The Survivors Club

by Lisa Gardner

  Not much time, not much time. Come on fingers, work!

  She had her arms up, her elbows bent. Sensation was returning to her swollen fingers, and though they felt clumsy and sluggish, she finally had some movement. She’d gotten the blinds up. Now she fiddled with the metal half-moon window clasps until she finally got them turned.

  Finally, the tricky part. Her arms were all wrong. Her shoulders still felt strange and disjointed. She didn’t think she could push anything up, let alone an old window stuck in its casing. But there was only one way out of this house at the moment. Only one way to circumvent David.

  I am not a victim. I am not a victim.

  Meg was weeping. Her breath was labored, her whole body hurt. She thought of how much she loved her parents. She thought of how much she loved Molly. And then she shoved her arms beneath the window, sank her teeth into her bottom lip and pushed with all her might.

  The window squeaked, her arms screamed, and then . . . The window rocketed up. She stuck her head out into the crisp night air. And found herself looking straight down at none other than Jillian.

  David heard the squeak of a window opening. Meg! She was trying to bail on him. He took two quick steps down the hall, leading with his gun, then he heard another sound, also up ahead, but this time to the right. He halted immediately, straining his ears.

  Griffin, he deduced, trying to sneak up the stairs. Goddammit, why couldn’t he have just died in the foyer? David was running out of time for these little games. Dammit, he’d had a plan!

  He frowned, caught the expression and forced his brow to smooth back out. Think. What could Meg really do from a second-story window? Fall? Break her back? All the easier to kill her later. Griffin posed the more immediate threat. He would deal with Griffin first.

  David moved to the right side of the hallway. He pressed his back against the wall and brought his gun up to his chest in a two-handed grip. Griffin would be coming up the stairs low, trying to be less of a target. He might also be wearing a flak vest. So David would also go in low and aim for the head.

  He bent his knees, sinking down to the hall floor. He felt fluid, smooth as silk, even after picking the locks of his shackles, divesting himself of his chains, and taking out a fully armed escort. In some ways, prison had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. He’d entered the ACI a physically weak man with a gift for charm. He’d emerged with a finely honed, absurdly flexible physique and a whole new understanding of human nature. Old David had preyed on kids. New David would prey on the entire world.

  But first, he would kill Sergeant Griffin.

  David eased steadily into the shadows.

  “You can’t jump,” Jillian was saying, low and frantic from the yard.

  Meg shook her head desperately and leaned out the window.

  “Dammit, Meg, it’s too high—”

  Meg couldn’t speak through the gag, just show her bound, bloody wrists.

  “Oh, Meg . . .”

  Meg took a deep breath, then threw one leg over the windowsill.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Jillian cried. “Quick, I have an idea!”

  Flat on his belly, Griffin slithered his way slowly up the hardwood stairs. He held his gun just in front of his face as he peered warily into the dark void waiting at the top. He grew closer and closer, knowing that at any time Price could strike.

  Five steps from the top.

  Groans down the hall. Squeaky floorboards, the sound of glass vibrating. He couldn’t think about those things yet. He had to keep his attention on the top of the stairs.

  Four steps from the top. Three, two . . .

  And then.

  Suddenly, quickly, David Price’s face materialized in the gloom. A burst of fire. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

  Griffin squeezed the trigger even before he felt the first bullet graze his forehead. He rolled sideways, hitting the unforgiving wall as he fired desperately, trying to hit a man he could no longer see. Rings of light exploded in front of his eyes, the muzzle flash temporarily breaking into his dark, dusky world and blinding him.

  Blood. Pain. His head.

  Griffin kept firing. Then he came up the stairs with an enraged roar.

  David ran across the hall. He heard Griffin still firing. Good, good, good, blow your fucking wad, shoot up the staircase. David didn’t have many shots left; he certainly wasn’t going to waste them.

  He darted into the bedroom, already looking for Meg.

