In the House On Lakeside Drive (24 page)

“He…he hit him. Pretty bad.” Josh's voice hadn't moved, and it was smaller than ever.

“I know, Josh. I need to know if he's hurt. He's not talking.”

The seconds of silence were the longest of Sam's life. After what seemed like an eternity, the sound of cloth rustling and shuffling footsteps greeted Sam's ears. A warm touch landed on Sam's injured shoulder, and he hissed at the pressure. “Ow, Josh,” he said, trying not to yell at the younger man. “That hurts.”

“S-sorry. I was gonna help you up.” Very slowly, Josh placed his small hands around Sam's good arm, and he gently helped lift the taller man to his feet as best he could. “You okay?”

“Yeah, Josh, I'm fine. Sore, but fine.” Sam was trying to listen for breathing sounds, and he found them near the opening to the water room. His mouth was parched, and he was dying for a drink of water. He crept over toward his friend as fast as he dared, allowing Josh to lead him. “Remy? Remy, are you all right?”

There was no answer. “Remy, come on,” Josh said, his voice returning to normal. “Don't go all quiet. Sam's trying to help you.”

“Josh, can you check him over? Like you did me? We need to know if anything's broken.”

Sam listened as the younger man knelt down and began putting his hands on their friend, a move that under normal circumstances would have freaked Remy right out. Remy was cautious about people touching him, and while he didn't mind if Sam, Evan, or Rachel took an arm or gave him a hug or a pat on the shoulder, he didn't like being touched by other people much. The blind man heard a sharp hiss come out of Remy's mouth and Josh said, “It's his arm. His…his left one. It doesn't feel broke, but…”

“Probably pretty bruised, then.” Sam listened again as Josh finished his exam. “Nothing else?”

“No, not really. He's all curled up; I can't look at his front.”

“It's okay,” Sam said, easing his way down to where Remy lay. “Remy? Remy, you have to snap out of it. For Josh. For me. I…I can't do this. Not by myself.”

The sound of silence greeted him. “This is bad,” Josh said.

“Really bad.” Sam sighed in defeat. “It's going to be a long night.”

Chapter 35

The sound of snow crunching against rubber soles greeted Evan's ears as he walked up the porch stairs. There was no one else around for miles. “Dangerous game you're playing, Evan,” Jesse Baker had said, trying desperately to talk the man out of going alone. “There's no guarantee this guy'll let the kids go if you…”

“I'm not taking any chances, Jesse. Those people in there deserve their loved ones back,” Evan said, cutting his friend off as he gestured toward Frank's crowded living room. “Remy deserves to be with Rachel. Sam and Josh have families. I'm a small price to pay to get that back.”

“You're important too, Evan. Rachel needs you. Those boys too. And more kids you guys haven't taken in yet.”

Evan snorted. “Like that'll happen. Once it gets around what I was…”

Jesse shook his head. “You've got no record. You came clean of your own volition, both here and wherever you're from, if I'm following the story right.”

A thin hand waved it away. “Where's the case?”

Sighing, Jesse handed Evan a plain gray suitcase. “Ten grand. We counted it twice.” As Evan picked it up, he added, “I don't think it's going to be enough.”

“Come again?”

“Revenge is a funny thing. Not saying I've seen a lot of that with this job, but the number of times people have done stupid things in the name of revenge? By the time we get them, there's at least one or two lines crossed and at least one that they can't come back from.” He gripped Evan's arm and pulled him close, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Are you prepared for that? To cross lines you can't come back over?”

An angular head shook, wisps of blond hair falling in front of a pair of pale blue eyes. “I don't know. All I know is those boys are innocent in all this. I won't let them pay for my mistakes.”

Now, as Evan crossed the threshold of the home he'd come to love in the last five years, he felt nothing but sadness. He knew full well that Dayton Spaulding couldn't be trusted, and he only hoped he could secure the freedom of his tenants before succumbing to Dayton's vengeance. The hall was brightly lit, the last of the crime scene folks having vacated about twenty minutes before. The sun was just dipping its last rays beneath the horizon, and a clear starry sky spilled over like paint pouring out across the black canvas of sky.

