Chapter Eight: Mirror
Jane ambled over to Penny's room and poked his head inside.
A fantastic mural of Emerald City was splashed across one wall, while the others were lined with framed Wizard of Oz movie posters and shelves that held a motley collection of everything from porcelain Dorothy dolls to a stuffed bear dressed as the Cowardly Lion. Jane even spotted a pair of little-girl-sized ruby slippers poking out from under the bed.
He smiled.
A small, stained-glass rainbow decoration hung in one window, beaming vivid splotches of color down onto the white carpet. Penny sat nearby, playing quietly. She stopped when she sensed Jane in the doorway.
Two saucer-like blue eyes regarded Jane from underneath a neat line of appropriately copper-colored hair.
"Hi," he said softly. "I'm Patrick."
The blue eyes took note of the empty hallway behind him. A crease puckered the girl's forehead.
"Uh, your mom will be right back," Jane assured her.
The crease smoothed out. Penny returned her attention to the small jumble of plastic horses in front of her. She reached out to pick one up, but her hand suddenly hesitated, hovering over the pile.
She looked up at Jane again. "You want to play?"
He grinned. "Sure."
Penny selected a white stallion and held it out to him. "You can be him if you want."
Jane padded into the bedroom to accept his toy. "Thanks."
He settled himself cross-legged on a patch of carpet that was warm and golden with dying sunlight. Penny started fitting a microscopic leather saddle on the brown horse she'd chosen, while Jane held his own steed aloft for appraisal.
"Oh, he looks good and strong…Is he fast, too?" Jane asked.
"Pretty fast," Penny confirmed, without looking up. "Not as fast as her, though…" She pointed to a grey pony near the edge of the pile.
"Ah." Jane nodded sagely. He could hear the soft rumble of voices downstairs as he trotted his horse through fields of sparkling gold.
A foot to Jane's left was the rainbow patch of carpet – jewel-bright colors, streaming down from the stained glass in the window. He called out to Penny in a whisper: "Hey – look." When he had her eyes, Jane danced his horse through the light, watching its body flash ruby, topaz, emerald and sapphire. "A horse of a different color…"
Penny blinked at the display, her face as smooth and placid as any of the Dorothy dolls'. Then, with unexpected suddenness, she smiled.
The expression transformed her features, breathing pink life into pale cheeks, and bringing merry wrinkles to the corners of delighted blue eyes.
A sharp pain lanced through Jane's chest as he watched the metamorphosis – bittersweet blade of things lost, memory of a little smile he'd never see again. But he had to smile back, in spite of the ache.
And for that one short moment, he and Penny were mirror-images: Two sad souls, finding brief happiness. Two happy souls, surviving great sorrow.
They both jumped at the sound of the gunshot.
Penny gasped aloud, her fingers clenching around the brown horse. The little girl's blue eyes stretched dramatically into perfect "O"s. Her mouth started to do the same, and Jane just barely managed to get his hand over it in time.
He looked fiercely into those startled eyes, commanding absolute attention. Penny stared back at him, an invisible thread of unblinking intensity crackling between them. Slowly, wordlessly, Jane pressed a finger to his lips.
Shhhh.
There was no sound downstairs now. None. Just a long, eerie stretch of dead air. Jane and Penny stayed frozen on the floor – silent, breathing, listening.
After sixty seconds, Jane's buzzing nerves couldn't bear it anymore.
He leaned in close, his lips tickling against Penny's ear. "Get under the bed," he breathed. "Don't move, don't make any noise – do you understand?"
She nodded, and he lifted his hand away from her mouth. Penny obediently crawled into the cramped, shadowy space under her mattress, leaving the ruffly edge of the bed skirt swaying behind her.
Jane peeked under the fabric. Penny stared out at him, her eyes wide and white in the darkness. "Just stay here," he whispered. "I'll be right back."
Jane let the ruffle drop, and stood up. The plastic horses lay strewn across the floor. He quickly swept them under the bed with his foot. Then, swallowing dryly, he tiptoed into the hallway.
Plush carpet muffled every careful, creeping step. Jane's heart galloped wild, supercharged with adrenaline. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears. It took effort to keep his movements controlled.
Halfway to the stairwell, Jane paused.
