When they had the door forced open—fragments of cheap, ugly molding scattered across the floor—she put her hand to her husband’s upper arm, holding him back before he plunged through. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out the dried blood dotting his shirt, mingling with stains left by a minor flood of tawny port.
It occurred to her that she hated Jack Penney with every fiber of her being.
“Jesus,” he growled as he looked down at her. He appeared to be having some revelations of his own. “Your face.”
She put a hand to her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“You have a black eye, for Christ’s sake. Your cheek is purple. I couldn’t see it in the dark.”
“I do?” She had not been treated delicately as she’d been thrown into the wine cellar behind Malcolm’s unconscious body. She supposed her facehadconnected rather firmly with a shelf of wine bottles.
“I’m going to enjoy killing the admiral,” he said. His voice sounded pleasant and terrifying.
“Ah.” She blinked. “About that. Do we have... some sort of plan?”
“I don’t need a plan.” His teeth flashed, an expression more a snarl than a smile. His face was bruised black. “I have a very large piece of metal.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m sure that’s an excellent beginning. Perhaps—”
She broke off abruptly as a crash resounded from deep inside the house. She froze, her hand still on his arm. In the distance, something shattered.
Her eyes flew up to lock with his.
“I suppose I can’t convince you to stay here?” he rasped.
“Not by any means short of insensibility.”
“All right,” he muttered. “Get the other stave. And stay behind me.”
She snatched up the stave and followed him in the direction of the clamor.
It seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Outside the door, he paused and put a finger to his lips for silence. She nodded, and then, cautiously, he eased open the door, stave at the ready.
Inside the kitchen, amid a tumbled array of crockery and flatware, Ruby beheld—
She blinked hard. Twice.
“Alice?” she said.
ItwasAlice. She looked beautiful and ferocious in an ebony frock, a carving knife in her hand. She brandished it threateningly in the direction of Penney’s batman, who was bound hand and foot to a kitchen chair.
Alice’s gaze flew toward them, then just as quickly darted back to the batman. “Good Lord!” she exclaimed. “They’ve found you already?”
“Alice,” Ruby repeated incredulously. “What in heaven’s name is going on?”
“Cap?”
Ruby and Archer spun away from Alice and toward the voice that had emerged from the corridor behind them.
It was Gerry—and Eugénie and the Enys boys.
And, in front of them, prodded forward by the barrel of a rifle, was Jack Penney.
“Cap!” Gerry said again. “Thank—Christ—” His voice cracked.
“Gerry—” Malcolm broke off, staring in stupefaction at his crew. “What the devil are you—”
Gerry’s deep voice stuttered over the words. “He said—he said he’dkilledyou. He said—” Speechless, his words overcome by the depth of his emotions, Gerry jabbed Penney in the back with the rifle’s barrel instead.
