Last Man Standing (71 page)

“I thought you were tied up too.”

He smiled and held up a small bit of metal. “I was. But I took this off one of the markers they give me to draw with. Picked
the lock. I’m good with my hands.”

“I can see that.”

“Give me just one more minute and I get you loose too.”

In less time than that, Kevin had her free. She rubbed her wrists and sat up, looked around and eyed the door. “I take it
the door’s locked?”

“Always has been. Maybe not now, if they think we chained up.”

“Good point.” She stood, taking a moment to get her balance after being off her feet for so long, a condition that was compounded
by the darkness. She looked around again. “Anything we can use for a weapon, in case someone’s on the other side of that door?”
she whispered.

Kevin went over to the cot, turned it over on its side and un-screwed two of the metal legs. He kept one and handed the other
to Claire.

“You hit ’em high and I hit ’em low,” he said.

Claire nodded, without a lot of confidence, though. She wasn’t sure she could hit anybody.

Kevin seemed to sense her trepidation, because he added, “We only hit ’em if they trying to hurt us, right?”

“Right,” said Claire a lot more firmly.

They inched over to the door and tried it. It was locked. They listened intently for a bit yet could hear no one on the other
side, even though the machinelike sounds were not as loud now. “I guess we’re not getting out of here until they want us to,”
said Claire.

Kevin eyed the door and stepped back. “I ain’t never noticed that before.”

“What?”

“That the door hinges are on the inside.”

Claire looked hopeful, but only for an instant. “But we’d need a screwdriver and hammer to get them out.”

“Well, we got the hammer.” He held up the metal table leg. “And right here is the screwdriver.”

He went over to where the cuffs that had held Claire were attached to a bolt in the wall. With Claire’s help, they finally
managed to unscrew the bolt from the wall and Kevin slid off the cuffs. He held up one of the cuffs. “It got an nice edge
to it, like a screwdriver.”

“Good thinking again, Kevin,” said Claire with considerable admiration. Here she was, feeling totally helpless, and Kevin
was pulling one miracle after another out of his hat.

It took them some time and they kept stopping and listening for anyone coming, but the hinge pins finally came out. They were
able to pry open the door and step through. It was dark here too, and they stumbled along, touching the walls of the narrow
corridor for guidance. The smell of chlorine was very strong now. They were confronted with another locked door that Kevin
was able to pick with his pen clasp. They encountered yet another door that, thankfully, was unlocked.

Claire took in a long breath, as did Kevin. He smiled at her. “Feels good to finally be outside.

“Well, let’s get going before they come and lock us back up.” They moved past the covered pool, crept through the bushes and
then down a winding grass path. As they neared the end of the path, Claire could see a building far up ahead. It was the mansion.
She had glimpsed it on her visit. They were at East Winds Farm!

“Omigod,” she exclaimed.

“Shhh,” said Kevin.

She whispered into his ear, “I know where we are. I have friends who are here, we just have to get to them.” The problem was
that, in the darkness, it was hard to tell in which direction was the house that Web and Romano were using, even with the
mansion as a marker.

“If they at the place where we been locked up, how you know they really your friends?”

“I just know. Come on.” She took his hand and they made their way in what Claire thought was the direction of the carriage
house. Long before they could reach it, however, both stiffened when they heard a vehicle coming. They ran back into the bushes
and peered out. Claire’s spirits plummeted. It was a truck, not the Mach or Romano’s Corvette. She gasped when the truck pulled
to a stop and several men with guns climbed out. Their escape had apparently been detected. She and Kevin ran deeper into
the woods, such that Claire totally lost her bearings.

They finally stopped, caught their breath. Kevin looked around. “I ain’t never seen so many trees in one place. Can’t tell
which way’s out.”

Claire breathed deeply, attempting to get her lungs and her nerves under control. She nodded. “I know.” She studied the lay
of the unfamiliar land and was attempting to make a decision on which direction they should go when they heard footsteps.
Claire pulled Kevin to her and they squatted low in the underbrush.

The person was on the path and walked right past them, obviously unaware of Claire’s and Kevin’s presence. Claire peeked out.
She didn’t know Gwen Canfield and thus had no idea why a woman in a long red dress was walking barefoot through thick woods
at this hour. Claire thought about calling out to her but finally decided against it. She had no idea who their captors were.
This woman could be part of that group.

Once Gwen was out of sight, Claire and Kevin started moving again. They came to a darkened house, but that had a truck parked
out front. Claire was debating whether to try and slip inside the place and use the phone to call the police when a man charged
out of the house, jumped in his truck and roared off.

“I think that person just found out we got loose,” she whispered to Kevin. “Come on.”

They ran to the house. Claire had noted that in his haste the man had left the door open. They were about to go inside when
they heard a sound that made Claire’s stomach lurch.

“He’s coming back,” cried out Kevin. They raced back into the woods even as the truck bore down on them.

Pushing their way through the thick undergrowth, Claire quickly lost her shoes, and her and Kevin’s clothes were being shredded
by thorny vines and hard branches. They reached an open bit of ground, paused to catch their breath but took off running again
when they heard the sounds of feet crashing through the underbrush.

