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“I got to the kitchen and shut the fridge, but not before I saw that the back door was standing open with a trail of blood leading out. There was broken glass all over the floor, all over everything. She could’ve been bleeding from cuts or bullet wounds. No way of knowing. I couldn’t see but a few feet beyond the door out into the yard, and I didn’t want to risk turning the light back on.”
“He was still out there?”
“In order to find out, I’d have been shot.”
“You didn’t see him?”
“No.”
“But you returned fire.”
“In anger. I wasn’t really aiming at anything. I couldn’t see anything. I just wanted the motherfucker to know that he’s on borrowed time.”
Compton rubbed her forehead again. “Any vehicle?”
“I’ll get to that. But at the time, I got a sense that he was still there, waiting for the rest of us to show ourselves. In addition to our guards, he would have been expecting five of us, right?”
“I assume.”
“I stayed where I was and listened but didn’t hear a thing, nothing to indicate that Dawn was alive, nothing that would give away his position if he was still there. Not knowing if he was or not, or what kind of firepower he had left, I went back upstairs.”
“Elle was unharmed?”
“If you consider her second shooting in sixty days not to be harmful.” He waited a beat before adding, “We managed to escape.”
“How?”
“That small room where you and Perkins interrogated me before everyone else arrived? Remember there’s a door that opens onto an exterior staircase? We went out that way.”
“I didn’t notice a door or a staircase.”
“Well, I did. Want to know why? Because I was already looking for an escape hatch. This setup was a fucking joke. Why didn’t you have badasses protecting us? Like the marshal’s service?”
“They’re federal.”
“They’re federal,” he muttered. “Between those deputies, they had two six-shot revolvers and a rifle, and it was propped against the front doorjamb. The security cameras out there are for show.”
“You have every right to be angry and upset.”
“You’re fucking right I do,” he shouted.
“Vent later, Calder. I’ll listen. But right now I need you to stay steady. Are you and Elle away from the house?”
“Yeah, we made it across the clearing and into the woods. I called 911, and then you.”
“Do you feel safe there?”
“Partially. The vehicle? I can’t describe it, but as we were running across the clearing, it was speeding down the road that leads to the highway. All I saw were taillights, but I think he’s gone.”
“How’d the car get there without somebody hearing it coming?”
“Sims was asleep. Weeks was diddling with his phone. He’s still got his ear pods in. And I was… upstairs.”
Compton took a breath. “Okay.” She looked over at Perkins, and he held up his hand, fingers spread. “They’re five minutes out,” she said to Calder. “We’ll tell them to look for you in the woods. Which direction from the house?”
“The side with the exterior staircase. Whichever that is.”
“Stay hunkered down till first responders get there, but when they do, if you’re ordered to come out with your hands up, do it. Surrender that pistol you took off Sims. Turn yourselves over to the highest-ranking officer. He or she will see to it that you’re protected.”
