Iron House

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Abigail drove them out. She looked small behind the wheel of the Mercedes, shoulders rolled, head tucked down as if to dodge a blow. In the back, fingers twined, wet and slick. Blood pooled in the seats as Michael cradled Elena and fought the pain in his leg. They kept their heads down, and no one spoke until Abigail pulled into the lot of a dump motel two towns over. She found an empty spot under the limbs of a tree. Traffic flickered beyond a chain-link fence. “You alive back there?”

“We’re still here.”

“Stay in the car.”

She didn’t look at them as she got out.

Air blew warm from the vents. A coppery smell. Gun smoke and clean leather. Michael kissed Elena’s hair, and her hand tightened on his arm. She was in shock, he thought, her skin cold to the touch, lips dusted blue. He gentled bits of tape from her skin, her hair. An acorn hit the roof, and she jerked in his arms. “It’s okay, baby.”

There was silence and breath and dark eyes staring.

“You keep saying that.”

It came as a whisper, her first words since he’d carried her out. Michael kissed her forehead, and when she turned her cheek into his chest, she said, “You came for me.”

“Of course I did.”

“You came…”

Her fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her voice fell off, and Michael smeared tears from his face with the back of his hand.

When Abigail returned, she said, “I got you a room in the back.”

“We need a doctor.”

“Is it bad?”

Michael ground his teeth. “Pretty bad.”

She moved the car, opened the room and got them out when no one was around. They were a pitiful sight, all broken and cut and gunshot. Michael’s leg worked, but barely. No bones broken, no arteries hit.

Elena cried out when he put her on the bed.

Michael got her water, while Abigail brought things in from the car. She put a first-aid kit on the table. “From the trunk,” she said, then laid out Michael’s pistols and Jessup’s thirty-eight. She brought in the duffel bag, which held the Hemingway and the cash. She looked at Elena, at the sodden cloth tied around Michael’s leg. “I should hurry.”

Michael caught her at the door. His face was ashen, the pain a devil in his leg. “I need to thank you.” She stammered something, and for the first time since it went down, Michael really looked at her face. She was shell-shocked, her eyes bruised-looking and scared.

She shook her head, seemed for the first time to be doubt-filled and old. “Don’t-”

“I would have lost her without you.” He took her hand, felt bones that were light and small. “Do you understand what that means to me?”

“I mean it, Michael. Don’t.”

“Look at me, Abigail.”

“I don’t remember.”

That stopped him. “What do you mean?”

Her eyes darted to Elena, the guns, the door: everywhere but Michael’s face. “I remember being kicked and being hurt.” She touched her temple, which was wine-dark and swollen. “I remember the feel of sharp metal in my fingers.”

“The sickle-”

“I remember rage, and I remember driving.”

Michael took her head gently in his hands and tilted it so light touched on the place she’d been kicked. Jimmy had struck her in the right temple. The swelling was considerable, skin dark and stretched. “Painful?”

“Extremely.”

“Is your vision blurred?”

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“Can you drive?”

“I feel okay to drive.”

He released her, but put one hand on the door. “You saved Elena’s life,” he said. “That means you saved mine. Things like that matter to me. I won’t forget it.”

“That’s funny.”

“What?”

She managed a decent smile. “It seems I already have.”

The mood lightened as much as it could, but Michael kept his hand on the door. “Listen, I know a thing or two about situations like this. Don’t let people see blood in the car. Don’t tell anyone what happened.”

“I won’t.”

“Not Jessup or the senator.”

“Okay.”

“Doctors are required by law to report gunshot wounds-”

“I’m not an idiot.”

He grimaced, desperate to lie down. “I’ll take care of Elena, and then I’ll take care of the bodies. Don’t go back there. Okay? It has to be done right. This can still come back on us.”

“I understand.”

He took his hand off the door, swayed a little and caught himself. “Abigail…”

She reached for the handle, looked up.

“You did good.”

Michael collapsed on the bed and felt the world gray out. When color returned, he dug Tylenol from the first-aid kit, got three down Elena’s throat and then swallowed three himself. His eyes moved to her ankle. It was mottled and swollen, still at a painful angle. “I need to look at your foot.”

She stared at the ceiling, lungs filling shallow and fast. “It hurts.”

