'Some kind of friendship thing, I guess,' Bobby said. 'Though this goes down badly, I'm going to
come back and haunt you.'
'You already are,' I said. 'Been trying to get rid of you for years.'
We slid round the last bend, and then the vast gate of The Halls was looming above us up the rise.
'Still no one,' I said, slowing the car down.
'What now?'
'Other side of the gate the road pans left. Couple of large buildings. Entrance stuff, and what looked
like storage. There's a high fence all the way across the pasture. The houses are on the other side.'
The other two cautiously raised their heads. 'So?'
'Front gate,' Bobby said. 'No way we're getting over that fence.'
'Entrance is where they're going to be waiting for us.'
'Got no choice.'
The car swept under the stone archway and down toward the clump of wooden buildings. A big light on one of them turned the parking lot a moonish and sickly white. Soon as it was all in vision, I pulled my foot off the pedal again. The car rolled into the centre of the lot and stopped. The lot was completely empty. I turned off the engine, left the keys in the ignition.
'What?' Nina asked.
'No cars. When I was here before it was full of cars.'
Zandt opened his door and got out without waiting for instructions. Bobby swore and emerged the other side, gun ready. The white light made them easy targets, but also showed that there was no one on the roof of the building. Nobody standing waiting. Just two big wooden buildings, and a stretch of fence in between.
Nina and I got cautiously out of the car. Nina's gun looked big and clumsy in her hand.
'That's the way in,' I said, nodding to the building on the right.
They followed me over and gathered either side of the glass doors. Bobby stuck his head out, scoped
the inside. 'Nobody behind reception,' he said.
'We going in?' 'I guess so. After you.' 'Hey — thanks for the opportunity.' I leaned forward, pushed one of the doors gently. No alarm went
off. Nobody shot at me. I opened the door and stepped in cautiously, the others behind.
The lobby area was silent. The background music was absent, and there was no fire in the grate of the river-rock fireplace. The large painting that had been behind the reception desk was gone. The whole
room felt as if it had been mothballed.
'Fuck,' I said. 'They've gone.'
'Bullshit,' Bobby said. 'It's only been an hour. There's no way they had the time to clear out.'
'They had a little longer,' Zandt admitted. 'When we left Wang, it was maybe five or ten minutes
before he shot himself. He could have called a warning through.'
'It's still not long. Not to pack up everything.'
'So maybe they were already on their way,' Nina said. 'You kicked the shit out of their realtor. Could be that was message enough, and that would have given them a couple days. Doesn't matter. We're still going to go look at what's out there.'
She started to stride toward the door at the end, the one that would open out into the inner area of The Halls. She looked filled with a kind of wretched fury, a horror that they could have arrived too late, that the phantom she had chased until it was the only light at the end of her tunnel had danced out of reach again.
We were standing still. She evidently didn't care if we came with her. She had to go out there. She had to see.
She didn't hear the shot.
By the time the sound reached our ears she was already falling, thrown awkwardly sideways to crash into one of the low tables. Her mouth opened to cry out, but nothing came. Zandt ran toward her.
I whirled to see a man in the doorway. McGregor. Bobby instead saw a woman behind the reception desk, and a muscle-bound youth emerging from a recessed doorway behind her, a door camouflaged to blend in with the wood panelling.
All three had guns. All were firing them.
The youth died first. His technique was pure television: gun held out sideways, gangbanger style. Bobby had him down with one shot.
I slipped behind one of the pillars and straight out the other side, getting McGregor first in the thigh, then the chest. I still only narrowly avoided taking one to the face, felt the hum as it spun past my head. I dropped to one knee and scooted behind one corner of the reception, praying the woman hadn't seen me. Reloaded, dropping half the bullets.
Zandt knelt down next to Nina, who lay crumpled, her hand fluttering toward the hole in her chest. It was high up, just under the right clavicle. 'Oh, Nina,' he said, oblivious to the cracks and whines in the air
above him. She coughed, her face caught between surprise and denial.
'Hurts,' she said.
McGregor was still shooting. The woman behind the desk nearly took Bobby out before I took a breath and stood up, emptying half of my gun into her. Only when she'd slewed backward over the muscle man did I realize it was the woman who'd talked me through the fake entry requirements. I still didn't know her name.
Bobby was standing over McGregor, his boot on the cop's wrist. A gun lay on the floor several feet away.
'Where'd they go?' he asked him. 'And how long ago? Tell me everything you know, or darkness falls.'
'Fuck you,' the cop said.
'Suits me,' Bobby shrugged, and shot him dead.
While Bobby checked the other bodies, making sure nobody was going to wake up and start shooting again, I ran over to Nina. Zandt had her hand pressed firmly over the wound in her chest.
'We're out of here,' I said.
'No,' Nina said. Her voice was surprisingly strong. She tried to haul herself upright.