Zeroglyph, page 25
I slowly slid out the deadbolt and then turned the knob. The door opened with a slight creak. I wheeled into the passage. “Hurry,” I whispered. Jane stepped out after me, clearly not liking it.
The floor was carpeted; my wheelchair made no discernible noise as I shifted to let Jane step past me. I turned around and gently pulled on the door. Right before I closed it shut, I depressed the pushbutton on the inner doorknob, locking the door from the inside.
We were standing in the passage, naked and exposed.
I moved down the corridor, with Jane softly treading beside me. I turned right at the T-junction. “This is crazy,” she muttered. I led us down the side passage before stopping at one of the doors. It was the media room. Like most other rooms in the house, it was unfinished — I’d been too lazy or too busy to do it justice, and had settled to using the TV in the living room. I gestured at Jane to open the door.
The muted light from the corridor briefly outlined the contents of the room before we moved inside and shut the door behind us: an empty cabinet for the screen; a couple of leather recliners; a couch; an unfinished bar; windowless walls covered with mahogany panels and padding. We gingerly navigated away from the door, relying on memory to avoid bumping into the furniture.
“What if Raphael saw us sneak out?”
“I told you, the camera on the landing doesn’t turn around. As far as they are concerned, we are still in the master bedroom. Now let’s figure out how we are going to get you out of here.”
“You said you have a plan!” she whispered.
“This was it.”
“You jerk!”
“Look, we are better off here than trapped in the bedroom. I needed time to think. Now listen. Like you said before, you just have to reach the nearest house. It shouldn’t take long.”
“He will kill you if I leave you here.”
“He won’t. If the only reason Raphael wants to kill us is to cover his tracks, then your escape will rob him of the incentive. Killing us both might make sense, but killing me alone will serve no purpose.”
“He’ll do it out of spite.”
“No he won’t. He is not human—he doesn’t think like us. He is not going to do anything that isn’t directed at some end goal. Emotions don’t factor into it.”
“I’m talking about that scumbag downstairs.”
“If he has a gun, he’ll kill both of us just as easily.”
She said nothing.
“You have to decide quickly,” I whispered. “Right now, he doesn’t know we are here, so he’ll probably waste time trying to flush us out of the bedroom. When he discovers he’s been tricked—if he discovers he has been tricked—it’ll take him even more time to figure out where I’m hiding. Besides, if it comes to me or the laptop, I’ll tell him where the laptop is.”
“Even so, how will I escape the house?”
“The same way the intruder came in. We’ll have to find a way to distract him so you can slip past him into that empty room.”
I thought about it for a minute. “I’ll provide the distraction,” I said. “Use the stairs at the far end of this corridor to go down. They will get you to the rear door. There’s a camera overlooking the rear door, on the ceiling. If he’s reconnected the router, then Raphael will see you, so make sure you stay low and don’t cross the camera’s line of vision. Beyond that, you know your way around. Laundry room, gym, jacuzzi, the study, and then the hall. Don’t turn the corner after the study, because then the front door camera will see you. Stay hidden and you’ll know when to run.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll go to the front landing and call out to him. When he starts after me, you sneak into the empty room. Make sure you are quiet. If he sees you escaping, he will come after you, not me. He knows I am not going anywhere.”
“Nice plan, except for one minor detail,” she said. “It’s suicidal. Even if I get away, he’ll still have you.”
“Not if I can help it. As soon as he starts up the stairs, I’ll speed back into this room as fast as I can. As long as I turn the corridor before he reaches the landing, he’ll just assume I have retreated into the master bedroom.”
“It won’t work, Andy. Raphael will see me cross the hall and alert that man.”
“He’ll be too busy chasing me to answer his phone. At the very least, you’ll have a good head start. You can outrun him, can’t you? He must have parked his car away from the house, which means he’ll have to follow you on foot or risk losing you.”
My eyes were adjusting to what little light entered the room from the gap in the door. She was a shadow among other shadows, nervously pulling her chin as she considered my proposal. “Alright,” she said finally. “I’m only doing this because we have no other option. But promise me you’ll be safe.” She squeezed my hand. I squeezed her back. Her lips felt warm and soft as she gently grazed them against my cheek. That perfume again, sweet and intoxicating, making me want to keep breathing her in. “I’ll give you a few minutes to position yourself,” I said, drawing back abruptly.
She made no further comment as she pulled away from me and walked to the door. She hesitated, but then slowly opened it enough to stick her head out and survey the corridor.
“Jane?” I whispered.
“Yes?” she said expectantly.
“You didn’t tell me where you hid the laptop.”
“You will give it only as a last resort?”
“I promise.”
“It’s in the jacuzzi room. I used some tape to stick it below the vanity unit, behind the overhang.”
I nodded and wished her good luck. She stepped into the passage, glancing nervously in the direction we had come from.
I watched her tiptoe to the other end of the corridor before she turned the corner and disappeared from view.
⸎
We had agreed on four minutes. I now sat at the T-junction, keeping track.
