“I want to know what hair color to buy to get your shade. And is that a perm?”

“Sorry, what you see is what you get.”

“Well, that’s too bad, now, isn’t it? I called to warn you to stay inside that dumpy house or you’ll get blood all over that pretty hair. I want you to tell the cops if they try anything I’ll shoot these guys’ heads off. Oh, yeah, the big guy is now our hostage. He’s going to accompany us out of here.” And Lissy flipped off Savich’s cell, threw it back at him. He caught it, stuck it in his shirt pocket. His right hand was only inches from Bernie’s wrists, and neither Victor nor Lissy seemed to notice.

In that instant Autumn yelled for him.

71

SAVICH HEARD HER yelling, louder than ever before. Her face was white, her eyes wild. She was panting.

What’s wrong, Autumn? What’s going on?

It’s my grandfather, Dillon, he’s alive and he’s here, and I think he’s going to hurt Ethan and Mama!

Whoa, wait a minute. Where are you?

In this building, it’s underground, all white rooms and bad, real bad.

Autumn, listen to me. I’ve got a huge problem of my own right now—

Show me.

He looked over at Bernie, bound, propped up against a tree trunk, then at Victor and Lissy, their guns pointed at him. Could Autumn see what he was seeing, as he had seen that motel sign? Could she possibly see through his eyes?

“What are you doing?” Lissy yelled at him and took a step forward. “Whatever you’re doing, you stop it or I’ll have Victor drill you right now!”

Savich didn’t think he’d moved. What had he done to spook them? He said, calm and easy, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lissy.”

“Your eyes went all funny, then you stared at Victor and me and you looked like some weirdo freak, like you were looking through us. What did you do?”

Savich smiled. “Well, the thing is, and this is the absolute truth, there’s this little girl who was looking at you guys through my eyes.”

Victor whirled around, shouting, “What little girl? Where is she? There isn’t a little girl! What are you talking about?”

Whatever the two of them had seen on his face, he’d shaken them up. He said, “Her name is Autumn, and she’s in Georgia, I think.”

Lissy screamed at him, “You lying piece of—”

Victor grabbed her arm, shook it. “Lissy, no, he’s doing this on purpose, trying to rattle us, get us to make a mistake. Look, he’s not moving, it’s all right. Whatever he does, whatever he says, it doesn’t mean anything. He’s just trying to creep us out. We’ve got to decide what to do, use him as a hostage or shoot his head off. Thing is, they can’t shoot us if we’ve got him in front of us as a shield.”

She screamed, “No! He’ll do something; he’ll kill us. He won’t let us use him, he won’t! I want him dead, Victor, now! You said you could do it if you wanted to. Well, it’s time to step up.” She traded guns with him. “Use mine. The silencer’s on it, so no one will hear the shots. Shoot both of them, Victor. Prove to me you can do it.”

Victor held the gun straight out in front of him, aimed it at Savich. His face was pale, his whole body rigid. He looked deathly afraid. Of killing them?

“Come on, Victor, drill both of them, right between the eyes!”

Savich heard Autumn scream No! and Victor staggered and went flying to the rocky ground, twisting and turning as if someone were physically pummeling him. Just as suddenly he stopped, and he sat up, terrified, and looked at Savich. He yelled, “Run, Lissy,” and he took off into the trees.

Autumn, you did this?

“Hold it, Lissy!”

Lissy’s eyes went wide with shock. Savich knew she thought Autumn was here now, but it wasn’t Autumn. It was Sherlock, her SIG pointed directly at Lissy’s back. Cully came running out from behind her and fired five fast rounds after Victor. They heard the cry of pain when one of the bullets struck him. Then Cully took off after Victor.

Sherlock said, “Turn around, Lissy. Very slowly, I don’t want to kill you. Toss your gun to the ground right this minute.”

Lissy looked over her shoulder, stared at the woman with the wild red hair. “Nice hair,” she said. And she ran, firing wildly in Sherlock’s direction.

Sherlock stumbled back and fell, got back up on her knees, and returned fire. She got her, heard the cry of pain, but she didn’t know how badly the girl was hurt.