They raced through to an open space and Claire saw a building loom up out of the darkness.

“Quick,” she said to Kevin, “in there.”

They climbed up on a loading dock and entered the Monkey House through a hole in the wall. Claire and Kevin looked around
at the ruined insides of the place. Claire shivered when she observed the rusted cages. Kevin held his nose.

“Damn, it stinks in here,” he said.

The sounds of men, and now the baying of dogs, were growing closer. “Over there,” Claire said frantically. She climbed onto
a box, boosted Kevin up and into a hole in the wall that probably once housed a ventilator fan. “Stay down and keep quiet,”
she told him.

“Where you going?”

“Not far,” she said. “But if they find me, don’t come out; whatever they say they’ll do to me, don’t come out. Do you understand?”

Kevin nodded slowly. “Claire,” he said. She turned back. “Please be careful.”

She smiled weakly, squeezed his hand and climbed back down. She looked around for a moment and then crept out through a gash
in the rear wall. Once she was outside, the sounds of the dogs was even more terrifying. They must have given the animals
something with her and Kevin’s scent on it. She tore off a bit of her dress, grabbed a small rock, tied it inside the strip
of material and threw it as far away from the Monkey House as she could. Then she ran off in the opposite direction. She reached
the woods again, slid down an embankment and halted at the bottom. She looked around, trying to gauge the direction the sounds
of men and dogs were coming from. Unfortunately, because of the topography, the noises were echoing all around. She forded
a small creek, falling down halfway across and soaking herself. She struggled up and managed to scale a small embankment on
the other side, then found herself on flat land. She was so tired now, part of her just wanted to lie here and wait for them
to find her. Yet Claire pushed herself up and ran. When she reached another steep climb, she gripped a sapling and used it
to thrust herself up. At the top she surveyed the land. Off in the distance she saw a light, and then another and another,
all in pairs. A road. She took several deep breaths and took off at a steady jog. Her feet were torn and bleeding, but she
didn’t allow the pain to slow her down. She had to get help. She had to get help for Kevin.

The sounds of the men and dogs were gone now and she allowed herself the small hope that she might actually manage to succeed
in escaping. She crawled the last few feet to the road and sat in the ditch for a moment, the tears spilling from her, partly
from exhaustion, fear and having gained her freedom. She heard a car coming, stood and ran into the road, waving her arms
and screaming for help.

At first it didn’t appear the vehicle was going to stop at all. And Claire realized that she must look like some lunatic.
But the vehicle finally slowed and then stopped. She ran to the passenger door and pulled it open. Her first sight was of
Kevin sitting in the front seat, his mouth gagged, his arms and legs bound. The second sight was of Nemo Strait pointing a
gun at her.

“Hey, Doc,” he said. “You need a ride?”

H
e stretched his long body and then involuntarily shivered. The night had been a little cool and the dampness seemed to have
settled into him. He wrapped the blanket tighter around him.

Francis Westbrook was not accustomed to camping out. What he was doing was about as close to camping as he was probably ever
going to get, and he was not enjoying it. He drank some water and then edged his head out from his hiding place. The sun would
be rising soon, he gauged. He hadn’t slept particularly well; hell, he hadn’t really slept since Kevin had disappeared. One
lousy phone call, that was all he had been given. He had met with London, like they had told him to, and filled him in on
the tunnels, again like they had told him to. He had undertaken a little unfinished business along the way with Toona, sure.
Contrary to what Westbrook had told Web, he could abide skimmers and even those who used the product because if you didn’t
you wouldn’t have anyone willing to come to work for you in the drug trade, it was as simple as that. But what he would never
tolerate was a snitch. Macy had tipped him off to what Toona was doing and he had checked it out himself and found out Macy
had been correct. So Toona was, appropriately enough, fish food. Sometimes life
was
fair, he thought.

Through the street grapevine he had learned that Peebles had been killed. The boy just didn’t have what it took. But Westbrook
had also learned, albeit too late, that Peebles had been orchestrating a takeover of his crew and consolidation of other crews
in the area. That one had caught him off guard. He hadn’t thought that old Twan had that in him. Macy had simply disappeared.
That disloyalty had really ticked him off. Westbrook shrugged. Served him right for putting any trust in a white boy.

Now whoever had killed Twan might be gunning for him. Westbrook would just have to lie low and rely only upon himself until
things worked out. Relying only on himself—it was just like old times. He had a couple of pistols, a few mags of ammo, about
a thousand dollars in his pocket. He had abandoned the Navigator when he had come here, and the cops were still looking for
him. Well, let them look. He had seen the Feds patrolling the place, but he had spent enough time dodging the cops to know
how to hide even his very large carcass so that he blended right in with where he was. He had seen some strange things going
on here. And he had heard the sounds of dogs barking off in the distance. The dogs were bad news. He had hunkered down farther
into his hiding place and pulled over him a blanket he had covered with branches and leaves until the sounds had receded.
As best as he could figure, London was still close by, and if London thought this place was important, then Westbrook did
too. He checked his gun and settled back, took another drink of water, listened to the crickets and wondered what the new
day would bring. Maybe it would bring Kevin.