Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Series

by Blake Crouch

  "And you’re here alone?"

  "Yessir. I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t’ve—"

  "Well, Luther, what do you think? Should we give him a head start?"

  "Fuck no."

  A flashlight suddenly burned in Horace’s eyes.

  He saw the twenty-eight-inch barrel pass through the lightbeam, shook shook, and he dove to the floor as the light went out.

  There was an orange blossom.

  Earsplitting boom.

  He smelled gunpowder as the spray of buckshot hit the stone behind him.

  And Horace was back on his feet, running blind into the dark.

  57

  IT was in the late afternoon when the shaft of light passed through the stone and lit the oval patch of rock.

  Beth staggered to her feet.

  The manacles and a sixteen-inch length of chain still hung from her left wrist. She’d spent several hours to no avail trying to squeeze her hand free.

  Beth stood in bare feet, in her filthy yellow teddy, gazing down at Andy and Violet.

  They’d all huddled in darkness last night, listening to the shotgun blasts, wondering what had happened to that young man.

  "Come here," Andy whispered.

  She knelt, their faces close in the musty twilight.

  "Beth, just get out of this place. That’s your first priority. Get somewhere safe before you try to do anything."

  She nodded, moved over to the twenty-something blond, whose once smart black suit now adorned her like rags.

  "Violet," she whispered, touching her face, running her fingers across the top of her dirty matted hair, "You’re going to have your baby."

  Vi’s eyes welled.

  "Be safe, Beth."

  And Beth stood, stepped from the alcove into the tunnel, glancing back at her cellmates, barely visible in the temporary stream of sunlight.

  Then she started into the corridor.

  After three steps the darkness was total. She could hear hammering somewhere in the black distance. She dragged her right hand along the wall as a guide. Shards of laughter reverberated through the darkness, the dirt cool beneath her feet. She thought of her children. Drove them from her mind, thinking, Just get outside, under the blue sky, and go from there.

  She walked into three deadends before she saw the light.

  It came from a doorway twenty feet ahead.

  The chain dangling from her wrist knocked into the stone wall.

  Spurning the impotence in her knees, she crept forward until the voices became perfectly clear.

  Rufus carefully let go of the oak strip he’d been pressing into the back of the chair for the last five minutes. The strip would serve as a sleeve for the heavy copper wire that ran up the backside of the four-by-four. Now that the wood glue had hardened, Rufus stepped back and admired his chair. It was crude, yes, but in a terrifyingly utilitarian fashion.

  It would be so beautifully lethal.

  Maxine sat in a corner reading At Home in Mitford.

  Luther was crouched over a sheet of copper.

  "Pop, what’d you do with the hacksaw? I have one more cut to make, and I can’t find it."

  "Haven’t seen it."

  "Mom, you haven’t touched it?"

  Maxine peered over the top of her book.

  "Do I look like I have any use for—"

  "Oh, no."

  "What?" Rufus said.

  Luther stood up.

  "You don’t think our visitor took it?"

  "No."

  "Well, do you see it here? I didn’t take it. You didn’t take it. Mom sure as hell didn’t take it."

  "Watch that language, boy."

  "The fucker"—Luther glanced at his mother—"didn’t walk off."

  "Beautiful, were they all chained up when you fed them this morning?"

  "Gee, Sweet-Sweet, I don’t remember. I wasn’t really paying attention. What kinda question is that? Of course they were."

  "We better go check on them, son."

  Rufus and Luther were halfway through the doorway when they heard the dingdong.

  The doorbell had been recently wired to a speaker near the stairs and they stared at it in amazement as it dingdonged again.

  Beth froze, watching the Kite family emerge into the corridor. She did not move for fear the chain would clink against the stone or they would hear her footsteps. She wondered if the darkness were sufficient to hide her, should one of them happen to glance back in her direction.

  The young man, the old man, and the old woman walked up the corridor away from her, guided by the light of a lantern.

  The young man carried a shotgun.

  The dingdong echoed again through the darkness.

  In the orange illumination of the lanternlight, Beth saw them turn and disappear. She thought they had swung around into another passageway until the sound of their footsteps reached her.

  They’re climbing stairs.

  And knowing she’d found the way out, she crept after them.

  58

  RUFUS alone answered the door with a bright toothless smile that never faltered, even when he saw the badge. Two men stood facing him on the stoop, the sun in their eyes, just moments from sliding behind the house on its way into becoming a puddle of light in the Pamlico Sound.

  The one with the badge was a big bear of a man in a JC Penney’s suit that should’ve been donated to the Salvation Army years ago. His hair was frosting, mustache just as dark and thick and pure as a stallion’s mane. The curly-haired man standing behind the cop looked half his age—mid-twenties, lean and tall, wearing jeans and a pinstripe button-down, with the eyes of a dog who’d been kicked.

