Split Second

  He was so quiet, she wondered if he had gone. She opened her eyes to find him standing over her. The yellow glow of the lantern he had brought with him created a halo behind him. When she met his eyes, he twisted his lips into a smile. He looked as calm and composed as he had when he entered the shack. How was it possible? She had hoped that he would be exhausted, spent and ready to leave. But he showed no signs of fatigue.

  “This part you will watch,” he promised. “Even if I need to cut your fucking eyelids off.” He held up a shiny scalpel for her to see.

  Her weak, muffled scream made it past the raw pain in her throat.

  “Scream all you want.” He laughed. “No one can hear you. And quite frankly, I like it.”

  Oh dear God. The terror rushed through her veins and exploded in her head. She pulled and shoved against the restraints. Then suddenly she noticed him backing away, his head cocked to the side, as though he was listening to something outside the shack.

  Tess strained to hear over the pounding in her head and chest. She lay still, watching him, and then she heard it. Unless she had gone mad, it sounded like voices.

  CHAPTER 71

  Maggie wondered if they were too late. Had Stucky and Harding escaped into the woods? She looked out the window and watched as Agent Alvando and his men combed the area, disappearing into the woods. Soon they wouldn’t be able to see anything without flashlights and strobes, things they hated to use, because the lights made them easy targets for snipers. As much as she wanted to be out there looking with them, she knew Alvando was right. She and Tully weren’t equipped or trained to participate in a SWAT team sweep of the woods.

  The rain had started softly with a pitter-patter on the metal gutters. The sound was almost comforting, except that the approaching roar of thunder promised a storm. Maggie was grateful the house depended on a generator and not electricity that could easily be knocked out.

  “Could we have been wrong about this place?” Agent Tully asked from the other side of the room. He had pulled out some of the cartons from under the computer desks, and with latex gloves on he sifted through what looked like ledgers, mail orders and other business documents.

  “All of this could simply be preparation for him losing his sight entirely. I’m not sure what to think.” Perhaps it was the impending storm and the electrical current thick in the air. Whatever it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread and restlessness. “Maybe we should go check and see if they got that room opened in the basement.”

  “Alvando told us to stay put.” Tully shot her a warning look.

  “It could be a torture chamber, not some bunker.”

  “I’m only guessing it’s a bunker. We won’t know for sure until Alvando’s men can get it opened.”

  She glanced around the room. It looked like a typical home office except for the talking computers. What a disappointment. What a letdown. She had psyched herself up for a showdown with Albert Stucky, and he was nowhere to be found.

  “O’Dell?” Tully was hunched over another of the cartons he had unearthed. “Take a look at this.”

  She looked over his shoulder expecting to see more X-rated computer software and videos. Instead, she found herself staring at newspaper clippings about her father’s death.

  “Where the hell do you suppose he got this?” Tully asked.

  She was wondering the same thing until she saw her appointment book and childhood photo album. It was her missing carton from the move. She had completely forgotten about it. So Greg had been telling the truth. The carton hadn’t been left at the condo. Somehow Stucky had been watching and had managed to take it from the movers. A shiver slid down her back as she thought about him handling her personal possessions.

  “Maggie?” Tully stared up at her, concern in his eyes. “Do you think he broke into your house without you knowing?”

  “No, I’ve been missing it since the day I moved in. He must have stolen the box before it made it into the house.”

  The rage began in the pit of her stomach. She left Tully to dig through the other cartons while she paced the room from window to window.

  “That means Stucky has been here,” Tully said without looking up.

  She kept her eyes on the windows as she walked back and forth. The lightning struck closer, igniting the sky and making the trees look like skeleton soldiers standing at attention. Suddenly she saw a reflection of someone in the hallway walking past the door. She spun around, her revolver gripped firmly, outstretched in front of her. Tully jumped to his feet and had his gun out in seconds.

  “What is it, O’Dell?” He kept his eyes ahead watching the doorway. She moved slowly across the room, gun aimed, hammer cocked.

  “I saw someone walk by,” she finally explained.

  “Are any of the SWAT team still in the house?”

  “They were finished up here,” she whispered. Her heart slammed against her chest. Her breathing was already coming too quickly. “They wouldn’t come back up and not announce themselves, right?”

  “Do you smell something?” Tully was sniffing the air.

  She smelled it, too, and the terror that had begun to crawl up from her stomach started to explode.

  “It smells like gasoline,” Tully said.

  All Maggie could think was that it smelled like gasoline and smoke. It smelled like fire. The thought grabbed hold of her, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t walk the rest of the distance to the door—her knees had locked. Her throat plugged up, threatening to strangle her.

  Tully ran to the door and carefully peeked out, his gun ready.

  “Holy crap,” he yelled, looking out into the hallway in both directions without stepping out. “We’ve got flames on both sides. There’s no way we’re getting out the way we came in.”

  He returned his gun to his holster and hurried to the windows, trying to open one while Maggie stood paralyzed in the middle of the room. Her hands shook so badly she could barely grip her revolver. She stared at her hands as though they belonged to someone else. Her breathing was out of control, and she worried she might start to hyperventilate.

