Reapers (30 page)

"What kind of ass-backwards logic is that?" Tilly said. "I never had to be your friend in the first place."

"But you did. So that means you got to stick with me. It was like all of a sudden you got too pretty to be seen with me."

"Oh please. You had nothing to worry about, Black Swan."

"Then what? Was I too low-down?" Motion in the street. Lucy waited for the men to go inside the next building before she continued. "How were you supposed to get invited to their parties when you hung around with a girl whose momma was a meth head?"

Tilly crossed her arms tight and jutted her jaw. "You make me sick, throwing all this on me. You duck blame like it's thrown at your head."

"What did
I
do?"

The girl laughed, harsh and righteous. "My dad the saint brings you into our house. Six months later, my mom moves out. You think I can't add two and two?"

Lucy understood at once, but it was a long moment before she could find the words. "You think me and your
dad
?"

"Quit it! God, the way you lie, it makes me want to vomit."

"Nothing happened!"

"That's not what my mom said. You do nothing but take with no regard for anyone else. First you take my dad from me, and when that isn't enough, you take him as a man. It so happens this takes my mom from me, but do you care? Not one whit. You just stuck around, eating up our food, stinking up our garage. And then—and this is the biggest joke of them all—
you
were the one with him when he died."

"Is that what you think?" Lucy got quiet as church. "What's the matter with you? Why didn't you say something?"

"Like you'd listen?" Tilly's eyes got as bright and red as embers when you blew off the ash. "What was I supposed to say? 'Hey buddy, you mind keeping your panties on around my dad'?"

"Once he took me in, your dad was
my
dad. I could never have done a thing like that."

Tears blipped down her cheeks. "Then why did my mom think you did?"

Lucy sighed shakily. "The way he talked, she wasn't happy with him even before I moved in. Then he's got a teen girl around—and a troubled on at that—and her middle-aged mind starts going crazy. No wonder she made me sleep in the garage."

"I told her you could share my room. She said it would only encourage you to keep taking things that weren't yours to have."

Lucy pressed her knuckles against her brow. "I'm mean when I don't have to be and I get mad too easy and I'll shoot a man who looks at me cross. But when a person treats me right and doesn't want a thing in return, I won't never betray them or let them down."

Tilly's voice was dreamy. "I know all that. Why do you think we made friends in the first place? You were the toughest girl I ever saw."

"You believe me?" Relief washed across her heart. "Then how about we walk out of here?"

"Walk out? I got a new life here. A job and a boyfriend and everything that makes life life. Do I got a new perspective on the past? Well, maybe so. Goody-gumdrops for me. But I can't pick up on the past like all the years between were nothing but a bad dream."

"You can't stay here, Tilly. A fight's coming. And Nerve and Distro are right in the middle."

Tilly swatted her hand through the air. "Little boys trying on their daddy's pants. Once they calm down, everything will be peaches and schnapps." She'd quit crying, but a tendril of drool spooled from the corner of her mouth. She touched it and blinked at her glistening fingers. "You bitch. That was no Advil."

"I'm sorry," Lucy said. "But I made a promise to keep you safe."

Tilly tried to stand, but her legs were no good. She sprawled on the rug and glared at Lucy. "Why does everything always got to be your way?"

"'Cause I'm the only one who ain't blind," she murmured.

Tilly fought to stay awake, propping herself on an elbow and pinching the skin above her hip, but after a minute, her head sagged to the rug. Lucy made sure she was breathing okay, then returned to the window to watch the men work their way down the street.

She felt as clean as a spring rain. And, against all odds, grateful toward Tilly. The girl must have hated her with the heat of a stove. That's why she distanced herself that year before the plague. But afterward, she came back. Lucy couldn't delude herself about the why—Tilly had known that if anyone was to make it through the aftermath, it would be Lucy—but she liked to think that, as they'd begun their new life together, Tilly had been making an effort to reconcile, too.

For a while, they'd gotten back to normal. Between themselves, anyway; meanwhile, the rest of the world had gotten fucked up like you wouldn't believe. But Tilly had tried to put the past behind them. Lucy could see that now. They'd set up a couple of homes right down the block from each other, sowed gardens, gone fishing in the sea, shot possums and squirrels in the woods. If Lucy hadn't had that drunken tumble with Lloyd, could be they'd still be neighbors in sunny, quiet Florida.

