“Sitting’s good,” she muttered. “Sitting’s great.” Li glanced up at the ceiling, at a network of cobwebs hanging off dusty rafters. She hated spiders. She hadn’t hated basements before today, but now she hated them too. Sweat drenched the front of her shirt, she was covered in black, greasy grime from the basement floor, and every bone, every tendon, every bit of cartilage in her body cried out for a doctor and an emergency room. The sound of a violent struggle above her breached the basement door. Foster.
Li reached for the phone in her pocket to call for help, but her fingertips brushed up against only pieces of jagged plastic. The device had been smashed to bits when she fell. She thought of Nowak across the street. He might wander back over to see what was taking them so long, and then again, he might not.
Bodies fell and crashed upstairs. Foster was in trouble. Li pushed up and fought her way to her feet, using the bottom step to lean against. It took a few seconds before her vision cleared. “I’m up. All right. I got this.” She felt for her gun at her side. Still there. Still in one piece. “In business.”
Li looked around, hoping to orient herself. The dark room felt drafty and deep and smelled of sewage and mold, but a shaft of dull light coming from somewhere was just enough to help her make out a bare light bulb three feet from her. Hopping over, keeping her broken ankle off the floor, she pulled the cord, but the bulb was low watt, and the light it gave off was not enough to do much good.
Li turned back and hobbled toward the stairs. There were a lot of them, and they were steep. The struggle upstairs had stopped, but there was no way of knowing whether that was a good thing or a bad one. She grabbed hold of the railing and planted her left foot on the bottom step, ready to go. She’d have to pull herself the whole way up. She had braced for the climb and was about to shove off when something bathed in shadow propped behind the staircase caught her eye.
It looked like a person leaning against the wall. She let the railing go, drew her gun, teetered on one leg. She aimed, but she had absolutely no confidence in it. “Police. Step out.” Her eyes narrowed. She could swear there was someone sitting there. She could just make out the outline. “I said step out. Now.” She prayed she wouldn’t have to shoot. She prayed even harder that whoever it was didn’t come out fighting.
When nothing happened, she hobble-hopped forward, wincing, sweating, her eyes now adjusted to the half-light, the scraping sound of her right foot dragging across the concrete floor. She got just close enough to stare down into Tom Morgan’s eyes. He was dead. His chest had been savaged and his throat cut. He was sitting in a pool of his own blood. Li moved back toward the stairs, holstered her gun, then grabbed the railing, and started up. No love lost for Morgan, she thought. In fact, it was better than he deserved.
CHAPTER 79
Foster shoved Amelia back, but not before the blade sliced along her side, nicking the skin along her ribcage. Foster slid her way along the wall, trying to get closer to the basement before Amelia clocked back in. It had been a few minutes since she’d heard any sound from that direction. What if Amelia had shoved her knife into Li’s back before she’d pushed her down the stairs? What if she was bleeding to death? Amelia stood looking out on the backyard through the window, her father’s knife at her side. Foster took a step. If she ran for the basement, could Amelia run her down before she got there?
“I see you,” Amelia said.
“Where’d you get the leaves you covered Peggy Birch with?” Foster asked, hoping to distract Amelia.
“Details. Details. Just like you people.” Amelia turned her head. “I found them in a bag in an alley. No one wanted them, so I took them. In my trunk. Until I needed them.”
“In a duffel bag,” Foster said. “With that Rover out back waiting.”
Amelia shrugged. “Naturally.”
Foster stole a look at the entry to the kitchen. It felt like it was miles away. “Since you’re talking, where’s Tom?” Foster asked.
“Up or down. I’d bet down.”
She turned to face Foster, the knife behind her back now. “Why should I care? He’s a kidnapper, a killer, a liar. Who are you really? You’re hiding something.”
“None of your business who I am,” Foster said. “Put the knife down and move out of my way.”
Amelia chuckled. “I bet Detective Li’s not happy down there. There aren’t any cabinets.” She laughed. “He killed in our basement, you know. When we were kids? We saw one. I don’t know how many more there were. We ignored it. He expected it.” She pressed the knife tip to her chest. “I’ve only taken four. Red hair is rare. That’s why I got so angry when that one girl lied. Wearing a wig isn’t fair.”
“We found Tammy Bergin,” Foster said, sliding along.
The name confused Amelia. Her brows furrowed. “Bergin? Who’s . . . ? Ah, the driver. She talked too much. She was a consolation prize. I couldn’t get the one I wanted. Her boyfriend saved her. Seth.” She paced the floor. “He made me this way, you understand. I didn’t start it. He made me believe I was something I wasn’t. Bodie too. I’ve been thinking, in a way it’s like I’ve been killing my mother—isn’t that funny?”
“No, it isn’t.”
Amelia chuckled. “You’re always so serious. You’re also bleeding a lot.” She took a step toward Foster. “You’ll bleed more later.”
Foster pushed up higher on the wall, tired of inching, tired of listening to Amelia deal with her fake-daddy issues and try to justify the unjustifiable. “No. I won’t.” She lifted her left hand, the gun in it. It shook, but the right end was pointed in the right direction. She didn’t have to be that precise to put Amelia down. “Throw it down. Step away.”
Amelia screeched like a wounded banshee and then came running.
Foster fired.
CHAPTER 80
Foster missed, and Amelia plowed into her hard, knocking the gun out of her grip. With the last of everything, Foster grabbed hold of Amelia’s shirt and flung her back and off her feet, then lunged for the gun that had hit the floor and landed beyond her reach. She clawed for it, on all fours, not wanting to die here. She could hear Amelia coming, feel her feet pounding on the bare floorboards. This was it. She’d live or die in the next few seconds.
Time slowed. Foster’s hand found the gun, she flipped onto her back, and she fired once. Two shots rang out. Foster panicked at the sound of the second shot, until she saw Li sliding down the wall, her gun in her hand. Li looked like death warmed over, but she was alive. Amelia stumbled back, clutching her chest, a stricken look on her face. Blood began to pool on her shirt in two places. Two rounds. One objective. Amelia went down hard.
The entire house went quiet, except for the echo from the rounds. “You okay there, Li?”
“No.” Li tried to reposition herself on the wall. It looked painful. “You?”
“I’ve been better.” Foster worked her way to her feet and approached Amelia carefully.
Li tried straightening her right leg out but didn’t get far. “Please tell me she’s dead.”