American Crow (28 page)

‘Olivia...’ I murmured. ‘You were in here
too...’

Then a sickening realization hit home,
that Olivia probably had succumbed to a similar fate…

‘No!’

I slammed my hands against the wall,
knowing that it had all been for nothing, that Nancy’s death had been
avoidable, and that I had willingly led her into danger when I should have just
left her at home.

‘Fuck it!’

Then I felt another gouge in the wall,
another letter. Then another word... Quickly, I ran my hands over the letters
to decode it.

‘Fly…’

I found another below then traced the
letters with my fingertips several times until I was certain of its meaning.

‘Lodge?’

Finally there was just three letters
left. An ‘M’, an ‘O’ and a ‘U’. Olivia had obviously run out of time...

‘They were taking you to the mountains
weren’t they honey...’  

I chewed over the significance in my
mind, sensing a glimmer of hope. Maybe Corrigan hadn’t killed her yet, he’d
taken her elsewhere for some other use?

‘Good girl…’

I took a step back and wondered if the
she was still alive, then if I actually cared anymore anyway. Corrigan had no
qualms about murdering Nancy after all. He’d probably killed Olivia already,
unless he planned to extend his sadistic fun for a little longer...

I walked over to the bed feeling
exhausted, feeling as if every ounce of my marrow had been sucked out of my
bones, then I kicked it lamely in frustration and sent the metal bar skidding
across the floor. The metal bar. I’d forgotten all about it...

I went down on my knees and searched the
tiled floor in the dark until I felt its cold, metallic surface, then I sat
cross-legged, the make-shift weapon clenched in my hand, thinking how I had to
get the hell out of there and find Olivia Deacon alive or not, if for no other
reason than to make Nancy’s death worth something. Surely, it all had to be
worth something…

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

‘an old friend called death’

T
he sound of a door opening jolted me awake instantly. They
were coming for
me
now it seemed…This was where it was going to all end,
or hopefully resurrect itself…

Footsteps and low voices worked their way
down the stairs one tread at a time, just like they’d done before. This time,
it sounded as if it was just the two of them...

I stood up, stretched myself then picked
up the bar. Somehow I had to catch them unawares and gain the upper hand while
I still had the element of surprise, or it would soon all be over like it had
been for Nancy.

Hurriedly, I wedged the tip of the bar
between the crack in the wall and the frame, hinge side, so that it jutted out
at right angles towards me, remaining partially hidden if they opened the door.

Slowly the basement lights came on one by
one, partially illuminating the cell. After hours of impenetrable darkness, it
seemed as bright as the sun.

‘Okay, take a step back, Limey,’ the
wild-eyes ordered walking towards me.

I did as I was told, then placed my hands
behind my head so as to appear passive, trying to contain the rage that was now
pulsing through me.

‘Stay where you are, boy,’ he said again
as the key rattled in the lock.

The large metal door swung slowly open,
allowing more of the harsh light to flood in. I stooped down with one hand
raised, as if trying to shield my eyes, then seizing my chance, grabbed the bar
with the other and in one slick move pulled it towards me.

In the time that it took for the big guy
to pull the Colt from his belt, I’d raised the bar up and smashed it hard down
onto his wrist fracturing it, then swung it up underneath his chin, breaking
that too.

Quickly, I went down on one knee, grabbed
the gun from the floor, fired a couple of slugs into his legs then did the same
to the creep behind as he turned to run.

I righted myself and ran into the main
room, and eyed the moaning mass of the big guy as the stairs creaked next door.
The creep was making a break for it just like the coward he was...Perhaps he
even wasn’t carrying a weapon? I stepped over the big guy, then inched my way
along the returning wall and peered in. Bingo. The guy was trying to haul
himself up the stairs on his belly, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

I stepped out confidently then walked up
the stairs one tread at a time, closing in on my prey. Then I waited until he’d
turned around and pointed the gun in his rat-like face. He looked up at me with
his terror-filled eyes. I racked the slide. He winced. I smiled the smile of
the executioner and placed the gun slowly against his forehead.

He shrieked like a girl. I laughed. Then
he grabbed the hand rail and tried desperately to drag himself up as if that
would save him. I followed him up, finding it amusing, feeling like a vigilante
who’d been let out to play for the afternoon, then waited again until he’d turned
again, until he was looking deep into my eyes, searching for some sort of
goodness.

