Mortal Pursuit

24

“I say we break down the doors.”

Philip Danforth dabbed his split lip with a monogrammed handkerchief. A thread of light filtered through a hairline crack between the closet doors, striping his face. The reek of his sweat was acrid and close.

“That’s absurd,” Charles answered evenly.

“What’s absurd about it If we use our combined strength, we can blow them right off the hinges.”

“Do you have any idea how much noise that would make”

“To hell with the noise.”

“Just wait a minute, Phil.”

“Don’t call me Phil.”

“Philip. Sorry. Listen to me.”

Charles was using his courtroom voice. He had found that juries were more readily persuaded by quiet self-assurance than by inflamed rhetoric. The jury in this case was a panel of two: Judy and Barbara. He would never get through to Philip, but one person alone couldn’t smash open the closet.

“We can’t just say to hell with the noise,” Charles went on in his reasonable way, wishing the close confines didn’t require him to stand so close to Philip, nearly nose to nose. “Five armed men are out there.”

“Woman.” Barbara spoke as if every word were the first note of a scream. “One of them is a woman.”

“All right.” Charles showed no annoyance at the interruption. Never alienate the jury. “Four armed men and one armed woman. If we break out, they’ll hear us and come running.”

“For all we know,” Philip snapped, spraying Charles with a mist of spittle, “they may have left the house by now.”

“With Ally” Barbara sat down suddenly on a wicker hamper. It creaked.

“Philip,” Judy said in quiet reproach.

“Well, no.” Philip softened. “Not with Ally. I just meant they could be gone.”

“But they’re not.” Charles tapped an ear. “Listen.”

From the living room came faint noises: shatter of glass or porcelain, thuds of overturned furniture.

“What are they doing” Judy whispered.

Charles shrugged. “Wrecking the place, it sounds like.”

The low groan came from Barbara.

Philip stared hard at the doors, as if willing them to open, then turned to Charles, about to embark on another line of argument. Before he could, a new sound froze him.

The quick tread of approaching footsteps.

“Maybe they’ve brought Ally.” Barbara’s whisper was as solemn as a prayer.

Rattle of a chain. Flood of light. The bifold doors opened to reveal two ski-masked figures, the gray-eyed man and his female companion, both with guns drawn.

The man spoke. “Mr. Kent, we need your help with the safe.”

Charles blinked. “The safe”

A gloved hand closed over his arm and yanked him forward.

“Where’s my daughter” Barbara screamed.

The closet doors slammed in her face.

Thrust into the brighter light and fresher air of the bedroom’s glare, Charles was momentarily disoriented. He watched, dazed, as the two doorknobs were chained and padlocked.

Then the killers ushered him out of the room, down the hall.

He passed Ally’s bedroom. Through the doorway he saw his daughter seated in her desk chair, wrists bound to the tubular armrest with torn bedding. Her eyes met his.

“Daddy …” She hadn’t called him by that name in years.

The man behind him yanked the door shut. Charles whirled, an angry question riding on his lips, but it died when he looked into those cold gray eyes.

Out of the hallway. Crossing the threshold of the dining area.

Charles stopped short, staring.

He had expected some damage, but this …

The dining table had been upended and broken.

The chandelier cut loose to crash in pieces.

Every painting torn off the walls and savaged, the expensive frames splintered.

Love seat, twin sofas, matching armchairs-slashed, the leather upholstery curling in ribbons to expose gobs of foam stuffing.

In the dining area stood the man who had shot Officer Wald. His mask was off, his suntanned and stubbly face sweaty in the peculiar half-light of the one standing lamp still unbroken.

With robotic efficiency he was removing chinaware from a cabinet and smashing it on the floor. The dishes, priceless, had been in the Ashcroft family for generations.

“Good God,” Charles breathed.

He turned again, intending to register a protest, and the gray-eyed man said, “In the den.” To the woman: “Get back to work. This place still looks way too presentable.”

Presentable, Charles thought numbly as he traversed the living room, shoes crunching glass from a ruined end table. What would it look like when they were done The aftermath of a bomb blast

Nearing the foyer, he noticed absently that the patrolwoman was gone.

Funny. He hadn’t seen her in Ally’s bedroom.

He entered the den. It was his personal retreat, a video screening room. From any of the four plush recliners facing the projection TV he could watch satellite programming or a laser disc. Or he could stack CDs in the sixty-disc player and surround himself in music, his eyes blissfully closed.

No bliss tonight.

In the living room the vandalism continued, the noise redoubled now that the woman had joined in.

The den had not yet been trashed but soon would be. Already the safe had been violated, its contents heaped on the rosewood table near his favorite armchair.

