All Souls: A Gatehouse Thriller Page 11

  One rational question and the fear-built house of cards collapsed. Gatehouse phone me or Zack? Of course they hadn’t. Crap. What a fool I was. I’d been suspicious of the call to Zack’s house, but not suspicious enough. I’d let my nerves and my worry over Nathan override my common sense.

  Tempted as she must have been to howl at my stupidity and lack of training, Hall instead grew quiet. She laced her fingers around one knee and stared off to the far end of the great room.

  A jolt of fear ran up my back. “Oh, my God.”

  “What?”

  “My friends. I left them alone.”

  “Where?”

  “Jesus.” I sprang from the couch but stood in place, my feet fixed to the floor. What if a Sack had tried to separate us to make one or two of us easier targets? By going off half-cocked, I’d just helped them out. I pulled my phone from my back jeans pocket but soon realized there was no reception. “I need to warn them. Where’s your landline?”

  Hall rose from the couch.

  “Where’s your phone?” I repeated.

  “Follow me.” She led me out of the great room, past the front hall, and into her kitchen, a large room of glass-fronted cabinets, Blue Willow plates, and granite-topped counters. “By the coffeemaker,” she said, pointing to a cordless phone next to an out-of-place white plastic coffee machine.

  Zack answered on the second ring, his voice breathless, uncertain. Kath had left, he told me. Taken off in his car, and he had no idea where she’d gone. I was dumbfounded.

  “She left two minutes after you,” he said. “She got hyper, grabbed my keys from the wall, said she had her own idea where Nathan was, and she wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Sacks to attack. I couldn’t stop her.”

  I massaged my temple with one hand, my eyes on Hall. “Unbelievable. Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. I should have gone with her, but I kept thinking, what if Nathan calls and no one’s here? Where’s he supposed to go then?”

  “You were right.” Without mentioning Hall, I told him I believed the call to his house had been a hoax and he should take extra care. Leave if he thought it wise. “If you have a friend you trust, call him.”

  “Can you make it back?”

  “I will, but give me more time. I’ll try to call soon.”

  “What’s going on, Jane? Where are you all going?”

  He sounded so alone. Not frightened, but adrift, bewildered. I was too. There I was, standing in an Elation’s house without the first idea of what to do next. I was reluctant to hang up the phone, irrationally feeling that it was my safety line. “I have to go now” was all I could say before I set the phone back in its base.

  “What’s happened?” Hall asked.

  No way was I going to tell her that Kath and Zack were now on their own, more vulnerable than ever, though she might have guessed as much by what I’d said to Zack. Whether she was a Sack or with Gatehouse now, she could find out where Zack lived if she wanted, so I lied, telling her that Kath was angry and had run off temporarily—just blowing off steam and she’d be back. As a diversion, I emphasized that she’d broken the rules, broken with our training. I don’t think Hall believed a word I said.

  “There’s too much emotion and too little thinking going on,” Hall said. She sat down on an island stool and with her right hand brushed her bangs to the side. “It’s not productive.”

  “We’re worried about Nathan.” A lecture on emotion from a Sack, the most irrational, emotional of beings? I wasn’t going to take it. “You have no idea where he could be?”

  “Don’t you think if he wanted you to know, he would have told you?”

  “Unless he’s in trouble.”

  “We’ve established that he isn’t.”

  “We haven’t established any such thing.”

  “I think we have.”

  “Good for you.”

  Our back-and-forth banter was absurd—and reckless on my part. If Hall was still a Sack, she might kill me for my mouthy attitude, and if she wasn’t, I was bickering with Gatehouse’s greatest asset and possibly my only link to Nathan.

  “Nathan’s my friend,” Hall said. “Probably the only friend I have left. So if I thought he needed my help, I’d help him.”

  No Sack could easily play me—I understood too well what dung-mouths they were—but at that moment, I could have sworn I saw genuine concern in Hall’s eyes.

  “How long do we wait?” I asked.

  “Give him more time, and trust that he knows what he’s doing. Then go and do whatever he told you to do.”

