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He nodded, eyes locked on hers. Then he turned to Mercer and said, “If anything happens to either one of these women, I’ll find a way to keep you alive while I cut you apart. Understood?”
“Sure,” Mercer said. “Why would I kill my own employees?”
“Ask Irene Harte,” McCallister said. One last glance at Bryn, and he was gone.
Bryn pulled the blanket closer around Annalie’s shoulders. “I’m taking her out of here,” she said.
“Well, it’s time we were about our own business, too,” Mercer said. “I suppose I’ll have to clean up Freddy’s brains; I hate to leave a mess for the home owners. Hand me that plastic bag; I need to put it over his head to keep him from leaking Oh, relax, Freddy; I’ll tear an airhole for you. ”
Bryn turned to get the bag.
She never saw Mercer’s blow coming, and never knew how he hit her, or what with, except that it had to be with something big and heavy. She heard a sound that might have been Annalie’s choked scream, and then she was down on the cold floor, trying to figure out what was happening, and why, why in God’s name he’d done that….
Mercer thought she was unconscious, Bryn realized. She should have been, but she guessed she had a harder head than he’d expected. Her body wasn’t quite within her control just yet, but she could hear as he pressed buttons on a phone and said, “Irene Harte, please. Yes, I’ll hold…. Ah, Irene, nice to hear your voice. Patrick McCallister will be at the Civic Theatre in about twenty minutes, thirty at the outside if he stops for coffee and doughnuts. I believe he’s going to try to take out your advance crew, and then get you for good measure. That concludes our deal, I believe. You get what you want, and you leave me strictly alone. Bye-bye, Irene. ”
“You lied,” Annalie said shakily. “You’re working with her. ”
“I’m a businessman, and Irene has no real use for me now; it’s just as easy for her to pay me as kill me. She can always try to kill me later. McCallister, on the other hand— he’s much harder to get, so she’s perfectly willing to trade my life for his. And frankly, Annie, my life is really all that matters to me. Now, be a good girl and hit your sister with this pan, very hard, on the back of the head, and I promise not to let Freddy put that bag over your head ever again. ”
“I can’t,” Annie sobbed. “I can’t. Bryn—”
“You will if you want to live,” Mercer said. “I’ll count to ten. One, two, three, four … Oh, all right, I suppose blood really is thicker than water. Don’t cry, Annie; listen to my voice. Condition Diamond. ”
Annie abruptly stopped crying. The silence, in contrast, was eerie. Get up, Bryn thought grimly. She tried, and managed to push herself over on her side. Paralyzed nerves were starting to wake up and scream.
Annalie was staring at Mercer, slowly clearing eyes vacant as a doll’s.
“Now,” he said. “Take this pan, and hit your sister in the head with it, as hard as you can, until she’s not moving anymore. ”
“Annie—” Bryn whispered.
Annalie didn’t hesitate. She took the pan, braced herself, and swung the skillet with brutal force.
It took three hits to crush Bryn’s skull.
The last thing Bryn heard, a faint and echoing whisper as she fell into darkness, was Mercer saying, “That’s my good girl. ”
Chapter 13
She woke up to someone screaming, and for a moment she was back in the white room, hearing that awful birth scream through the glass….
. . . And then she realized that she was hearing it full-strength, somewhere a few feet away.
Bryn blinked and rolled over. The agony in her head was like spikes of steel driven deep, and she thought, That is bone digging into my brain. No, it couldn’t be. The back of her skull felt soft, but not shattered.
Busy little nanites. She knew it had been smashed.
She was lying on a blood-smeared kitchen floor, all alone, and there was a woman in a fluffy pink bathrobe standing in the doorway, shrieking like a banshee.
Get up, she told herself. You have to get up.
She managed to drag herself to her knees, then up to her feet. The woman stopped screaming and ran. Next stop, 911. Time was running out.
Annie. Mercer had taken Freddy with him; he must have taken Annie as well. God, Annie killed me. Or had tried, anyway. Not her fault; she’d been controlled. She wouldn’t have done it on her own, not even out of fear.
Bryn had to cling to that. There was very little left to cling to.
Oh, God, McCallister. He was walking into a trap, and—on her insistence—probably taking Joe Fideli with him. She had to stop it. Stop him.
