The Last Child

CHAPTER THIRTY

Katherine put the phone on the floor, next to her leg. Against her back, the front door was hard and cold. She pushed against it, even as a fist slammed into it from the outside. “Go away, Ken!”

Above her, the deadbolt held fast. Another blow, this one low. A kick. “You are my girlfriend. This is my house.”

“I changed the locks!”

“Open this damn door!”

“I’ll call the cops. I swear I will.”

The door shuddered from successive blows; the knob twisted but held. “I just want to talk!”

“I’m dialing.” A lie.

Silence, sudden and complete. She held her breath and listened. She imagined his own ear to the door, his fingertips pressed white on the dirty paint. The silence built. Ten seconds. A minute. She screamed when he kicked the door a final time. Then she felt vibration as he descended the steps. His car started and headlights stabbed through the tattered lace curtains as he turned in the yard and sped up the road.

She collapsed against the door, shaking so violently her jaw hurt. He had to be drunk or coked up. But she’d made a decision. Johnny first. No drinking, no pills. And that meant no Ken Holloway.

Katherine bit down on the heel of her hand. At least Johnny was not here. At least he was safe.

She waited until her heart slowed and her breathing settled. Five minutes. Maybe ten. She was about to stand when she heard stealthy movement in the yard: gravel under foot, a rasp of bare earth. Fear paralyzed her so badly that she literally could not breathe. Outside, an old plank bent with the sound of wind through a dead tree. Weight on the porch. A thump against the door, very quiet. Katherine heard the bottom step groan and then silence.

Total, terrifying silence.

She had the phone in her hand but decided that 911 was not good enough. She wanted Hunt, trusted him. Keeping low, she moved to the kitchen. His card was in the top drawer. He answered on the first ring. She spoke in a whisper.

“Do not open the door,” he said. “Whatever you do. I’ll have a car there before you know it.”

She kept the phone in her hand even after they’d disconnected. She crept to the window and risked a glance. She saw shadows and trees, the friction of light and dark as low clouds raced across a rising moon. Nothing on the road. Nothing in the yard. She leaned right, pushed her cheek into the glass. She saw part of the porch but not enough. At the door again, she listened and heard a scratching sound, like a fork on wax paper. She heard it twice, faintly, then the unmistakable sound of a muffled cry. Faint. Somehow familiar.

She heard it again. It was outside the door. On the porch.

Katherine looked at the phone, then heard the cry again. For one wild second, she thought it was a baby. Someone had left a baby on her porch; but that was insane, she knew it; but the sound came again, and she found her fingers on the deadbolt, one hand on the knob.

She froze, thinking of Ken.

In the distance, an engine turned over. The sound rose then drifted south. The cry came again and she felt air on her cheek as the door opened to the length of the security chain. She did not remember making the decision to open it.

On the porch was a cardboard box sealed with silver tape. An envelope sat on top of it. The box shifted and the sound from within came more clearly. Johnny’s name was written on the envelope. “Oh my God.” She studied the yard, found it empty, and stepped out. The envelope was unsealed, a single piece of paper inside. The message was typed and unsigned.

You saw nobody. Heard nothing. You keep your damn mouth shut.

Katherine stared in dread at the box. She knelt and peeled back the line of bright tape. It came off with a tearing sound. Inside was a cat. Alive.

Its back was broken.

Katherine fell backward into the house, frozen, and one thought filled her head.

Johnny.

She punched in the number for Steve’s apartment but misdialed. She tried again, fingers clumsy. “Please, God,” she said.

The phone rang six times, ten; but no one answered. In mortal fear, she hung up the phone. Then she called Hunt again.