Page 54 of One Cry Too Loud
“Do either of you know what a pipe bomb is?” Duncan asked lightly, stopping Kat in her tracks. “And did either of you know that it can be remotely detonated?” Kat spun back around. “If anyone leaves this house, that little girl is going to find it out the hard way.”
“You-You’re a monster,” Holly cried out.
“Me?” Duncan asked. “You’re one to talk. All of this is happening because of you, because of what you did.”
I didn’t know if Duncan was telling the truth about there being a bomb in whatever storage unit Cindy was being held in. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was telling the truth about where she was being held. I did know that I couldn’t take the chance, though. If there was even the slightest possibility that one or more of us leaving was going to do some kind of harm to Cindy, we couldn’t risk it. We’d have to stay here. We’d have to see this through, and I’d have to find a way out of it.
“What do you want?” I asked sternly.
“It’s not what I want,” Duncan said. “It’s what my wife wants. She wants to tell you what happened. She wants to finally say her peace.”
“Fine,” I said with a tight jaw. Turning to the woman, I barked. “Talk!”
CHAPTER 36
“Iwant to show you something,” Caroline said, moving about the house with the poise of someone who thought they were above the world and the freedom of someone who considered herself untouchable. “But first, I need you to put all of your weapons on the table.”
“We’re not doing that,” Kat said flatly.
“Yes you are,” Duncan replied. “You don’t have a choice, and you’re going to do it honestly. There’s a metal detector where you’re going, and if it goes off at all, so does the bomb sitting beside Cindy.”
My body shuddered at the thought of that. Someone’s daughter, Holly’s daughter, was in grave danger. Her life was on the line. One flick of a switch from this madman and a little girl’s entire existence would stop in one of the bloodiest, most brutal ways I could ever imagine. It took all I could do not to strangle him as I pulled the gun from my hip and placed it on the table. Kat followed suit, and given the fact that Holly and Joe weren’t armed, that was enough. Or, at least, I thought it was.
“Everything,” Duncan repeated. “Unless, of course, you’d like to gamble with that little girl’s life.”
“Thatiseverything!” I said, but as I spoke, Kat leaned forward. She pulled a knife from the inside of her sock and sat it on the table as well. She nodded at me as her eyes met mine, and I kicked myself a little for not thinking of it.
“There,” I said, turning back to the old couple. “No weapons. Let’s get this over with.”
“You people certainly are in a hurry, aren't you?” Caroline asked, turning away from us and heading toward the back door. She motioned for us to follow.
“You’ll have to forgive us. Given the fact that your husband just told us that Cindy could freeze to death at any moment, you might understand that we’re looking to get this over with and get her out of there as quickly as possible.”
“I think you’ll find my capacity for forgiveness is quite vast,” Caroline said. “And you’re about to find out why.” She pushed open the back door, revealing a large, sprawling backyard.
Looking behind me, I saw Kat, Holly, and Joe following my steps. Behind them, trailing back a bit, stood Duncan. He was trying to hide it, but I saw that he had picked up one of the guns and had it in his left hand, albeit hidden halfway behind his back. My heart sped up. Were they bringing us out here to kill us? The idea didn’t seem farfetched, given what Duncan had put us through recently. Still, I had to keep my wits about me. I hadn’t survived this much to die in the backyard of a European cottage, and Holly hadn’t freed this palace the way she did just for it to become her final resting place.
“That’s where we’re headed,” Caroline said, pointing to a shed a few hundred yards away.
“Mother. No,” Holly said, but her voice was weak, quiet. “Why would you-”
“Because they need to understand,” Caroline cut her daughter off. “They need to know why all of this is happening. They need to know what you’ve done, how you’ve hurt everyonein your life, and how you still won’t take responsibility for it.” She looked over at the shed. “That starts here. It starts with her.”
“Her?” I asked, looking over at Holly.
“Edie,” she said. “My sister.”
“You should bite your tongue clean off for saying that name,” Caroline said, resuming her trek to the shed. “You don’t deserve to say her name. You don’t deserve to have ever known her.”
“She was my sister, Mother,” Holly said. “She was my best friend.”
“All these years, and you’re still lying about everything? You never fail to disappoint me, Holiday.”
“I’m not-” Holly stopped short, shaking her head. “You’re not worth it.”
“I was going to say the same thing about you,” Caroline said. “You’re not worth the air you breathe, not when my sweet Edie can never breathe again.” Though she was turned away, still heading toward the shed, it sounded like she was crying when she spoke again. “And it’s all your fault.”
“It’s not my fault, mother!” Holly yelled. “Edie died in a car accident.”