‘Please...I just do what I’m told. I
didn’t realize that he was actually going to kill the girl...’

He forced a pathetic smile. I stared at
him blankly. Then I pressed the gun harder into his rodent face and saw Nancy’s
as she was expelling her last breath.

‘Oh my god, no…’ he garbled, as my finger
went to the trigger.

‘You’re sorry, is that it?’

He nodded frantically and started to piss
himself.

‘Sorry, that someone I cared about has
just been strangled before my very eyes, and that you let some maniac do it?’

He nodded again and started to cry.

‘Okay…’ I said.

I lowered the gun and saw the fear
subside in his pupils.

‘I didn’t know that…’

I slammed the gun across his face with
all my rage then watched his limp body tumble down the stairs and lay in a
contorted pile at the bottom. I walked slowly down and eyed him for a second,
wondering if I should have just pulled the trigger, then went back up and
pulled the cord by the door, hoping that it would summon Corrigan so perhaps I
finally could...

I heard the summoning bell ring upstairs
faintly then turned off the lights, stepped back behind the door and waited,
gun at the ready. Several painful minutes later I heard the handle turn and the
door scrape slowly open.

I kept my breathing steady, trying to
keep my anger in check, trying to keep focused so I could finish the job.
Someone had stepped onto the landing area and was fumbling for the light switch
now...

The stairwell lights flickered slowly on
revealing the back of the stranger. Gradually I realised it wasn’t the tycoon
who’d answered the call. It was the damned doctor...

He gasped audibly seeing the carnage then
tried to turn. 

‘Move...’ I said, stepping out of the
shadows.

‘Ww..where?’

‘Downstairs...’

I prodded him in the guts with the
automatic urging him to descend. Then I forced him over to the gurney much to
his alarm.

‘Get on…’

‘What are you going to do with me?’ he
said, with an air of indignation.

I ignored his questioning and strapped
him down tightly, one belt at a time, then placed the gun down and recovered
the bag he’d dropped on the stairs.

It didn’t take me long to find what I was
looking for, then half as much time again to screw the old fashioned syringe
back together and return to his side. Then I held it in the air above him and
watched him squirm...

‘What are you going to do? You don’t know
how to use something like that,’ he said wrestling against his binding.

‘Oh, I’m not so sure,’ I said, thrusting
it down into the nearest eye.

He screamed and went silent, then for a
while I watched his body shake until it too became still. I stared at him
wondering if he was alive or not, then walked over to Nancy’s cell and looked
tentatively inside. Her body was gone...They must have taken it away while I
slept.

I switched off the basement light, scaled
the stairs, grabbed the door handle, and pulled. Nothing. The door had slammed
shut of its own accord…

‘Damn it!’

I killed the lights and pulled the cord
again, desperate to get the hell out of the vile basement, to get back out into
space and air and feel human again. A minute later my prayers were answered.
The key turned in the lock. I held my breath as the door creaked open, then
raised the gun again as the lights flickered on...

One step, two. It wasn’t Corrigan...It
was some scrawny old guy with thinning black hair. He looked around. I stepped
out. Then I brought the gun down onto his greasy skull and watched him crash
down the stairs and land on top of the creep.

I grabbed the door before it could close
then checked the cellar for back-up. The guy had come alone...Quickly I wedged
it open with a broom, then jogged back down and pulled the old guy’s head back
by his hair.

‘Where’s Corrigan?’

‘I…I’

The guy was in a daze, whimpering like a
dog. I shook him violently, making him open one of his swollen eyes.

‘Where-is-Corrigan?’ I repeated,
impatient for an answer.

‘He’s…gone.’

I slapped him hard around the face, trying
to keep him conscious.

‘Where?’

‘Prob-ably…’

‘Yes…’

‘Mountains….’

‘And the girl?’ I said smacking him again
as both eyes fluttered rapidly.

‘The girl?’

‘The British girl? Is she alive?’

‘I…’

He passed out and I let his head drop.

‘Fuck it!’

I ran back upstairs into the dark cellar
above, secured the false door behind me and broke the key off in the lock. Then
I pushed the false stand of Bourbon barrels back into position and checked the
gun’s magazine. I had around five or six shots left in the clip. Hopefully it
would see me through...

