So, bottom line, he’d waited until they’d driven away before he got the gun out and stored it next to his bed.
And now he had it in his hand, loaded, with the safety off, a round racked in the chamber. Ready for action.
Something had made that noise. He told himself that it was probably just an animal — raccoon, opossum, skunk — messing with the garbage cans, but he wanted to be sure.
His bedroom was on the second floor and he walked out into the hallway to the top of the stairs. Next, as quietly as possible, he started descending, slowly, a step at a time, listening.
And there it was, the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming out in the street. And then voices. Could it be laughter?
On the ground floor now, crossing the foyer in only a couple of steps, he got his hand on the knob and flung open the door. At least two figures were moving out on his front lawn, shadows in the dark. “Hey!” Turning on the light over the front door, he yelled, “Who’s there? What’s happening out here?”
But at the exact same moment, before there could be any response from the people on the lawn, came the unmistakable sound of glass breaking somewhere in the house, back toward his parents’ bedroom.
Whatever was going on, they had him all but surrounded.
Chris realized, maybe a little too late, that he hadn’t thought it through enough.
Of course the doors were going to be locked. Did he think he was just going to be able to stroll in and clear the jewelry off the dresser and then leave the way he’d come?
But he was already here at the goddamn back door to the bedroom. He’d crossed the whole backyard and come up around the pool, and when he realized that the door was locked, he slammed at the mullioned windows as hard as he could with his whole body. They were just windows. He couldn’t believe they could be that tough to break.
But they didn’t. And also the good deadbolt lock didn’t give. Not an inch.
Still standing just outside the door, he considered that he should just give up and come back another night with a better plan, maybe bring some tools to help him break in. But abandoning the idea when he was this close just didn’t sing for him. He could still get it done. He was right here, right now. He had to make it happen.
The house was dark and empty and silent. Slamming against the door didn’t appear to have woken up Jason. Peering through the glass, he saw that there were no lights on inside.
He’d just have to blast his way in, then be fast and efficient. He knew exactly where the jewelry was. Just get in, he thought, and get out.
The Trents had large and decorative river stones that Chris remembered up by their house and now he grabbed one and slammed it against the window; it broke with a deafening crash next to the doorknob. Reaching through the opening, he found the deadbolt and gave it a turn, and when he pushed it, the door opened.
As he stepped in over the broken glass, a light in the hallway came on under the bedroom door. Jason was definitely up now. Chris heard him calling out to someone way down the hallway by the front door.
And then, clearly not out by the front door any longer, now coming Chris’s way, Jason yelled again. “Hey! Whoever you are, get the hell out of here! I’ve got a gun and I’ll shoot your fucking ass!”
There wasn’t time for any reaction except for Chris to lunge at the hallway door to the bedroom, which had its own deadbolt. That door was already closed, but he had to make sure it was locked, so he flicked on the lights. He then tried the lock, and a good thing he did, because it turned and the bolt shot home.
It was just in time, as Jason threw himself up against the door. “God damn it. God damn it. Open up!”
Jason slammed his gun hand against the wood of the door, but it didn’t budge. Not learning much from the experience, he tried doing the same thing again.
But this time, the damn gun went off with a resounding boom.
When Jason had first opened the front door and called out, turning on the light over the front door, Dawn went into ballistic mode and kept ordering her two companions to keep on with the job, to get as much TP as they could draped over the shrubs and hedges that bordered the yard and walkway.
Meanwhile, though she wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to do it, she’d deal with Jason. Getting him under her control had never been a problem before. She’d figure something out. She knew she could distract him enough for Carrie and Emily to cover some more of the shrubbery with the TP rolls, and that pretty much directly related to how important her and Jason’s relationship was to her. The more she trashed the front of his house, the more she loved him.
He’d get that. He was cool. He totally got the code and would understand the risk she was taking to proclaim her love and devotion.
But then, all of a sudden, just as the front porch light came on overhead, Jason turned and went off somewhere, out of sight, into the house.
And now a shot! It had to be a shot. What else could it be?
“Holy shit!” she screamed, rushing up to the front door. “Jason! Jason!”
There he was, off to her left, standing in the hallway (looking pretty darned awesome with no shirt on) with a gun in his hand by the door to his parents’ room. Turning, he spread his hands. “Dawn! What the hell? What are you doing here? What’s happening?”
She moved a couple of steps into the house toward him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you doing? Who’s in my parents’ room?”
“I don’t know. What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about somebody’s in there right now.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“Yeah, I’m fucking kidding you.” He flat-handed his free hand at the door again, screaming at the closed door. “Get the fuck out!”
Dawn took another step toward him. “I heard a shot. Did somebody shoot at you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He held his gun out so she could see it. “This thing is my dad’s and it just went off when I slammed it up against the door. I’m all right.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m God damn sure, Dawn. What? I wouldn’t know if I’m fucking shot?”
Dawn drew on a quick pout and spoke in her most authoritative voice. “You don’t have to talk to me that way, Jason. You’ve got no reason to be mad at me. I’m only here to help you because I heard a shot from out there. Jesus.”
“Well, help me by telling me who is in this room.”
“I don’t know. Some bad person. I don’t know anything about that. How would I know that?” Another step toward him. “Whoever it is, Jason, we’ve got to get out of here. We can call the police from outside. Let them take care of it.”
Jason threw a glance at his girlfriend, then slapped at his parents’ door one last time. “Whoever you are... fuck you! Get out of my house!”
Dawn reached out, took his hand and began to pull him back down the hallway to the front door. “Come on, Jason. Come on.”
Sheriff Deputies Greg Trudeaux and Paul Walker were almost terminally worn down from their shift so far tonight, which like so many other nights had entailed breaking up couples who were making out on the levee a couple of miles south of town. Typically, there was underage alcohol involved, to say nothing of underage girls, and most of the time Greg and Paul just gave everybody the relevant warnings, took and poured out their drinks, and told them to get on home.
Usually nobody was really drunk, but even when they were, the way it got handled was one of the deputies would drive the kids’ car back to one of their parents’ houses, where the parents could then deal with the problem. It was the kind of town that liked to pretend, against all evidence to the contrary, that it didn’t have a teenage drinking problem, so the word from on high was at all costs to avoid writing anybody up so the DUI would not appear on the record of any of these good kids.