The Third to Die

by Allison Brennan

  A strange voice was yelling downstairs. PJ only sort of knew what he was saying. He was mad about something. Really, really mad and he said a lot of bad words and said this wasn’t Daddy’s house.

  PJ wanted to help his daddy, but he was so small, and he wasn’t very strong.

  But he could pick up Sheila. He picked her up. A loud crash downstairs made PJ jump and he almost dropped her, but he didn’t, and he held her tight and ran to Jilly and Ashley’s bedroom because they had a really big closet. He went inside with Sheila and closed the door. It was really dark. Sheila started to cry.

  “Shh. Shh. Sheila, no crying.”

  She whimpered. And PJ was very scared, though he didn’t hear anything downstairs other than someone walking around.

  Dad?

  Sheila wailed, and PJ remembered he had cookies in his pocket. He took one out. He couldn’t see anything, but he could feel Sheila’s chubby hands. He put a cookie in her hands and whispered “Cookie.”

  “C-c-cookie.”

  “Eat the cookie,” he whispered.

  She sniffled and PJ hugged her on his lap, all the way in the far corner, behind Jilly’s baseball equipment and Ashley’s stuffed animals and all their dirty clothes they threw in the closet when mom said to clean up their room. Pretty soon PJ thought that he and Sheila were very well hidden and no one could see them even if they opened the door.

  Someone was downstairs breaking stuff. He was so scared, what if the bad man came here? Sheila chomped on the cookie with her four teeth but she wasn’t crying. He hugged her tightly and closed his eyes.

  “We have to be very quiet,” PJ said. “Daddy will get us when the bad man goes away.”

  * * *

  Andy Knolls and Officer Tolliver pulled up in front of the house on Vine Street at 9:45 a.m. It was one of the older homes in town, but had been recently updated and painted and had an addition upstairs. Many of the houses in this neighborhood had done the same thing, and Andy liked what the upkeep did for their small town. He and Gracie had been looking for a house for after they got married—she lived in a duplex next to her parents, and he had a small house he’d bought his third year on the force. But that house wouldn’t be great for raising kids. He’d like to be on the lake, because he liked to fish and hike, but those homes might be too pricey for them on a cop’s salary. Here, though, they could bike in good weather to the lake, and the homes were more affordable. Maybe they could get an older place like this one and fix it up together.

  He called in his location to Abigail. At the same time, the APB came in from Spokane PD with the DMV photo of Glen Hamilton, and a sketch that looked similar but different. Leaner face, shorter and darker hair. He’d seen this guy.

  “Detective?” Tolliver prompted. His hand was on the truck door, but he didn’t open it.

  “Take a good look,” Knolls said. “I know I’ve seen him, but I can’t place it.”

  Tolliver stared. “I haven’t, but I’ve been on traffic detail until two days ago.”

  It would come to him. “The residents are Peter and Denise Richmond. Records show that they’ve lived here nine years.” He nodded toward the porch, which had several bikes stacked. Probably used them over the weekend and hadn’t put them in the garage before the storm. “Looks like they have kids. Don’t want to spook them, but we should convey that they need to be cautious.”

  They got out of the police truck and approached the house. Andy rapped on the door, then they both stepped back. He took a look up and down the snowy street. It was nice, with mature trees, looked like a good neighborhood to raise kids. Most of Liberty Lake was.

  He narrowed his gaze. A dark gray sedan was parked on the T intersection, on Dover Street. Was that a Camry? He couldn’t tell; snowfall was interfering with his sight.

  Tolliver knocked again before Andy could tell his partner to hold off. “They could be at work,” he said.

  Andy spoke into the radio on his lapel. “Officer needs assistance three-six-nine Vine Street. Dark gray Camry parked at corner of Dover and Vine.”

  Tolliver whirled around. “Shit,” he said.

  The door opened.

  Andy put his hand on the butt of his gun. Three thoughts went through his head simultaneously.