  A cool breeze immediately hit his cheeks, accompanied by a relatively brighter flash of fading daylight. He forced his gaze to readjust and realized that the blinds were up and the bedroom window was open. In the next moment, he heard a thump out in the yard.

  David rushed to the open window. He stuck out his head in time to see a woman’s shadowy figure scramble to her feet and run across the lawn.

  No, no, no. It wasn’t possible. Meg should be hurt. She couldn’t just get away like that. She was his, his, HIS.

  David raised his gun to fire. Just as a second shape suddenly materialized from behind the closet door.

  “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

  David whirled around. “Meg? What the—”

  She caught him in the side with her shoulder and they both went smack against the wall as Griffin roared into the room.

  David was tangled. He had to get to his feet, find his balance and regain control. He got one hand around Meg’s neck and shoved her brutally aside. Just in time to encounter Griffin’s fist.

  David’s left cheek exploded. He went down hard, registered the new threat in the room and rolled left. He came back up with his gun, squeezing off one wild shot before Griffin had his hand in his massive grip and started twisting his arm behind his back.

  David cried out at the sudden pain. Then he grew royally pissed off. This was not according to his plan! This had not been part of his equation!

  He went still, sagging forward and letting the sudden impact of his weight drag Griffin off-balance. They both fell forward. David rolled clear first and sprang up onto his feet. This time he had out the hunting knife. That was better.

  He went for Griffin’s ribs, just as his old friend and neighbor threw up his arm. David sliced through Griffin’s shirt and had the satisfaction of drawing first blood. He danced back, watching Griffin rise thunderously to his feet. Griffin didn’t appear to have a gun anymore. He had probably run out of bullets on the staircase, then thrown down his gun in disgust. Griffin always acted on impulse. All the better for David.

  “I’ve learned a few things since we last met,” David said, bouncing around on the balls of his feet, flashing his knife. He’d lost track of Meg. He decided it didn’t matter. What could a girl do?

  “Needlepoint?” Griffin drawled.

  “I’m not going back, no fucking way. I’m going to kill you, then I’m going to take out every goddamn cop along the way. I’ve already racked up at least six today. What’s a few more?”

  “I think you should take the car in the driveway,” Griffin said, circling warily. “You know, Viggio went to a lot of trouble to set it up just for you.”

  “Shit! He rigged it, didn’t he? Well, that just curdles my cheese. I’m the one who told him where to go on-line for the bomb-making guide, you know. Without me, that low-level turd would be nothing.”

  David leapt forward, slashing at Griffin’s unprotected thigh. Griffin, however, saw him coming, stepped neatly left and slammed him with a fresh uppercut to his left eye. David’s head snapped back. He saw stars but didn’t go down. Instead he spun away and worked to regroup. Griffin was bigger, all right. But David was smarter, and better armed.

  Griffin didn’t lunge again but just kept circling. He appeared strangely calm, almost curiously patient.

  “Without you, Viggio could’ve been the College Hill Rapist forever,” Griffin said. “No one could ever rat him out—like you were planning on doing.”

  “I wasn’t necessarily going to turn him in. What do I care if he�
��s running around this state terrifying college coeds? I sort of considered him a going-away present for you, Griff. Your job would never be boring. Now I’ll just have to kill you instead.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “What the fuck are you doing, Griffin? Where’s the rage, where’s the holy war? Don’t you remember what I did to Cindy? Do I have to tell you again what her last moments were like?”

  “Cindy died surrounded by the people who loved her. We should all be so lucky.”

  “I told her every little detail.”

  Griffin didn’t say anything. David frowned. He didn’t like this. Where the fuck was Griffin’s rage? He needed his old friend’s anger. He fed on Griffin’s rage. Griffin’s beautiful, dark, mind-fogging hate, which always lured the oversized detective into doing something stupid.

  “She tried to close her eyes, Griffin. I held her eyelids open with my fingers. It’s not like she could fight me.”

