Lisa Gardner: Alone

Then he was out of here.

Mr. Bosu had already completed a search of the left side of the palatial suite. He'd found the master bedroom, raided the wife's jewelry box, and found a wad of cash. Now, he turned his attention to the right-hand side of the suite. If he were a four-year-old boy, where would he hide?

Someplace cozy, someplace dark. No. Wait. The boy had all those dozens of night-lights. The kid was scared of the dark.

Mr. Bosu's eyes fell upon the louvered door of the hall closet. Of course. Mr. Bosu began to smile.

need a plan," Catherine said. Her gaze fell to Bobby. He nodded, struggling to sit up straighter on the bed.

"What are we going to do?" Maryanne whimpered forlornly from the floor.

"James is injured. You're injured. What are we going to do?"

"I can fire a gun just fine," Bobby said levelly.

"I drill with my left hand all the time."

Catherine nodded. She picked up both nine-millimeters off the bed and handed him one.

"All right. You take a gun, I'll take a gun."

"You can't shoot worth shit," Bobby said seriously.

"Well then, I'll just have to make sure I get close enough. Do we hunt him? Is that how this game is played?"

Bobby immediately shook his head.

"I don't want us split up. Two against one is better odds, plus I don't want the risk of one of us accidentally hitting the other with cross fire."

"We're not going to have much element of surprise, two of us blundering down a hall."

"No, we won't. Which is why we're going to make him come to us." "And how do we do that?"

Bobby looked her in the eye.

"Well, Catherine, you know him best."

She nodded slowly.

"Yes," she said after a moment, "I guess I do."

Mr. Bosu was on the prowl. He spotted the target. He yanked back the closet door. He thrust deep with his knife. And ripped into a pile of terry cloth towels. What the hell?

"Shit!" Mr. Bosu roared.

He tossed out the pile of towels. Then the shelf of toilet paper, then a collection of bathrobes. Empty, empty, empty. Where was the boy?

"Shit!" he roared again.

But then he saw it. Farther down the hall, another louvered door. Mr. Bosu stalked forward.

"Richard."

The voice stopped him, the name, too. Mr. Bosu turned, feeling slightly confused. It had been years since anyone had called him Richard. Prison guards didn't use it, neither did his fellow inmates. He was Umbrio or, in his own mind, Mr. Bosu. He had not been called Richard in over twenty years.

Catherine stood alone at the end of the hallway. Taller than the image implanted in his mind, and yet in many ways still the same. Those dark, dark eyes. That tangled mass of black hair. He wished she were wearing a red bow.

Pity that girls should grow up at all.

"Catherine," he said, and gestured with his bloody knife.

"Did you miss me?"

He grinned at her. She had her shoulders back and her head up, trying to appear strong. But he could see how hard she was breathing by the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

She was terrified.

That old feeling came back to him, nostalgic and swift. It was twenty-five years ago, and he was scrambling through the woods, heading happily for a small clearing made distinct only by the large piece of plywood that appeared to be lying on the ground. Next to it were a tall stick and a section of chain that, only upon closer inspection, became a ladder.

He raised the plywood, supporting its edge lean-to style on the stick. Then he was leaning over the gaping hole, preparing to drop down the chain.

Her face appeared below in the gloom. Small, pale, dirt-streaked. Desperate.

"Are you happy to see me?" he called down.

"Tell me you're happy to see me."

"Please, "she said.

He flew down the ladder, grabbing her into his arms.

"What shall we do today?"

"Please," she said again, and just the sound of that word made his heart burst in his chest.

"Are you going to beg?" Umbrio asked now, genuinely excited.

"You know what I like to hear."

"No."

"You should. I'm going to kill you and your son."

"No."

"Come now, Catherine. You of all people know how powerful I am."

"You put me in a hole for twenty-eight days, Richard. I put you in prison for twenty-five years."

Mr. Bosu scowled. He didn't like that thought. In fact, he didn't care for this whole conversation. He took a step forward. Catherine held her ground. He took another step, then came to a sudden halt. Wait a minute.

"Show me your hands," he ordered.

She obediently lifted them up.

"Where's the gun?" he asked suspiciously.

"I gave it to Maryanne. I already tried it and you and I both know I can't shoot."

He frowned, still not liking this.

"So you're just going to attack me with your bare hands."

"No."

"What then? Why'd you come out? Why'd you leave the room?"

"To buy time for my son. The police are going to come, Richard. They're going to be here any minute. And frankly, I don't care if you hack apart every inch of my body, just as long as you don't touch a hair on Nathan's head."

"Oh." He considered it.

"You know what? It's a deal." He sprang forward and Catherine bolted down the hall.

Catherine ran. not too fast. That was the hard part. Her heart was pounding, her nerve endings screaming. Adrenaline pumped through her veins and commanded that she run, run, run.

But she had a role to play. They all had a role to play, and this was suddenly the biggest stage of her life.

She could hear him thundering down the hall behind her. In all of her nightmares, Umbrio rarely had a face. He was a giant black shadow, an impenetrable force that always mowed her down. She was tiny and insignificant. He loomed like a dark, vengeful God.

She had tried telling herself over the years that it was a child's perspective on things, a young girl versus a grown man, a child versus an adult. But seeing him now, she realized she'd been wrong. Umbrio was huge, a muscled mountain of a man. He had terrified her then, and he terrified her now.

So much of her life he'd taken from her. So many pieces of herself, which had gone into that hole and never emerged again.

Now she ran from him. She ran and she cried, out of fear, out of sadness, out of rage. She hated Richard Umbrio. And she missed the woman she might have become if they'd never met that one horrible day.

He was closing in. She picked up her pace, letting her control slip, letting the panic kick in. He was upon her, he was reaching for her. He was going to grab her by the neck and throw her to the ground and then… She burst into the sitting room. Her gaze flew to the coffee table. Bobby was lying behind it, his nine-millimeter propped up on the edge as a makeshift rifle stand, his left hand on the trigger.

"Now," he ordered.

She dropped like a rock. Behind her, Umbrio came to a screeching halt. He waved his arms wildly, trying to slow his own momentum.

Bobby pulled the trigger. Pop, pop, pop. One-two-three.

And Umbrio fell like an oak, crashing to the ground. His hand twitched. Then he was still.

Catherine pulled herself up shakily. Flat on his back on the floor, Umbrio was staring at her. Blood creased the corners of his mouth. He smiled.

"Now what?" he whispered. She didn't understand. Then he grabbed the corner of her skirt. Catherine screamed. Beside her, she heard Bobby pull the trigger but receive only an empty metal click. The guns, Catherine realized. She had swapped them when handing them out, with Bobby receiving the one she'd already fired a dozen times. Bobby swore violently just as Umbrio heaved forward and grabbed Catherine's knee with his big meaty fist.

Then Catherine simply stopped thinking. Umbrio was going to get her. His hands would wrap around her throat. He would squeeze and she would die, just as she was supposed to have died twenty-five years ago. She was in the hole. She was in the ground. She was all alone.