J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

“Whoever kills first in the morning will have first choice of the place he wants to live.”

She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t, not with his hand clamped over her face, crushing her cheeks and nostrils together, cutting off her ability to breathe. Carlisle had grabbed her from behind. She felt his hot breath on the back of her neck.

“Take the gun out of the holster,” he ordered, “nice and easy. Hold it by the handle with your thumb and forefinger. We’re going to walk over and put it down on the table, very carefully.”

Where are Davy and Rita? she wondered. Where is Father John? If he was still out behind the house, he might come in and help. .

The blade of the knife pressed against her skin. “I don’t want to cut you, baby. Blood’s real messy for what I have in mind, but I will if I have to. Don’t try me. The gun. Now!”

Faint from lack of oxygen, she thought maybe that was all he intended-strangling her, but then he eased his pincerlike pressure, allowing her to gulp desperate mouthfuls of air.

“The gun!” he repeated.

She reached for it silently, cursing Brandon Walker as she did so. He had been right, damn him. She’d never had a chance to touch the gun, to say nothing of using it. All having the gun had done was to make her stupid, to give her a false sense of security.

She removed the gun from its holster and held it as she’d been told. With Carlisle clutching her from behind, they glided from door to table like a pair of grotesque waltzing skaters.

“That’s better,” he muttered once the.45 was resting on the tabletop. “Much better. Now turn around and let me look at you.”

“Where’s Davy?” she asked, without turning. “What have you done with Davy and Rita?”

His voice rose menacingly. “I gave you an order, goddamnit! Turn around.” He grabbed her by one shoulder and spun her toward him. The abrupt motion threw her slightly off balance. She almost fell, but he caught her by one wrist and held her upright. The knife seemed to have disappeared into thin air, but as soon as his powerful fingers closed around her wrist, Diana knew he didn’t need the knife. Not really. His hands alone were plenty strong enough.

“Where’s Davy?” she asked again, trying to keep her voice steady, trying not to let it expose her rising terror.

He grinned back at her. “Where’s Davy?” he mocked. “Where do you think he is? What will you give me if I show him to you? A kiss maybe? A piece of tail?”

Carlisle’s tone was light and bantering, but Diana’s wrist ached from the punishing pressure of his fingers. She knew then, with a sinking heart, that strangling wasn’t it. Carlisle would never let her off that easy.

Someone seeing the frozen tableau from outside the window might have thought the man and woman to be lovers standing face to face, might have imagined them holding hands and exchanging endearments in preparation for a romantic kiss. The man was smiling. Only a glimpse of the woman’s stricken face betrayed the reality of their desperate life-and-death struggle.

“Let me go!” She started to add, “You’re hurting me,” but she didn’t. Life with Max Cooper had taught her better than that. In an uneven contest where defeat is inevitable, she had learned to show no reaction at all, to deny her tormentor his ultimate gratification-the perceptible proof of his victim’s pain.

“You know you’re going to give me whatever I want, don’t you?” he leered at her, relentlessly pulling her closer. Steeling herself, she refused to shrink away from him, refused to cringe, but even as she struggled against him, she was beginning to fear the worst-Davy and Rita were dead. They had to be. If not, they would have given her some sign, some reason to hope.

“One way or another,” Carlisle continued, “like it or not, I’m going to have you six ways to Sunday, little lady, so you could just as well get used to the idea, lay back and enjoy it, as they say. Now tell me, how’s it going to be, hard or easy?”

She didn’t respond.

“That was a joke,” he said, laughing. “Didn’t you get it?”

By then, their lips were almost touching. For an answer, she brought her knee up and rammed it into his groin. Stunned, he doubled over, grabbing himself, groaning with pain. Momentarily, he let go of her hand, giving her the chance she needed. Dodging backward and to one side, Diana groped for the handle of the.45.

The gun was a mere three feet away, but it could just as well have been three miles. She picked it up and used both hands to pull back the hammer, but before she could aim or pull the trigger, Carlisle tackled her, slamming her hard against the wall, knocking the wind from her lungs, forcing her hand up into the empty air overhead. The gun discharged with an earsplitting roar, blasting a hole in the stucco ceiling before he knocked it from her hand and sent it whirling across the room.

“That’s going to cost you, bitch!” he snarled. “That cute trick is really going to cost you.”

He came after her then in a blind heat of rage, tearing the clothes from her body, sending her sprawling. They crashed to the floor together with him on top, using Diana’s body to cushion his own fall. The back of her head bounced off the Mexican tile. A kaleidoscope of lights danced before her eyes. The room swirled around her while she drowned in a sea of despair. Davy’s dead, she thought. My son is dead. .

By the time she could see again or breathe or move, resistance was useless. Carlisle was on her, inside her, pounding away.

Davy was still trying to waken the priest when the root cellar was rocked by the roar of gunfire. Frightened, the boy cringed against the wall. No one had to tell him what the sound meant. That terrible man, that ohb , was out there with his mother, trying to kill her. Maybe he already had. Out in the living room, braced by Nana Dahd ’s secret song, it had been easy to pretend to be brave, but now cowardly tears sprang to his eyes.

“Don’t let him kill my mommy, Nana Dahd ,” he sobbed. “Please don’t let him.”

“Quiet!” Rita ordered.

Davy was startled by the harshness in Nana Dahd ’s voice. Never had she spoken to him so sharply. “Listen. Come help me with the medicine basket. I can’t get it out by myself.”

Davy scrambled over the priest’s prone form. He felt around Rita’s body until he located the medicine basket still hidden beneath the ample folds of her dress. The basket was too large to slip out without first unfastening some of the buttons.

“Hurry,” she urged as he struggled in the dark with the buttons and the slippery material. When the basket came free, it popped out and fell to the floor. “Find it,” Rita ordered. “Take off the lid and give me the owij .”

Davy groped on the floor until he found the basket with its tight-fitting lid still securely closed. After some struggle, he finally pried open the lid and fumbled inside until his fingers closed around the awl.

“Here it is,” he said.

“Good. Put it in my good hand, then come close. Hold your hands steady and as far apart as you can.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

For an answer, she poked at the twine around his wrists with the sharp point of the awl, the same way she had poked it through thousands of strands of coiled cactus. Pulled taut, the twine cut sharply into Davy’s wrists. The child yelped with pain.

“Quiet,” she commanded. “Don’t make a sound, Olhoni, no matter how much it hurts.” He bit his lip to stifle another cry.

“Once we are free,” Rita continued, “we must stand on either side of the door and be absolutely silent. When the door opens, the ohb will be there. He will expect us to be tied up just as he left us. When he does not see us, he will step into the cellar. I will try to hit him with my cast or stab him with the owij . We will have only one chance. You must not wait to see what happens. Like I said in the song, you must run somewhere and hide.”