When the time was up, I moved into the corridor leading to the front landing. The master bedroom door was as we had left it. I wheeled myself onto the landing, only to see that the hall below was empty. Where is he? From where I was, I couldn’t see all of the living room, but the complete absence of sound raised a multitude of questions in my head.
“Hey!” I yelled.
Silence.
“Hello? Where are you? We want to talk!”
Nothing.
Had he left? No, that can’t be…
I ran my eyes across the space below me once more before shouting, “Hey you! You want the laptop? I know where it is. Talk to me!”
A second later, Jane entered the periphery of my vision. She had rounded the bend that led to the other half of the house and was now in full view of the front door camera. She was glancing about nervously.
Just go. Don’t look, just go, I mentally urged her.
“Hey you!” Still nothing.
Keeping to the walls, she crept across the open space and into the dining area.
Almost there.
I felt something cold press against the nape of my neck. Something metallic.
“Stop right there!” he shouted from behind me. Jane took a few more steps. “Stop, or the cripple gets it.” She halted and looked up at us. “Don’t!” I cried. “Just go!”
The intruder moved to my side and pressed the barrel of the gun against my temple. “I mean it, lady.”
“Let her go.” I said under my breath. “I ha—” I felt a hard smack land on the right side of my face. He had slapped me with the gun grip. I cried out in pain, surprised at the searing intensity of the blow. I tasted blood on my lips.
“Shut the fuck up!” he barked. He waved the gun at Jane. “You! Get me the laptop.”
Jane stood rooted to the spot like a deer caught in headlights. “I’m not asking,” he said in a singsong voice. He pressed the barrel of the gun once more against my head. That seemed to jolt Jane out of her petrified state. “I’ll get it! Please don’t hurt us!” she cried.
“Where is it?”
“In the jacuzzi room.”
“You have two minutes. If you are not back by then, I’ll start with his kneecaps. Three minutes and it’s his melon. You got that?”
She nodded, but didn’t move.
“Go!” he yelled. She ran toward the study and disappeared from view.
I was alone with him. I swallowed the rusty aftertaste of blood and tried to speak once more. “You shouldn’t have—”
I received another stinging blow from the gun. I didn’t cry out this time because I saw it coming; still, it didn’t make the pain or my surprise any less. “You hard of hearing, fool? Or you just stupid?” With his other hand, he grabbed my hair and jerked my neck back so that I was looking up at his masked face. “I don’t want to hear a word from you! You understand?” He held me like that for a second, pulling at my roots. My eyes travelled to the ceiling. Then it struck me. Of course, I thought. Stupid, stupid, me. How could I have forgotten? I nodded and he let go of my hair. I felt like an idiot as I sat there red faced, more from embarrassment than from the slapping I’d received.
Jane reappeared. She was clutching the laptop across her chest.
“Put it on the dining table,” he barked. “Good. Now move to the wall behind you and sit on the floor with your hands behind your head.”
He stepped forward, meaning to go down the stairs. I felt something tugging on my wheelchair as I too rolled ahead. He lurched, his arms clutching at the air. Before I knew what was happening, my chair leaned dangerously forward as the front wheel went over the edge of the landing. The next instant, the chair tipped, and I was falling with him.
The stairs raced up to meet my face as I instinctively raised my arms to shield it. I sprawled down the stairs, elbows and casts taking the brunt of the impact. I heard a sickening crunch as one of my legs struck a hard edge—I couldn’t tell whether it was the plaster breaking or something worse. The wheelchair bounced over my back and went rattling down below, overtaking him as he grabbed on to a baluster to arrest his fall. A whimper of pain escaped my lips.
What just happened? It felt like something had snagged against the wheelchair…
I lifted my head up to see Jane sprinting toward the bottom of the staircase. She uttered a cry of exultation as she picked something off the ground.
The gun.
With outstretched arms, she pointed it at the intruder. He tried to stand up, still gripping the railing. “Stay!” she cried in a trembling voice. “Stay where you are!”
He ignored her command and took a step forward.
“I’ll shoot. I mean it!”
He climbed down two more steps. She pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. She tried again and again. The gun did not fire.
“What the—” She brought the gun closer to her face to examine it. Her perplexed look quickly turned into one of surprise. “It’s a replica!” she shouted. “You fucking amateur! You brought a fake gun!” He bounded down the steps two at a time. Jane gripped the gun by barrel and flung it at him. Her aim was good but his reflexes were better. He ducked, letting the projectile fly past his head. He immediately straightened and ran down the remaining steps. I stared in horror, because it seemed like he was going to attack her, but instead he leapt at the dining table, where she’d placed the laptop.
Jane got to it first. She grabbed the device with both hands and took a hard swing at his head. He parried with his left hand and took the impact on his forearm. A shattering sound filled the air. He sprang back a few steps and seemed to ready himself for the next blow, knees bent, arms raised in front of him like a boxer. Jane had not let go of the laptop; she too took a couple of steps back and steadied herself. Her face was clenched into a tight grimace. She then did something completely unexpected: with a cry, she twisted around and flung the laptop away like a frisbee. It sailed into the kitchen and crashed into a wall somewhere beyond.
