Four Live Rounds

“Other things, other things . . . Ah, yes, the wolves. They roam the grounds, and occasionally, particularly at night, we let them in. You’re probably all wondering why you were instructed to wear a red bandanna on your left arm. That’s to let our wolves know whose team you’re on. They see that, they’ll leave you alone. This does not mean you should go outside by yourself, or that you should approach a wolf and try to make a new friend. Ignore them if they come around, and don’t make eye contact. They are trained, vicious murderers, and they work in tandem, and if you don’t follow protocol with them, they will tear you apart. Okay?”

Devlin heard the kitchen doors swing open.

“Perfect timing. Breakfast is served.”

She turned, saw two pairs of miniskirted legs in fence-net stockings moving toward the table.

“Gentlemen, meet Alena and Jill. They’re on kitchen duty this week for some exceptional behavior over the last year.”

Devlin heard what she guessed were platters of food being set on the table.

“Now, I believe that plate in the middle is reindeer sausage,” Ethan said. “You should all try it. Little gamey, but very good.”

FORTY-FIVE

Devlin huddled under the table for forty minutes, her legs cramping, listening to the six oilmen devour what sounded like an all-out feast, based on the intermittent stretches of blissful silence as they chewed, and the ferocity of their consumption.

Though little was said, she committed every detail to memory. They were executives from a company called Presidian Oil, and all spoke with great familiarity and affinity of Houston. An older-sounding gentleman named Reynolds gave a heartfelt, if drunken, toast to the “astronomical third quarter.” Sean was apparently the son of Ken, and there was frequent lamentation that a “first-rate son of a bitch” named Bobby couldn’t be with them to partake.

Then, as quickly as they’d come, the chairs scooted back from the table, and the oilmen departed en masse with Ethan.

Devlin crawled between two chairs and struggled to her feet, staring at the table, which resembled the aftermath of some epic battle—dishes and silverware strewn with haphazard abandon, plentiful portions of meat, eggs, and fruit still occupying china.

Her stomach ached with hunger, and she was reaching for a strip of bacon when voices erupted from the kitchen.

She rushed out of the dining room, up the passage, and, upon nearing the lobby, remembered leaving her parka and snow pants in the library, her gut telling her it would be a disaster if they were found.

The lobby stood empty.

She crossed the stone floor.

The door to the library was closed, and she put her ear to it, detecting the noise of the fire, nothing else.

It was empty inside, and her clothes lay exactly where she’d left them on the floor beside the cellar door.

As she picked them up, fast-approaching footsteps drove an electric shock of adrenaline down her spine.

She spun around, taking stock of available exits, anyplace she might hide, but there was just the furniture and the French doors, straining against all the snow that had piled up on the veranda.

With the footsteps seconds from the library, she lunged for the cellar door, palming the doorknob, turning it, praying the hinges wouldn’t squeak.

She slipped through into darkness, had it almost closed when two men strolled into the library, the door slamming after them. They stopped before the fireplace, just five feet away, Devlin watching through the four-millimeter crack between the door and the door frame.

“Goddamn it, Sean,” said the older of the two, a silver-haired man, tall, wide-shouldered, dressed in exquisite navy slacks and a plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows.

“Dad, I feel sick—”

“Lighten up.”

“This isn’t right. You know it.” Sean looked very much like his father facially, subtracting the wrinkles and the gray, adding some baby fat, though he wasn’t as tall, or as powerfully built.

The older man put both of his hands on his son’s shoulders.

“Don’t embarrass me, Sean.”

“Dad, there are women—”

“Lower your f**king voice. Nobody’s making you do anything. Go sit in your room the whole time, for all I—”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Me?” Devlin remembered the older man’s name—Ken. “I don’t know.” Ken walked out of Devlin’s line of site and Sean followed, the two just voices now, operating at scarcely more than a whisper. “Listen to me. You heard what Ethan said at breakfast, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So deal with it.”

“I can’t be here for five days, Dad.”

“Hey, I twisted some major arms to get you on this trip. You know how many of my guys would kill—”

“Yeah, thanks so much for that.”

“Now wait just a doggone minute. I didn’t know it was gonna be, you know. . . .”

“What’d you think when they loaded us into floatplanes with blacked-out windows? Wouldn’t tell us where we were going?”

“Look, Sean, you’re here. You aren’t leaving early. So make the best of it.”

“How?”

“I don’t care, just . . . don’t embarrass me.”

“Fuck you.”

Footsteps tracked across the library, and Devlin heard the door open.

“Sean, come back. Sean!”

His father went after him, the library quiet again, just the fire crackling.

Devlin waited two minutes, straining to pick out the slightest patter of returning footsteps, but the men were gone.

She eased the cellar door open, moving carefully through the library, then into the lobby, where she stood holding her parka and snow pants, listening to distant voices, the clatter of door slams traveling up and down the corridors above.

She wandered into the south wing, quiet here and empty, just the ceiling lights humming above her.

There were peepholes in these doors as well, and she stopped at each to look inside, saw women behind three of the doors, sitting up in bed in skimpy lingerie, waiting.

At the end of the corridor, she turned the doorknob of an empty room, 119.

The door opened. She stepped inside, shut it.

She stashed her pants and parka in a chest of drawers across from the bed, then, taking out the .357, crouched under the peephole for five long minutes, willing back the fear, the tears.

FORTY-SIX

She slipped back into the corridor, then into the alcove and up the stairwell to the second floor. She hadn’t gone five steps before she heard voices up ahead. Devlin slowed, inching her way into the alcove, glancing around the corner. The corridor was empty.