Die Job(88)

The response obviously angered her because she flipped the phone closed sharply and faced Mark with her holster unsnapped. “Back off.”

Mark raised his hands to shoulder height, placatingly. “I just want to see where she went.”

Officer Qualls exchanged a look with me and then shrugged. “The bathroom down here.” She led the way past a couple of bedrooms to a small bathroom on the north side of the house. A toilet with a wooden seat and water tank above it, a sink with chipped porcelain, and a claw-footed tub sat surrounded by mildewed aqua tiles, someone’s unfortunate remodeling job, which the Rothmere Trust hadn’t been able to return to period authenticity yet. Although, I wasn’t sure what “authentic” meant in terms of nineteenth-century toilets. An outhouse? A hole in a bench? When had flush toilets become a standard-issue item in upper-class houses?

Mark lunged toward the window and struggled to push the sash up, breaking my pointless train of thought. Wind drove rain at us and I gasped at the hurricane’s fury in the confined space. Officer Qualls grabbed at Mark, her hand snagging in his belt, as if afraid he were going to follow Lindsay out the window. “I’m only looking,” he said with an impatient glance over his shoulder.

Having learned her lesson, Officer Qualls kept her hold on him as he stuck his head and shoulders out the window, craning his neck first left and then right. He pulled his head back in, like a turtle ducking into its shell, and looked at us with worried eyes. Water dripped from his brows and eyelashes. “I don’t see her. Do you think she fell?” Water slid off his bald head and spattered on the floor. I handed him a dingy towel from a ring by the sink and he swabbed it over his head and neck.

“They’d’ve found her if she fell,” Officer Qualls said pragmatically.

“How could she be so stupid?” Mark cried, turning to stare out the window again. The lightning had moved past us and flickered from farther north, illuminating billowing clouds. The wind still blew with the force of the Atlantic behind it, and I didn’t know how anyone could cling to the roof for a minute, never mind the ten or so minutes that Lindsay had now been out there.

A thought came to me. Lindsay wasn’t stupid. Desperate, yes; stupid, no. Even if she’d clambered out the window impulsively, seizing the opportunity to escape without planning for it, mere seconds on the roof must have convinced her she couldn’t make it to the ground. Not in this weather. Not with climbing handholds like gutters slicked with rain. She might have lodged herself someplace relatively secure, like against a chimney, and planned to ride out the storm, or . . .

I slipped out of the bathroom, unnoticed by Mark and Officer Qualls, and made my way down to the next room on the same side of the hall. A bedroom. Bare. Window closed. The next room down was the room where Glen and I had found Lindsay’s sheet. I pushed the door and it yielded with a whine. Cautiously, I poked my head into the room. Nothing looked different. The bed with the rag doll sat undisturbed. The window was closed. The armoire was closed. I turned to leave, wondering if I’d guessed wrong, when something caught my eye. A footprint. A wet footprint in the middle of the rag rug by the bed. My gaze drifted to the armoire, the only hiding place in the room. Should I leave to summon Officer Qualls and risk having Lindsay escape to the roof again, or should I talk to the girl and convince her to turn herself in?

I compromised. Tiptoeing to the armoire, I leaned my back against it, bracing myself, and yelled, “Officer Qualls! Ally! She’s in here.”

The doors bucked, bruising my back and behind. Running footsteps pounded down the hall. “In here,” I called as the doors banged against me with such force I went flying onto my hands and knees. Dang. I really needed to work out more. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that Lindsay had braced herself against the back of the armoire, drawn her knees to her chest, and exploded her legs against the doors. Now, she tumbled from the armoire, arms and legs sprawling, but quickly leaped to her feet. She turned toward the bedroom door, hesitated as the footsteps drew nearer, then lurched toward the window.

“Don’t!” I shouted. Unable to get much purchase on the smooth wood floor, I flung myself sideways toward Lindsay, stretching an arm out as she threw up the window sash. My hand snagged around her ankle.

“Let me go!” She kicked out at me, like a mail carrier trying to detach a Rottweiler from her leg. Her foot connected with my jaw, and my teeth snapped together with a crunch that reverberated up through my temples and down my neck. I felt my hand slipping off her ankle and clutched desperately at the hem of her jeans.