Delusion Road (35 page)

As Willa turned the car north and the Sonic began climbing the mountain, the boy continued to recite the pattern only he could understand.

A
s the car bounced along the gravelled surface of Delusion Road, Keegan was both relieved and troubled that his brother had suddenly stopped talking. Relieved for obvious reasons—hearing that sequence repeated over and over had frayed his nerves, made him want to press his hands to his ears, turn on loud music, shout, anything to drown out those numbers that cycled through the vehicle again and again. But troubled, too, because he couldn’t help wondering if his brother would ever speak again. As Keegan watched the trees crowd in upon the vehicle, he knew he had far more pressing things to worry about right now, but still there was that echoing sense of loss.

“We’re here, Isaac,” said Willa, turning the car into the driveway. “I was hoping to bring you sometime anyway, so maybe we can have some fun while we wait, okay?”

The car rolled to a stop in front of the cottage, and even before Willa had shut off the motor, Keegan was out and leaning in the rear door to unfasten Isaac’s seat belt. “C’mon, buddy,” he said. “You’ll like this place.” He turned and looked toward the bay, large whitecaps rolling across its choppy surface.

As Isaac got out, Willa came to stand beside them, her hair
whipping out behind her in the brisk wind. “Do you think he’d like something to drink? I’m parched.”

“Yeah, I think he would.” He took Isaac’s hand and led his brother up onto the deck.

“That’s weird,” said Willa when they reached the entrance.

“What?”

Her hand turned the doorknob. “I thought I locked this before we left.”

He was about to assure her she had when the door abruptly swung inward. “Took you long enough,” said a hulking figure towering in the foyer.

By itself, the scar on the large man’s face would have made him seem menacing enough, but it was the gun in his hand that turned Keegan’s legs to liquid. Instinctively, he stepped in front of Isaac to shield him while, beside him, Willa stood stunned and motionless, gaping at the guy with what looked like recognition on her face.

“I ain’t got all day,” the figure growled, waving them inside with the gun. “Get the fuck in here.”

There was nothing else they could do. Keegan led the way, Isaac sandwiched between him and Willa.

As he entered the living room, Keegan’s heart leaped. “Dad!” he cried, seeing his father sitting in one of the wooden dining chairs. His arms were pulled behind him, clearly bound, and his dress shirt was covered in blood from the beating he’d endured—his face was a pulpy mass of abrasions, one eye swollen shut and his right ear mangled. Keegan saw a bloodied pair of pliers on the table beside him, and his stomach dropped.

“Keegan,” moaned Evan, blood seeping from his mouth. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”

“So
now
you’re sorry,” muttered the guy with the scar. “Asshole, you don’t know the
meanin’
of sorry. But you will.”

Something in the way he spoke, the way the heat in his words made his threat sound somehow personal, made Keegan realize the guy was younger than he’d first thought, no more than three or four years older than himself.
This
was the killer Morozov had sent for them? Maybe they had a chance after all.

“Please,” Evan slurred through the blood, “don’t hurt them.”

“I won’t have to if they give me what I want.”

“They don’t know anything.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to go with Plan B, won’t we?”

Evan struggled against his bonds and the scarred guy brandished the gun meaningfully. “Sit still and shut the fuck up.”

“How’d you know we’d come here?” asked Willa.

Keegan turned to her, surprised by her question and even more surprised by the calm in her voice. But he could guess what was going through her mind—like him, she was thinking of the support that Forbes was sending, hoping to keep the guy talking as long as she could.

The guy grinned, making the scar on his face contort repulsively. “I test drove your car this mornin’, remember? Downloaded your GPS data and found out where you’d been the last few days. This place is so far off the beaten path it was a given you’d run here. But even if you hadn’t shown up, it’s still a great place to have a conversation.” He gave Evan an exaggerated wink. “No one around for miles to hear the screams.”

“Why’d you go after
her
?” asked Keegan. He already knew
the answer, but he was taking Willa’s cue, trying to keep the guy yakking. He also needed to derail that talk of screams, struggled to keep his eyes from drifting to the pliers.

The scarred guy sighed. “I knew it was only a matter ‘a time before you checked out your girlfriend back in Chicago, even if you used somebody else’s computer to do it.” There was a slight softening in his voice as he continued, “I can see why, though. Talia’s quite the girl.”

