She tried again. Slipped the nail into position. Forced it upward. It hit the thin metal hook again. “Here we go,” she said, pushing the nail upward, trying to get more leverage, imagining how the hook was bent so that it wouldn’t easily unlatch.
She failed.
“Damn it!” she muttered, then cringed at the sound of her own swearing. She couldn’t give in to anger. She had to focus. Remember her lessons from tae kwon do and Master Kim. She took a deep breath. Calmed herself. Stretched out the muscles of her neck, all the while aware that precious minutes were slipping by, that at any second the Beast could return to do his perverted regimen in front of the fire.
She held the nail in both hands, best as she could. Sliding the spike into the crack, she concentrated, then slowly but steadily moved the nail upward. Closing her mind to anything but visualizing the latch lifting upward, the hook sliding out of its eye, the door creaking open. She felt resistance. Ignored it. Kept up the pressure. Breathed evenly. Imagined her escape. Her fingers began to hurt, the muscles of her forearms shaking. She ignored the pain, thought only of the metal pressing against metal. Open, open, open, she thought, a personal mantra. Open, open, open…
She felt a twinge. Something was giving, the hook moving slightly. Her heart leapt, but she kept up the pressure, forced her mind to remain centered on the movement of the latch.
In an instant, it loosened. The hook swung upward, the latch gave way and Dani nearly tumbled into the living area.
She wasted no time. Grabbing the knife and fire-starter from the mantel, she found the flashlight he kept in a box by the rickety chair, then stuffed the picture of her mother—the woman with the curly reddish hair and green eyes had to have borne her—into her pocket. All these things had his fingerprints on them. She’d witnessed him touching each item, so she had to be careful not to smudge or disturb them. She still had the cigarette butt that had his DNA on it, but fingerprints would be easier to trace if he was in the database, at least that’s what she’d gathered from watching all those crime/detective shows on TV. But she didn’t have time for any contemplation right now. She had to get moving.
Quick as lightning, Dani slipped out the back door.
The night was dark, a smattering of stars and a piece of the moon the only light in these mountains. She thought of predators, of rattlesnakes and cougars, porcupines and bats, but nothing, no animal on the planet, was as frightening or as deadly as the beast she’d just left.
And he’d be pissed. When he found out that she’d gotten the better of him, he’d be pissed as hell. She had to make good her escape or die trying. That was all there was to it.
With the thin beam of the flashlight leading her way, she followed what had to have been a deer trail as fast as she could run without tripping. She was certain he’d be able to track her, she had to be leaving impressions in the dust, but as soon as she could figure out a way to veer from the path she would. Right now, she just needed as much distance from him as she could get.
S
he headed downhill, thinking that there might be a stream at the bottom and she knew that if she splashed through the water of a brook, he wouldn’t be able to find her footprints and, if the old movies were to be believed, even tracking dogs, bloodhounds would be confused. The good news was that he didn’t have a dog. The bad news was that in a summer as dry and hot as this one, most streams would be little more than dry creek beds.
Nonetheless she needed to stick with her plan.
Such as it was.
Focus, she told herself. Focus, focus, focus!
“This is your daughter’s voice. For sure?” Paterno asked. He and Rossi had returned after receiving Travis’s request and were now standing in Shannon’s living room, listening to the tape.
“I know Dani’s voice, Detective,” Travis snapped. “And that other sound you hear, the rushing rumble, we think it’s the crackle of flames, that whoever the bastard is who has my kid is holding her next to fire to make a point with us.”
Paterno’s face grew even grimmer. He listened hard, then nodded his agreement. “You’re right.”
Shannon, as she had each time she’d heard the recording, died all over again. Hearing the sound of the word Mommy coming from the daughter she’d never met brought her to tears. Almost literally to her knees.
“But your wife, her mother, is dead.”
“I know that!”
Shannon cut in, “Obviously this was meant for me. Left in my truck with my cell phone. Whoever forced my daugh—Dani into saying those words did it to get back at me.”
“Same with the fire in the shed and your sister-in-law’s death?” Paterno asked, even though, she suspected, he was way ahead of them. He was just testing Travis and her with his questions, plodding along, watching their reactions. They were all standing, she near the windows, the men in front of the stereo located in a low cabinet pushed against the wall.
“You said I was the center of it all,” Shannon said, staring outside, seeing her own ghostlike reflection in the glass. “The number six in the middle of that damned odd-shaped star.”
“You believe that now?”
Folding her arms over her chest, she said, “Like you said, I’m the sixth-born in my family. Today I overheard a conversation between my brothers…”
“About?” Paterno nudged but Shannon hesitated, feeling as if she was incriminating her own kin, the men who had constantly looked out for her. As Aaron was fond of saying, “Don’t worry, Shannon. I’ve got your back.” Had he? What did their conversation she’d overheard on their mother’s back porch mean? Anything? And even if she was pointing her fingers at her brothers, was it wrong? A child, her child, was in danger. One woman had been killed. “I just don’t get what the whole birth-order thing means.”
“What is the birth order?” Paterno asked and, in the reflection, she saw him staring at her, pen in hand.
“You know,” she said.