  I don’t want to scare the Richmonds.

  I smell blood.

  I know where I’ve seen Hamilton.

  Tolliver was looking at the car.

  Andy was pulling his gun.

  “Hands where I can see them!” Andy ordered Hamilton. “Drop the knife!”

  Glen Hamilton had blood on his clothes and hair, but he had clearly washed his face and hands, which were starkly white against his stained clothing. He ran out the door, right at Andy. Andy pulled his gun, but Glen pushed him down the front stairs before he could fire. His gun fell from his hand into the snow. He reached for it as the knife came down.

  He tried to roll to the side for his weapon.

  “Eric!” Andy shouted. “Shoot him!”

  Sharp pain tore at Andy’s side, a stinging sensation that had him frozen.

  Fight back. Fight back or you’ll die.

  Hamilton screamed, pulled the knife up along Andy’s side, and Andy drew in a sharp breath as waves of agony pulsed through him.

  Eric Tolliver struggled to pull Glen off Andy.

  “Shoot him!” Andy tried to scream again, but he couldn’t catch his breath.

  Hamilton didn’t hesitate. He stabbed Tolliver in the chest as Andy watched, his vision fading.

  Andy reached out and his fingers found his own gun in the icy snow. Shaking, he pulled his arm up and fired at the killer.

  The killer ran. Andy didn’t have the strength to pull the trigger again. The gun slipped from his hand as he lost consciousness.

  45

  Liberty Lake

  10:30 a.m.

  Matt stared at the bright yellow tarp that covered Andy Knolls’s body. Blood had seeped out into the snow next to him. Ten feet away was more blood, but no body—the paramedics rushed Officer Eric Tolliver to the hospital before Matt arrived, though the prognosis was dismal. He’d lost a lot of blood. But Andy had been dead on the scene.

  He hadn’t gone inside yet, but the first responding officers had cleared the house. One deceased male, identified as the owner, Peter Richmond. His family wasn’t here, a small blessing.

  Michael gave Matt a moment alone and took charge of the scene, for which Matt was grateful. Two officers were putting up a tent over Andy’s body to protect him from the falling snow until the coroner could arrive and transport him to the morgue. Matt moved one of the bricks that had been placed on the corners to keep the tarp secure. He held up the canvas and stared down at Andy’s body.

  He’d been stabbed in his side, and the knife had gone deep. The killer sliced up. From the amount of blood and the location—and how quickly he died—Matt suspected that his heart had been compromised.

  Andy had gotten off a shot and based on the evidence in the street had hit the subject. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but drops led to the corner, where they stopped.

  Andy had reported, only minutes before the report of shots fired, that he spotted a dark gray Camry at the corner of Vine and Dover.

  “I’m so sorry, buddy,” Matt whispered.

  What had gone wrong? How had the killer gotten the drop on them? Did they see something suspicious inside? Did the killer surprise them? Why would he approach the house at all once he saw the car? Had it already been too late?

  Michael came over. “Matt, we have a huge problem.”

  He covered Andy back up, replaced the brick. “What?”

  “Liberty PD has the victim’s wife and two daughters at the roadblock. She says that her husband is in the house with her two youngest children. PJ, age five, and Sheila, ten months. Wants to know where they are.”


  Matt immediately shouted for the responding officers. “Who cleared the house?”

  “We did.” A cop approached, and gestured to his partner. “The deceased was found in the hallway. The suspect isn’t inside.”

  “There were two children in the house.”

  The cop paled. “We didn’t find any other bodies.”

  “Could they have run out?”

  “A five-year-old in this weather?”

  Matt was furious. He pointed to the two cops. “Talk to every single neighbor on the street. About what they saw, about the kids. Harris, with me. We’re searching the house again.”

  “Matt, he could have taken them as hostages.”

  “No. Andy would never have fired at Hamilton if he had a kid as a shield. They’re in that house, or they ran when Hamilton arrived.” He pointed to the SPD officer who drove him and Michael here. “Grab a partner and search the garage. The father could have sent the kids there if he thought there might be trouble.”