“You stay the hell away from her!”

The guy’s ruined face registered amusement. “Look around, asswipe. You ain’t exactly in a position to tell me what to do, are you? Besides, don’t you worry about Talia. I’m gonna take real good care of her for you.”

The thought of that monster anywhere near Talia made Keegan’s heart lurch. But before he could respond, a sudden pounding on the door shattered the moment. Forbes’s men already? Hope rose like wings in Keegan’s chest—

“Open this fucking door! I know you’re in there!”

—only to vanish when he recognized the voice.

The scarred guy was faster than his size suggested, and he was at the door before Keegan was even aware he’d moved, the gun in his hand still pointed at all of them. As the pounding resumed, he yanked open the door and the new arrival stumbled inside.

Wynn d’Entremont blinked at the scene before him, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but the scarred guy grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him forward into the room. “Join the party, asshole!”

Wynn moved as if wading in deep water, unsure of his footing, and whatever emotion had drawn him to follow Willa’s car
to Delusion Road was gone, replaced by fear. Keegan could see it on his face, the same fear that was on all their faces. Except that of the scarred guy. He just looked pissed.

“Uh,” Wynn began, “whatever’s going on here, I don’t have anything to do with—”

“Shut up,” growled the guy with the scar. “Gimme your car keys.”

“My what?”

“You heard me.”

Wynn fumbled in his pocket, finally producing his keys and handing them over, his trembling fingers making them jangle on the ring. “Look,” he continued, “I don’t know what the deal is here and I don’t
wanna
know. I’m just an innocent bystand—”

“I said shut the fuck up!” The gun still covering all of them, the scarred guy stepped to a window and opened it, wind off the bay making the curtains billow crazily. Punching his fist through the screen, he tossed the keys out, and Keegan thought he could hear a splash before the sash slid back down.

“Please!” Wynn’s voice took on a pleading tone, and a part of Keegan—perhaps the only part not paralyzed by the horror of their situation—wished Russell and Greg could hear him now. “Let me go. My dad’s an important—”

The butt of the gun struck Wynn squarely on the side of the head, and Brookdale’s star athlete went down like a bag of rocks, blood already seeping from his temple as he lay in a heap on the floor. Only the shallow rise and fall of his chest showed he was still breathing.

“As much fun as all this is,” said the scarred guy, “I figure it
won’t be long before we have some other visitors, so let’s get down to business, okay?”

“Business?” asked Keegan, surprised he still had a voice. He’d put his hands on Isaac’s shoulders and was gently turning his brother’s body into his own, keeping him from looking at the unconscious figure on the floor and muffling the boy’s rising moans against his shirt.

The scarred guy sighed heavily, clearly bored. “Your old man has somethin’ I need, but he’s havin’ trouble rememberin’ where it is. To tell you the truth, he’s held out a lot longer than I thought he would.”

Keegan tried not to think of the pain his father had already suffered. “That’s because he doesn’t know anything,” he said.

“Really? You’re goin’ with that?” The man turned his scarred face toward Evan again and shrugged. “Guess it’s time for Plan B.”

“Plan B?” asked Willa. Once again, Keegan was astonished by her composure. She had seemed so fragile in the library, and he could only imagine the effort it was taking for her to maintain the calm she projected now.

Without warning, the scarred guy pivoted and grabbed her, one massive arm around her throat as he held the gun to her head, and whatever composure she’d displayed was gone as she gasped and struggled to break free.

And whatever slim chance Keegan thought they might’ve had now vanished. But he had to try something. Gently moving Isaac aside, he took a step forward. The gun, now pointed at his face, stopped him.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” the scarred guy hissed in Willa’s ear, “but
I’m workin’ my way up the food chain. You and that asshole on the floor there are what’s called least leverage. Since he’s outta commission, you’re on tap.” He looked at Evan again. “I got zero problem puttin’ a bullet in this one. Now, are you gonna tell me what I wanna know or not?”

“Tell him!” Keegan pleaded.

Evan’s good eye blinked sadly. “He’s not letting any of us go, son. You have to know that.”

“Dad, please!”

