She grabbed a table leg with one hand. The other one snatched my wrist. 'Be fast. But go and see.'
I hesitated. Tried to look at Zandt for support, but Nina's eyes held me.
Bobby arrived. 'Oh shit, Nina.'
'I'm staying here and you're going in there,' she said, talking only to Zandt. She looked in pain, but not like she was going to faint. 'Please, John. Make them go. All of you. Please see if she's there. You've got to go see. Then we'll go to the hospital. I promise.'
Zandt waited a beat longer, then leaned over, kissed her quickly on the forehead. He stood up. 'I'm doing as she says.'
I started to reload my gun. 'Bobby, you stay here.' He started to protest, but I kept talking. 'Try to stop the bleeding, and take out anyone you see who isn't us. You're more use to her than either of us.'
Bobby squatted down beside the woman. 'Be careful, man.'
Zandt and I walked fast down to the end doors. 'Whatever happens,' I said, 'we stick together. You got that?'
Zandt nodded, and opened the door. Outside was a path. White light from behind illuminated perhaps fifty yards with clarity, and was enough to suggest the hulks of large houses in the middle distance. None of them showed a light.
We started to run.
34
'We should have brought a flashlight.'
'Should've brought a lot of things,' I said. 'Bigger guns, other people, some idea of what we're doing.'
We were standing at the first junction in the path. It looked like the main street of some tiny town where nobody had cars. The grass on either side was neatly trimmed. The pasture within the walls of the mountains, an area of only about ten acres, had been sculpted to provide each house with privacy and a gently rolling landscape. It seemed very unlikely there was enough room for a golf course, which meant that even their favoured realtor — the late Chip — had never been allowed inside. To either side of the path, set well back, were two houses. The path stretched out into the darkness ahead, leading via other forks to more dwellings, which couldn't yet be seen.
'You take the one on the left.'
'Did you listen to what I said? We don't split up.'
'Ward, there's how many houses? Nina's in trouble back there.'
'Getting killed isn't going to help her. You want to look in these places, we're doing it together. Which
first?'
Zandt walked quickly up the path to the right. As we approached the house, I mentally checked off the features I'd seen on the plans. The house looked like it should be in Oak Park, Chicago, the suburb where many of the early mid-period Wright had been built. It was a beautiful house, and I hated the men behind all this for misappropriating Wright's grammar. He had been about life and community, not individuals and death.
Zandt was less taken with the design. 'Where's the fucking door?'
I led him at an angle across the low terrace, to where a courtyard path snaked round to the left of the building under a balcony. A short series of steps delivered us round a corner to a large wooden door. It
was ajar.
'Main entrance?'
I nodded. Took a breath, then pushed the door gently open with my foot. Nothing happened.
I nodded to Zandt once more. He went in first.
A short corridor, a little light filtering down from a stained-glass panel in the ceiling, the illumination
turned green and cold. At the end, another sheet of detailed glass, screening out the next room.
Carefully we manoeuvred around it, revealing a long, low room. More stained glass, and clerestory windows high up. A fireplace over to the left. Bookshelves, and a seating nook. The shelves were empty. The furniture was in place, but there was no rug on the floor.
We walked very quietly across the room. The house was utterly silent. I held up a hand, pointed; Zandt looked — saw the entrance to another room, partly concealed behind a wooden screen. Nodded, and dropped back beside me. We approached it together, Zandt still glancing behind.
The doorway gave into a kitchen. It was darker, without the highlevel windows. Split-level, with a breakfast area down the end. On the table was a single cup, sitting plumb in the centre. The interior was
dry and the handle was broken. I opened a cupboard, and then a drawer. Both empty.
'This house has been cleaned out.'
Zandt nodded. 'Maybe. But we're still going to check it.'
We searched the rest of the house.
'There's somebody out there,' Nina said, meanwhile.
Bobby was squatted beside where she lay, braced in one of the big leather chairs. The lobby was in darkness. He'd been of two minds about this, reasoning that the lights had been left on, and that to turn them off would broadcast their presence to anyone else lurking in the compound. It was hard to believe that any such person could have avoided hearing the minute of heavy gunfire, however, and so in the end he'd dug around behind reception and turned them off one by one. It felt safer, though not perfect. The end wall was only partly windowed, and he thought they were safe from view, but he still felt like a sitting
duck. The lobby was large, dark, and had three dead people in it.
'I heard something a minute ago,' he admitted. 'Hoped it was them coming back.'
Nina shook her head. 'John will check all the houses. They'll be a little while, even if there's nothing to
find. Especially if. And the sound was coming from the front, not back there.'
He nodded. 'Ward will kill me if he finds out I've left you here alone, but I'm going to have to go look.'
'I won't tell if you won't. But don't be long.'
Bobby made sure her gun was loaded, and then dropped back from her to the wall. He scooted along it as low as he could. When he got to the main door he put his head out cautiously. Theirs was still the only car in the lot. There was no sign of anybody else, and he considered just staying put.
But then he heard something again. It wasn't loud, but it was definitely not caused by the elements. It wasn't a rain sound. It was mechanical, a short, isolated pop. It sounded like it was coming from over on the other side of the lot, where the second building stood. 'What is it?' Now that he wasn't looking at her, Nina was allowing more of the pain to be in her mind. As a result her head felt very fuzzy, and her voice sounded cracked.
'I don't know,' he said. He turned to check, and saw that Nina was well-hidden in the deepness of the huge chair. Best he could do. 'Keep the pressure on the wound.'
Still keeping low, he pushed the door open. A very cold rush of air pushed past him, ushering in the sound of rain.
The rest of the house was empty. Four bedrooms, den, library, a music room. Empty and cleaned out. Stripped of any identification at all, though it was clear that people had lived there until very recently. No dust. Zandt and I came back down the central staircase, less quietly now, and made our way to the back of the ground floor. There was a second large reception room here, a little less fancy than the one in front. A horizontal band of windows showed half an acre of landscaped yard. I flicked the safety on my gun back on.
'Next house?' It was clear that this one didn't hold anything of interest. I was done with it. I was prepared to help Zandt look for the girl's body, if that's what he wanted, but my own needs were focused on finding a live Straw Man or two. And sitting them down, and getting them to explain a few things. Nothing else could hold my attention. It was already feeling too late.