He could hear footsteps downstairs. Heavy clomps of shoes striding boldly across hard floor, unconcerned about being overheard.
Not good.
Jane swallowed and started inching forward again. He made it down the first two steps before stopping once more, this time because there was no need to go further. The living room wall-mirror told him what he needed to know:
Laura Jorsten was sprawled face-up on the floor near the staircase, a neat black hole in the center of her forehead. Her blue eyes were wide open, staring blindly at the ceiling, while wet scarlet pooled out behind her head, staining golden hair cherry red.
Jane instantly retreated from the sight.
Down below, the thumping footfalls continued, broken every few seconds by the creaking and slamming of various doors. Jane struggled to block out the frightening racket. Panicked static seemed to fill his brain, keeping him from doing what he did best: Think.
By the time he got back to Penny's doorway, Jane had forced a few slow, deep breaths, and his neurons were beginning to fire again.
From the sound of things, there was only one person downstairs. An armed person – that was a given. And, judging from the lumbering heaviness of the footsteps, it was most likely a man. An armed man, who was searching the house for something, because Jane could now hear drawers sliding in and out.
The man didn't care about what any witnesses might be seeing or hearing right now because he either A.) had no clue anyone else was in the house, or B.) didn't intend to leave anyone alive.
Jane, for one, didn't intend to stick around and find out.
He sank to his knees and pulled up the edge of the dust ruffle.
"Come on," Jane whispered. "We have to go."
When Penny didn't move, he gently pulled her out and lifted her up by the armpits. She didn't struggle, but her body stayed violin-string tight, and Jane could feel her little heart trying to burst past her ribs.
"Keep quiet," he warned softly, before carrying her out of the room.
Jane's brown shoes sank like ghosts into thick green carpet. His breaths were fast and soundless. He was almost to the staircase when his arms suddenly started to shake.
It frightened him, for an instant – his body doing something unexpected and out of his control. But then Jane realized it wasn't him at all: the little girl had begun to tremble violently, from the top of her copper head to the ends of her pink-painted toenails.
Jane held her tighter, and whispered, "Close your eyes."
Then he started to ease down the steps, graceful and silent as a feline. He tested each one, a little at a time, before stepping down on it fully. None of them had creaked on the way up, but he was forty pounds heavier now.
Inch by inch, the vision of Laura Jorsten's body slipped into view. Jane made sure Penny's eyes were still squeezed tight. He couldn't trust her not to have a loud reaction.
His gaze flicked between the wall-mirror and the front door.
All clear, all clear.
He made it onto the fifth step. The door was only nine steps away. They just needed to get through it. Once they were at his car, Jane was sure they'd be home free…
He took another step.
Six…
Jane suddenly remembered his keys, hanging on that metal cactus. He'd have to grab them on the way out.
Seven…
His hand had started rubbing slow, soothing circles into Penny's tight back. Paternal instinct. Or maybe just human instinct.
Eigh –
Jane's hip nudged the banister. The wood creaked softly, marring the vacuum of stillness. And then he realized –
The stillness.
Jane froze, wobbling in mid-step, his ears on hyper-alert.
There were no more footsteps. No loud squeaks and crashes of doors being opened and slammed. No roll-thunks of drawers being searched. Nothing but Penny's soft breathing.
This wasn't the silence of "The bad guy is gone." This was the silence of "The bad guy is close, and about to pop out."
Jane swallowed. He was still balancing on one foot. The doorway looked deserted, as did the living room.
All clear…
He started to put his foot down, but a sudden shadow of motion made his leg muscles seize. The reflection of a black-clad man rose up, seemingly out of nowhere, on the far side of the living room. Jane lurched backwards up the stairs.
The shooter must've been down on the floor, peering under the couch or one of the love seats. Invisible as a spirit, even to Jane's well-trained eye.
Jane beat a quick and quiet retreat. He carried Penny swiftly to the master bedroom, and eased her down onto the bed. The little girl huddled in the center of the massive, king-sized mattress, looking small and white atop a fluffy cloud of magenta comforter. Her eyes were still closed.
Jane swept aside the curtain and forced open the window's thick lock. Grimacing, he set both hands flat against the glass, and pushed.
Nothing happened.
Jane pushed harder.
The window taunted him; it was painted shut, all along the bottom edge. Fairly hopelessly so.
