Cautiously, still in stocking feet, Margaret left the house.
Her thoughts flashed back to Sevren Adkins, the man who’d left the torso of one of his victims in her trunk in North Carolina.
But she was sure Adkins was dead. A copycat?
She studied the neighborhood. Saw nothing unusual.
Her Lexus was less than a dozen paces away. She pressed the keyless unlock button twice, and the car made two soft blips as the four-way flashers blinked on and then off.
Weapon out, she approached the driver’s side.
Made sure no one was under the vehicle.
Clear.
Checked the front and back seats. Clear.
She surveyed the area one last time, steadied her gun. Then pressed the trunk release button: the trunk clicked open slightly, but not high enough yet for her to see inside.
Margaret steeled herself and reached for the handle.
105
2 minutes left…
9:27 p.m.
A DVD was in the trunk, a note beside it: “I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I did filming it.” She felt a surge of dread, gazed around the neighborhood one last time, then took the DVD inside to watch it, thinking only of what Adkins, or his copycat, might have done to Lewis.
Out the back window, Tessa saw someone in the backyard.
Just a glimpse of shadowy movement along the edge of the rock wall.
“Detective Warren! He’s in the yard!” Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew.
It’s him. It’s him. It’s Adkins!
Cheyenne leveled her gun, slid to the back door, opened it a crack, yelled, “Stop and put your hands to the side!”
The figure fired a shot toward the house and dove for cover.
We still didn’t know what would happen at 9:29.
An attack on Cheyenne? On Tessa? On me?
A bomb?
So far we only had evidence of C-4 found in the back of the van that the killers had used to transport their victims.
That was all. Nothing else.
But they transported more than their victims back there, Pat. They transported What is obvious is not always what is true.
No, it’s not.
But sometimes it is.
They’d also transported the wheelchair in the back of the van.
And now it was in the FBI Lab. I whipped out my phone.
Punched in Angela’s number.
A second gunshot, and the doorframe just inches from Detective Warren’s face shattered. Tessa cried out, but Cheyenne hardly flinched, just crouched to a shooting stance. Studied the yard.
Tessa noticed a smear of movement in the deep shadows, a figure edging carefully toward the house. “There!” she cried. “By the wall!”
“Stop!” Detective Warren aimed.
The man flicked his hand up, fired. The window above Tessa blistered apart, showering glass onto her.
And then, time froze.
Ice covered everything, stilled everything.
For a fraction of a second, Tessa saw Detective Warren’s body tense.
And then she took a shot.
Another. A third.
The ice of the moment shattered, and Tessa felt as if fragments of time and sound and fear were falling all around.
Then silence.
The night was still.
Her heart was hammering, hammering. She peered out the window.
“Stay low,” Detective Warren warned.
But before she ducked down, Tessa saw a man sprawled near the rock wall skirting the woods. He was on his back, his gun a few feet from his right hand. His face turned the other direction.
“You got him?” Tessa said. Dry, airless words.
“Yes.” Detective Warren still had her gun aimed at him.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” To Tessa she seemed unbelievably calm. “You stay here.”
“You’re not going out there!”
“I have to see if he’s still alive.”
“So you might have missed?”
“I didn’t miss.” Detective Warren opened the door and, gun ready, arms taut, stepped onto the back deck. “I’ll be right back.”
Brad thought of the murders at the Styles house last month. Thought of the woman and the two cops. Thought of how he had laid so still on the carpet, waiting for one of them to approach him, the shotgun just within his reach.
He thought of those things now. Everything coming full circle.
But this time with a little twist.
His watch vibrated on his wrist.
Time’s up.
106
It happens now…
9:29 p.m.
The bomb at the FBI Lab exploded.
Chelsea positioned the unconscious woman in the tub and opened a second bottle of drain cleaner.
Tessa stared out the window, watching Detective Warren step careful and catlike toward the body.
Margaret Wellington popped the DVD into her computer.
I swung the car to a stop.
Only seconds ago I’d heard gunshots from behind the house.
I leaped out. Unholstered my weapon.
Sprinted around the corner of the house and saw a woman.
“Stop!” I yelled.
“It’s me!” Cheyenne’s voice. “I got him. Over here.”
“How many shooters?”
“Unknown.”
I eyed the tree line, looking for movement. Covered Cheyenne. She was approaching the rock wall that fringed the lawn. A body lay on the ground. “Is that Adkins?”
“I didn’t see his face.” She was less than five meters from the body.
“Where’s Tessa?”
“In the house.”
“I’m going in.” But I’d only made it two steps when Cheyenne gasped. “Hurry, Pat! It’s-”
A gunshot erupted from the shadows near the back deck. I heard a deep, solid slap! behind me, and knew instantly what it was-a bullet hitting a human target.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cheyenne crumple against the stone wall.
No, no, no, no!
Darkness seemed to breathe on me.
Inhaling.
Exhaling. Shadows panting all around me. I sprinted to her.
Scanned the woods. The deck. Still no movement.
She’d been shot in the right side and was gasping for breath. She had her left hand over the wound, but bright, frothy blood was oozing between her fingers. Her lung. She’s hit in the lung.
I heard sirens, but they were too far away to get here in time.
No visual on the shooter.
She’ll bleed out!
As quickly and carefully as I could, I moved her three meters to the opening in the wall so she wouldn’t be exposed in the field. Then I called 911.
Darkness.
Breathing.
Get to the house, Pat. You have to find Tessa!
In a handful of seconds I told the dispatcher what I knew about Cheyenne’s GSW and explained exactly where she was.
“Go,” Cheyenne coughed. “I’ll be all right… just…” Her voice trailed off.
She was still pressing against the wound, but when I put my hand on hers I realized she wasn’t applying enough pressure to stop the bleeding. She’s too weak. “You need to press harder,” I told her urgently.
Get to Tessa, you have to get to Tessa!
Cheyenne’s eyes fluttered, then closed. She went limp, unconscious. “Cheyenne!” I slapped her cheek, but it didn’t rouse her.
You can’t stay. You have to go!
I saw a glimmer of light in the house. A flashlight moving through the living room.
No!
Tessa would lay low, wouldn’t use a flashlight.
I tilted Cheyenne to her side, wound against the ground, so her body weight would at least provide a little pressure, maybe slow the bleeding, keep it from pooling, flooding the other lung. Maybe it would buy her a few extra minutes until the EMTs arrived.
I rose to sprint to the house and finally saw the face of the person Cheyenne had shot.
Paul Lansing.
No!
Hastily, I knelt beside him, felt for a pulse. Nothing. No pulse. No breathing. Cheyenne had put three shots center mass, and his chest was shredded, blood-drenched.