  That didn’t feel right, but anything could have happened.

  What would he have done?

  The question is, what would your father have done?

  His dad had been raised during the most brutal era of Castro, and there had been times when soldiers had walked the streets, entered houses, searched for contraband. His father would share the stories on rare occasions, usually solemnly before he praised America. He had fought hard to make it to Florida, had lost half his family in the process.

  If his father was a little boy and danger came to the door, he would have hidden. He would have been as quiet as possible so the soldiers or the gangs wouldn’t hear him.

  “We clear the downstairs first,” Matt told Michael.

  The living room was a mess. The television had been knocked to the floor. To the right of the doorway, a table had been shoved, all the breakables had fallen to the floor and littered the carpet with glass. Blood dotted the walls in the hall. He smelled it, saw it, tasted it in the air.

  On the hardwood floor, a man wearing jeans and a button-down shirt lay half in, half out of a doorway. Blood covered his back. Spread over the wood. Matt didn’t need to check for a pulse; the paramedics had been in here and declared him dead. As he looked at the body from a different angle, he realized that Peter Richmond had nearly been decapitated.

  “We have to find those kids,” Matt said. “If they saw this—they could have run out before the first responders arrived. You look everywhere down here—and see if there’s a basement. Cabinets. Under the sink. Anywhere a little kid could hide. I’m going upstairs.”

  “Roger that.”

  Matt walked up the stairs and one thing became quickly clear: there was no blood up here. Hamilton had to have been covered in blood based on the amount around the victim. But there was none here. No footprints. No handprints. No drops falling from the knife.

  Hamilton hadn’t come upstairs. Did that mean the children weren’t here? Or that maybe he didn’t know there were children in the house?

  Matt stood in the center of the playroom that was at the top of the stairs. The downstairs couldn’t be seen from here, and there was a child safety gate across the opening, which he stepped over. Two doors, both closed, went off the playroom.

  “PJ,” Matt called out as he opened one of the doors. It was the boy’s room, which he clearly shared with his baby sister. His half was all blue and gray and airplanes. The baby’s half was gray and green. He looked in the small closet. No place for two kids to hide. “PJ, I’m Matt Costa. I’m an FBI agent. Your mom is looking for you.”

  He went to the other room off the playroom. A girl’s room, messy, with movie posters and lots of little things, trinkets and perfume bottles and lip gloss and books and baseball trophies. One of the girls pitched on a Little League team.

  “PJ, are you in here? I’m an FBI agent. That’s like a policeman. I’m here to help you. You can come out now.”

  Silence.

  He opened the closet. It was a mess. He moved some things around but didn’t see anyone hiding.

  He was about to close the door when he heard a small cry. Where was the light switch? He found it and stared. Didn’t see two kids. It could have been his imagination.

  “PJ? Are you in here?”

  Something moved. Just a little.

  Matt moved aside clothes, an old blanket, and a baseball bag. In the far corner of the closet a little boy was holding his sleeping sister. He was half-asleep and had a bat in his hands. Relief flowed through Matt, and he spontaneously crossed himself, though he hadn’t been to church in years.

  Gracias a Dios.

  He squatted to be closer to the child’s eye level. “PJ. You’re safe now. Are you okay?”

  PJ opened his eyes, then rubbed them. “My daddy.”

  “Your mommy’s outside. Do you want to see her?”

  He nodded. “A bad man hurt my daddy.”

  Matt prayed that this little boy hadn’t seen what happened. “Did you see the bad man?”

  He shook his head and hugged his sister tighter. She gave out a half squeak, half cry.

  “I heard them fighting. And things were breaking and I was scared so I took Sheila and hid.”

  “You did the right thing, PJ.” Matt helped PJ and his sister out of the closet, then picked them up. He hugged them. “I’ll find that bad man and put him in jail. I promise.”

