by Ellie Marney
“Ahhh.” Amusement in Simon’s voice. “We couldn’t make sense of the numbers.… I knew you said ‘we.’ So Mr. Bell is part of the ‘we’? How interesting.”
Emma doesn’t respond to that. Bell finally arrives, standing a good three feet farther back from the barricade, pointedly ignoring Simon.
“What do you need?” he asks Emma.
“An answer to a question.”
“Now?”
“Now is all we have. During Simon’s trial, was there anything mentioned in the press coverage about how he reads the Washington Post? Do you remember anything?”
Bell considers, shakes his head slowly. “Not that I can recall. Is that important?”
“I’m not sure.” She bites her lip, looks back through the bars. “If it wasn’t public knowledge that you read the Washington Post, who else would know?”
Simon shrugs carelessly. “I can’t imagine.”
Over by the desk, Kristin calls out. “Simon, I can’t find the cigarettes anywhere!”
Bell steps closer to the barricade. “Cooper,” he suggests. “Cooper knew.”
“Cooper was the second agent on Simon’s case—he had a special interest.” Emma feels the weight of time. Ross could return with the FBI escort at any second. Probably right this moment, footsteps are tapping, coming toward them down the hall. She forces herself to hold firm. “Simon, no one else knew you read the Washington Post.”
“Well,” he says, “not exactly no one.”
“Pradeep knew.”
“That’s true,” he concedes. “Wonderful Pradeep.”
“And Dr. Scott. But there’s no one else, except…”
Simon smiles encouragingly. “Come on, you’re almost there.”
Emma hears it: the sound of a key in the door. The mnemonic unlocks a recess within her own brain. She looks at Bell wildly. “Kristin said the Butcher would know the inside of the asylum. A schematic, a floor plan—”
“He knows the inside… because he’s been inside?” Bell has turned to face her now.
“A staff member.” Emma clutches his jacket. “Bell, I think the Butcher is an employee of the asylum. And he’s not young, he’s not a student, he’s—”
The door is opening.
“An older employee.” Bell’s eyes are very wide. “With medical training—”
“Oh god,” Emma says, and when she looks over Bell’s shoulder, she sees Clive Ross stepping into the room holding the lanyard of keys, with his other arm raised and an FBI-issue Smith & Wesson Model 13 pointing directly at them.
“Surprise!” Simon exclaims.
And the gates of hell swing wide.
The first shot is aimed at Bell. He has turned toward the door, half shielding Emma. His left arm lifts, an instinctive blocking movement, hand open in the universal sign for Halt.
The bullet—unsilenced, an explosion of sound in the echoing room—rips through the fabric of Bell’s jacket and shirt, spinning him around. He hits the floor before he has a chance to cry out.
Emma doesn’t hear herself scream.
Ross keeps advancing.
A great wailing cry, and Kristin Gutmunsson launches herself forward from the corner of Pradeep’s desk, wielding nothing more than the pincer tool off the wall.
She manages to hit Ross once, and hard. Not expecting an attack, he lurches sideways to his knees, the keys falling from his hand.
This is their only chance—Emma sprints forward, hunkered low. She skids across the floor and overshoots, ends up sprawling. Arm stretched back, she snatches up the keys. The lanyard slides into her hand as if it wants to be there.
Ross staggers up, turns and aims at Kristin. She gasps, backs up, not fast enough to avoid Ross—he wrenches the pincer out of her hands, throws it aside, grabs her by the hair, and drives her down against the wooden surface of the desk so violently that her head and body rebound. She slithers to the floor in a heap of linen and white tresses.
“KRISTIN!” Simon bellows.
Emma slips, stumbles, gets up, takes two strides for the exit. Her consciousness is ablaze with a kaleidoscope of images: Ross, the gun, Bell on the floor, Simon in his cage, Kristin’s bright hair falling, the awareness of the FBI forces just beyond the walls. If she can get to the door, if she can tell them—
“Run out that door and I will shoot him in the head.”
Emma stops.