  The cop closed his wallet, dropped it back into his pocket, said, "Mr. Kite, my name’s Barry Mullins. I’m a sergeant with Criminal Investigations Division in Davidson, North Carolina. Could I come in for a moment?"

  "Absolutely."

  Rufus opened the door wide and stepped back.

  Sgt. Mullins whispered to his companion, "Max, please, just go and wait in the car. It would be—"

  Max walked into the house.

  Sgt. Mullins frowned and followed.

  Rufus closed the door, the three men standing now in the dim foyer, the house perfectly quiet.

  "Get you gentlemen a glass of iced tea?" Rufus offered.

  Sgt. Mullins shook his head.

  "Your wife at home, sir?"

  "She’s out running an errand."

  Sgt. Mullins motioned to the long living room.

  "Let’s have a seat in there, Mr. Kite."

  On her way to the stairs Beth stopped and looked inside the room where the Kites had been hammering and jawing and sawing. Tools littered the floor. A bare light bulb burned her eyes, humming directly above what all the ruckus must’ve been about—a rude chair in the final stage of construction, with copper plating along its armrests and front legs, numerous leather restraints, and thick copper wire coiled in the dirt beside it. The thing had an undeniable presence. As the architecture of a cathedral exudes solemnity and peace, its raw blocky masculine design radiated pure malevolence.

  Beth shook off the chill and moved on. In the distance she could see where the corridor opened into a larger space. One of the Kites had left a kerosene lantern hanging in a corner to spread its worthless light upon the dirt and stone near the foot of the stairs.

  She emerged from the passageway.

  She rubbed her bare arms, bumpy with gooseflesh.

  The stairs spilled down out of darkness.

  Beth peered up, unable to see where they terminated.

  And she wrapped the chain around her wrist to keep it from dragging and began to climb, the steps creaking so noisily that she did not hear the whispered footsteps of the old woman creeping out of the shadows behind her.

  Sgt. Mullins eased down onto the same ottoman his detective had occupied six days ago during her first encounter with Rufus and Maxine Kite.

  The old man lounged comfortably on the flaxen
sofa, running his fingers through his cottony coif.

  Max King stood by the cold hearth.

  "Mr. Kite," Sgt. Mullins said, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees. "A week ago, I sent my detective, Violet King, to Ocracoke Island to talk with you and Mrs. Kite about your son, Luther. I understand she came here last Wednesday?"

  "Yessir, she did." Rufus smiled. "A lovely little thing, I must say. She met briefly with me and Maxine. Like you said, she wanted to know about our boy, Luther. And I’ll tell you what I told her. I haven’t seen my s—"

  "Sir, I’m aware of what you told her. She called me that night. That’s not why I’m here."

  Sgt. Mullins motioned to Max.

  "This is Max King. Ms. King’s husband. He last spoke to Ms. King on Thursday morning. Late Thursday night, Ms. King called my home and spoke briefly with my wife. My wife is the last person we know of to have had contact with Ms. King. No one has seen her or heard from her since."

  "Oh, Lord."

  "Now Vik—Ms. King was supposed to come back here and talk with you and Mrs. Kite late Thursday afternoon. Did she?"

  "No, sir. We’d agreed to meet with her again after five o’clock, but she never showed. Do you think something’s wrong?"

  Sgt. Mullins twisted his mustache and glanced up at Max, the young man’s jowls fluttering against the saltwater in his eyes.

  The bare feet of Beth Lancing stopped on the third step. She was squinting up into the darkness at slits of light that framed a door when she heard something like the muffled thock of a knee or hip bone popping.

  A leathery hand seized her left ankle and the floor hit her hard in the back, the old woman upon her, face contorted in the lanternlight, black eyes shining through a mass of wild wrinkles that looked hardly human.

  Something caught the lanternlight thinly, fleetingly, and Beth heard herself gasp at the cold wet burn that was spreading through her abdomen.

  Beth rolled on top of Maxine, grabbing at the old women’s wrists as the soles of Maxine’s orthopedic shoes found her stomach. Beth slammed into the corner, knees turning liquid.

  Both women scrambled to their feet, panting. Maxine was just out of reach, blocking the stairs. Beth unraveled the chain on her left wrist, noting the warm red trickle down her inner thigh, the boning knife in Maxine’s right hand, and the weightlessness filling the space behind her eyes.

  When Maxine lunged the chain caught her in the mouth. She choked and spit blood, staggered into the wall and dropped the knife.

  Beth spun Maxine around and punched her so hard it broke her hand and the old woman’s jaw at once.

