movement. A shadow figure sheltered itself against the trunk of the tree. It was a slim figure, not hulking like the other one she heard walking from room to room below. There were two of them. She knew who was after her now. They must have been watching her, waiting. Why didn’t they get her when she came out of the house, or through the woods? Didn’t see her in time? A car passed? She tried to think back to what she saw when she left her apartment. She was amazingly unobservant. She resolved from this day forth to be more observant.
There was a creak on the stairs. Diane’s heart hammered harder. Her throat burned from the bile that came up from her stomach. She was praying that he’d look for her and decide she had left the house, found a way out, and run for cover in the woods. She could outrun them. She was younger. And she was willing to bet she was in better shape. Why hadn’t she picked up the gun and why hadn’t she run out of the house? Because you were scared shitless, she told herself. Two people were just shot in front of you and you thought you were next and you just panicked.
Diane heard the floor squeak. He was in the kid’s bedroom. Stay still, don’t cough, don’t sneeze, just breathe slowly. She wanted to scream. Her heart was pounding in her ears now. Damn, why was she such a coward? She was braver than this when she was hanging by her fingernails off a ledge in a cave.
OK, pretend you are in a cave. A nice cool dark cave. Take slow breaths. She gripped her knife tight in her hand as she heard him open the closet door. Don’t make any noise. An eternity passed. What was taking him so long? Close the door and go look someplace else, damn you. She waited. The door closed. She waited. She heard him leave the room. Just stay here until morning, she told herself. Stay until morning.
She listened to him go into another room. Thank God for creaky floors. He searched the entire upstairs. She heard him go downstairs. She peeked out the window. The shadow was gone, moved someplace else. Or she came inside to help search.
Diane listened and heard low garbled voices. She couldn’t make out the words. They grew louder. Why? Were they arguing? Or were they talking to her?
They mounted the stairs again, but she didn’t hear any more creaking. They had stopped in the hallway.
“Diane.”
So they knew her name.
“We know you’re in here.”
It was a woman’s voice. The voice from the library, the jogger of twenty years ago, and Diane was willing to bet her name was Oralia Lee Parrish Rawson.
“Diane, we know you’re somewhere in the house, and we will take it apart to find you. We don’t want to kill you. We need information from you.”
They were silent. Waiting for an answer, she supposed.
“Diane Fallon. We know who you are. We know where you stashed Juliet. We can’t get to her now, but we will. We know you saw the code. You have resources that we don’t. You have computers. We just want to know what it says. It belongs to us. It belongs to my family. We won’t kill you, because we want the information from you. Come out. Don’t make this any harder.”
Diane wasn’t even tempted to answer. She stayed where she was and prayed they wouldn’t find her. She listened as they searched the other rooms, the closets. They called out to her several times. Then they came back to the kid’s room. She gripped her bat in one hand and her knife in the other as she heard the closet door open again. The sports equipment and toys banged against the wall as they rummaged through the closet.
“Here’s a little door,” said the female. “I think we’ve found her. Diane, are you in there? I betcha are.”
Diane heard them trying to get the door open. “It’s stuck.” This was a man’s voice. There was a loud pop; the wood splintered around the door and floor. Diane screamed.
“Burke, you fool, we need her alive.”
Diane heard them rip away the rest of the door. She was rolled up in a ball as they reached in, grabbed her legs, and began pulling her from her hiding place into the closet. Diane screamed again.