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“Now? It’s the middle of the night.”
“No better time. Hurry. Get dressed.”
“I won’t leave Dawn.”
“I heard her coming downstairs but didn’t let her see me because she would start talking, asking questions. We’ll grab her on our way out. Let’s go.”
She stepped around him, reached for the pair of slacks she’d been wearing all day, and pulled them on over her boxer pajama bottoms. She tugged on a sweater over her tank top.
Calder had felt around in the dark on the floor beside the bed and found her discarded sneakers. He passed them to her. As she worked her feet into them, she asked, “Where are the deputies? They’ll try to stop us.”
“If we’re quiet, we’ll be out before they realize it. Sims is sitting in the hallway, asleep in his chair. Last I saw Weeks, he was in the living room, feet up, on his phone, probably—”
He was interrupted by an eruption of gunfire and a bloodcurdling scream.
For an instant, they froze. Then, “Shit!” Calder propelled Elle toward the closet, opened the door and pushed her inside.
She lunged out. “Dawn.”
He pushed her back into the closet. “Do not come out, and I fucking mean it.” He slammed the door shut.
“Calder!”
He had to ignore her, because all the while, thepop, pop, popof gunfire and shattering glass was unrelenting, and so were Dawn’s screams.
He flung open the door to Elle’s room and ran along the dark hallway, barely catching himself from tumbling down when he reached the top of the staircase. He teetered there, fighting his instinct to plunge headlong into the fight as he had at the fairground.
But the action might draw more fire, put them all in greater danger. If he was dropped by a bullet, he’d be of no help to anyone, just like he’d been of no help to Charlie.
But, fuck it all, he couldn’t do nothing.
He descended the stairs with caution. He called out to Weeks, to Sims, to Dawn. No response, except for Dawn, whose screams could be heard above the deafening barrage of bullets and hailstorm of shattered glass. He figured the shooter must be firing through the row of three windows behind the kitchen table.
All the lights in the kitchen had been shot out, but there was a blue-white glow. The refrigerator light. Dawn had left the door of it open. She must be pinned down, in mortal danger. It would even the playing field if the shooter didn’t have that light.
He shouted, “Dawn, if you can, shut the fridge door!”
But the light stayed on. If he showed himself in the kitchen he’d immediately be fired on. Where the fuck were Weeks and Sims? What could he do without a weapon, without—
Dawn’s screams abruptly stopped. As though a switch had been flipped.
After another rapid series of shots were fired, the gunfire also ceased. The abrupt silence was almost as eerie as the explosive racket. Calder envisioned the shooter reloading in anticipation of another opportunity to kill.
Hearing the creak of old wood behind him, Calder spun around. Elle had made it halfway down the stairs. Furious, he made an emphatic motion with his hand for her to go back up. She mouthed Dawn’s name. He raised his shoulders, then repeated the gesture for her to return upstairs.
She looked mutinous, but she began backing up the stairs. He waited until the darkness at the top of the staircase obscured her; then he bent at the waist and crept toward the kitchen.
But even before he reached the doorway, he saw Sims’s body sprawled on the floor, his torso blown to bits.
Calder didn’t think twice. He took the unfired six-shooter from the dead man’s hand and, with a bloodlust that shocked even him, emptied the cylinder into the darkness beyond the broken windows.
Chapter 24
Compton watched Perkins dip his hand into a bag of potato chips and crunch a mouthful. “How come you can go through bag after bag of those and not get fat?” she groused.
“Life’s unfair.”
“You’re telling me.”