I climbed the next staircase and
carefully opened the door at the top. All seemed locked down for the night. I
tentatively stepped out into the main hallway then re-entered the kitchen, gun
outstretched…

Inside, smelt of roast pork and something
pungent and sweet. After all the carnage, the aroma was sickening. I stared at
the large numeral clock illuminated in the silvery moonlight. It was ten
minutes after midnight. I’d been down in the basement for over twenty-four
hours. Jesus…I thought about just getting the hell out of the place, then
changed my mind suddenly and headed back up the narrow staircase that I’d
climbed earlier.

At the first floor landing I cracked
opened the door and peered down the corridor again. All seemed quiet too, just
like the last time before it kicked off...I stepped out casually and returned
to the open-plan staircase, then looked down at the grandiose lobby below, at
its ornate chandeliers and grand piano, at its expensive vases and statues of
horses. Everywhere seemed deathly quiet. That made me nervous…

I headed up the sweeping staircase,
eyeing each door intently as I climbed, and thinking about what I was going to
do to Corrigan when I got my hands on him. The tycoon had a wife, Nancy had
said. There was a good chance that she’d still be in the house even if he
wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine Corrigan dumping some body off in the mountains with
his wife sat by his side. 

I worked my way up the final few treads,
hugging the wall closely until I reached the second landing area then looked
down the main corridor at some guy with an earpiece walking away in the
opposite direction.

I took cover around the corner, grabbed a
breath then checked again. The guard had now reached the far end...I pulled
back and waited patiently until I could hear him return. One creaking
floorboard, two…

I stepped out and cracked him hard in the
face with a short sharp punch, sending him staggering backwards into an ornate
chair, allowing me to follow up with a hard right silencing him. I checked for
back up then dragged him and the chair into the next room.

Hurriedly, I bound his hands with his
tie, shoved a sock into his mouth, then left him there unconscious and locked
the door behind me. I crept back out, walked down the hallway, and found the
fifth room from the end, just as Tony Lutz had described.

Inside was shrouded in darkness, the
curtains drawn. Before me was a huge four-poster bed, and some ghostly figure
lying in it. I closed the door shut and walked slowly in, my gun scanning the
shadows for trouble, until I was standing at the bedside, staring at a woman
with long grey hair and a sophisticated face. It had to be Corrigan’s wife, and
she was fast asleep...

I pulled back, slid a belt from a silk
dressing gown, then returned to the bed and placed my hand over her mouth. A
second later she gasped in horror at the impediment and released a muffled
scream into my palm.

‘Shhh…’ I said pointing the muzzle of the
gun at her face with the other hand. ‘Scream again and I’m going to empty the
rest of this magazine into your skull, okay?’

She nodded terrified and fell silent.

‘Now answer my questions, each in turn,
calmly, quietly and truthfully, and I might just let you live...’

She nodded again.

‘Where’s Corrigan? Is he here?’

I lifted my hand slightly so she could
speak.

‘No…’ she said, her fragile voice
quaking.

‘Where has he gone?’

‘Probably to see his mistress, that bitch
the painter.’

I smiled.

‘So you know?’

‘Everyone knows, but he thinks that I
don’t...like the arrogant fool he is.’

Her voice was steadier now and infused
with a virulent anger.

‘Do you know where that might be?’ I
said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, satisfied that she wasn’t about to
scream her head off.

‘Probably the hunting lodge at Jackson’s
Hollow, not far from Crow Creek. He’s got her holed up there from what I’ve
heard. Good for her creative flow I’d imagine…and his.’

I smiled and lowered the gun some more.

‘Do you know about the British girl?’

‘I know that he brought her back to the
house after the break-in, but after that I don’t. He doesn’t tell me much
anymore. I’m just his wife...’

I looked into her pale green eyes and
decided that she was telling the truth.

‘You know, if I think you’re lying I’ll
smother you here and now with that pillow you’re laid on.’

‘Good…it might free me from the hell that
has become my life and take me back to the Lord,’ she said, nodding at a
wheelchair opposite

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Since I was twenty-five, when I slipped
off some mountain trail, paralyzing myself from the waist down. So you see...if
you want to kill me, then I’ll gladly let you do it, son. It would liberate me
from that damned chair, from this charade of a marriage and from the daily hell
of not being able to ride my precious horses freely anymore.’