  Griffin still didn’t say anything. He appeared to be looking behind David at the doorway. David whirled around sharply, saw only the shadowed hall, then had to quickly twist again before Griffin jumped him from behind.

  “What you looking at?” David demanded. He was getting the heebie- jeebies again, feeling his control of the situation slip away, though there was no logical reason why.

  “I’m not looking at anything.”

  “There’s no one left, Griffin. I shot your stupid friend, the skinny one, Waters. ’Fraid you can’t break his nose anymore, Griffin. He interrupted me in the basement, so I killed him.”

  Griffin remained silent.

  David waved his knife. “Do you hear me! You’re all alone! I killed your friend, I tormented your wife. I murdered ten kids and you didn’t do a thing. And now, my good friend, I’m out of jail. Yep, you helped me with that, too. Welcome, Great Sergeant Griffin. Welcome, the aspiring criminal’s best friend.”

  “Where’s Meg?”

  “What?” David drew up short again. Something was wrong. None of this was going according to the usual script. He had sweat on his forehead. And he felt . . . he felt strangely tired. All this effort. He was putting on a good show. What the fuck was up with his audience?

  “Where is Meg?” Griffin asked again, circling, circling, circling.

  “Meg’s irrelevant.”

  “You think?” Circling, circling, circling.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you haven’t exactly gotten away yet, David. Think about it. You went to a lot of trouble to get out of prison, only to become trapped in your former home. That’s a lot of running, I would agree, but not much progress.”

  “Shut up.”

  Griffin shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you!” David screamed. “Goddammit, yell at me!”

  Griffin didn’t say a word. Just circled, circled, circled.

  And David . . . And David . . . Something went. In his head. Behind his eye. He felt a little pop, as if all of his homicidal fury had just exploded like a neutron bomb. And then his arm was above his head. And then he was running, because he had to kill Griffin. He had to kill this man with his calm face and steady voice and knowing, knowing eyes. Goddammit, after all of this planning, he deserved a better audience.

  David screamed at the top of his lungs. He charged forward . . .

  And Griffin pulled his gun out of the small of his back and shot him point-blank in the chest. Pop, pop, pop. David Price went down. He didn’t get back up again.

  Thirty seconds later, Fitz stepped into the room from where he’d been sheltering Meg in the hall. He approached David’s body while Meg peered in cautiously from the doorway. The detective leaned down, discovered no pulse, and looked back up at Griffin.

  “That was expertly played,” Fitz said grimly.

  And Griffin said, “I learned from a master.”

  He came out of the house, Meg and Fitz in his wake. Ambulances had arrived, their lights blazing, their sirens piercing. Funny how he had never heard their approach. In the bedroom, his world had been small, just comprised of David and the lessons of his past. Now it was lights, camera, action.

  Jillian came around the house, fresh from her cameo as a fleeing Meg Pesaturo. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair was a long, tangled mess, her clothes were stained with blood. He thought she had never looked better. She glanced at him once, her chin up, her gaze curiously open and proud. Then Meg was flying into her arms and she was holding the girl close, stroking her hair.

  Griffin went to the ambulance where they were loading up Waters on a stretcher. An oxygen mask was over Waters’s face, but his gaze was alert, focused.

  “How is he?” Griffin asked.

  “Gotta get to the hospital,” the EMT said.

  “He gets the best.”

  “Men in blue always do.”

  “Mike . . .”

  Waters tried a halfhearted thumbs-up. Then the stretcher was in the back, the doors were closing and the ambulance was pulling away.

  More cruisers came screeching down the street. More lights, camera, action.

  Griffin stood in the middle of the chaos of his old neighborhood, his old life. He looked at Meg. He looked at Jillian. He looked up at the bedroom where a dead David Price now lay.

  And he whispered, “Cindy, I love you.”

  The night wind blew down the street and carried his words away.

  In the intensive care waiting room, Dan sat with his elbows on his thighs and his fingers digging into his hair. Thirty minutes had passed. It might as well have been a year.