Time comes to a standstill. She’s facing the open doorway. In her peripheral vision, Kristin is a puddle of white. Behind her, Bell groans. Ross’s voice has come from the same direction. If she turns her head, she knows what she’ll see: Ross standing over Bell, the Model 13 aimed and ready.
Every muscle in Emma’s body is shaking on the precipice.
“I’ll say it one more time. If you run, I’ll shoot.”
Not you. The voice in her mind sounds like Simon’s. He won’t shoot you.
It doesn’t matter. She’s been to this country before. She knows what’s at stake. She’ll run and she’ll be safe, and the FBI will catch the Butcher. She’ll run and Bell will die. She’ll run and Kristin will be defenseless, and Simon will be alone, and her world will reverberate endlessly to the sound of the shot, just like it trembled to the sound of a knife parting flesh—first Vicki’s neck, then Tammy’s.
Her whole body shudders, ripped with the force of irreconcilable instincts.
“Turn around,” Ross says quietly, “and bring me the keys.”
The keys are in her right hand. Clutched in the bundle, the thin black key for the foyer door. She brings right and left hands together, brings the keys in, presses them to her stomach. Hardly able to think with the shaking. Screaming in her mind and tears in her eyes.
The click of the hammer being cocked.
Emma sobs once.
She turns around.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Good choice,” Ross says.
Ross is in front of the cell, his hand tugging Bell’s hair, lifting his head, the gun pressed into Bell’s temple. The cords in Bell’s neck stand out. Red stains his shirt. When he sees Emma, he groans.
Emma’s chin and bottom lip are wobbling. Her body shudders. It’s all she can do to stand there, silent.
“Come here and give me the keys,” Ross says. He is utterly expressionless. His previously warm brown eyes are now dark and hard with cold.
The Butcher.
Seven steps back into the room, away from the open doorway. Each step feels like a death sentence. When Emma gets close enough, Ross releases his grip on Bell and aims the gun at her forehead. The tears tracking down her cheeks don’t move him at all.
He holds out his free hand, palm up. “The keys.”
Emma’s hand is shaking so much it’s hard to release her fingers. She gives him the keys. Her grip on the metal has scored white marks into her skin.
“Thank you.” Ross smiles. He slips the lanyard over his head. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person, Miss Lewis.”
The Butcher knows her name. She might have passed him in the asylum’s halls, and Simon has shared her name, and they are trapped here, trapped here, and Emma wants to throw up.
“Now,” Ross says, “you’re going to help me. Drag the boy over to the desk, beside Miss Gutmunsson.”
Emma feels herself shifting into an altered state of perception: her breaths hard and fast and deep, her skin acutely sensitive to the temperature of the air and the fabric on her skin. The taste of copper is in her mouth. Sounds seem to mute and narrow their focus. She can smell the musk of testosterone from the three males in the room.
The black mouth of the gun looms large in front of her eyes.
Ross tilts his head. “Do I have to repeat myself?”
“No,” Emma says.
“Move slowly. Take him under the armpits.”
She sinks to her knees. She has to turn Bell over. The fabric under his left armpit is wet. When she tightens her grip on him, he makes a tortured noise.
“I’m sorry,�
�� she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Emma.” His eyes are rolling with pain. “Why didn’t you run?”
She can’t look at him and do this. She grabs handfuls of his shirt, has to tuck her chin into the side of his neck to get purchase. He’s shaking. His skin smells warm and raw as she pulls him backward awkwardly, stumbling over her own feet, pulling again until her backside bumps the desk. She settles him against one thick wooden desk leg.
“Here, it’s okay now,” she whispers, uncertain whether she’s reassuring Bell or herself.
“Pull down his jacket and tie it around his wrists at the back,” Ross says from behind her.
“He can’t move. He’s just—”
The hard metal of the gun barrel presses at her nape. “Just do as I say.”
Emma shuffles on her knees to face Bell, uses her shoulder to prop him up as she sits him forward. When she tugs his jacket down his arms, he mashes his lips against her T-shirt, pants heavily through the thin cotton. She has to reach around his body to tie the sleeves of the jacket together. By the time she eases him back against the desk leg, his face is like wax.
“What if he bleeds out?” Her voice is quavering.