She then reached into her jacket and pulled out the knife she’d put there earlier. She sliced the air with the weapon. “You want to try me? Let’s go! I have a brown belt in Krav Maga. What do you have, bitch?”
He hesitated.
“Bring it!” she snarled.
He stood his ground, but only for a second. “Fuck this shit!” he said, backing away. “You broke it,” he said, jabbing a finger at Jane, but his eyes were on me. “You broke the laptop!” he said again, as if he was trying to emphasize something. “To hell with you dipshits. This ain’t worth it anymore.”
He turned around and ran into the empty bedroom. The door slammed shut behind him.
Jane just stood there with her knife pointing at nothing, her body still tensing for a fight. She took a couple of tentative steps toward the bedroom as if she was expecting the door to open any moment. After what might have been two minutes or fifteen, we heard the engine of a car come to life and then roar away.
She went into the bedroom nevertheless, to make sure he was really gone.
I had managed to sit up when she returned. She climbed the stairs to where I was and knelt in front of me. Her face was flush with blood. “You okay?” she asked, her lips still trembling from the adrenaline.
“Like a rag doll that’s just been let out of the washer. But more importantly, how do I look?” I said, trying to smile, but my mouth made a wince instead. There was a sharp pain in my right leg, and a duller, throbbing hurt in the other. My face was beginning to swell from the gun slaps. “That was a brave thing you did,” I said. “Krav Maga, huh? Since when do you know martial arts?”
She shrugged. “He bought it, didn’t he?”
“Is it over, finally?” she then said, her eyes give me a once over again.
You broke it, he had shouted before leaving. It was now clear to me what he meant by it. I groaned softly as I prepared to stand up. “Let’s make sure it is. Help me down first.”
⸎
I was in the living room, on my wheelchair, near the front door. The laptop lay at my feet. Jane was plugging in the power drill she’d gotten from the garage.
“Did you check if the router is connected?” I asked.
She nodded. “The burglar had plugged it back on.”
I looked up at the camera mounted on the wall. “Raphael, I know you are out there. Move the camera if can hear me.” The camera made a slight sound as it zoomed in a little.
“Good. Now that I have your attention…” With a screwdriver, I removed the back cover of the half-shattered laptop. I detached the hard drive, a circuit board the size of a chewing gum stick. It was still intact. I fished out the smartcard I had kept in my pocket earlier. I held up both to the camera. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Jane turned on the drill. I used the drill on the drive, and then the card until they were completely destroyed.
I said to the camera, “You lost, Raphael. You lost and we won. Now leave us be.”
The red indicator light on the camera turned off.
I moved to the front door and pulled on the handle. Cold air caressed my face.
“Hazel, open the garage door.” I said out loud.
“Can’t do that. Voice authentication has been disabled.”
Jane then tried to place a call from her phone. She shook her head dejectedly. She then went to the control panel and swiped at it. “It’s still showing a dummy number. What was your password again?”
“Andy home one two three.”
She keyed it in. “Nope.”
“At least he’s disarmed the security system,” I said. “Which means you can get out of here.”
“You mean we can get out of here.”
“You go. If I move another muscle I am dead.”
“Andy, you have to get yourself checked!” she said. “You had a pretty big fall. And your face looks like a week-old tomato. We’ll go to a hospital and I will make the calls from there. Besides, what if that man comes back?”
“It’s done, Jane. Raphael has no reason to bother us. He wouldn’t have disarmed the house otherwise. I told you: no spite.” She opened her mouth to protest, but she must have sensed that I wasn’t going to budge. “Fine. I’ll send an ambulance,” she said. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Just lock yourself in a room, okay? Can you do that for me?”
I nodded weakly.
Jane didn’t like what I was asking of her, but she didn’t have any strength left to argue with me. She disconnected the router before leaving.
Soon, I heard her car receding in the distance.
I made sure that both cameras in the hall were still off and then got myself a glass of wine from the kitchen. I sat in the living room, facing the front door. It was beginning to get dark outside. I closed my eyes and took a couple of sips, letting the liquid infuse me with warmth. The glass trembled, in tune with the hand clutching it, the tremors travelling from my fingers to my shoulder like tiny electric eels swimming upriver. My eyes were droopy—I wanted to go to sleep for a good long month, like a hibernating bear.
Not yet. It’s not over yet…
Soon, I heard the sound I was expecting. I opened my eyes to see the knob on the front door turning. I set aside the wine glass.
The door opened to show a shadow standing in the porch. It resolved itself as it stepped forward in the light: black hoodie, jeans, balaclava. He pulled off the mask.
The fake tattoo on the neck was gone. So was the made-up scarring on the face. His hair was now black instead of golden. He was shorter too, having gotten rid of the temporary height extenders I had fitted to his legs.
“Hello Raphael,” I said.
Day 2—7:00 pm
Detective Boyd’s house call had left me a very worried man. I was still debating what to do next when Kathy called and started talking about paradoxes and split personalities. That’s when it came to me—the faint glimmerings of a solution. It wasn’t a hundred percent clear yet, but the outlines of a plan were beginning to emerge.
I decided to contact him on our mutually-agreed-upon secure chatroom. I knew he would be monitoring it.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello Andy.”