Jane could find something to break the seal, but it would take time, and the noise of the process would be like yelling for the murderer to come up and kill them. Easier to just break the glass…but again, the noise. And he would have to smash away enough of the shards to make sure he and Penny didn't mortally wound themselves on the way out. Which would take time.
They didn't have time. The killer had to be almost done searching downstairs by now. If he didn't find what he was looking for…
Jane's eyes flicked back onto the open doorway.
The windows in Penny's room were large picture windows, not meant to be opened. The one in the bathroom was even more useless – no addition on that side of the house. Just a long drop onto dry, rock-crusted earth…
Sweat broke out across Jane's forehead. He scrubbed a hand over his face, breathing hard. They didn't have a plan. They needed a plan.
Jane's head swam with indecision:
Break the window or hide? Break the window or hide? Break the window or—
The banister creaked loudly, and the sound wiped his mind clean. Quick as a swooping bat in the night, he had Penny back in his arms, and was darting out of the bedroom.
Jane streaked across the open chasm of hallway and into the bathroom, where he hop-scotched across damp towels and discarded panties to avoid tapping his shoes on the tiles. Penny was unceremoniously deposited on the toilet seat while Jane frantically scooped armfuls of soiled laundry from the hamper. Then the child was being lifted again, up over the lid of the hamper and down inside, into the pocket Jane had just made for her.
Hands shaking, he scrambled to bury her under a spaghetti of white socks and brown pantyhose. Jane watched as Penny's now wide-open blue eyes disappeared in a flurry of falling linens, ignored the small stab in his racing heart, and moved to close the hamper lid.
Jane was just easing it shut the final inch, battling the wicker's natural desire to flex and creak, when the sharp trilling of a cell phone made him whirl around in fright. His brain caught up to the sound half an instant later, and Jane sagged – it wasn't his cell phone. He hadn't been given away… yet.
Jane crept over to the bathroom door just as the ringing stopped.
"Yeah?" said a loud male voice out in the hallway, not far away at all. "No, I'm still here. Just finishing up…What? Hang on a sec, you're breaking up—" There was a pause, and then the voice came back, slightly more distant and muffled. "That's better, I can actually hear you now. Can you hear me?"
Breathing hard and silent, Jane picked up his weapon – an aerosol can of lilac-scented Glade from a shelf near the sink – and held it at the ready as he dared to peer out through the door crack.
Standing about halfway up the staircase, only the killer's head and shoulders were visible. His hair was dark brown and slicked back over his scalp. His back was to Jane. Oblivious to being watched, the man continued his loud phone conversation.
"No, it was no problem – she let me right in…" He laughed. "Yeah…"
Jane swallowed nervously. This was a terrible hiding spot – a small, echoing white room, full of light. Even behind the door, Jane's presence stood out like a sooty fingerprint…
"I'm just tying up a loose end…I'll give you a call as soon as I'm done here…"
Jane gave the Glade a quick shake, trying to ready the contents. A few liquid droplets bounced feebly inside the can. He winced…
…And then he thought of something better.
"Uh-huh. Yeah, but we can talk about that later. Just let me finish up…"
High and dizzy with adrenaline – and watching with hawk eyes, to make sure the killer didn't turn around – Jane slunk back across the hall and into the master bedroom. Here, he quickly traded the air freshener for a heavy glass bottle full of Paul's cologne.
Thus armed, Jane slipped into his new and improved hiding place: the space behind the open bedroom door. With his eye glued to the door-crack, Jane had a perfect view of the bathroom. He could watch, and know when to act.
And, while the man outside was wrapping up his phone call, Jane carefully eased the cell out of his own pocket.
"Right, right, right, I know, but I told you, it'll be taken care of…Okay…"
The last few grains of sand tumbled down through the hourglass as Jane squinted at the keypad, silently debating: Lisbon or 911?
It wasn't a hard decision; Lisbon already knew who he was and where he was, and would have the nearest police unit mobilized after hearing only two whispered words from Jane: "Send help."
So, Jane pressed Speed Dial One on his phone, a pained grimace taking residence on his face as he cursed the soft beep of each button.
"Okay, okay…Bye," said the man in the stairwell.
Jane raised the phone to his ear, and waited.