Chương 4
“I’m not.”
He placed the weapon on the floor beyond Emma’s reach.
Then he pulled a phone from an inner pocket.
The screen was cracked.
Dead.
“You have a charger?” Claire asked.
“In my suit, normally, yes. I also carry a portable trauma surgeon.”
“Keep going. Humor is improving your blood volume.”
He removed a small key ring.
House key. Car key. Two others.
He held one out.
“Pump house.”
Claire did not take it.
“You want me to leave you?”
“I want you to get your daughter out.”
“To where?”
“The pump house has a service road behind it.”
“Guarded?”
“Maybe.”
“Then no.”
“You have a better plan?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Not doing exactly what the armed mafia boss tells me.”
He looked almost offended.
Then the old radio on the shelf crackled.
All three turned.
Static.
Claire approached it.
A battery compartment hung open.
No batteries.
She touched the hand crank.
It resisted, then turned.
A faint indicator light flickered.
“Emergency radio,” she said.
Lorenzo watched.
Claire cranked longer.
Weather information broke through in pieces.
Flash flood warning.
Road closures.
Severe storm moving east.
Then static again.
No transmission capability.
No salvation.
But the weather report told Claire something useful.
The service road might be inaccessible even if nobody guarded it.
She returned to Lorenzo.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“That was too fast.”
“I can walk.”
“Can you walk two hundred yards through a tunnel and another however far in the rain carrying enough pressure on that wound to keep from passing out?”
He did not answer.
“Great.”
Emma leaned against Claire’s leg.
“Mama, I’m hungry.”
Claire looked at her watch.
9:43 p.m.
Emma had eaten half a grilled-cheese sandwich at six.
Claire had been supposed to finish her shift at eight-thirty. The storm had trapped two staff members on the property, and Celeste had asked Claire to stay an extra hour.
Emma’s babysitter had called sick that afternoon, so Claire had brought her daughter to work—something normally forbidden, except Celeste had smiled and said, “Of course. Put her in the laundry sitting room. Rosa can keep an eye on her.”
That kindness now felt different.
Maybe it was still kindness.
Maybe not everything needed to become sinister simply because somebody had fired a gun.
Claire looked at the old emergency shelves.
Most food had rotted or swollen inside cans.
One newer plastic bin sat beneath the cot.
She opened it.
Granola bars.
Bottled water.
A flashlight.
Blankets.
Recent.
“Someone’s been down here,” she said.
Lorenzo looked.
“My groundskeeper.”
“You have a groundskeeper who knows about this?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“My father told Salvatore everything.”
“Salvatore the man who retired two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“So who stocked this?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire checked expiration dates.
The bars were less than a year old.
She gave one to Emma and another to Lorenzo.
He refused.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care.”
“You shouldn’t give food to someone who might need surgery.”
Claire paused.
Annoyingly, he was right.
“Water, then. Small sip.”
He obeyed.
Emma held half her granola bar toward him.
“You can have mine.”
Lorenzo looked at the child’s hand.
“No, sweetheart.”
It was the first time Claire had heard him call Emma anything.
He looked away quickly.
The storm room seemed to change around that small refusal.
Claire sat beside her daughter on the floor.
For perhaps thirty seconds, nobody spoke.
Rain sounded distant underground.
Emma chewed.
Lorenzo breathed.
Claire watched the faint glow of her phone screen and thought about normal things because her mind could not stay inside catastrophe without escaping.
There were towels in her dryer at home.
Her electric bill was due Monday.
Emma’s preschool wanted family photographs for a classroom project.
She still had not answered her brother’s text from Thursday.
The absurdity of these facts steadied her.
Life did not stop because armed men stood above a trapdoor.
It merely became rude enough to continue at the same time.
Lorenzo said, “Claire.”
She looked at him.
He knew her name.
That should not have surprised her. It did.
“How do you know my name?”
“You work in my house.”
“I’ve worked in your house four years.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve spoken directly to me maybe six times.”
“Seven.”
She stared at him.
He looked tired.
“You brought my mother tea after her surgery. You yelled at the plumber because he tracked mud through the east hall. You hide the good lemon soap from Rosa.”
Claire’s mouth opened.
“That is not your business.”
“It’s my house.”
“It’s my lemon soap.”
Emma giggled softly.
Claire looked at her daughter.
The sound hurt.
Not because it was inappropriate.
Because it was ordinary.
Above them, somewhere through stone and soil, a door slammed.
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
“Time.”
Claire stood.
“Tunnel.”
He nodded.
She lifted the pistol.
He watched her.
“I’m carrying it,” she said. “You’re not.”
“You know how?”
“My father took me shooting twice when I was nineteen. I hated it.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“You’re welcome to stay here.”
He pushed himself upright.
The effort drained what little color remained in his face.
Claire slid one arm beneath his.
Emma picked up the flashlight and her first-aid kit.
“Bunny,” she said.
Claire’s throat tightened.
“We’ll come back for him.”
Children knew promises.
Emma looked directly at her.
“Really?”
Claire hesitated.
That half second was enough.
Emma looked down.
Claire hated herself for it.
“We’ll try,” she corrected.
Emma nodded without forgiveness.
They entered the tunnel.
It was narrower than Claire expected and lower in places, forcing Lorenzo to bend. Old stone gave way to poured concrete after fifty feet. Pipes ran overhead. Water gathered along one edge of the floor.
Emma walked first with the flashlight.
“Slow,” Claire told her.
“I’m slow.”
“You’re doing good.”
“I know.”
Lorenzo made a quiet sound that might have been amusement.
Claire shifted his weight.
“You pass out, I’m leaving you.”
“You keep threatening me with reasonable choices.”
They moved another twenty feet.
May you like
Lorenzo stumbled.
Claire slammed into the wall with him.
