The Sanctuary

22

I WALKED UP the three steps that led to the mansion’s glass and ironwork door, fingers tingling, and without allowing even a pause, I rang the illuminated doorbell button that was set in a brass intercom.

I assured myself that I was safe. Apart from the knife and Mace in my pockets, I wasn’t packing threatening weapons and I had no intention of leaping on anyone with fists flying. I was only a lost soul who desperately needed to use a phone because the one in my back pocket was dead. My presence was totally innocent. Nothing strange, nothing crazy, nothing but me being neurotic, and there was no crime against that.

I rang the bell again, and this time I saw light come to life past the glass. Clean, sparkling glass. This was it. I stepped back, heart pounding, but otherwise calm and collected—not counting my fingers, which were trembling. I shoved my Mace deeper in my right pocket so it wouldn’t stick out.

“Can I help you?” The low male voice spoke over the intercom, startling me.

“Yes, um…I’m sorry, but I was wondering if you could help me. I need help.”

A pause. “It’s midnight. What help?”

“I need to make a call. I’m sorry, I know this is strange, but my phone’s battery died and I think I might be in trouble. I have to make a call. I couldn’t find a gas station or anything…”

“It’s midnight,” he said again.

“You don’t understand, my husband is in terrible trouble. I have to make a call. Please, I’m a respectable girl who needs a helping hand. Just one minute, I promise.”

The intercom was silent.

I was about to push the button again when a figure distorted by the angular glass stepped into the dim light inside, unlocked the deadbolt, and pulled the door open a foot. A tall man with a goatee stared at me through round spectacles. He was maybe fifty or older, dressed in casual black slacks and a turtleneck, and he didn’t look anything like a drug dealer.

“The phone?” he asked.

“Yes. Please.”

“Wait here a moment.” He started to close the door.

“I also need to use the bathroom,” I said quickly. His right eyebrow arched. “Unless you’d rather I pee in your bushes. Look, I’ve been out here for an hour and I’m sorry, but I really have to pee.”

He hesitated, then opened the door. “Please hurry. The phone’s in the kitchen.”

“Thank you.”

I stepped in, and just like that I was in the house of the man Sicko wanted Keith and me to kill. Looking around, I didn’t see anything remotely threatening, much less piles of guns or cocaine. The house was mostly dark, but in the shadows sat expensive furnishings made of leather: brass lamps with animal hides for shades, large oil paintings on the walls. It was the kind of decor you’d expect to see in a colonial mansion in Beverly Hills, I supposed.

To my right, a twisting staircase rose to a catwalk. Living room dead ahead. Kitchen to my left. An office or a library next to the kitchen. A clean house. I liked that. But my fingers were still trembling.

I stuck out my hand. “My name’s Renee Gilmore.”

He studied my eyes without taking my hand and I immediately withdrew it, thinking he would notice how clammy it was.

“I thought you needed to make a phone call.”

“I do. And pee.”

“Then use it.” He indicated the archway leading into what I could see was the kitchen. “The bathroom’s down the hall to the left.” He nodded at a hallway next to the kitchen entry.

“Thank you.”

Worst case, I could slip into the bathroom and call Keith. The man didn’t seem to know my name, and we wouldn’t be meeting armed drug lords. The man we were to kill seemed entirely respectable, not the person I’d imagined trying to force a confession out of over the last two days.

Was he alone?

I headed for the kitchen. “Sorry for bothering you, I’ll be out in a second.”

“Make it quick,” he snapped.

I stopped and turned back, determined to take him off guard. “Look, I’ve had a hard night. You’re nice and comfortable in your mansion here, but there’s a world of hurt out there. Please, some kindness would be nice. I just need to use your phone and pee. We should be thankful we have running water and phones to share, not hoard them. In some places they pee on the ground and communicate with drums.”

Disarming was good, Danny had always said. Maybe I was crossing the line between disarming and alarming. I softened my voice and changed the subject.

“You have a family?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re afraid I’ll wake them?”

“No, I’m here alone.”

“Do I look like a thug who’s going to rob you?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you carrying a knife and Mace?”

I blinked at him, surprised he’d laid me bare so easily.

“My security system scans for more than movement, dear. There’s more to this house than meets the eyes.”

He’d used something like one of those airport scanners on me? Keith wouldn’t have made it in. It also explained why it had taken him so long to answer the door. He was checking my naked self out on some monitor. Was that even legal?

“A knife and Mace are common sense for a girl like me.”

“In this neighborhood?”

“I’m not from this neighborhood. And if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of person has an airport scanner hooked up outside their house?”

“A man with many enemies.”

“You don’t look like the kind who hurts people. Why would you have many enemies?”

“Because I’m a judge, dear. The kind who puts very bad people behind bars.”

A judge? My pulse quickened. For a brief moment all I could think was that I was looking directly into the eyes of Sicko himself. But that made no sense. Was this the judge who could be furious with Danny for killing his son, the pedophile?

No, that couldn’t be. Nobody but Danny and I even knew about that judge, so how could he be connected to Randell? More likely this was the judge who’d sentenced Randell, in which case Keith would recognize him.

Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

“A judge, huh? Wow, that would make you pretty powerful. You ever hear of Basal?”

His face seemed to turn into stone for a moment. Or maybe I was just imagining it.

“You’re right, we’re not in the jungle,” he said. “We have phones, so please, use mine and then leave.”

“Now you’re trying to get rid of me?”

“You can understand why I find all of this a bit unusual. You come into my house with Mace and a knife under the pretext of using my phone but you seem more interested in the fact that we have flushing toilets in America. And prisons. I think it’s best that you just use the phone and leave. It is, after all, my home.”

“So you do know about Basal. Because that’s where my husband lives.”

He stared at me. “Then I doubt you’ll be getting through at this hour. What’s this all about?”

“Does the name Danny Hansen mean anything to you?”

This time I knew I wasn’t imagining anything. His face did turn to stone.

“I think you should leave.” He frowned. “Now.”

“I haven’t made my phone call.”

“I don’t care. I would like you to leave now.”

My mind spun.

“I need to pee.” And I dashed into the bathroom before he could object.

I’d backed myself into a corner. But that didn’t matter anymore. The man Sicko wanted us to kill was a judge familiar with the name Danny Hansen.

I was a tight bundle of nerves as I closed the door of the small half bath. Normally I would have lingered on thoughts about the cleanliness of that room—the sink, the toilet, the mirror, the toilet, the floor, the toilet—but all I could think as I flipped on the switch and stared at the image of skinny me in the mirror was that I was in the house of a judge who knew something about Danny. I had to know what and why and how, and I wouldn’t leave until I did.

What was his connection to Danny?

What involvement did he have with Randell?

What were his ties to Sicko?

Why did Sicko want us to kill him?

Why had he gone stiff when I mentioned Danny’s name?

How could he help me save Danny?

I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and pressed the favorites button with a shaking thumb. I thought to turn on the water in case the judge was listening. I had to get Keith in before the judge forced me out. Getting back inside the house would be difficult if not impossible.

I pressed Keith’s name and lifted the phone to my ear. Pick up! Pick up, pick up, pick up!

He did, on the second ring. “Renee? What’s happening?”

It occurred to me that my voice might carry beyond the door. The running water wasn’t loud enough to cover it. If the judge heard me he’d know I wasn’t talking to myself. That my phone wasn’t dead. And any judge with security scanners would also have a gun.

Fear came over me then, as I looked at the brass water faucet, then at the closed door. Then the faucet again.

“Renee? Are you there?”

I shoved the toilet’s flush lever down. The toilet roared and I quickly whispered into the phone.

“Now! Hurry!”

“Renee? Are you there?”

He couldn’t hear me over the flushing toilet!

The sound of the door squeaking behind me sent panic through my bones and I started to turn, but in that moment of raw alarm I remembered that I had the phone to my ear. So I dropped it.

It plopped into the toilet and rattled around the whirlpool of flushing water.

I spun around as the door swung wide.

The judge stood in the opening, goatee jutting from his sharp chin, staring at me, arms down at his sides. There was a gun in his right hand.

But he didn’t lift his gun or threaten me with a scowl or scream at me. He was too resolute for that. He spoke in a calm voice that I could take as nothing less than a direct order.

“Leave this house,” he said.

I couldn’t. I had to stall him.

“My phone fell out of my pocket,” I said. “It’s in the toilet.”

“Leave it!”

“It’s my phone. I can’t just leave it.” Hurry, Keith! He would be running, maybe coming up to the door already. I had to let him know the judge was armed.

“Why are you holding a gun?” I said, loud enough for my voice to ring in the small bathroom. “You invite a girl into your house to use the bathroom and then you pull a gun on her? Are you going to rape me?”

The judge lifted his arm and pointed his gun at me. “Get out of my house. Now!”

I lifted both hands shoulder high. “Okay. Okay, calm down. Just let me get my phone…” I began to reach for the toilet bowl.

“Leave it.”

Something snapped in my mind with those words. When he said leave it, all I heard was leave Danny, and that was sickening. I wasn’t going to leave without this man’s information or one of his bullets in my head.

“I’m not leaving my phone!” I snapped.

“I said leave it! Get out!” A vein stuck out on his temple where his sideburns were graying.

“You’re going to murder me because of a phone?” We stared each other down. “Just let me get my phone and I promise I’ll leave. I’ll find some other house without a maniac and call my husband there.”

“You weren’t going to call your husband! He’s in prison!”

“He’s not the one I was going to call. I don’t know if I’m coming or going here because your gun is pointed at my head. I’m getting my phone.” I lowered my hands. “Shoot me in the back if you want. Judge kills skinny girl who dropped her phone in his toilet. That’ll go over big.”

“Lower the weapon!” Keith’s voice rang through the hallway, and the judge twisted his head to his right.

Keith stepped into view and held his gun to the man’s head. “Put it down. Now.”

The judge slowly lowered his arm. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of this,” I said, stepping forward and jerking his gun from his hand, “is that we’re smarter than you. And if you don’t get smarter really quickly, we’re all going to die.”