The sex hadn't meant a thing to Lucy, but it had meant the world to Tilly. Once more, her best friend was coming after the only man she cared for. But rather than beating Lucy's face in, or slitting her throat in her sleep, Tilly had run off to New York without one hurt word. Because she
wasn't
like Lucy. She was a good person. Heart as gold as a field of corn.

A drop of water hit the windowsill. Her eyes stung. She couldn't remember crying since she'd been the smallest little girl. Another droplet hit the outside of the window and slid down the pane. It was snowing.

Lucy pressed her face to the window. It was frigid on her cheek and her nose fogged the glass. A block away, Nerve pointed at the sky. The men gathered, shaking their heads, gesturing this way and that. They pulled their collars up to their chins and walked away.

She gave them ten minutes to clear out. Would have preferred longer, but she didn't trust the second dose to last any longer than the first. She brought her bag downstairs to the clothing store, then climbed back up for Tilly. Her legs weren't too happy about this repeat performance, and her tweaked ankle had a few complaints as well (though it was in far better shape than she'd initially feared), but at least it was only two flights of stairs. She took them without a candle, feeling each step forward, gruelingly slow. At the bottom, she lowered Tilly to the wheelbarrow, covered her with a puffy black winter coat off the racks, and wheeled her outside.

Snow sifted darkly to the streets and melted there. Wind swirled between the buildings in irregular gusts, twirling the flakes, driving them sidelong at Lucy's face. She put on wool gloves and headed northwest.

She'd spent enough time on the Twelfth Avenue rooftops to know the stone arches of Lincoln Tunnel were less than half a mile away. She drove the wheelbarrow steadily along, its rubber wheel whispering over the pavement. Snow stuck to Tilly's hair and melted on her face. It was going to be a long roll to the car, particularly if Tilly woke again, but Lucy had some nice thin rope and it was easy enough to make a gag. One way or another, they'd soon be gone. Who the hell wanted to live a place where it snowed?

As she entered the looping, spaghetti-strand snarl of the roads leading to the tunnels, an analog bullhorn boomed from the rooftops.

Lucy stared up in disbelief. The man's voice repeated, calling out her location. Lucy leaned into the wheelbarrow and made a break for the tunnels. Footsteps pounded from two directions, ricocheting between the shops and offices. She curved along the road and entered the high-walled culvert feeding to the dark mouth of the tunnel.

Hampered by the wheelbarrow, she couldn't manage more than jogging speed. Shoes slapped toward her. "Lucy!"

She slowed, reaching for her umbrella.

"One more inch and I shoot you in the back."

She stopped and sighed, too weary and too close to her goal to muster more than exasperation. Nerve strode up to her, pistol extended from his body.

"What's the big deal?" Lucy said. "I'm just doing my laundry."

"You are kidnapping a Distro employee." He stopped five feet away, strands of slick black hair blowing in his eyes. "One who means very much to me."

"She was never supposed to be here. It was all a misunderstanding. Why don't you go back to your big-city business and let us country gals get on with ours?"

"Because she's mine. You should pray that her sense of loyalty is stronger than yours. You know what I do to traitors?"

"Bring them a car so you never have to see them again?"

He pulled the trigger. The bang roared between the culvert walls. The bullet struck Lucy square in the chest like a mustang's kick.

She dropped to her seat. Snow battered her face, but she felt warmly numb and giddy, as if her body were about to laugh at the silly thing that had just been done to it. Nerve took her umbrella from the wheelbarrow, pocketed the shells, and tossed it to the street with a clatter. One of his troops jogged up and took her bag.

Nerve lifted Tilly's head and spoke her name. She slept on. He scooped her from the wheelbarrow, threw her over his shoulder, patted her butt, and spat on Lucy. She wanted to stand, but she had never felt weaker in all her life.

20

"Hang on," Ellie said. "There's been a mistake."

The woman kept the gun trained on her chest. The man approached and motioned Ellie to turn around. "The mistake was letting you people live the
first
time you came around."

