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Westerley managed to slide one leg into his uniform pants, but the other got tangled in material halfway in. He hopped around for a while on one bare foot.
By the time he’d gotten his other leg through and was buttoning and zipping up his pants, Beth had her nightgown on and was frantically trying to arrange the sheets and fluff his pillow so it would appear that she’d been in bed alone.
Finished with the bed, she went to the window and pulled the shade back slightly with one finger so she could peek outside.
“We’ll hear them drive up,” Westerley said, trying to reassure both of them.
“You’ve gotta be outta here before then, Wayne.” Beth didn’t sound reassured.
“Don’t I know it.” He plopped his Smokey hat on his head, knowing he looked ridiculous standing there shirtless and barefoot, but he didn’t want to forget the hat. He could leave his shirt unbuttoned, work his feet into his boots without socks. The important thing was to back the SUV out from behind the house and down the driveway before the state police showed up. He’d have to do a hell of lot of explaining otherwise.
Beth, still at the window, said, “Holy shit, Wayne!”
Westerley stood frozen with his shirt in his hand. “What?”
“Link’s out there! And he’s got a gun. Gotta be a shotgun. He keeps one locked up in the garage.”
“He’s not due till tomorrow night.”
“Whenever he’s due, he’s here!” She stared at Westerley with huge eyes. “Remember he’s the Skinner, Wayne. He’s a killer!”
What Westerley remembered was that he’d left his nine-millimeter handgun in its holster hanging by its belt over the back of a kitchen chair. He broke for the kitchen but took only two steps before tripping over his boots and sprawling on the floor.
He started to get up and dropped back down hard when pain jolted like electricity through his right elbow where he’d bumped it on the floor.
Funny bone. I get the message.
I’ll be shooting left-handed!
He tried to stand up again and had made it about halfway when he heard the brass chain lock on the front door clatter. The chain rattled louder, Link testing the door.
Westerley barely made it out of the bedroom, and thought for a second he might make it to the kitchen and his gun, and maybe even out the back door. He would be armed then, out in the night, where he could formulate some sort of plan.
That at least might draw Link outside. Westerley wasn’t going to leave Beth here alone with Link and his shotgun.
But the sheriff didn’t have the time he thought he had. Link kicked the door open and stepped inside with the shotgun, looking at Westerley with eyes that might as well have been corneal transplants from a shark.
Quinn braked the Taurus and made a sharp right into the driveway. He almost hit the car parked off to the side, half on the grass.
“Ho, boy!” Pearl said, pointing ahead through the windshield.
They both saw the dark figure of a man kick open the front door and enter the house, carrying a rifle or shotgun.
“Let’s go into the kitchen where we can sit down and talk about this,” Westerley said. He kept his voice calm while his mind darted this way and that. He had to defuse this situation. “We can have us a couple of beers.”
“I don’t fancy one of my beers,” Link said.
He racked the shotgun’s mechanism and a shell popped out of the breech, bounced on the floor, and rolled in a half circle.
“I got more in the magazine,” he said.
“Don’t make a move,” a man’s voice said behind Link. It was an authoritative voice speaking slowly and carefully. “There are two guns aimed at your back, and we’re too close to miss.”
Link didn’t move. The shotgun remained pointed directly at Westerley.
Westerley gave him a level look and said, “Stand down, Link.”
Link said, “Get in here, Beth.”
Quinn heard shuffling on a bare wood floor, then saw a frail-looking woman with a pretty but haggard face walk stiff-legged with fear from the bedroom. She was wearing only a nightgown and a pair of oversized fuzzy pink slippers.
Link Evans hadn’t moved a muscle since Quinn and Pearl had entered the house. He remained still. “Come to me, Beth. Come to your husband.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Beth,” Westerley said.
Link laughed. It sounded like a dog’s single, guttural bark. “She doesn’t do it and I’ll blow your heart clear out through your back.”
“I think you’re gonna do that anyway,” Westerley said. So calm and easy it made Link want to kill him right then.
“This isn’t a walk in the park, asshole!”
“We all know that, Evans,” Quinn said. He kept his tone even, almost casual. Evans was revving up for something. On the keen edge.
Evans still hadn’t turned and looked at Quinn and Pearl. In a way, he was dismissing them. In Link’s mind they were part of the game but predictable and controllable. He was ready to lose his life, if that’s what it came down to. Quinn knew that. Knew how dangerous Link Evans was right now.
Beth kept her gaze fixed on her husband and moved softly and slowly, as if she didn’t want to wake something lightly sleeping, until she stood only a few feet from him. She was obviously trying not to tremble. Cold with terror.
“Got your car keys in one of those pants pockets?” Link asked Westerley.
Westerley nodded.
“Pull ’em out so I can see for sure.”
Westerley did, holding the keys at waist level away from his body.
Smoothly and so fast it surprised everyone, the shotgun barrel moved to aim at Beth.
“We’re gonna leave the back way, out through the kitchen,” Link said. “You, me, and Beth. You lead the way, Sheriff.”
Quinn and Pearl watched as the three of them went single file into the kitchen, the shotgun barrel steady and aimed at Beth Evans. Where she moved, it followed. It was a compass needle and she was magnetic north.
As soon as they were in the kitchen, Link Evans glanced quickly back at Quinn and Pearl. He actually gave them a thin smile as he pushed the kitchen door closed behind him.
Quinn heard the metallic cluck of a lock and what sounded like a chair being shoved beneath the doorknob.
He and Pearl were locked out of the kitchen.
Pearl looked at Quinn and silently mouthed an obscenity.
He motioned for Pearl to follow him, and they went out the front door fast and hurried around toward the back of the house, toward where he remembered Westerley’s SUV was parked. He figured Evans would make Westerley drive, with Beth in the passenger seat. Evans would sit in back with the shotgun, making sure the two up front didn’t misbehave.
As they crept cautiously along the side of the house, Quinn had that much figured out.
All he needed now was some kind of plan.
84
Link motioned with the shotgun for them to leave by the back door. It was such a small but unmistakable movement of the long barrel that the opportunity to jump him was here and gone in an instant, before Westerley could respond.
Beth was gripping Westerley’s right arm now. Squeezing hard. That didn’t help the sore elbow.
Link gave her a shove, and her hand fell away from Westerley. Link’s effort made the shotgun barrel momentarily drop. Beth was fumbling nervously with the chain lock on the back door, momentarily diverting Link’s attention from Westerley.
This time Westerley seized his opportunity. There was nothing to lose by rolling the dice. Link had come into the house to kill them. Now they were only alive because they had temporary value as hostages.
Westerley dived for the kitchen chair, where his holstered nine-millimeter dangled from its black leather belt draped over the chair’s wooden back. The belt came free even though the chair toppled. Westerley rolled, trying to be as difficult a target as possible while he wrestled the heavy Glock handgun from its holster. He was vaguely aware of Beth screaming, of Link shouting something at him, but it all seemed to be happening dreamlike and at a distance.