Relentless

here.”
    “No. He’ll come in that way, to stop us leaving.”
    She was right.
    “Back door, front door,” I said.
    “Then where? On foot, in the rain, with a dog?”
    Lassie whined.
    Snatching her purse from the secretary, Penny said, “Upstairs.”
    “There’s no way out from there.”
    “Upstairs,”
she urged, and I trusted her.
    As Penny led us into the hallway, I realized that Milo was carrying one of the mysterious devices of his design that had been linked to his computer. It was the size of a bread box.
    “Heavy?” I asked as I followed him.
    “Yeah.”
    “Gimme.”
    “No.”
    “I won’t break it.”
    “No.”
    A loud noise at the farther end of the hall might have been Waxx kicking open the door between the garage and house. Stepping out of sight into the foyer, I didn’t glance back, so I didn’t know if we had been seen.
    Penny climbed the stairs, and Lassie scampered ahead of her.
    By the time I followed Milo into the upstairs hall, Penny was quietly pulling a door shut. Farther along the hallway, she closed another door. She was giving Waxx places to search before he got to the room in which we actually took refuge, which was the third room on the right, into which she disappeared with Lassie at her heels.
    Although I couldn’t be certain, I thought I heard someone coming up the stairs behind us.
    When Milo and I entered the third room, Penny closed that door as silently as she had closed the others, and she engaged a deadbolt.
    If Waxx was prepared to shoot his way inside, a mere deadbolt would not long delay him.
    We were in the master bedroom.
    Paneled corner to corner in black marble, the wall opposite the bed featured a stunning contemporary fireplace.
    On the hearth stood a handsome set of stainless-steel fireplace tools. The poker would have been an acceptable weapon—if Waxx had been armed with a Wiffle bat instead of a gun.
    From her purse, Penny fished the ring of keys that Marty and Celine had given her. She selected an electronic key: a plastic wedge about as big as a corn chip.
    Elsewhere on the second floor, Waxx kicked open a door.
    The face of the fireplace mantel featured a ring motif carved in themarble. The center ring was the largest, and all the others were the same, smaller size.
    Penny held the electronic key to the large ring. A code reader beeped, and to the left of the fireplace, a concealed door—one of the panels of marble—swung open on a pivot hinge. A light brightened automatically in the space beyond.
    Years ago, during construction, Marty mentioned that the house would have a panic room, but he never said where it would be located. Evidently, he recently walked Penny through it in case she needed to show it to a qualified buyer.
    Another crash, elsewhere on the second floor, sounded nearer than the first.
    Lassie padded through the secret door as if she knew all about such things and was not in the least surprised or impressed, and Milo followed his dog.
    As disrespectful of other people’s property as ever we had known him, Waxx kicked the master-bedroom door, but it held.
    “Hurry,” Penny whispered as I stepped through the marble wall.
    Beyond lay a windowless shaft and a spiral staircase. The steel landing and treads were covered with textured rubber to facilitate a quiet descent.
    In the bedroom, Waxx kicked the door again.
    Milo followed the dog down the winding stairs.
    As I stepped after Milo and as Penny came onto the landing behind me, I didn’t hear gunfire, although I heard what must have been the consequences of it: the hard crack of splintering wood, the metallic bark of bullet-scored metal. Waxx was shooting out the lock.
    In spite of the rubberized treads, a silent descent was not possible. Our passage sent vibrations through the spiral structure, an insectile hum that echoed off the walls.
    Glancing back, I saw Penny descending. The secret door was closedtight at the top. I hoped sufficient insulation would prevent the noise we made from being heard in the master bedroom.
    But it might not matter if Waxx heard us. He wouldn’t have an electronic key, wouldn’t know where the door was hidden, and could not shoot his way through marble.
    Perhaps I should have felt safe. Instead, I felt trapped.

   Because he needed both hands to carry the electronic device, Milo could not use the handrail. Watching him descend unsteadily in front of me, I worried that he would fall. Although the treads were sheathed in rubber, the spiral