He took away her gun and slid it across the floor to his wife. Ellie tried to catch Hobson's gaze. "Our people? I haven't been through here since the Panhandler."

Sheriff Hobson smiled tightly. "I believe the good man thinks we're associated with the Albany Clavans. Ironic, given that we oppose—"

"Quiet down, you old fart." The bearded man pulled Ellie's wrists behind her back and closed the handcuffs on her with a click of steel teeth.

"We're from Saranac Lake," Ellie said quickly. "The Clavans—"

The man grabbed the chain of her cuffs and twisted. Metal bit into her skin. Her arm bent against her side, pain flaring in her elbow. She inhaled with a hiss.

"Last warning," the man said. "One more word and my wife repaints the kitchen with you."

The cold wrath in his voice made Ellie a believer. He disarmed and cuffed Hobson and Dee. With the woman's shotgun trained on their backs, he marched them down steep stairs to an unfinished cellar. Tubs and bins lined the walls. Sunlight fought through the snow muffling two narrow windows high on the back wall.

"Sit down," he said.

"Sir," Hobson said gently. "We are hunting down the very people who hurt you. I am a sheriff. Tell me the crimes against you and I vow to do my utmost to bring you justice."

The man seemed to consider this, then slammed a right hook into Hobson's jaw. Unsuspecting, hands bound, Hobson dropped straight to the dusty concrete. The man turned on Ellie and Dee. The woman held the shotgun steady. Ellie knelt, gaze locked on the woman's trigger finger. Dee lowered herself and sat on her heels.

The man turned and clumped up the stairs. The woman followed. He closed the door. Metal scraped from the other side. A heavy padlock clunked shut.

"What are they doing?" Dee whispered.

"Getting friends or equipment. Neither option's good."

"Sheriff Hobson?" Dee shook the old man's shoulder, but he remained lost to the world. His slack face and the egg-white skin beneath his eyes looked much older, as if the spark in his eyes were all that kept the decades at bay.

Ellie cast around the dim room. Dee had her dark hair in a ponytail, her ragged bangs clipped tight to her temple.

"Your bobby pin," Ellie said.

"I think he's hurt," Dee said.

"We don't have time. Lean down and close your eyes."

Dee cocked her head, but did as she was told. Ellie turned her back so her cuffed hands could reach Dee. She owled her head over her shoulder and groped the side of the girl's head, working her fingernail under the pin. She slid it loose and sat down.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Dee said.

"They trained us for extreme situations," Ellie said. She didn't mention that training had been fifteen years ago and she hadn't messed with handcuffs ever since.

But she remembered the basics. She was cuffed so tight she couldn't get a good angle on her own keyholes, so she had Dee turn her back and extend her wrists. She worked the tip of the pin into the keyhole of Dee's cuffs and bent it to a sharp angle. She brought it out, inspected it over her shoulder, then worked it back inside and added a second bend so the end of the pin resembled a hard-angled S.

Tool in hand, she went to work. With her back to Dee, she couldn't see a thing, but she was working by feel anyway. And after a minute of poking and prying, what she felt was a double lock.

"Son of a bitch," she muttered.

"You got it?" Dee said.

"It's a double. Tricky." She talked it out to help see it in her mind's eye. "You have to work a bar out of the way, then engage the lock."

She explored the lock, twisting the pin, prodding around for the bar, which wasn't easy, given that she didn't know what it felt like. She pushed this way and that, trying to find a piece that would give.

Upstairs, feet thumped across the floors. A door opened and shut. The house fell silent except for the tiny metal clicks of the pin in the cuffs. Five minutes later, Ellie was sweating and frustrated to the point of tears. The pin caught. She pushed, trying to spring the bar, but the bobby pin bent under the pressure and popped free. Ellie cried out and slung it down between them.

"You okay?" Dee said.

"Think I had it. Pin bent on me. I just need a minute to calm down."

"Can I try?"

"Dee, this isn't how it looks in the movies. You have to practice like crazy to get a feel for it."

There was a sudden pause. "I have."

"What, when you were raising hell with Chip? That was ages ago."

"Quinn likes to be...restrained," Dee said. "One time I lost the keys. It took me three hours to get them off him. Would have been much faster, but he kept getting h—"