Abandon

FORTY-FIVE

T

hey crept across the icy marble of the foyer, and when they reached June, Lawrence withdrew Isaiah’s sheathed dagger from his ski pants.

“You okay, sweetie?” Abigail whispered, her words reverberating through the foyer like prayers in a vast cathedral. It was hard to see June’s face with any clarity in the sole, fading light of her headlamp.

“My left leg’s cut pretty bad,” June said, on the brink of tears. Abigail touched her shoulder as Lawrence sat down and began sawing the knife through the climbing rope that bound June to the rafter.

“How long’s Stu been gone?” Abigail asked.

“About ten minutes.”

“We didn’t see any new tracks leaving the mansion.”

“No, he’s still inside. He heard something up on the third floor, went to check it out.”

“What’d he hear?”

“Sounded like wood breaking from down here. It was loud. What happened to you guys?”

“Isaiah and Jerrod are dead,” Abigail said. “It was . . . Look, I’ll tell you that story later. Does Stu still have night-vision goggles and a gun?”

“Yes.”

Lawrence unwound the climbing rope and tossed it aside. “Can you stand up and turn around for me? I’ll cut these off.” The blade sliced easily through the nylon restraints. “June, I think it’d be a good idea to switch off your headlamp.”

The three stood close together in sheer darkness.

After a moment, June spoke, her voice breaking, “I keep looking over there at him. Keep thinking he’ll get up, come over to me. Or that any second, I’ll wake in our apartment, reach over in bed, feel the warmth of him in the dark. But he’s cold now, isn’t he? Do you think I could go over and sit with him? Would that be all—”

“You hear that?” Abigail said.

“What?” Lawrence asked.

“Listen.” From some remote part of the mansion came a sound like a muted jackhammer, and it took Abigail only a moment to place it. “Stu’s firing his machine gun.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lawrence said. “Scott’s back in town, dead. Isaiah and Jerrod are dead somewhere up near the pass. What the hell’s he shooting at?”

The machine gun went quiet. High above, in one of the upper corridors, came the thump of slow, heavy footsteps. Abigail peered up—they all did—but there was nothing to see in that expansive vacuum of light. She reached down, grabbed hold of June’s hand as the footsteps stopped.

No one whispered.

No one breathed.

Something crashed into the floor of the foyer, and Abigail and June nearly crushed each other’s hands.

They stood in stunned silence, no one daring to move.

Lawrence finally turned on his headlamp.

“Dear God,” June said. The light beam traced a widening lake of blood across the floor to its source—the destroyed head of Stu. He lay unnatural and broken on the section of marble exposed to the skylight, his face torqued away from them.

“You think Stu accidentally fell?” Abigail said. “Or jumped? Remember what Isaiah said about him? How he’d fallen apart since the war?”

“He drank half a bottle of vodka after you left,” June said.

Lawrence shook his head. “Look, his gun’s gone. Night goggles, too.”

“So maybe he left them on the third floor.”

Lawrence started toward the west wing.

“Wait!” Abigail whispered. She caught up with him. “You aren’t seriously going up there?”