Page 101 of The Chain House

“No,” Luther said, and then added so matter-of-factly that it turned Mr. Mosby’s blood cold: “It’s wrath.”

CHAPTER53

OLIVER CROWN SAT on the folding chair he’d brought into the room with him, five feet away from where Beth sat on the floor with her back against the wall.

Behind her, the clacking of typewriter keys sounded again from the neighboring room, having resumed seconds ago, after Beth and her sister-in-law Emily had scrambled frantically upon hearing his heavy footfalls in the hallway; Emily back to her piano bench to write, Beth, back to her chains, still in shock that Emily was alive, after over two decades of captivity, no matter who she might have thought she was, or had been all these years.

He is not your husband, Emily, she’d hissed through the hole in the wall, peeking to see her sister-in-law, now in her late forties, crying in the other room, crying and confused like no rational adult should ever be confused, because it was her own identity at stake. She was not who she thought she was anymore, and Beth could tell in the few minutes they’d spoken that Emily not only recognized her and remembered her but knew exactly who she was. But at the same time, she was convinced she was a woman named Elizabeth Bennet, and her husband was Mr. Darcy. Horrifying thoughts traced like tattered ribbons over Beth’s skin as she listened to the typing over there, knowing Emily was typing out of fear, typing out of such controlled habit that it tortured her to imagine what all her husband’s sister had gone through over the past twenty-three years, to become the slack-jawed and lifeless-eyed woman she’d just witnessed through that hole in the wall.

But yet, Beth thought, as she stared at the phone Oliver Crown held out to her from his seat on the chair, Emily was alive and didn’t look bruised or beaten or starved or malnourished, and if she was alive, there was hope. If she was alive, she could heal, she could be repaired, and Beth swore if they made it out, she would accept whatever percentage of Emily came back with them, because she knew over time she could find the rest of it, whatever was left of her dear, sweet friend and sister-in-law.

But if the phone in front of her wasn’t enough, the gun in his other hand, pointed right at her, she thought, might do her in, especially so soon after hearing her husband’s desperate, anguish-ridden voice at the other end of it, as her captor sat so smugly reiterating his insane demands for Sal Batise’s execution, no matter what the mastermind tried in any last-second defense inside the prison.

“I need proof she’s still alive,” Governor Hawthorne said on the other end of the call.

“Very well,” Minks said into the phone, before holding it out toward Beth.

Beth nodded toward the phone, and the gun pointed at her; the message was clear—behave, don’t try anything stupid.

“Beth …” said her husband.

“Gavin,” she said, staring at the book covers coating the walls. “It’s me. Do as he says.”

“Oh my God, Beth—are you hurt? They’re saying you were shot.”

“I’m fine …” she said, closing her eyes, thinking, You’re not fine, you’re not fine, he’s going to kill you either way, Beth, especially now that he’s shown you Emily. He’s going to kill you. You won’t walk away from this, so … She opened her eyes, stared at Minks, stared at the gun and the phone, and said, “Gavin, I love you … and he has me inside a large house with—”

Minks fired the gun.

Beth screamed.

CHAPTER54

THE PURE TERROR in Governor Hawthorne’s scream, after hearing what had to have been a gunshot over the phone, was unlike anything Sam had ever heard before, until an even louder, more guttural roar emerged when he yelled, “Fuck!” and hurled the phone across the room.

Agent Givens was quick to say, “She screamed, Gavin. You heard her. She screamed.”

“He shot her!”

“Then she wouldn’t have had time to scream.”

Governor Hawthorne gasped for breath. He looked up, still seething, but starting to see reason, Sam could tell.

Sam said, “He’s right. We heard the gunshot. She screamed. He was just trying to scare her.”

Governor Hawthorne nodded, slowly composing himself. He looked at his watch. “Forty minutes.”

Batise had yet to return from the shower and shave he’d requested. Sam still half expected him to go full-blown Houdini and somehow vanish from the prison. It was impossible though, he knew; there were always too many guards watching him, and outside, according to Warden Wren’s latest report, was all set for the execution.

Governor Hawthorne ran a hand through his hair and said to Agent Givens, “Where are we at with the house?”

Givens’s eyes were glued to the phone. “We got our warrant. They’re there now. No one answered, so they’re going in.”

Governor Hawthorne closed his eyes.

Sam’s cell phone rang. It was Jennifer. “Yeah?”

“Sam, we need help,” she said frantically over the phone. “Now.”