The remnants of black dusting powder and yellow tape lay over the worn wood floors, and the smallest fragments of glass shards still lay glistening against the linoleum tile in the kitchen. Evan picked up an overturned bar stool and sat, laying the dull gray case he carried against the bar island wall.
Please, God, let this work,
he thought. He listened carefully for any signs he'd been followed. Only silence greeted him. Evan exhaled a sigh of relief and began to wait.

The chirp of the old kitchen clock kept time, its ticking second hand thunderous in the still silence. A chill crept through the room, and Evan pulled his patched coat around him tighter. His wandering eye drifted to the entrance through the front hall, where a piece of Sam's burnt orange winter coat and white cane peeked around the doorframe. The man's heart broke at the thought of the owner of those objects never coming to collect them.

The still silence was broken by a set of crunching footsteps. A loud knock rapped against the wood of the kitchen door. “Knock, knock,” an unwelcome voice called out, its tone almost songlike.

“I'm here,” Evan ground out. “I have the money.”

“What? Not a ‘hello'? Not a ‘how've you been?' Liam,” the Southern man said, his tongue clucking inside his mouth. “Not a friendly way to reacquaint ourselves, is it?”

“Enough with the bullshit,” Evan snapped. “Liam Collier is dead. He doesn't exist anymore.”

“And yet, I'm looking right at him. Funny old world, isn't it?” Dayton smiled, a predatory smile. “I went looking for my old friend who decided to stab me in the back, and just by chance I happened to find him.” Another barstool was turned upright, and the weathered, scraggly man sat on top of it. Dayton's once-fine features were worn, and his pale eyes glistened in the bright light.

“Where are the kids?”

The worn face nodded, a grotesque smile revealing half-white teeth. “That's the other thing. Kids. Never would have struck you for a bleeding heart, Liam. ‘Cause, you see, no matter how many times you go and change names or ‘reinvent yourself,' you'll always be Liam the backstabbing bastard to me.” A weathered hand slapped Evan's knee, and a chuckle filled the empty room. “What, you find something more pitiful than yourself to keep your mind off the candy store?”

Evan grabbed Dayton's collar as he rose, pulling the slightly smaller man to his feet. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch,” he said, fire coloring his words. “You can have me. I don't care. But those boys? No.” Evan's head shook sharply. “You can't have them. This isn't Carolina, Dayton. I've got a town out for blood if any one of them are hurt.”

“And they'll get three corpses if anyone but you is anywhere near here,” the smaller man spat. Evan could smell booze on him, and the scent of marijuana was so thick on Dayton's clothes he could scrape it off with a paint knife. “I meant what I said. Ten years you got me, and all I wanted was a little favor in return for clearing your slate.”

“You planned on selling to kids. To anyone with the cash ready. I saw the gun in your hand, ready to shoot Keith that night. It was about money, plain and simple.”

“I had a right to collect!” Dayton shouted, struggling in Evan's grasp. “It wasn't nearly what I was owed!”

Thin hands shoved the wretch away. “You got yourself cut off, Dayton. That wasn't me, or anyone else. It was you. All you.” A sharp gleam caught Evan's eye, and he turned to see a long, serrated blade pointed right at him. “What the hell…?”

“Don't you touch me again,” Dayton said, his voice commanding. “Now, real slowly, you're gonna hand me that case. And then? You and me, we're going for a little ride.”

Evan searched the room, and found most of the items the kitchen normally housed had been either broken or taken into evidence. The wooden knife block was gone, as were the sharp instruments inside of it. Slowly, he pushed the case across the empty bar table. “Take it.”

“Planned on it.”

“Now, where are the kids?”

“All in due time. Come on,” Dayton said, gesturing out the front door. “The night's young, and we've got quite the drive ahead of us.”