  I nodded, and for the first time since entering Hall’s house, I believed she would let me walk back out.

  Hall gave me her phone number, which was either an extraordinary risk on her part or no risk at all—there was no way to tell—and told me to call her if I didn’t hear from Nathan by tomorrow morning. I wondered, as I walked toward my car, the snow crunching like frozen twigs under my feet, how I could bear to wait that long.

  Heading down the driveway, cutting fresh tire tracks in the snow for a better grip on the upslope as I neared the road, I noticed what looked like tracks from another car, aligning with my original tracks for the most part but weaving out then back in from place to place. I knew those tracks hadn’t been there on my way to Hall’s house. Someone had come down the driveway after me and tried, without success, to hide his tracks in mine.

  I pressed down on the gas pedal, sped for the crest I’d stopped at on my way in, and looked into my rearview mirror. Through the trees in the turnaround I saw the back end of a car, visible only because of its color, a metallic blue. Zack’s Pathfinder.

  “Damn it, Kath.” Had she guessed my direction then followed my tire tracks in the snow? She must have figured I was driving south then stayed well behind my car, watching for where I exited 287. Her anger over Connor’s death had made her a loose cannon, but now, with calm calculation, she’d found me. What was she up to? She didn’t even know where the hell we were. She had no idea who lived here.

  “Jesus.” I shifted into reverse and began to back up, fighting the urge to race backward and possibly veer off the driveway and end up in the ditch. If Kath had followed me, if she didn’t know who lived here, why had she hidden Zack’s car? She had to have seen my rental parked in front of Hall’s garage.

  I backed up as far as the turnaround then got out. I trotted up to the Pathfinder and looked inside, spotting Kath’s green backpack on the passenger seat. “What are you doing, Kath?”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew. Had she heard Nathan when he told me Hall’s address? Had she learned about Hall from Vogel then trawled for her before Nathan said a word to me? It didn’t matter now. Somehow Kath knew who lived here. And she was going to kill Hall. Except that wouldn’t be how it happened. In a battle between the two, Kath would lose.

  I turned back toward the drive and broke into a run, quickly reaching Hall’s deck. Quietly mounting the steps, I pulled my gun from its holster then let my hand hang at my side, my finger off the trigger. The front door was open a crack, and from within I heard raised voices. I hesitated. If I burst in now, Hall would think Kath and I had planned this together and she’d kill us both. If I waited much longer, Hall would kill Kath.

  I nudged open the door, grateful that it didn’t creak on its hinges, and stepped into the front hall. The voices seemed to be coming from Hall’s kitchen. I knew I had to call out. Appearing suddenly in the kitchen, even with my gun pointing downward, would cause Hall to strike.

  “Traitor! Damn traitor!”

  My head jerked at the sound of Kath’s voice.

  “How many of us died because you turned traitor and gave our names to Gatehouse? Did you think you could go on betraying us?”

  Kath was shrieking, and her words to me were incomprehensible.

  “Listen to me, Kath—”

  “Don’t call me that, you traitor. Fathomless.”

  “That’s not my name.”
>
  “It will always be your name. And I—”

  “You don’t have to live this way. You have a choice.”

  “I made my choice. Do you want to see where it’s written on the skin of my belly?”

  I covered my mouth with my free hand to stop a groan from escaping my lips. God, don’t let it be.

  “No, I don’t think I do.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  “It’s gone. Lower the gun and listen for one minute.”

  “All my brothers and sisters, my Alarms, dead because of you.”

  Jesus, Kath. Why? I bent forward, hands on my knees, and stared down at my gun. I hadn’t moved a step, but I was struggling to breathe. My friend, my dearest friend, the one who had dragged me from the pit and kept me sane after my own parents told me they could no longer bear the sight of me, the daughter who had failed to protect her baby sister.

  “You plan to move up in the world by killing me?”

  “I plan to be left standing when this is all over.”

  “Gatehouse will hunt you until the day they find and return you. Do you want that?”