  The smell alone sparked images from her childhood nightmares: flames engulfing her father and scorching her fingers every time she reached for him. She could never save him, because her fear immobilized her.

  “Damn it!” She heard Tully struggling behind her.

  She turned toward him, but her feet wouldn’t move. He seemed so far away, and she knew she was losing visual perception. The room began to tilt. She could feel the motion, though she knew it couldn’t possibly be real. Then she saw him again, a reflection in the window. She twisted around, but it felt as if she was moving in slow motion. Albert Stucky stood tall and dark in the doorway, dressed in a black leather jacket and pointing a gun directly at her.

  She tried to raise her own gun, but it was too heavy. Her hand wouldn’t obey the command. The room had tilted to the other side, and she felt herself slipping. He was smiling at her and seemed to be oblivious to the flames shooting up behind him. Was he real? Had her panic, her terror, brought on hallucinations?

  “This damn thing is stuck,” she heard Tully yell somewhere far off in the distance.

  She opened her mouth to warn Tully, but nothing came out. She expected the bullet to hit her squarely in the heart. That’s where he was aiming. Everything in slow motion. Was it a dream? A nightmare? He was pulling back the hammer. She could hear wood creaking, giving way in crashes outside the room. She pulled at her arm one more time as she saw Stucky begin to squeeze the trigger.

  “Tully,” she managed to yell, and just then Stucky slid his aim to the right of her and pulled the trigger. The explosion jolted her like an electrical shock. But she wasn’t hit. He hadn’t shot her. She looked down. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere. It was an effort to move her arm, but she raised it, ready to fire at the now-empty doorway. Stucky was gone. Had it all been her imagination? There was a groan behind her, and before she tu
rned to look, she remembered Tully.

  He gripped his bloody thigh with both hands and stared at it as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The smoke had entered the room and burned their eyes. She ripped off her windbreaker. She could do this. She had to be able to do this. She ran to the door, forcing herself not to think of the heat and the flames. She slammed the door shut, wadded up her jacket and shoved it into the crack under the door.

  She came back to Tully and kneeled next to him. His eyes were wide and beginning to glaze over. He was going into shock.

  “You’re gonna be okay, Tully. Breathe but not too deeply.” Already the smoke was seeping in between the cracks.

  She pulled at his necktie, undoing the knot and removing it. Gently she moved his hands away from the wound. She tied the necktie around his thigh, just above the bullet hole, tightening it and wincing when he shouted out in pain.

  Smoke was filling the room. The crashing of beams sounded closer. She could hear a commotion of voices outside. Tully hadn’t managed to make either window budge. Maggie crawled to her feet, trying to focus only on Tully and getting them out of the room, out of the house. She would not think of the flames on the other side of the door. She would not imagine the hellish heat licking at the floorboards beneath them.

  She grabbed one of the computer monitors, yanking the cords and cables until they became unplugged.

  “Tully, cover your face.”

  He only stared at her.

  “Goddamn it, Tully, cover your face and head. Now!”

  He pulled up his windbreaker and turned to face the wall. Maggie felt her arms weakening under the weight of the monitor. Her eyes burned, and her lungs screamed. She hurled the monitor through the window, and then quickly kicked out the chunks of glass. She grabbed Tully under the arms.

  “Come on, Tully. You’re going to have to help me.”

  Somehow she managed to drag him out the window and onto the roof of the porch. Agent Alvando and two other men were down below. It wasn’t a great distance to the ground, but with a bullet in his thigh, she couldn’t expect Agent Tully to jump. She held on to his arms as he lowered his body over the edge and waited for the men below to grab him. The entire time, his eyes held hers. But there wasn’t shock now. There wasn’t fear. Instead, what she saw in Agent Tully’s eyes surprised her even more. The only thing she saw was trust.

  CHAPTER 72

  Tully’s leg hurt like hell. Most of the flames were out. He sat a safe distance away, but the heat actually felt good. Someone had thrown a blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t remember it happening. He also didn’t remember that it was raining until he discovered his clothing wet and his hair plastered to his forehead. Somehow Agent Alvando had managed to get the ambulance past the electronic gate and all the way to the burning house.

  “Your ride is here.” Agent O’Dell appeared from behind him.

  “Let them take the McGowan woman first. I can wait.”

  She studied him as if she would be the judge of whether he waited or not.

  “Are you sure? They might be able to fit both of you.”

  He looked past O’Dell to examine Tess McGowan himself. She was sitting in one of the SWAT team’s trucks. From what he could see of her, she looked to be in bad shape. Her hair was tangled and wild like Medusa. Her body, now wrapped in a blanket, had been covered with bloody cuts and bruises. She could barely stand. Alvando’s men had found her locked in a wooden shack not far from the house. She had been shackled to a cot, gagged and naked. She had told them that the madman had left only seconds before they found her.

  “I’m not bleeding anymore,” Tully said. “She’s been through God knows what. Get her out of here and into a nice warm bed somewhere.”

  O’Dell turned and caught one of the men’s attention, then waved to him. He seemed to know exactly what she meant and went directly to the truck to escort Ms. McGowan to the ambulance.

