-drive some of these soft furnishings.”

H
OLLY HEARD THE BEDROOM DOOR CLOSE BEHIND HER, THEN A SOFT CLICK
as the door was locked.

She stared down at the floor, the floorboards polished and scuffed by a hundred years of Cassidy feet. She tensed, waiting for Ramon to grab her. Her hands were still tied in front, so she couldn't do much about it if he did. She could kick him maybe. Stamp on his feet. She could feel him, standing between her and the door. The locked door.

A floorboard creaked as his weight shifted and she stiffened but he moved past without touching her. The mattress springs creaked as he sat on the edge of the bed and she could feel his eyes, crawling over her.

“Look at me,” he said. And she did, through hair that fell over her face like a dark veil.

He studied her, like she was a horse or a dog he was considering buying, then reached out and patted the bed beside him.

Holly looked at his hand, then back to his eyes. She didn't move.

Ramon cocked his head to one side, reached behind him, pulled something from out of his waistband, then held it up.

Holly stared at the knife, the blade catching the light as he turned it slowly in his hand. “So how do you think this little situation is going to shake out?” he said.

Holly felt herself starting to tremble and she clenched her whole body against it. She didn't want him to see and think she was afraid of him. She wasn't afraid. She was angry. “You don't care what I think,” she said.

“Oh, I do,” he said. “You know I could just have you if I wanted to, right? You know it. I know it. Tie you to the bed, hold a knife to your throat, cut you if you tried anything. We can play it that way if you want, but what's the point? Why take the hard road when there's a much easier path leading to exactly the same place?”

He laid the knife down on the bed and pulled out his phone. “Let me show you something.” He rose from the bed and unlocked his phone as he walked over, his attention on it rather than her. Holly glanced at the knife. Too far to reach. Even if she made it, her tied hands would make it hard to do anything with it. And Morgan was standing outside the door with a loaded gun.

Ramon stopped in front of her and held up his phone. “See this?” Holly glanced at the screen and gasped.

A pair of eyes stared out from a smiling ruin of a face, the exposed teeth white against the red. Holly wondered how the girl could possibly smile after whatever atrocity had been visited on her. Then she realized the truth. Her lips had been cut off.

“Rosalita,” Ramon said. “I gave her the same choice I'm giving you—easy way or hard way. Guess which one she took. Brave girl. Beautiful girl. Shame.” He swiped the screen and another savage image appeared, different eyes staring out of the same appalling redness. “Carmelita. She said no too.” He swiped again and Holly looked away, nausea rising inside her.

“Look at the screen,” Ramon said.

She shook her head, took a step backward, and banged against the locked door.

“Look at the screen,” Ramon repeated, his voice cold and calm.

Holly took deep breaths, fighting her revulsion.

“Look at the screen.” His voice softer now. “It's not what you think.”

She looked.

No red this time. No staring eyes. This girl's eyes were closed. She was maybe twenty years old, her black hair spreading over the pillow and looking glossy under the camera light.

“Maria,” Ramon said. “She gave me what we both knew I was going to get anyway. She
gave
herself to me. You understand? Same destination, different journey. So,” he said and lowered the phone. “Which is it to be?”

He was standing so close she could feel his breath on her face. She looked past him to the bed. The knife lying upon it. Probably the same one that had cut away the beauty of those ruined girls.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, then stepped forward, past Ramon and toward the bed. Every instinct screaming, run. She focused on the simple act of making her legs move, one step after another.

She reached the bed and turned, her legs buckling as she sat down on the edge of it, making a point of ignoring the knife next to her on the bed. Ramon regarded her for a moment then nodded and started walking over, unfastening the belt on his jeans as he came.

He stopped in front of her, his waist level with her head, and only inches away. “You do what I want, understand? You give it to me.”

Holly thought about that morning, standing by her husband's grave, burying her old life then walking through the rain intending
to finish the job. Only she hadn't. And now, in this utterly wretched situation, she realized how much she wanted to live. She would do anything to preserve her life now. Anything.

She reached up and started to undo the buttons on the front of Ramon's jeans. Her hands were tied tight, palms facing each other, which made it hard for her to grip anything. She could feel Ramon watching her, then he reached down for the knife; Holly froze, images from his phone flashing through her head.

“Don't make me take it.”

Holly nodded, her eyes on the blade. He turned the knife around until it was level with her face, held it there for a second, then slid the blade between her palms, the metal cold and hard. He sawed through the rope and it fell to the floor. Holly rubbed at the raw marks on her wrists, her fingers tingling as the blood returned.

She looked back at the buttons of Ramon's jeans and a single tear ran down her cheek as she remembered the last time she had done something like this and for whom. She blinked it away, not wanting him to see it. Not wanting to give him that much.

She worked as slowly as she dared but the jeans came undone quickly now that she could grip the buttons. His breathing grew heavier as she reached her hands around his waistband. He still had the knife in his hand, barely a blade's length from her eye. It moved away a little as she eased his jeans down over his hips.

And she yanked down hard. Hard as she could. Dragging his jeans down below his knees. She pushed herself up at the same time, shoving him backward.

He roared in anger and the knife scythed through the air as his arms windmilled, trying to keep his balance, but his bunched-up jeans were like shackles and he fell hard, catching his head on the edge of a table.

“Fucking bitch,” he roared, lunging at her with the knife, jerking himself forward across the floor and stabbing at her fleeing heels.

Holly darted into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

The blade thunked heavily into the wood on the other side and she heard splintering as Ramon twisted it free again. There was a key in the lock and she fumbled at it, her hand shaking so hard she had to use both hands to turn it. A dead bolt slid into place just as the door jumped from a heavy impact on the other side, a kick or a fist.

“Stupid bitch,” Ramon yelled through the door. “Now I'm going to have to take it.”

Holly turned, heart hammering, eyes wide, looking around for a weapon, or a way out, or anything.