The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [101]
That left one direction: up.
The enormous copper kettle was supported by three heavy wooden beams. One stood upright. One branched out horizontally from the top of the vertical post. One angled between the two, a brace that supported the horizontal piece. The sum total looked distressingly like a gallows. But from that high beam she’d be able to scramble to the rafters. Those would be out of the dog’s reach. At least Chloe hoped so.
If she tried to crawl onto the kettle rim to start the climb she’d likely fall into a thousand pounds of hot, coagulating milk. But behind her, and a little to one side, was the more solid square of bricked masonry that encased Frieda’s old laundry kettle. Chloe felt a tiny flicker of hope.
A split-second assessment extinguished it. She couldn’t clamber onto the masonry without the dog reaching her. Even if she miraculously managed to get that far, gaining the upper horizontal beam was beyond her. On a good day. If only—
The German shepherd lunged.
Chloe dropped the harp and launched, scrabbling and scraping and pushing. As she got her butt on the brickwork she felt a sharp tug on one leg. She braced for pain, but the dog had only snagged her jeans. He jerked her leg back and forth like a chew toy. She kicked. Denim gave way with a harsh ripping sound.
Chloe got her feet beneath her on the brickwork, and kept going. Her arms grabbed for the upper beam, wrapped around it convulsively.
Upper body strength had never been part of Chloe’s physiology. In college, on whitewater canoe trips, she had more than once gotten wet because while she had the skill to read rapids, she didn’t have the brute force sometimes needed to run them. In junior high gym class, confronted with climbing ropes, she’d never made it more than a foot or two off the floor. On the elementary school playground, she’d never made it across the monkey bars.
Evidently primal fear affected physiology more than children’s taunts because somehow, grunting and flailing, Chloe managed to get one leg hooked over the horizontal beam. Then the other. For a moment she hung there koala-like, hugging the beam, panting. So far so good. But true safety would come only by reaching the top of the horizontal beam.
Her arms trembled violently. How hot was that milk below her, anyway? She really didn’t want to know.
You have to try, she told herself. Right now. There was no point in pissing around, wasting what little strength she had left.
Chloe clenched her teeth, scrunched her eyes closed, and scraped her right leg against the beam until the wood was under one knee. Then she gathered herself up tight and made one violent wrenching twist upwards. She heard herself gasping with pain as she wriggled against the beam. She couldn’t manage another true heave but instead almost willed herself those last inches, up … and over. Finally she was on top of the beam. From there it was an easier heave onto one of the rafters. Chloe lay motionless for a moment, making sure she was balanced, thanking the universe for all favors.
Then she opened her eyes. Dellyn still lay bleeding on the floor. The German shepherd was nowhere in sight.
Chloe didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The damn dog had probably disappeared before she even fought her way to her current perch.
But … what now? She may have clawed her way to a safe spot, but she couldn’t stay there. Not with Dellyn lying on the floor in a pool of whey and blood. Not with Martine and Frieda unaccounted for.
Chloe knew with complete certainty that if she went back down, she would be unable to make the climb again. Not if all of hell’s hounds were coming at her. The dog would probably be back the instant she descended. But what else could she do? She had to try to get help.
Gravity did most of the work. Chloe slipped, slithered, and banged her way back to the floor. Her knees buckled, but with a staggered step or two she managed to stay on her feet. “I’m going for help,” she panted, in case Dellyn might hear.
Chloe picked up