Four Live Rounds

“Do you have a gun?”

“On the floor behind me.”

“Get it.”

“I think she’s confused from the cold,” Kalyn whispered. “Let’s go reassure her.” Kalyn started past him, moving toward the shotgun. Will grabbed her arm.

“Dad!”

“Where are you going?” Will asked. “Devlin’s over there.”

“You trust me or not, Will?”

He smiled weakly. “Of course. You take the gun. You’re better with it than I am.”

Kalyn smiled, said, “You gonna let go of my arm?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“No, Dad.” Devlin was crying now.

“It’s all right, honey. I think you’re just a little confused.”

“I am not confused!” Will started toward his daughter, Kalyn toward the shotgun.

He suddenly spun around, saw Kalyn bending down, then lunged and shoved her across the floor.

As she fell hard on the stone, he picked up the shotgun.

“What the f**k is wrong with you?”

“If I’m wrong,” Will said, “I apologize. Get up slowly, hands where I can see them.”

“Will, I can explain—”

“Maybe so. Maybe we’ll all have a big laugh about this in a little while. Walk toward the library. Devlin, we’re heading your way.”

Devlin stepped back into the library.

“Why don’t you trust me?” Kalyn asked.

“I’m not saying I don’t. We’re just gonna sort this out.”

They entered the library and Will closed the door behind them.

“She might have a gun or something, Dad.”

“Kalyn, sit in that corner and keep your hands on top of your knees.”

Devlin sat bundled in covers by the fire, glaring at Kalyn as she took a seat against the base of the bookshelves.

Will stood several feet away, the shotgun trained on Kalyn’s chest.

“Devlin,” he said, “tell me what’s going on here.”

“I’ve been in this lodge since early this morning, trying to keep from getting caught, looking for you. Then a little while ago, Kalyn found me. She took me upstairs. I thought we were sneaking out. Instead, she took me to this man named Paul. She was gonna trade me.”

Kalyn said, “Will, please—”

“Shut up. Trade you for what, Devlin?”

“Her sister, Lucy. They keep women here.”

“Why?”

“For the guests. So they can have sex with them, even kill them if they want.”

“Where’s Paul now? Was he one of the men I—”

“I shot him.”

“Oh, honey.”

“He was gonna hurt me. I didn’t have a choice.”

Will stared at Kalyn.

“You know me, Will.”

“No, I know my daughter. You’re a big f**king question mark right now.” Will stepped toward her, raised the shotgun, trying to spurn the blood lust he felt. Not even with Javier had he wanted to hurt something this bad.

Kalyn’s eyes ran over, and she wiped her face.

Will said, “Did you have this planned from the start?”

“No.”

“To use us to help you get here, then trade my daughter for your sister? Was that the deal?”

“No, I just got caught. I never would’ve let them keep you or her. I would’ve—”

“I should kill you right now,” Will said.

“Let’s lock her up, Dad. In one of the rooms.”

“Do we have a key?”

“I know where you can get one.”

“All right, but meanwhile . . .”

He swung the Mossberg’s composite stock into the side of Kalyn’s head.

FIFTY-FIVE

Will and Devlin walked together out of the library, leaving Kalyn unconscious on the floor. They turned the corner into the candlelit passage, the three bodies lying up ahead, thankfully obscured in the low light.

“Why don’t you hang back, Dev,” Will said. “No sense taking in what you don’t have to.”

“Okay, Dad. I think each of the guests has a master key that opens all the rooms.”

“And the dining hall is up ahead on the left?”

“Yeah.”

“Yell if you need me.”

Will went on, stepping carefully between lakes of blood as he negotiated his way past the men he’d killed, marveling at the merciful numbness.

Three torches had been ignited in the great dining hall, the walls aglow and the far end of the table littered with cards, poker chips, wads of cash, wineglasses, shot glasses, highballs, martini glasses, cocktail shakers, bottles of wine, liquor, and two enormous bongs, all shimmering in the firelight.

“Anybody in here? I won’t hurt you if you come on out.”

He walked to the near end of the table, the room reeking of cigars and marijuana smoke, soured with spilled alcohol and the licorice stench of absinthe.

Ten feet away, he spotted a dark shape lying down against the wall beside a potted spruce tree. Will’s finger moved onto the trigger.

He heard the sputtering of a drunken snore, and his eyes pulled detail out of the dark: an older silver-haired man having partied out of his league.

Something clanged in the kitchen.

“Come out of there!” Will hollered. “Your chance to do this without getting hurt is slipping away.”

The kitchen doors swung open and two men staggered out—a man in his late twenties, naked except for his boxer shorts, looking disoriented and sheepish, and a shorter, much rounder kimonoed man, balding and more sober.

“Tell him it’s cool, Reynolds.”

“Keep your mouth shut, Sean.” To Will: “What’s going on here?”

“Come closer.”

The men stepped forward into the full illumination of a torch.

“Who are you?” Will asked.

“Guests of this lodge. Who the f**k are you?”

Footsteps sounded outside in the passage. Will glanced over his shoulder.

“Just me, Dad.”

“I told you wait out there.”

Reynolds said, “Where’s everybody else?”

“They’re dead, sir.”

Sean said, “Oh shit.”

“Are you law enforcement?” Reynolds asked.

“No.”

Devlin sidled up to her father.

“Then what gives you the right to—” The racket of a pumping shotgun stopped him cold. Will turned, to see his daughter leveling a Mossberg on both men.