“Looks like somebody needs some convincin’,” the scarred guy muttered. He tightened his arm, making the cords in Willa’s neck bulge as he pressed the muzzle of the gun against her temple. Her face began to redden and she flailed at his arm, but her efforts had no effect. She was choking.

“Please—” Keegan begged again, then sensed sudden movement behind him.

“What’s he doing?” snarled the scarred guy.

Looking around, Keegan saw that Isaac had begun to stim again, his hands flapping wildly. “He’s autistic. He can’t help it.”

“I don’t give a shit. Make him stop.”

“Listen, buddy,” said Keegan, his heart hammering as he knelt before his brother, “you need to settle down, okay? Everything’s gonna be all right.”

Isaac clearly knew otherwise. His hands flapped harder.

“I said make him
stop
!”

Keegan looked up. “He’s upset. He does this when he’s stressed.”

“Then it’s a good thing I got a surefire stress suppressor here.”

The gun was aimed at Isaac now.

“Please!” Keegan pleaded, standing and stepping in front of his brother. “Don’t!”

“One two eight dot one nine four dot two five three dot one one seven dot one two eight dot one nine four dot two five …”

Keegan saw his father’s good eye widen, and then he heard him groan.

The scarred guy grinned. Turning to Evan, he said, “Looks like your bad memory ain’t gonna be a problem after all.”

Keegan could see he had eased his grip on Willa, who was eyeing a pair of heavy brass candlesticks on either end of the mantel, one of them almost within her reach. If only he could distract the guy. “Those numbers mean something?” he asked.

The guy grinned even more broadly, the scar on his cheek writhing. “Seems your old man here scanned some documents and uploaded them as insurance to a secure server somewhere. I know my way around a computer, and my boss has a lotta other talented guys on his payroll, but no one’s been able to track ‘em. I figure he used a combination of onion routing and mirror sites to do it.” He glanced at Evan. “The feds show you how to do that?” When Evan didn’t reply, he continued, “Don’t matter. We know you ain’t handed the stuff over to them yet or Morozov would have been arrested by now. He figures you were makin’ sure the feds got the three of you set up safe first. Was he right?” Evan nodded and the scarred guy turned to Keegan again, clearly pleased with himself. “We needed that IP address, and it looks like we just got it.” He spun Willa around to face him. “My laptop’s in my car. Show me a computer.”

“There isn’t one here,” she said, rubbing her throat and
coughing, and Keegan saw her use the movement to disguise the small step she took toward the mantel.

“Liar,” the scarred guy snorted. “Like you could last ten minutes without one.”

“There’s no Internet.”

“Bullshit. Everybody’s got Internet.”

“Not on Delusion Road,” she said.

He scowled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a phone.

“No cell service, either,” said Willa.

He held it up. “Christ!”

His eyes on the phone’s display, he didn’t see Willa move closer to the mantel. Keegan held his breath as her hand inched toward the candlestick, then grabbed it. She swung as hard as she could.

Because of the guy’s much greater height, the heavy brass object glanced off his jaw rather than the side of his head, but it was enough to throw him off balance. “
Fuck
!” he bellowed, swaying to his left and nearly dropping to one knee. Enraged, he brought the gun back up to point at Willa but, in that brief moment when all his attention was directed toward her, he didn’t see Keegan leap.

Tackling him, Keegan propelled him backward against the mantel and they went down in a mass of thrashing arms and legs, the gun knocked to the floor. The scarred guy grabbed for it but Keegan kicked it away, the weapon sliding easily across the polished hardwood as he scrambled to his feet. But the scarred guy was faster, and he landed a haymaker to Keegan’s midsection that doubled him over. Gasping for breath, he looked up to see the
guy lift the poker from its hook, raising it high overhead. Keegan closed his eyes and prayed it would be quick for all of them.

“Drop it!”

Keegan opened his eyes again and saw Willa pointing the gun at the guy. She gripped it with two hands, both of them shaking.

“I said
drop
it! Or I’ll blow your goddamn head off!”

The guy glared at her, then lowered the poker to the floor. As Keegan got to his feet, he could see the guy’s expression had changed. He was smiling. “From the way you’re holdin’ that thing, sweetheart,” he said, “I’m guessin’ you don’t know much about guns.”