  “Besides,” Tully said, “I want to be here when they bring them out.”

  The men had found a fire hydrant in back, probably a leftover from when the property had been occupied by the government. They were dousing the entire house with thick streams of water that were much more efficient than the light rainfall. Firefighters from some neighboring community had stomped their way to the scene about an hour ago, but only after their truck had gotten stuck in the mud about a mile from the entrance. Now they ventured into the burned-out hull of the house as though on a mission. They had discovered two dead and burned bodies in the basement bunker.

  Tully rubbed the soot from his face and eyes. O’Dell sat down on the ground next to him. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on the tops of her knees.

  “We don’t know for sure that it’s them,” she said without looking at him.

  “No, but who else would it be?”

  “Stucky doesn’t seem like the suicidal type.”

  “He may have thought the bunker was fireproof.”

  She glanced over at him, not moving from her position. “I never thought of that.” She looked almost convinced. Almost.

  The firefighters came out of the wreckage, hauling a body on a gurney. It was draped with a black canvas. Two more followed with another gurney. O’Dell sat up straight. Tully heard her suck in air, and he thought she was holding her breath as she watched. The second gurney approached the FBI’s truck, when suddenly the dead man’s arm slipped out from under the canvas. The arm slipped off the gurney, hanging down, clothed in what looked like a leather jacket. He felt O’Dell stiffen. Then finally, he heard her breathe a deep sigh of relief.

  CHAPTER 73

  If it hadn’t been so late, Maggie would have offered to take Gwen out for dinner. However, she had spent too much time at the hospital making sure Tess was comfortable and that Agent Tully had no permanent damage to his leg.

  Though she should have been completely exhausted, for the first time in a very long time she felt like celebrating. So she searched and discovered a Chinese place that was still open on the north side of Newburgh Heights. She could finally stop by a restaurant again without worrying the waitress would end up in a Dumpster the next day. She picked up kung pao chicken, sweet-and-sour pork and plenty of fried rice. She asked for extra fortune cookies and wondered whether Harvey liked egg rolls.

  Maggie arrived home to find the two of them curled up in the recliner watching Jay Leno on the portable TV. The cartons reminded her once again of the carton Stucky had stolen, now gone forever, literally up in flames. The photo album had contained the only pictures she had possessed of her father. She didn’t want to think about it right now. Not now when she was enjoying what felt like some sort of liberation.

  Gwen saw the bags of takeout and smiled. “Thank God! I’m starved.”

  She had called Gwen from the road, filling her in on most of the details. Her friend had sounded relieved not only for Maggie but for herself as well. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about Walker Harding ever again.

  “Why don’t you spend the night here?” Maggie suggested over a forkful of chicken.

  “I have an early-morning appointment. I’d rather drive tonight. I’m worthless in the morning.” She was examining Maggie while she scooped out more rice. “How are you? Honestly?”

  “Honestly? I’m fine.”

  Gwen frowned at her as though that was too easy an answer.

  “I came close to getting Tully and myself killed,” she said, now serious. “I panicked with the fire. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. But you know what?” She smiled. “I survived. And I got us out of there.”

  “Very good. Sounds like you passed some major personal test, Maggie.”

  Harvey shoved his nose under Maggie’s arm, insisting on another egg roll. She gave him a half-eaten roll and patted his back.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to feed dogs egg rolls, Maggie.”

  “And how would I know that? Is there a book with
all these rules?”

  “I’m sure there are several. I’ll pick one up for you.”

  “Might not be a bad idea since it looks like Harvey and I are going to be permanent roommates.”

  “Does that mean you were right about his owner?”

  “Tess told us there was another woman. A woman named Rachel who’s dead in a pit somewhere on the property. Of course we don’t know yet, but I feel certain it’s Rachel Endicott.” She noticed Gwen’s grimace. “They’ll continue to search for her tomorrow. Tess said there were other bodies, bones, skulls. Stucky and Har-ding may have been using this property for years.”

  “What do you suppose Harding had planned for me?”

  “Don’t, Gwen,” Maggie snapped at her, and immediately she apologized. “I’m sorry, I just don’t want to think about it, okay?”

  “I suppose it makes sense that the two of them would have eventually moved on to women you knew more intimately. Friends, relatives…oh, speaking of intimately—” she smiled “—that reminds me. You had a phone call earlier. That hunky ex-quarterback from Nebraska.”

  “Nick?”

  “What, you know more than one hunky ex-quarterback?” Gwen looked as if she was enjoying Maggie’s annoying blush.

  “Did he want me to call him back tonight?”

  “Actually, he said he was headed for the airport. I took a message.” Gwen pulled herself up off the floor. “You need to shop for a table, Maggie. I’m getting too old to be eating on the floor.” She found the note she had left on the desk. She read the message, squinting as though someone else had written it. “He said his dad had a heart attack.”

  “Oh Jesus.” Now Maggie wished she had talked to him. Nick and his father had a complex relationship, one in which Nick had only recently been able to get away from. “Is he going to be okay? He’s not dead, is he?”