Carla Neggers - The Mist

“Put me down there,” she said, then gave him a quick smile. “There isn’t a room in this house my cousins and I can’t get out of.”

“You were an incorrigible child?”

“We’re a resourceful family.”

His eyes were half-closed. “You are still to take my lead.”

“ Norman has a backup plan. He always does. I can find out what it is.”

“You can get Abigail Browning and hide while I do my job.”

“Let Will and Simon help you-”

“Off we go, love.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed her by the elbow and shoved her up the steps. “Mr. Estabrook, get yourself together. We need to leave. Now. Simon Cahill and Will Davenport are here.” Fletcher kept his grip on Lizzie as they entered the mudroom. “I have your rich-girl landlady.”

Norman appeared in the doorway, rubbing his thumb on the swollen knuckles of his right hand. “Good,” he said, pleased, without even glancing at Lizzie. “We make our stand now.”

Maintaining his grip on Lizzie’s arm, Fletcher shook his head. “They’ll have called in a tactical team.”

“Then we’ll just have to deal with Simon and Davenport before SWAT can get here. I want them both. Special Agent Cahill and his princely friend.”

“These men know what they’re doing. They won’t let us see them, much less get off a shot at them.” Fletcher’s tone was professional, still somewhat deferential to Norman ’s authority. “My advice is to leave Miss Rush and Detective Browning and get out of here.”

“I know what I’m doing, too,” Norman said, petulant. He shifted his attention to Lizzie, finally acknowledging her presence. “It’s good to see you, Lizzie. I knew you’d come to Maine. This house…” His gesture seemed to take in the entire property. “The very walls cry out with what might have been if John March hadn’t caused your mother’s death.”

“Where’s his daughter now?” Lizzie asked. She wriggled in Fletcher’s grasp, and he let her go. “I can’t help it, Norman. She had the life I didn’t. A father and a mother.”

“We have her now, Lizzie.”

She noticed a flicker of distaste-of hatred-in Fletcher’s eyes before his detached manner took hold again.

“I want to see her,” Lizzie said.

“I’ll take Miss Rush downstairs,” Fletcher said. “She and Detective Browning can chat about her father while we deal with Cahill and Davenport. No argument, Mr. Estabrook. We do this my way here on out or I walk now.”

“All right. Lock Lizzie in with our detective.” Norman smiled and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. “Detective Browning needs to know the impact her father’s had on your life. Tell her. Make her understand it’s his fault she’s in this predicament.”

“I thought I hid it from you…how much I hate John March.”

Norman gave her a supercilious little laugh. “You could never hide anything from me. You’re refreshingly transparent. I’ll come for you.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in a possessive but asexual manner. “You’re special to me, Lizzie. You have been right from the start.”

“Same here, Norman. You’re special to me.” She ignored the sudden dryness in her mouth. “You’ve transformed my life.”

Fletcher took her by the arm and led her down the basement stairs. The man who’d helped him collect her in the first place unlocked the door to the old rec room. He waited in the hall while Fletcher brought her inside.

Abigail was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, her face, especially her mouth and left cheek, swollen and bloody, scabs forming on the deeper cuts. Lizzie stifled a gasp and turned to Fletcher, grabbed his wrist. “Tell Norman he’s proved his point,” she said in a low voice. “There’s nothing unique about killing Abigail now. If he leaves her, he’ll have even more power over her father. March will know what Norman could have done, that it was in his power to do more.”

“Power through restraint.”

“Exactly.”

“Will do, love.” Fletcher winked at her. “I’m thinking more in terms of putting a bullet in the bloody bastard’s head at the first opportunity.”

“But you need him,” Lizzie said. “Why? If you’re MI6-”

“A fiction.”

“Colloquial expression. The Secret Intelligence Service isn’t a fiction. Neither is the Special Air Service. Even if you’re free-lancing, you’re on a mission. You disappeared in Afghanistan. Are you after some drug lord-terrorist connection?”

His eyes darkened to a hard slate color. “I have to go. A boat’s on the way to the old dock here. I need it not to be scared off by shots. I’ll try to keep Simon and Will from coming to your rescue too soon. In the meantime, find a nice hiding place.” He glanced at Abigail and then winked again at Lizzie. “Be good, love.”

At the click of the lock in the door after he left, Abigail let out a low moan of pain and sat up straighter. “I look worse than I feel.”

“I hope so.”

“You’re Lizzie Rush.” Abigail struggled to focus, one eye markedly less swollen than the other. “My father looked into your mother’s death in Ireland. It was ruled an accident.”

“It wasn’t,” Lizzie said.

Abigail nodded. “No, it wasn’t.”

Following Fletcher’s lead, Lizzie concentrated on the immediate problem, quickly explaining the situation to the detective. “I told Myles I can get us out of here.”

“Myles…” Abigail swallowed visibly. “Fletcher. He’s an interesting character. There are at least two other men in addition to him and Estabrook. A third-I think he’s dead.”

“Yes. Fiona O’Reilly and I found him yesterday. It’s a long story. Let’s focus on getting out of here before Norman pays us a visit. Can you stand?”

She nodded, allowing Lizzie to help her to her feet. “You obviously have something in mind.”

Lizzie smiled. “My cousins and I used to pretend we were prisoners on a pirate ship.”

“And this room was the ship? There’s an exit?”

“Sort of.” She pulled the ratty couch away from the wall and pointed to a knee-high door. “It goes under the stairs to the laundry room. My cousins and I would…well, we liked our adventures. You’ll have to crawl.”

“I can do it. I should have found this myself. The laundry room-there’s an exit just outside the door, isn’t there?”

“It leads right into my grandmother’s hydrangeas.”

“If Estabrook or his men catch us-”

“We end up back here playing cards,” Lizzie said lightly.

Abigail tried to smile. “My optimism took a hit along with my face.” She studied the door a moment. “I’ll go first. If I run into problems, get back here and blame me.”

Lizzie didn’t argue with her and squatted to unlatch the door. “I wonder if the adults in our lives realized the door was here and wanted to encourage a certain amount of creativity and rebellion in my cousins and me.” She looked up at Abigail. “I’m not promising we won’t happen upon mice, dead or alive.”

“I heard mice running in the walls.” Abigail got down low and peered into the pitch-dark crawl space. She gave Lizzie a beleagured smile. “I figured they were better company than the rats upstairs.”

She got on all fours and went through the small opening. Lizzie pulled the couch back as close to the wall as she could, but it wasn’t enough-Norman and his men would know exactly what had happened the minute they entered the room. She shut the door behind her, anyway, as she ducked into the crawl space. She breathed in dust and in the darkness, thought she really did hear a mouse scurrying. But she moved fast, making her way to another small door, which Abigail had left open.