Chapter Thirteen: Dinner Time

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

Dinner Time

Patrick stood with his back against the door, watching as Clare bent over, weeping hysterically. What are we going to do now? she’d asked, but he had no response to that one. He could feel the vibrations in the wood as the Doberman launched itself at the door as if trying to use its head as a battering ram, much as Patrick had used the two-by-four as one on the cell door.

The two-by-four!

He dashed down the stairs, moving so suddenly and quickly that it startled a gasp out of Clare. At the bottom of the stairs, he snatched up the beam from where it had fallen once punching its way through the hole where the doorknob had once been. He held it near one end and gave it a few test swings, as if it were a baseball bat. The thing was lighter than he would have liked, lacking substantial heft, but it did have the wicked nails sticking out of either end.

“What do you plan to do with that?” Clare asked. She’d come down the stairs and taken a seat on