  “Gatehouse.” Kath let out a strangled laugh. “Big threat. They don’t know about me, do they? And you can stop looking around, your little hunter friend left. Oh, wait a sec. You thought I was her coming back, didn’t you? Oops.” She laughed again. I’d never heard her laugh like that. A mad cackle of a laugh, like the laugh that had issued from the Alarm who burnt Emily with a cigarette, cut her meticulously with a pen knife, and at long last brought a tire iron down on her head.

  “You can change your course, right here, right now. I’ll help you.”

  “I’ve had enough of you. I’ve been here way too long.”

  My stomach writhed. I thought I might vomit. Straightening slowly, I held my gun before me with both hands and moved for the kitchen.

  “We have time to talk. There’s always time.”

  “An Elation killed by an Alarm. What do you think they’ll make me for that?”

  “In the end, nothing at all.”

  “I am Mother of Crows, and—”

  “Kath!”At the sound of my voice she whirled toward me, gun raised, a look of utter astonishment on her face. I fired once—a single shot to her chest—and I heard her cry out as she fell to the floor.

  In three strides I was over her, my gun aimed at her heart. From the corner of my eye I saw Hall back up against the far wall of the kitchen, her hands in front of her, signaling me that she was unarmed. I took half a step forward and kicked Kath’s gun across the kitchen. It struck the baseboard by the dishwasher.

  Then I knelt at her side, looking hard into her eyes as life drained from her body, pleading wordlessly for her forgiveness, for the Kath who was my friend.

  She smiled up at me, blood bubbling in her mouth, filling like tiny rivers the crevices where tooth met tooth.

  “Do you know why you’re not dead like the others?” she said. “Because you’re not worth killing.”

  “Kath, please ...”

  She had one breath left, and she gave it to me. “Falter.”

  Chapter 12

  I’d asked Hall to be quiet twice. My ears were ringing from firing my gun, my head ached. Now, in my peripheral vision, I saw her turn my way again, and again she said Kath’s name. I turned on my hazard lights and braked as I pulled to the shoulder of the northbound lane.

  Maybe Hall had been restored, or maybe she was just a damn good dung-mouth, but either way, I didn’t want to hear Kath’s name from her lips. I shifted in my seat so she could look me directly in the eye.

  “You have to be quiet right now,” I said.

  Unbelievably, she started to open her mouth again.

  “I mean it. Otherwise you can get out and walk back home.”

  “Can’t I thank you?”

  “You already did. I don’t want to hear it again.”

  She looked stricken, confounded. Was she taking a ham-fisted go at consoling me? Did she actually care that I’d had to murder my friend to save her miserable life? I wasn’t sure I cared. “Her name was Kath Norwocki. She was the mother of a beautiful one-year-old girl, and she loved her husband. She was made Mother of Crows by monsters, and there’s nothing more to say.”

  I wanted Hall out of my car. I’d just put a bullet in Kath’s chest and all I wanted to do was turn away from everyone and everything and wonder how I was going to live with what I’d done. And, Jesus, I knew with absolute certainty I would never be able to live with it.

  But here was this Sack by my side, and I was taking her to Zack’s house because she was no longer safe alone at her own and because Nathan would have expected me to take her there.

  “We can talk about what Nathan might be doing,” Hall said quietly. “And what might be happening in the West.”

  “Fine.” I turned my face to the window and pretended to search the highway and the ranchland on the western side of it for threats. Tears were gathering in my eyes—and Hall had no right to them. I played with the idea of kicking her out of the car, miles from her home in her stupid lightweight jacket. What did I owe her? I was even angry with Nathan, reasoning that if he’d stayed with us, maybe Kath would still be alive. Or at least I might not have been the one to kill her.

  I put the car into gear, waited for a truck to pass, and pulled onto the highway. Two miles up the road we crossed the Wyoming border, a passage Hall took as a signal to talk once more.

  “Did you bring the backpack from the car?”

  “Yes.” She meant Kath’s backpack. Wisely, she hadn’t said her name.

  “She had a phone in it, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she hid it from us. I tossed it.”

  “I think the flash drives I grabbed before we left could be useful.”

