Page 63 of The Chain House

“Ignore him,” said Givens. And then over his shoulder to Batise, “Start making sense or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“You killed my sister?” Gavin Hawthorne was larger and stronger, but Givens and Wren together managed to keep him away from Batise.

“I did no such thing,” said Batise. “But I do know where she’s buried. And the manuscript, the only copy, I might add, was buried with her.”

“Why?” Sam asked, but his voice was drowned out by the commotion, by the struggle to keep Hawthorne back.

“Where is she?” Hawthorne screamed, beginning to calm, but still distraught. “Where is she? Please … where is she?”

“My stay, Governor.”

“Fuck you.”

“Stay my execution, Governor Gavin Hawthorne, and I’ll give you her exact location.”

CHAPTER28

BETH’S BODY HURT everywhere.

Whatever pain meds he’d given her for the gunshot wound were wearing off, and her right calf was throbbing. Her hips and shoulders and knees hurt from the strain of the numerous chains holding her centered in the room.

Although the room was vast, she could only move within a five-foot radius in any direction before one of the chains stopped her.

She’d given up calling Billy’s name through the wall, finally allowing her mind to go there—Billy Boyle was dead, and every time she gently tugged the chain that funneled through the hole in that wall, dead weight resisted her on the other side. As for Joseph Gerrard down below, her last few attempts at getting him to talk had fallen on deaf ears. Terrified ears, more like, because she knew he could hear her. She could hear him rustling down there. But for now, she’d leave him be.

The typing had stolen her attention, but in a good way.

Typing, even someone clacking away on what sounded like an old machine, was normal, when nothing else in the house was.

“Hello,” she called out again toward the hole in the wall near the door, but to no avail. She felt sure there was a hallway out there, and if indeed that chain connected her to another prisoner, it was across that hallway and into another room. At first, she thought that was where the typing was coming from, but after more careful focus, it sounded farther away, and at times she’d thought it could be coming from outside, beyond the window’s iron bars.

The door opened suddenly, and she screamed.

When Justice Minks entered she fell backward, painfully wrenching her shoulder on one of the chains. She’d been so preoccupied, she hadn’t heard his footsteps in the hallway. He walked directly toward her, squatted down, pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“You know what my name is.”

“Say it.”

“Bethany Hawthorne.”

“What time is?” he asked, and at the same time showed her the watch on his left wrist.

What was this about? she thought, but read his watch. “Three … three-thirty-seven, or eight.”

He touched the screen and her voice emerged from the iPhone: You know what my name is … Say it … Bethany Hawthorne … What time is it … Three … three-thirty-seven … or eight …

“That’ll do.” Minks pocketed the phone and stood from his crouch. “He needed to know you’re still alive.”

“Who?”

“Your husband.”

Just the thought of Gavin brought tears to her eyes.

There was no way Minks was letting her go, no matter what Gavin did or didn’t do.