“I don’t know how long the doctor will be…”

“Just do it.”

She was crying when she said it, head turned against the pillow. He lifted her leg, touched the foot gently; she screamed so loudly he had to smother the sound with his palm. Her face was hard and hot. She fought him. When she finally settled, he removed his hand.

“I’m sorry.” She was crying. “I’m sorry…”

“Shhh…”

“It hurts, it hurts…”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” He lowered her leg gently. Tending to the ankle would require massive painkillers, so he draped it with a towel and left it alone. Same thing with the broken toes, the finger. The rest of her injuries were superficial lacerations, and he handled them as if she were an injured child.

She took his hand once, held it to her chest and squeezed tightly. “I’ve never been so happy to see you as when you came through that barn door.” Her eyes were filling up again. “I thought I was going to die. I thought the baby…”

Her voice broke.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“But you came.” She squeezed harder.

“That’s not enough, I know.”

“It is for now,” she said.

And that was all the talking they did. There was too much, and it was too fresh. The doctor came two hours later, and both, by that time, had reached whole new levels of agony. Cloverdale put his medical bag on the bed, frowned. Michael said, “Do her first.”

He examined her foot, and then lifted the sopping bandage on Michael’s leg. “Your injury is more severe.”

“Ladies first.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

Cloverdale waited for the punch line, then shrugged and got to work with a swab and needle. When the leg was numbed and Elena barely there, Cloverdale lifted the towel and got to work. “I’ll set this as best I can, but it’ll be a temporary fix. There’s tendon damage. Nerve damage, probably. Bones that need to be pinned. She’ll need surgery soon. Wait too long and she’ll never walk right.”

“Can she go a few days?”

“No longer than that.”

“Just get her so she can travel.”

The doctor did Michael next. He sewed up damaged vessels, sutured muscle and skin. When he finished, everything looked fine under a bandage that had not yet stained. “You’re a very lucky man. An inch to the right and the bullet would have shattered the bone.” Cloverdale pulled an orange pill bottle from his bag. “The pain will get worse before it gets better. These are very strong. Don’t kill yourself with them.”

He held out the bottle and Michael caught his wrist. “No one can know about this.”

The doctor looked at Michael’s hand until the fingers let go. “Mrs. Vane has already stressed that point.”

“I fear she’s not stressed it enough.”

Cloverdale frowned and packed instruments into his bag. When he turned around, Michael was holding twenty thousand dollars in cash. “Not the senator. Not anybody.” Michael held out the money. “This is for you.”

Cloverdale looked at Abigail, who shrugged. He shrugged, too, and took the money.

“That’s the carrot.” Michael waited for the doctor to meet his eyes. “Don’t make me bring the stick.”

“Are you serious?”

Michael let some killer show. “Don’t ask me that question again.”

The doctor left with an angry step. Elena was out, her breath a light rattle. Michael wanted to join her, needed blackness and stillness and drugs in his veins. But he couldn’t do it yet.

“I need one more thing,” he said to Abigail.

“What?”

He told her.

“Are you sure?”

“Just do it, please.”

When Abigail came back, she had the key to another room. “Is this really necessary?” She gestured at Elena. “Look at her. Jesus, look at yourself.”

Michael swung his legs off the bed, hissed in pain. “Where’s the room?”

“Across the way.” She gestured through the window. The motel was U-shaped, the parking lot in the center. “Number twenty-seven.”

Michael stood. “Help me get her up.”

Elena endured it, half-conscious. It took five minutes, and by the time they had her in the other room, Michael’s bandage was soaked through.

“Cloverdale won’t tell anybody,” Abigail said. Michael gave her a look. “Even if he did, it would just be the senator. My husband may be amoral and self-serving, but he’s neither stupid nor shortsighted. I’m implicated in this. I’m involved.” Michael stretched out beside Elena; Abigail lifted his leg. “Jesus. Look what you’ve done to yourself.”

“I’ve been shot before.”

“Let me at least change the bandage.” Michael nodded, and she changed the pads, the gauze. She threw the bloody mess in the trash. “Can I put a pillow under it?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’ve never been fussed over before.”

“Not even once?”

“Not ever.”