  In jail or in the ground.

  46

  Spokane

  11:15 a.m.

  He’d fucked up. He’d really fucked up. And now he had a bullet in his arm and it hurt and he hadn’t killed the cop who stole his house.

  Glen Hamilton sat in the kitchen of his rental. He hadn’t been tailed—he knew that—but he didn’t know how long he would be safe here. How did they know about his car?

  That bitch cop.

  How long would it take for them to trace his car to this house?

  How did they know about the house on Vine? Did they know his identity?

  Glen didn’t turn on the television, instead he went online, where he was more comfortable and news broke faster. He had all the local news sites bookmarked and he scrolled through.

  His heart nearly stopped beating.

  He saw his picture—his image, really—in a sketch. The police had released his driver’s license photo along with a sketch that looked exactly like him.

  Spokane Police Department issued a statement this morning. They are looking for this man, Glen Vincent Hamilton. They indicated that he is wanted for questioning as a possible witness in the two recent murders in Liberty Lake. Contact the Spokane Police Department at their 24-hour hotline.

  UPDATE: SPD Police Chief Packard has updated the earlier police report regarding the search for Glen Vincent Hamilton.

  “Hamilton should be considered armed and dangerous. He is wanted for the attack on two Liberty Lake police officers this morning, and the hit-and-run of an elementary school student. He was last seen driving a dark gray Toyota Camry, Washington State license plate ART 1909. If you see him, do not approach. Call 9-1-1. Hamilton, 31, is a former resident of Liberty Lake and currently resides in Tacoma, Washington. Spokane Police Department is working closely with the Sheriff’s department and the FBI to locate Hamilton.”

  Our news desk will keep you informed as soon as more information is available.

  No. No, no, no, NO!

  How did they have his name? He’d been so careful! He hadn’t rented in Liberty Lake on the off chance someone might recognize him—even though he’d left when he was fifteen. He didn’t use his own name to rent the house or the car. He hadn’t talked to anyone beyond small chitchat since he arrived, he hadn’t gone to the same store twice. He was so diligent! How could they know his name?

  This was very bad.

  He hadn’t meant to go so far. All he wa
nted was to look inside the house. The idiot didn’t want to let him in. Why? Why? It was his house. All he wanted to do was see it. Remember his mom. Remember when she had been there, when she had baked for him and helped him with his homework and read him bedtime stories.

  Then he saw red. Peter Richmond was exactly like his father. Depriving him of his family home. Denying him his due. What he wanted. What he deserved. All he wanted to do was to look around—and everything had changed. They hadn’t just added on the second story, they’d changed the entire house! Took out a wall, made the kitchen bigger, destroyed his mother’s roses. Just pulled them out like they meant nothing.

  The guy deserved to die. Just like the cop.

  Glen took a deep breath. Now he had a hole in his arm. He didn’t know how bad it was and went to the bathroom, took off his shirt and winced as the material pulled at the clotting wound.

  It was really more of a graze. The bullet wasn’t in there—it looked like a chunk of his flesh had been torn off. He had a first aid kit in the medicine cabinet. Taking the time to clean and bandage his wound calmed him down. It hurt like hell, but it really wasn’t that bad.

  You were lucky. Real lucky.

  Lucky. And smart. He’d gotten out of the house fast. Stabbed the cops and fled, rather than waiting around.

  He inspected his bandage. Okay, a small bit of blood seeped through, but not much, and that was good. Now he could think. He had to find a way out of this mess. He always had alternate plans, but which plan did he need now?

  You need to go. Disappear. Get out of the Spokane Valley and never come back.

  They had his name. They would find him, eventually.

  Get a new name.

  Not that easy. He had some money, but it wouldn’t last forever. If they had his name, they knew where he lived. Where he worked.

  And Brian Maddox was still alive.

  Glen squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his fingers against his temples. He willed himself to find the answer. Disappear... But he couldn’t leave. How could he leave his job unfinished?