The phone rang again.
"I have to ignore it, don't I?"
I didn't respond to Ray's question but I counted the rings. After twelve rings, the sound stopped. I waited an inordinate time for ring number thirteen to begin.
Ray Welle narrowed his eyes and said, "I wonder if that someone else you're talking about picked it up." Keeping the gun aimed at my chest, Welle backed into the master bedroom and lifted a cordless phone from its charger. He was walking back toward me as he touched the button that would open the connection.
I half expected that Kimber's indelicate whisper would carry right back down the hall.
But all I heard was dial tone.
Ray lowered the phone back to its cradle. Looking down at the lights lit up on the base unit, he said, "Someone's on the other line." I said, "What?"
"You weren't lying before. The second line's lit up. Someone's on the second phone line."
Kimber, what on earth are you up to?
"Where is he?" Welle demanded.
"I don't know."
"Bull. Doesn't matter. I'll find him. There aren't that many places in the house with extensions on that line."
His eyes took on an evil cast.
"Get up. Come with me. I know just where to put you while I sort this out."
I opened my mouth to scream a warning to Kimber.
The closet. The guest-room closet.
As Ray marched me closer to the wooden door I felt repelled by it as though it and I were magnets with opposite charges. My steps shortened the way my dog Emily's do when I'm leading her somewhere she doesn't want to go. My weight rocked back on my heels.
Ray Welle said, "Open it." I said, "I can't." I was as helpless as a four-year-old being asked to volunteer an arm for a shot.
He said, "I know a little something about the psychology of motivation," and shoved the barrel of the gun between my shoulder blades.
His strategy worked. I reached down for the knob and opened the door.
Instantly, an overhead light lit the small space. The switch must have been built into the doorjamb.
Ray said, "Look at that shelving, that detail, the edge work. Even in the damn closets. That was Gloria's thing. Detail."
"It's very nice," I stammered.
"Get in"
"I…"
"Get… in" I stepped in. The gun in my back was, once again, a significant inducement. Ray slammed the door behind me. The light blinked off. I heard him fumble with a key. As he turned it in the lock, I felt as much as heard the bolt throw.
What, I thought, no chair?
Would the gunshots come immediately?
I didn't know. One argument I was making to myself was that Welle couldn't really afford to shoot me through the door. If he did, he could hardly argue that he was protecting himself or his property from an intruder. He'd have to come back and get me, then march me someplace else before he shot me.
The closet was large enough for a chair but not quite big enough to get a running start to bust the door down. I tried three or four times to no avail.
Each time I rammed against the door with my lowered shoulder I bounced harmlessly back off the pine. With the heel of my stockinged feet I managed to crack one of the door's raised panels, but I couldn't get it to bust out.
I needed to warn Kimber that Ray had gone looking for him. I started screaming, "He locked me in the closet! He's by himself in the house! He has a gun!"
I repeated the refrain twice, then a third time, pausing between warnings to listen for the sound of gunshots in the distant parts of the house.
I heard nothing.
The shelves in the closet held little. Some folded linens. A down pillow. The built-in drawers were empty, awaiting Rays next guest's clothing. I climbed the lower shelves to run my hand along the upper ones. On top I found two empty shoeboxes and a tied bundled of satin hangers.
The phone rang again.
It rang and rang. This time no one answered.
Kimber?
With a foot on a shelf on each side of the closet, I felt along the ceiling for the light fixture to see if there was something up there that I could break off to use as a tool to get out of the closet or, if Ray Welle came back, as a weapon. But there was no light fixture; the closet bulb was enclosed in a recessed can. A few inches behind it I felt a ridge of wood, a strip of molding.
I traced the molding with my fingers-it framed an opening about two feet square-and moved the palm of my hand to the recessed center of the square and pushed. The panel gave just a little. My heart jumped. This little door meant attic access.
This little door meant freedom. I climbed up another shelf in the closet for leverage.
The door proved hard to budge. I was afraid the shelves were going to yield before I was able to push it open. Finally it gave, and I poked my head into the attic.
The place was huge. The true size of the house wasn't apparent to someone walking through it on the main floor. Inside the house, walls divided the rooms and the true volume of the space was disguised. But the attic had no dividing walls; one immense cavernous vault capped the sprawling home below. And although the house was technically a ranch, with all its living space on one floor, no such limitations ruled the attic space. The height of the attic varied tremendously, not only to accommodate the vagaries of the home's roofline, but also to accommodate the varying heights of the ceilings inside the house.
What I needed was a circulation vent-a louvered opening-that I could remove or kick out to permit myself egress from the attic. To find a vent I had to get from the center of the house to the perimeter. I began to raise myself to the lip of the opening to begin my search.
In rapid order, three sharp blasts from a gun pierced into the enclosed space in the closet. Immediately all strength left my arms and legs. I fell from my perch near the ceiling and tumbled to the floor in a heap.
My fall destroyed the bottom shelf and made a racket. I moaned.
While I waited for more shots I held my breath. But the next sounds I heard were footsteps retreating and an amplified voice from outside the house. One of the cops was calling something to someone inside the house on a loudspeaker. I couldn't understand the words. Finally, I exhaled.
The gunshots had destroyed enough of the door so that light was entering the closet. I could reach my hand through one of the openings and almost touch the doorknob, but not quite. I persisted, slicing my forearm on the splintered wood.
The key was still in the lock. My arm tendons screamed in protest as I twisted my hand to turn the key.
Through the open attic door I heard footsteps above me. Someone was running fast toward the far end of the house, above the master bedroom. More shots rang out.
The blasts seemed to follow the footfalls across the roof.
I felt blind. Activity was going on all around me and I could only guess what was actually happening elsewhere in the house.
I pushed the closet door open and prepared to make a run for safety. But before I took off I looked back into the closet. Had I not been climbing to the attic, the shots that had been fired through the door would have hit me. For sure.
I saw no one as I made my way first to the laundry room, then to the mudroom. I flung open the mudroom door and sprinted toward the police car with my hands high above my head. In what felt like slow motion, I watched two rifles rotate toward me. I dove to the ground screaming, "No! It's me! Help!"
Someone barked, "Hold fire!"
I looked up and back at the house. Russ Claven was crouching on the roof, staring down at the clerestory windows that lit the long central hall. He was tracking someone's movements below. I wondered whether he was tracking Kimber or following Ray Welle. Russ scampered catlike farther down the roof, hovering at the skylights above the master bedroom. He pointed straight down and nodded his head.
I climbed to my feet and ran like the wind to the protection provided by the parked cars, arriving just as Percy Smith was directing his officers to take aim with their rifles in the direction of the master bedroom suite. I hugged Flynn.