Ross presses the gun against her temple as he leans forward to inspect Bell’s wound. He pokes his fingers into the sodden red fabric under Bell’s armpit. Bell turns his head aside and bites his bottom lip, eyes squeezed up tight.
“Clean through the edge of the latissimus dorsi,” Ross pronounces. “Might’ve just grazed a rib. Don’t worry about him now. You have something else to do. Drag Miss Gutmunsson closer to the desk.”
Emma makes herself move. Compliance goes against all her natural instincts.
Dragging Bell has left a blood trail across the floor—Ross tuts disapprovingly. Emma has to step over the blood to reach Kristin. A large dark bruise is starting to form on the side of the girl’s forehead. Emma checks her pulse at the neck: It’s slow, but strong.
“She’s all right.” Emma pitches her voice a fraction louder. “She’s just knocked out.”
Far across the room, Emma glimpses Simon—braced against the bars—as he lowers his head.
“Fine,” Ross says. “Now move her.”
Kristin is lighter than Bell, but there’s somehow more of her: long, boneless limbs moving out of concert, strands of white hair getting in Emma’s mouth. During her attempts to prop Kristin against the desk, Emma has a chance to slip the long iron key out of the front waistband of her jeans and into the pocket of Kristin’s coat.
“Hurry,” Ross says.
“I can’t prop her up.”
“Then leave her on the floor.”
She sets Kristin on her side on the wooden floor, a little away from Bell. The exertion and the subterfuge have made Emma sweat in a horrifyingly familiar way.
“Very good,” Ross says. “Now go to the door. Just outside it, on the left, you’ll find a coil of rope and my medical pouch. Bring them both inside. If you run away, you know what will happen.”
Emma faces him directly. “I know what will happen if I stay here, too.”
“Do you want me to shoot them both? You can choose which one will go first.”
Emma grits her teeth and goes to the door. Cool air from the dark hall floats against her face. The urge to take flight exerts its pull on her once again. She fights against it, collects the rope and the pouch. Where the hell is the FBI?
“Put the pouch on the desk. Bring the rope here.”
Emma does as she’s told. The rope is a heavy, coarse bundle. Ross takes the coil and slings it over his shoulder, indicates for her to move forward, to take up position beside him in front of Simon’s cage.
Simon is standing in the glow of light inside the cell, a tall ice sculpture. His posture is loose but his eyes are like hard sapphires, unblinking.
When he speaks, his voice is dangerously silky. “Siegfried.”
“Artist,” Ross replies. “At last.”
Ross smiles. Emma’s not sure how he can smile, the way Simon looks at this moment.
“You’ll excuse my delay,” Ross goes on. “I had to collect my equipment, and the weapon.”
Simon doesn’t acknowledge Ross’s aside. “That wasn’t very polite, the way you treated my sister.”
“I’m afraid I don’t react well when attacked by surprise.”
Simon’s lips turn up. “Kristin can be a handful, no doubt. Did you know she stabbed me once? It’s an old story, never mind. Suffice to say I sympathize.”
“Miss Lewis here is much more cooperative.”
“Oh, she can be unruly when the mood takes her.” Simon’s eyes light on Emma, flit away.
“I wasn’t very happy when I found out the FBI was staking out the building.” Ross’s tone is quietly reproachful.
Simon spreads his hands. “What can I say—I was put in a difficult position. You seem to have made it work for you. I do hope you’ll forgive me.”
“What’s to forgive? Here we are, and you’re about to give me everything I’ve ever wanted.” Ross steps toward the cage. The light catches the hollows in his face, and he suddenly looks ravenous.
Emma clenches her fingers. The feeling that she’s standing too close to a pair of jackals is overwhelming.
Simon prowls forward. “I don’t suppose you’d be satisfied with a small donation? I could stretch an arm outside the bars.… No, I don’t imagine. It’s been a long road to get here.”
“Long enough. But not without its pleasures along the way.”
“The letters were the most fun.”
“I would have to disagree. The treatments have been… extraordinary. I can’t tell you. The physical benefits are satisfying, but I wasn’t expecting the mental benefits—that’s been a real delight.”