Chapter 36

Sam was wakened by the sounds of boards creaking. He tried to shake himself from sleep, but the lack of real rest over the last few nights was beginning to take its toll. The sound of footsteps grew closer, shifting from wood to concrete as the air pressure around the young man built.

Next to him, Josh began to stir. “Wh-what's going on?” he mumbled, as though he were rising from the dead. Sam knew Josh wasn't much of a heavy sleeper, but between the adrenaline and the constant fear the younger man hadn't been able to fall asleep, and if he had, vivid nightmares had kept him from sleeping long. A part of him wondered if it wasn't Josh's meds detoxing out of his system, just like depressive moods, sleeplessness and what Remy called “silent spells” were likely to occur without his pills. The pair were curled around Remy, who was still in one of his “silent spells” at the moment. Sam knew from experience that it took a lot to snap him from one, and that he'd gotten lucky the last time they'd encountered Remy's horrible uncle.

Something cold and sharp nestled itself underneath Sam's chin, pricking at his throat. A soft whimper and a hiss next to him told Sam that Josh was experiencing the same thing he was. “Now, real slow, you two are gonna get up and come with us,” a voice said, one of the black men's voices Sam had heard earlier. It was the higher-pitched one, the baritone. “And you're not gonna make any fuss or call out.”

“Wh-why?” Josh asked, seconds before a sharp, muffled cry escaped his lips.

“'Cause if you don't, we'll gut one of you, see?”

Sam wanted to snap out the usual joke he made at times like this, but wisely kept silent. “What about Remy?” he heard Josh ask.

“Wake 'im up,” the black bass voice ordered. “We need 'im walkin'.”

Sam took a deep breath. “We can't,” he said, as loudly as he dared. “He's in a meltdown.”

“What?”

“We can't snap him out of it,” Sam tried to explain. “He's…he's on the spectrum. If he's set off,
really
set off, he does this—hides inside himself, goes completely silent and unresponsive. Even…even if you killed one of us, it wouldn't snap him out of it. He has to…he has to snap out of it himself.”

“Oh, fuck this shit,” the bass voice said. “We're takin' these two. They're moving.”

Josh cried out softly.

“Come on, move.”

“We…we can't leave him,” Josh said, his voice wavering. “We can't.”

“Shut the hell up. Right now. Or I swear to God, I'll put a knife in the zombie's gut.” Sam strained to hear the sound of Josh's breathing, and heaved a small sigh of relief when he finally found it. “Now move. And not one word, or the folks upstairs will do worse than we will, understand?”

“Yes,” Sam whispered.

“Y-yeah,” Josh choked out.

The man who held Sam was about equal to his height, and was built a little heavier than he was. Sam thought briefly about using his feet to try and kick the other man off balance, but the sharp prickle of the knife blade at his throat kept him from attempting the maneuver. He sorely missed his stick, and tried to keep his footing on the stairs as his captor ushered him up the rickety flight. “How many steps are there?” he asked softly.

Silence reigned. “Thirteen,” his captor finally said, his voice a whisper. “We're on the third.”

Sam lifted his feet, counting off the remaining steps. Soon the odd open pressure feeling of a doorway washed over him, and the sounds of snoring filled his ears. Behind him, he heard the deep bass voice tell Josh, “Not one sound, you hear me? Not
one.
”

There was no reply from Josh. Sam felt thin hands pressing into his bruised shoulders, and he began to pick his way toward the exit he'd tried to reach before. A faint sound crept up from the space they'd just left, and Sam kept his mouth firmly shut.
Remy must have snapped out of it,
he thought.
Or he's biding his time…I hope he can sneak out of here and get us some help.

Soft footsteps padded up the wooden stairs, and suddenly stopped. “No,” Sam heard his best friend say, startling the man holding the knife to the blind man's throat. “No, no, no.”

“Shut the hell up, kid,” Sam's captor said, his head turning. “Or we'll cut their throats.”