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Gabe was caught in a noose. Silvery wire stretched high to the balcony, and his legs were swinging a yard above her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Staring at Gabe in horror, Cora could hear his faint, irregular gasps. He must have managed to get an arm through, or maybe just a hand. The noose hadn't killed him, although it should have, and she knew it soon would.
She had to save him!
Cora shone her flashlight around, feeling frenzied now. There wasn't an obvious way up onto the balcony, but she could climb that wall over there. Those stone carvings would provide some grip, and she could lean on the pillar, and then she might be able to grab the high rail.
"I'm coming!" she said. "Gabe, hang in there!"
Cora ran for the wall, jumped, and began hauling herself up. It was suffocatingly dark up here. She could barely see in front of her as she climbed. The stone felt rough under her hands, its surface coated in dust.
How had the killer done this? It must have been a wire noose. He must have lowered it by the door invisibly. Gabe had walked into it, and swiftly, lethally, the killer had hauled him up. The speed and precision that had taken was abnormal.
Now, Gabe was going to choke to death. Unless she could find where that wire was fastened and cut him free.
Cora grabbed the higher stone ledge, Pushed off with her feet. Pulled with her hand. Muscles screamed. She ignored them; she got to the next foothold. Repeated.
Where was he? She guessed he'd gone. Fastened the wire, climbed out the high window, shimmied down to the ground, and ran. But she couldn't worry about the killer's location now, and finding him would have to wait. Gabe's gasps were becoming more ragged, more desperate. She had to reach the wire and try to unravel it to set him free.
She reached up again, stretching for the highest handhold so far. She was almost at the balcony now. Almost where she needed to be.
She reached it, clawing herself up, scissoring her legs over.
She could hear the wheezing in his chest from below, and she knew time was running out.
Cora pulled the flashlight out of her pocket and snapped it on. It cut the darkness ahead. And there was the wire, fine and silvery, stretching up to a large hook in the roof that she guessed might once have held a chandelier or a large light. And from there, the wire ran sideways to the balcony.
He'd used a pole as a lever, she saw. The wire was attached to the end of the solid pole, and he'd then pushed it sideways, tautening the wire, lifting Gabe off his feet. And then, he'd fastened the pole down with more wire. It was tightly coiled around the pole and around the edge of the balcony, tamping the pole down in place and creating that deadly leverage.
She needed to cut it. And fast.
She ripped the small utility knife from the sheath on her belt and began sawing at it. Back and forth, back and forth, with all the strength she had. But the wire was thick and taut. The blade was slipping off it. The harder she pushed, the wilder the slips became. She narrowly missed stabbing herself deep in her own finger as it slewed sideways off the wire.
This wasn’t working. Fighting down panic, she forced herself to think calmly.
Only one other way and that was to unravel it. This was the harder way. She dreaded the time it would take.
She set down the flashlight. No room to hold it. She needed all the power in her nine fingers to get this done.
She heard her own breath as she worked, fast and rapid, and knew that with every moment that passed, Gabe's air was running out.
If he hadn't managed to get a hand through the noose, he'd be dead by now. But that right hand, using all his strength, could not keep pushing at a narrow wire with a dead weight attached to it forever.
She knew he'd lose the battle soon.
“Hang in there,” she called again. “I’m up here. I’m working on it, Gabe.”
It felt like a massive victory when she managed to get one twist unfastened, her fingers shaking with the effort, the wire biting down into her flesh as she struggled to loosen it.
Then she began another, fighting, battling, wrestling.
Cora's jaw was clenched tightly as she worked to unravel the wire. She could hear Gabe's gasps becoming more and more ragged, and she knew that time was running out. She could feel sweat prickling her temples and shook stinging drops of it out of her eyes.
Another twist undone. Now there was a longer length of wire to work with, and it was getting marginally easier. She fought with the next one. Won the battle, and the wire parted.
Only one more to go. One more effort, and he would be free. But, as Cora grabbed the wire and yanked at it with all her strength, she heard a noise behind her.