  Swiping up the knife, she left Maxine unconscious in the dirt and tore up the stairs toward the slits of light.

  59

  AS Sgt. Mullins came to his feet he said, "Mr. Kite, this is one big old spooky house ya’ll got here."

  Rufus smiled. "It’s haunted, you know."

  "That right?"

  "There’s a ghost lives up on the third floor, gooses my wife every time she walks into our son’s old room."

  Sgt. Mullins grinned.

  "I think I’d bolt that room shut, never go back in."

  "Nah, our ghosts are all right…just a little horny."

  "Mr. Kite, thanks for your time."

  As the old man stood, his eyes lit up.

  "You know, come to think of it, there’s someone else you should talk to. Fellow named Scottie Myers. Works at Howard’s Pub. Used to be a friend of Luther’s. I told Ms. King about him, so he may have seen her after I did."

  "We’ll look him up."

  Rufus walked them toward the front door.

  "Will you let me know when you find Ms. King?" the old man asked. "It’ll keep me up nights thinking about her."

  "Do you have a phone? We tried to call first, but couldn’t—"

  "Sure don’t."

  "Well, if I remember, I’ll write you a note, let you know when we find her. Because we will find her."

  Rufus patted Max on the shoulder as he opened the door for them.

  "Your wife will be in my prayers, young man."

  Sgt. Mullins and Max stepped outside and walked down the disintegrating steps into the waving beach grass. When Max heard the door close behind them he said, "Barry, you have to search that house. I have a bad—"

  "Wait till we’re in the car."

  The black Crown Victoria was parked between the two live oaks in the front yard. Its windshield glinted and then went dark as the sun slipped behind the house.

  The men climbed into the car and closed the doors.

  "Something isn’t right in there," Max said. "Get a search warrant, whatever you have to do, turn that place upside down. That old man…I don’t know."

  Sgt. Mullins put the key into the ignition but didn’t start the engine.

  He stared through the windshield at the great stone House of Kite, ensconced on the banks of the sound.

  "Well, I do know," he said finally. "Been doing this quite awhile. You learn how to read people, how to know if they’re hiding something. If they’re nervous. Body language says a lot. Fidgeting. If the eye contact is too intense or nonexistent."

  "Barry, look—"

  Sgt. Mullins held up a finger.

  "That old man," he said, "doesn’t have a thing in this world to hide."

  "It’s your suspect’s father for—"

  "Means nothing. I looked into his soul, Max. He’s telling the truth."

  Sgt. Mullins clicked in his seatbelt and cranked the engine.

  "Let’s go find Mr. Scottie Myers," he said, shifting the car into reverse.

  Max scowled.

  Sgt. Mullins grinned.

  "Trust me, Max. I’m right. It’s a gift."

  Sgt. Mullins turned the car around and they headed back along the dirt road that wound through the thicket of live oaks. Reaching down, he turned on the radio, found an oldies station, drumming his hands now on the steering wheel.

  As Max reached to buckle his seatbelt he happened to glance in the side mirror.

  "Stop the car, Barry!"

  "What?"

  "Look!"

  Sgt. Mullins stepped on the brake and both men looked back through the window.

  Beyond the tunnel of live oaks, they could see the stoop of the stone house, the front door flung wide open, a woman in torn yellow lingerie falling down the steps, picking herself up again, and running after them, the blood on her left leg visible even from fifty yards away.

  Sgt. Mullins said, "Holy God."

  He turned back to shift the car into park.

  The windshield shattered.

  His right arm exploded.

  Sgt. Mullins stomped the gas and as the car accelerated, the man with the shotgun stepped out of the way and fired pointblank through the window at Sgt. Mullins’s head.

  The detective collapsed into Max’s lap, his foot slipped off the gas pedal, and the Crown Victoria rolled a ways down the dirt road before veering into the thicket. After ten feet, its front bumper collided gently with the trunk of a live oak and the car was at rest, idling quietly.

  Max’s left shoulder had caught three pellets of buckshot but he felt nothing as he strained to lift the big detective off his legs.

  He heaved Sgt. Mullins back into the driver seat and glanced through the rear passenger window. A man with long black hair was thirty yards away and closing, moving deliberately through the thicket toward the car. He saw Max looking, smiled, and pumped his shotgun.

  They killed Vi.

  He swept Sgt. Mullins’s coat back as the footsteps of the assailant waxed audible over the purr of the engine.

  Unbuttoning the latchet, he pulled the Glock from its cowhide holster.

  Vi had begged him several times to come shoot with her at the range. He never had and knew nothing of how to use a firearm except for what he’d seen in movies and on television.