  I had followed Hall into her office, keeping an eye on her as she scooped up five flash drives from a desk drawer and dropped them into a burgundy-colored backpack. And watching Hall grab her pack, feeling that there was some justice in her too having to run with only a handful of her things, it had dawned on me that Kath was the reason Connor was dead. In some way she’d signaled the Sack or two who had shot both him and the attendant at the gas station. Maybe her phone held a tracking device. I might have been the target rather than Connor, except maybe they hadn’t shot at me because I’d been standing too close to Kath—close enough to grab her arm and pull her down with me when I heard Nathan call for us to drop. Nathan? He had been shielded by Connor, who stood directly between him and the car in the field.

  Then there was Santa Fe, where Kath held a gun to my head, claiming Vogel had ordered her to target me. My name had in fact been on the kill list, but Kath, Kath, who had put it there?

  I needed to remember these things. If not, what I had done to her would eat me alive.

  “I’m only guessing,” Hall continued, “but I think Nathan is trying to contact Gatehouse.”

  “How?”

  “In person.”

  I glanced sideways. “How far would he have to drive?”

  “Not that far, but it could take six hours to drive there and back, longer if he encountered trouble or delays.”

  “How would Gatehouse help? What have they done lately to help hunters and porters?” I very deliberately left her, whatever Gatehouse title she now held, out of my question.

  “In a clandestine war, things move more slowly.”

  “Sacks aren’t taking it slowly.” I spit out the word Sacks. Hall didn’t blink.

  “When have you known them to be reasonable? They’re emotional, especially the lower levels.”

  I had serious doubts about taking Hall to Zack’s house, and those doubts only increased when we hit the southern end of Laramie. Finding her a hotel downtown briefly became an alternative, but after juggling that and other possibilities around in my mind, I knew Zack and I had to guard her, try to keep her safe. If Hall was restored and we failed to protect her, the consequences for innocents everywhere would be terribl
e.

  At the northern end of town I made a right onto East Reynolds and headed for Zack’s house, my mind grasping fruitlessly for the words to explain Hall’s presence and Kath’s death.

  When Zack opened his front door and his eyes went to Hall, the look on his face told me he had a good idea who she was. The look on my face told him I had bad news.

  In his kitchen, as he made tea for me in the microwave, I told him I’d been to Hall’s house, that she was no longer safe there, and that as Gatehouse employees it was our duty to guard her. I said we’d had to leave his car in Colorado. Then haltingly, leaving out the salient detail that I’d been the one to kill her, I told him Kath was dead. He cried out. He asked how and he reached for me, but I pushed him away and ran down the hall for his spare bedroom. I shut the door, sunk to his bed, and wept for Kath, for what she’d become, for what I’d done, for the never-ending battle.

  Fifteen minutes later, when I straightened my back and rubbed the tears from my face, I realized I’d left Zack alone with Hall and prevented both of them from viewing the surveillance monitor in the bedroom. I made my way back to the kitchen, where they were sitting at the table drinking what smelled like burnt coffee.

  Keeping my eyes low, I headed for the kitchen sink. Zack needed to know what had happened at Hall’s house, but I was sure if I tried to explain, the words would catch in my throat. It was selfishness as much as grief. How would he see me when he learned I had killed our friend? I leaned against the counter and looked him squarely in the eye. It was time.

  “I know what happened with Kath,” he said before I could speak.

  I glared at Hall, though truthfully, I was glad she had told Zack. It had to come out eventually. I turned to the sink, and as I grabbed a glass from the counter and filled it with water, I heard his chair scrape on the floor.

  His hand touched the small of my back. “You had no choice,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Not how could you, but I’m so sorry. I was grateful more than I was able to say.

  We passed the next few hours quietly, eating leftover pizza from Zack’s refrigerator, one of us monitoring the cameras at all times, but we became restless in the afternoon when we still hadn’t heard from Nathan. Hall was less agitated. I alternated between fear that he’d been hurt and anger that he hadn’t even called, and Zack, who was always more comfortable with action, was starting to wonder if it was wise to keep waiting.