“How fortunate.” A hint of dryness in Simon’s reply. “So what happens now? I imagine we need to move things along with the FBI banging around outside.”
“It’s fine. I locked them out via the control booth. The asylum’s old wiring is complicated—I think it’ll take them at least thirty minutes to find the circuit breakers. I’ve already dealt with the booth technician and the agent on the front desk, so we have some time. You know I don’t like to rush.”
Emma suspected the FBI had been held up somehow—they surely would have heard the gunshot—and the confirmation of it ping-pongs around inside her head. No FBI. No cavalry. Not yet.
Simon presses his hands together. “Of course. So you’ll bleed me, and then the others? Or maybe it should happen in reverse order.”
“I’ll take samples from the others, of course. That won’t take very long, and I wouldn’t want to waste them. You, I think I’ll… savor.”
Simon seems unfazed by the prospect of his imminent demise. “Excellent. Although before we start, I’d like some assurances about what will happen to my twin.”
“I’ll let her go once we’re done,” Ross says. “She’s seen my face, but she doesn’t know my real name. And I’ll be disappearing soon anyway—as you know, I have a place to stay where nobody will find me. Your sister poses no threat.”
In normal circumstances, Emma would roll her eyes.
“Well. That’s very kind.” Clearly, Simon doesn’t believe a word of it either. “My life for Kristin’s. That seems appropriate.”
“I like everything to be balanced.”
“Naturally.” Simon cants his head. “So how would you like to proceed?”
“I was thinking you could take the sheet off your bed and secure your ankles together with it.”
Simon grins in reply. To Emma’s shock, he begins to do exactly what Ross has suggested, whipping one of the sheets back and separating it from the plain ticking of his bed. He twists the sheet like he’s doing laundry. Then he sits on the bed with his bare feet together.
“Like this?” He winds the sheet carefully. “Or in a figure eight?”
“That’s fine.”
“Now what happens?” Simon’s level o
f enthusiasm for the process is entirely inappropriate.
“Now Miss Lewis assists me again with the rope.”
Ross dumps the coil on the floor. Emma’s eyes feel dry trying to track the movements: Simon in the cell, Ross with his paramedic costume, the black hole of the gun’s muzzle as Ross nudges her with it.
“Unwind a length. Toss one end over the top of the bars, to go through the roof of the cell.”
The rope is rough, the coil unspooling against her legs. Having something to do helps control the shaking in her hands. She has no idea what Simon is planning, but she feels it inside the room like a whispered promise of chaos.
The cell is about twelve feet high. After two attempts to throw the end of the rope into position, she realizes it’s not going to work.
“I’m not… It’s too high.” “You’re standing too far away,” Ross says. “Go inside the barricade. He won’t bite.”
Simon grins again at this.
Emma pushes one of the sawhorses aside and steps into the forbidden zone.
“Come on, Emma,” Simon exhorts. “Best efforts now.”
She takes a deep breath. Swings the rope end for a lasso effect, throws—the rope flops onto the bars of the cell’s ceiling. A few judicious flicks and it snakes into the cell from above. She pays out rope until the end curls into Simon’s lap.
“Oh, well done!” He applauds her.
This can’t be happening. This is too surreal, too dangerous, too wrong.
Simon ties the rope firmly around the twisted sheet between his ankles. “Ready to go. Haul away!”
Ross waves the gun at her. “You heard.”
Emma stares. “I’m never going to be able to pull him up. He’s a foot taller and about fifty pounds heavier.”
“Then you’ll have to pull hard.”
“You can do it, Emma!” Simon is smiling ear to ear. “Don’t be defeated by a little thing like physics!”
This is amusing him, she realizes. Simon is pandering to Ross because it amuses him.
It makes her angry enough that she picks up the slack rope and pulls.
The first eight feet are easy: Simon is already sitting on his bed, and he even uses his hands to push himself up higher once his legs are in the air. Then he is off the bed, and she is bearing his entire weight. She has to brace her feet against the slipperiness of the wooden floor, bend at the waist. Then, crawl on her knees.