The safe …

Ally must have revealed the combination. So why was he here

He turned as the door of the den clicked shut. The gray-eyed man stood facing him across five yards of deep pile carpet under the slow revolutions of a ceiling fan. He holstered his gun, then casually stripped off his mask.

“Hello, Mr. Kent.”

After all this, Charles was hardly in the mood for pleasantries. “Cain-what the hell”

“Relax.” Cain crossed to the bar and got out a bottle of brandy. “Have a drink … on the house.”

“I can’t go back in there with liquor on my breath.”

“You can rinse out your mouth later.” A loop of amber gurgled from the spout. “Take a drink. You’ll need it.”

“Need it Why What’s going on Why’d you have to get me away from the others”

“There’s been a complication.” Cain handed him the snifter. “Cheers.”

Charles hesitated, then decided he really did need the drink. Seeing Wald’s face shot off-tasting the sprinkle of blood—

Abruptly his knees threatened to unlock. He sank into the nearest chair and tipped the snifter to his lips.

A slow burn trickled down his throat. He let his head fall back.

“Complication,” he whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Is it the patrolwoman”

“She’s not a problem.”

“Where is she, anyway”

“The lake.”

It took a moment for the words to register. Then Charles snapped forward. “Dead”

“Very.”

“Damn it.” Brandy sloshed in the pearl-shaped glass. “That was totally unnecessary.”

“I decide what’s necessary, Mr. Kent.” Cain said it with a peculiar emphasis.

“The woman was unconscious, for God’s sake. She was handcuffed and disarmed, no threat whatsoever.”

“She was a cop. I hate cops.”

Charles looked away, not wanting to see Cain, not wanting even to be here.

“Bad enough with just one,” he breathed, “but … two of them.” He drained the snifter. “You know what they do to cop killers”

“One cop or two-it’s death row either way.” Cain smiled. “Anyway, you’re the one who gave the signal.”

The signal. Four words: Take care of it.

Out of earshot of the others, Cain had told him to say those words if somehow the patrol officers were surreptitiously alerted to what was going on. Charles had worked the signal into his conversation as the cops headed for the foyer, raising his voice to be sure Cain’s thugs in the closet could hear.

So yes, he’d known the ambush would take place. But he hadn’t thought either of the officers would be killed.

Had he

He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what he’d expected.

Anyway, it was too late now.

His hand shook as he offered Cain the empty glass. “More.”

“That was enough.”

“I’ve been on seltzer water all night, passing it off as vodka and soda. You’re the one who wanted me to start drinking for real.”

“And now I want you to stop.”

The snifter made a dull thump as Charles set it down on the rosewood table.

“If it’s not the patrolwoman,” he whispered, “then what You don’t seem to be having any trouble trashing my house. And you got the safe open.”

“Eventually. Your daughter was less than cooperative.”

“You didn’t hurt her”

“Just had to raise my voice a little.”

“You should have used me.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Charles was surprised to hear Cain say that. They had argued the point at length.

Both had agreed that every detail of the breakin had to be carried out as if Cain had no inside information. For that reason Charles had not supplied Cain with house keys or told him the alarm-system access code. Instead Cain had pirated the code with a digital decrypter, which he’d conveniently left in place to be discovered by the police.

Cain hadn’t been given the combination of the safe either. For realism he would obtain it openly from some member of the Kent household, who would later include that detail in an official statement.

Charles had thought he should be selected. Cain had held out for Ally, saying that an honest witness would provide more persuasive testimony. As a lawyer, Charles knew this to be true and finally had yielded.

Barbara, of course, had never been an option. She would not be making any statements to anybody after tonight.

“If Ally did what you wanted,” Charles said slowly, “what the hell’s the problem Why’s she in her bedroom and not in the closet with the rest of us”

“She hasn’t been harmed.”

“Barbara doesn’t know that. She’s practically hysterical. The agreement was that after Ally gave you the combination, you’d have her join us. Then you’d take Barbara and Judy-“

“I’m familiar with our agreement.”

“So what’s the delay You can’t keep us in there all night. Danforth’s already talking about breaking out. The guy’s a hothead, and he’s had too much to drink. Your people shouldn’t have pushed him around; it got him worked up. And killing that cop-“

“Forget the goddamned cops.”

Suddenly Cain was leaning over the armchair. Charles stared into his eyes and saw hardness and madness there.

“We got ourselves a situation, Mr. Kent. Involving your precious daughter.”

Charles coughed, a light, almost dainty sound. “What … what about her”

“She saw my face.”