Page 33 of Price of Angels

“It always stays locked,” he said, and she could detect no tension in his voice or posture. “It’s private property.”

“Yours?”

“The club’s.” He glanced over at her. She could just see the shadow of his lashes flickering as he blinked behind his shades. “Well go on. We don’t have all day.”

“Right.” She took a deep breath, and put her boot on the accelerator.

The gravel drive began a steady climb through a dense patch of forest, and then leveled out, swinging through big, gradual turns. Though it was afternoon, there were still edgings of frost on some of the shriveled limbs, and the blanketing pine needles, here in the tree-created shadows.

“How much farther is it?” Holly asked, and hoped her voice didn’t sound too choked.

“A little ways,” Michael said, unconcerned. He looked relaxed, even more so than earlier. Wherever they were, he liked this place. It brought him peace.

Maybe that meant he wasn’t planning on killing her when they finally stopped.

The drive climbed again, this time through a series of fast, switchback turns, the path carved into a hillside that just didn’t seem to end.

And then, suddenly, the trees fell away and they were in the open, and the brilliant sun was pouring over them, and Holly gasped a little.

Ahead of them lay a dilapidated farmhouse of white clapboard, porch spindles missing, tin roof eaten by rust. It looked like something from a horror movie. All around it was open pastureland, dotted with trees, fields bisected by little lines of oak and sweet gum and hickory and pine.

“Take a right,” Michael said, and his voice startled her. When she’d seen the house, all thought had left her, and fear had flooded her system. “Head up to the barn.”

The Chevelle rolled to a slow halt.

She had to wet her lips to speak. “The-the barn?”

“Up there.” He tapped at the window with a fingertip. Then, voice becoming serious: “Hey.” He pushed his shades up onto his forehead and she saw the seriousness in his hazel eyes. “Take a right, go to the barn, and we’ll shoot. Okay?”

She took a deep breath, and then another. The inside of the car felt too small, suddenly. Under the leather cuffs at her wrists, she felt the old familiar burn of the ropes.

It was the house. That awful, once-white house, so much like the house behind the rusted lock and chain, the one she’d broken with a shovel. She looked at that house, and she felt her arms and legs pulling. Felt the greasy sheets beneath her bare back.

So don’t look at the house. Look at Michael.

His eyes were very large, in the shade of the car, without the usual, purposeful narrowing. Pretty, animal eyes, she reminded herself. She loved his eyes. They were full of intelligence and cunning. And now, they were boring into her.

“Okay?” he repeated.

It was a reassurance. He wasn’t going to pet her head and tell her it would be alright, but in his own way, he was reassuring her.

Realizing that eased the knot in her stomach. Allowed her to breathe.

“Shooting,” she said. “Right.”

“Right.” He tapped the window again. “Out behind the barn. Drive us up there.”

She nodded, and some of the feeling came back into her hands and wrists. “Okay. I can do that.” And with a few more shaky deep breaths, she could, accelerating again, turning the car up the hill, toward the hulking shell of an old barn.

It was old fashioned, as far as barns went: weathered gray planks for siding, high, steep roof that peaked in the center and fell down to level above two separate wings of inside space, with a wide center aisle. There were open sliding windows above the yawning mouth of the main door: had to be a hay loft. At the end of a wooden arm, a rusted pulley dangled above the loft windows, catching in the breeze.

Holly parked in front of it, in the ghostly tire tracks packed into the dirt. Evidence of many others before them.

And Michael, in what felt like a show of true kindness, began talking. Soothing her, in his own indirect way.

“There’s a nice level spot around the other side, and the plants will give a little cover for the sound.”

“Is there anyone around to even hear us?”

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