  A door opened and closed. Dan finally looked up to see a white-jacketed doctor standing before him. He tried to read the man’s face, tried to steel his body before he heard the words.

  “Your wife would like to see you.”

  “What?”

  “Your wife . . . She suffered an episode. But the good news is, she’s now regained consciousness.”

  “What?”

  “Would you like to see your wife, Mr. Rosen?”

  “Oh, yes. I mean, please.”

  Dan went down the hall. Dan went into the room. And there was Carol, pale but conscious, lying on the bed. His feet suddenly stilled. He couldn’t remember how to move.

  “Honey?” he said.

  “I heard your voice,” she whispered.

  “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I heard your voice. You told me that you loved me.”

  “I do, Carol! Oh I do. There has never been anyone else. You have to believe me. I’ve made so many mistakes, but Carol, I have never stopped loving you.”

  “Dan?”

  He finally got his feet to move. He took tiny, meek little steps toward the bed. She was awake now, capable of remembering all that he’d done, all of the ways that he had failed her. She was awake and he had not been a good husband, and . . .

  Carol took his hand. “Dan,” she told him quietly. “I love you, too.”

  EPILOGUE

  Jillian, Carol and Meg

  “WHAT ABOUT THIS DRESSER? COMING OR GOING?”

  “Going.”

  “And the lamp?”

  “Definitely going.”

  “I don’t know, I kind of like it.”

  Carol rolled her eyes at Meg, then looked at Jillian for support. “I don’t think French country quite goes with anything in a college dorm,” Jillian told Meg. “Maybe it’s the heavy gold fringe.”

  “Hey now, anything can coordinate with beanbag chairs and lava lamps. I believe it’s called eclectic.” But Meg dutifully tagged the lamp for Dan and Carol’s upcoming furniture auction. She’d been cheerfully trying to scam items for two hours now. Fortunately, not many of Carol’s heavy French antiques were small enough for Meg’s soon-to-be new address—the Providence College dorms.

  “Next room?” Jillian asked.

  “Next room,” Carol agreed.

  “Are you sure?

  “I’m sure.”

  All three of
them exited the bedroom and journeyed down the hall. Passing the staircase, they could hear the voices of their families floating up the stairs. Dan and Tom were busy sorting through the toolshed, but Laurie, Toppi and Libby had staked out the kitchen. Last Jillian saw, they had Griffin retrieving all of the high objects from the cupboards. As fast as he got an item in one box, they’d want it placed in another. He kept wiggling his eyebrows at Molly, then doing as he was told. Molly thought the whole project was loads of fun, and even now they could hear her shrieks of laughter as Griffin performed his latest Herculean task.

  Molly was doing extremely well these days, and had surprisingly few questions about her strange sojourn to the park six months ago. Meg, on the other hand, was looking paler, thinner. She had recovered physically from her abduction, as had Detective Waters. But with Meg’s newfound memories had come nightmares, night sweats, panic attacks. She was holding up, pushing through. She had her life back, she’d told Jillian and Carol at their last Survivors Club meeting, and she was determined to get on with it. Just next month, she’d return to Providence College for her degree. Her father was still negotiating for the right to call her every night and provide armed guards, but that was to be expected. And in his own way, Tom was really sweet.

  Jillian, Carol and Meg came to the closed door at the end of the hall. The last room to be tagged for auction. The room.

  “Are you sure?” Jillian asked again. “Meg and I could do this.”

  “Dan offered as well,” Carol said quietly.

  “Maybe you should accept his offer.”

  “I thought about it. He’d like to help more.”

  Jillian and Meg didn’t say anything.

  Carol shook her head. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. I need to do this. It’s just a room, after all. Just a room in a house that’s not even mine anymore. The new owners arrive next week. They’ll fill this place with their things, their kids, their dreams. If they can handle this room, I can, too.”

  Jillian didn’t think that was quite the same, but it wasn’t for her to say. She opened the door to the musty, shadowed space, then gave Carol a moment to marshal her resources.