That touched something in Abigail. “Let me get you some water.”

She came back with a glass, and Michael said, “What I need is a car.”

“I have the Land Rover…” She hooked a thumb at the lot.

“I can’t drive a stick shift with this leg.”

“I’ll bring another. How do you want to handle it?”

“Just leave the keys at the desk.” He was exhausted, voice fading as his body finally crashed. He reached for the pill bottle, but Abigail beat him to it.

“Let me.”

She shook out two pills and watched him swallow them down. The bed creaked as she sat beside him.

“How’s Julian?” he asked.

“Still hiding.”

“Cops?”

“Looking for him with a frenzy. His face is all over the news. They’re talking about roadblocks and dogs. They’ve got search warrants, helicopters. Sheriff’s deputies are coming in from other counties to help search the grounds. The senator has lawyers, but they’re helpless. It can’t last much longer.”

Michael needed to worry about Julian, to think of names and connections.

Iron House…

Slaughter Mountain…

He closed his eyes, drifted, and then snapped awake. “The guns-”

“Beside you.” He saw them on the table. “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s done that can be done.”

“We need to find him. We need to understand-”

“I know we do. I know. But, tomorrow.”

Michael felt warmth and weight. Pills or blood loss or both. “I’ve only trusted one person who knew the truth about me.”

“Otto Kaitlin?”

“Yes.”

“Well…” She folded her hands, stood.

“Thank you, Abigail.”

He closed his eyes and was gone.

“You’re welcome, Michael.”

The clock read 4:00 when he woke: red numbers that glowed in the dark. Demon eyes. A double barrel, fired and hot. Michael blinked, and the clock rolled to 4:01. His throat was dry, but pain stood at a respectful distance. He checked Elena, who made a hump in the dark; then, he checked the guns. The forty-five was down to two rounds; the nine millimeter had a full clip. The thirty-eight was gone.

Michael went to the window, where he studied the lot and the cars in it. A late-model Range Rover angled in near their door, and he guessed that Abigail had been true to her word. Everything else matched the motel-old and tired and dirty-but the Rover’s paint was clean enough to catch starlight. He looked at the sky, at the white moon and high, clear flecks of gold, and was confused about what to feel. Men were dead: Stevan, who’d once been like a brother, and Jimmy who, for good or ill, had helped make Michael the man he was. He didn’t regret that they were gone, but it was strange to be so alone in that world.

Otto was dead.

Stevan. Jimmy.

Then the enormity of that settled on Michael. No one was looking for him or had reason to want him dead. In one fell swoop, his life had been made free of violence and baseness and fear. Elena slept eight feet away, and they had eighty million dollars to start a new life. They could disappear in safety. Have the baby. Be together. Michael took a deep breath, and felt his chest loosen.

No one was looking for him…

As illusions went, it was a good one.

The van rolled up two minutes later. It entered the lot slowly, lights off, windows black; Michael knew at a glance it meant trouble. It was the darkness of it, the slow, predatory roll. It eased onto the asphalt and stopped on a silver spray of broken glass. For long seconds nothing happened, then it rolled deeper into the lot, pulled toward the center, then backed to a stop near the first room Michael had occupied. The door slid wide and men spilled out as smooth and quiet as blown smoke. They moved professionally: hand signals and short-barreled, automatic weapons, black clothes and body armor. But they weren’t cops.

No badges or insignia.

License plate covered.

They took position on either side of the door, the center man with a two-handled battering ram. In two seconds they were in: a violent entry and a spill of silent black. In another twenty seconds they were out. They displayed no disappointment or anything else unprofessional. Three of them got back in the van, while the fourth dragged the damaged door closed. He walked to the passenger side, looked once around the dim lot then climbed inside and said something to the driver. As the van began to move, he looked in Michael’s direction.

Then the van moved past.

They left as slowly as they’d come, and did not turn on headlights until all four tires were on the road. Taillights faded, died; Michael watched the empty road. After five minutes, he lowered the hammer on the nine millimeter and climbed back into bed. They would need to leave soon, but Elena still slept, and her body was warm on his. He pushed closer and thought of the man he’d seen, a flicker of face in the high, thin light. Michael had met him once, outside Julian’s room.

Richard Gale.

The senator’s man.