Run the Risk

by Scott Frost

  “Please, don’t do that,” he said softly.

  In the distance, the faint roar of the F-15s began to rumble like a gathering storm, threatening to sweep up everything in its path. I let my fingers slip from the watch and started to reach out for Chavez’s hand, but I couldn’t touch him.

  “Ten feet,” I said silently to myself, pulling my hand away. I was no longer a part of his world, even one as already jaded as a cop’s. And nothing anyone could do or say would ever wholly reinstate me in it.

  “He’ll be calling,” I said.

  Chavez watched my hand withdraw and sadly nodded as if sensing the gulf that now existed between us.

  “Officer James volunteered to walk out onto Colorado. She’ll do whatever I relay to her.”

  “As soon as I start talking to him, we go through the door.”

  Harrison began driving up the block toward the end of the cul-de-sac. As we passed the third house on the right, the real estate agent my husband had had the affair with walked out in a blue bathrobe and yellow slippers to retrieve her paper. Her face was pale and her eyes strained against the morning light as if she were hungover. She glanced in our direction but quickly looked away when she saw me, as had been her practice since the day I discovered the affair. I like to think it was guilt that fueled her behavior, or even better, shame. But in truth I think she just wanted to pretend it never happened. And if she never looked at me, then it didn’t for her.

  Nothing of the outside of my house gave any hint of the events that might be taking place within. You could exchange it with any of the other houses on the block. They were all just different enough so that none appeared out of place. A three-bedroom country rambler, next to the four-bedroom, next to the split-level. They were part of a time that seemed so distant now, part of a sense of community that no longer existed for me.

  Harrison swung around the cul-de-sac and stopped in front of the second house north of mine. We stepped out, withdrawing our weapons, lowering them casually to our sides, and began to make our way across the ivy and lawns toward the side of the garage.

  From the valley below, the sound of the jets making their pass over the parade route built and rose like thunder, until the glass of the windows in my neighbors’ houses shook. I stepped across the split-rail fence that marked my property line, one eye on the fence, the other on the quivering liquid inside the motion detector. Four steps across a spit of grass and we were against the wall of the garage.

  I was breathing as if I had sprinted a mile. My heart pounded against the brick of explosive strapped to my chest. I took two deep breaths then looked up toward the mountains that were dusted with snow five thousand feet up.

  “It was a perfect morning,” I whispered.

  Harrison turned to me not understanding.

  “It’s what they always seem to say about the morning of a disaster.”

  Harrison glanced at me for a moment, then looked at some distant point on the horizon.

  “Not always. Sometimes it rains,” he said softly.

  The thunder of the jets reached its peak then faded into the distance, leaving behind an uneasy silence. There was no birdsong, no cars, no music, not even the collective white noise of nine million lives in the city spread out below. I took out my key and slipped it silently into the lock.

  “I go through the door first,” I said.

  Chavez shook his head. “No way.”

  “If we surprise him and he sees me, he’ll hesitate because of the bomb.”

  Chavez looked doubtfully at me.

  “His nightmare is losing control, one of his victims turning the tables on him.”

  “You.”

  I nodded.

  “There’ll be a moment of advantage, but no more. You take care of Lacy.” I glanced at Harrison. “Both of you . . . whatever happens.”

  They reluctantly agreed. I reached up and removed the phone from the pocket of the vest as Chavez rang James, who answered on the first ring. They exchanged several words, then he turned to me.

  “Less than a minute to the start.”

  My stomach began to tighten into a knot. I tried to take a deep breath but my lungs seemed to actively repel the fresh air. I looked down at the motion detector and the wires wrapped around the vest. Each breath, each step I took felt borrowed. I started to look one more time at the mountains rising above, then noticed a deer standing motionless on a lawn across the street. A dried slash of crimson across its back led to its left rear leg, which appeared broken where it had been hit by a car. Its eyes had a familiar quality to them, one that I would recognize if I looked in a mirror. I closed my eyes and managed to force a breath into my lungs, and when I looked up again, the deer was gone.

  “Our window is going to be very short,” I said, pressing the point. “As soon as James begins to run and there’s no explosion, he’ll kill her.”

  As if on cue, the phone in my hand began to ring.

  “To hell with him,” I whispered.

  I waited until the sixth ring, then answered.

  “Are you ready, Lieutenant?” Gabriel said.

  I took hold of the key in the door and slowly disengaged the lock.

  “I’m there.”

  “Can you hear the music?”

  “The music?”

  Chavez asked James if she heard the music, then looked at me and nodded.

  “It’s just beginning,” I said.

  I eased the door open and looked into the garage. All the familiar odors were there—the sweetness of the gardening tools, the sharpness of the trash. But there was something else, something new, something that carried death with it.

  “There’s been gunfire,” I whispered.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then I saw the Armed Response patrol car parked in Lacy’s space. I swept the garage with my weapon—nothing.

  “I want to speak to Lacy.”

  “You will.”

  On the opposite side of the garage, the door to the house was ajar several inches, sending a slice of light like a blade into the darkness. I moved around the patrol car to the door as Harrison and Chavez took positions on the other side. From inside the house I could hear the sound of television from a distant room.

  “What song are they playing, Lieutenant?” he asked, testing me.

  I knew from memory that it was the same every year.

  “ ‘The Marine Corps Hymn.’ ”

  “Hold the phone out. Let me hear it.”

  I covered the mouthpiece.

  “Tell James to hold the phone out toward the music.”

  Chavez gave her the instructions, then held his phone out toward me. I could hear the tiny strains of the band music. I pressed my phone against the other earpiece just long enough for him to hear it, but not so long that he would understand that something was wrong.

  “Satisfied?”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “What else do you want?” I asked.

  Still nothing. I looked at Chavez and shook my head. “I don’t know if he’s buying it.”

  I put my hand on the door to the kitchen to push it open, then noticed a thin line of blood, no wider than a pencil, streaming out from inside, gathering in a small pool against the threshold and dripping down onto the first step. My heart was in my throat. It can’t be, it can’t. I quickly pushed it open, but it jammed halfway into the room. I raised my weapon, waiting for a response from the other side, but there was none.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said into the phone.

  Nothing came back but the faint sound of the band music from the television.

  I eased around the door and into my kitchen and saw the sole of a boot blocking the door. The young uniformed officer who had not answered the phone was lying on his back, one leg bent awkwardly beneath him, his lidded eyes staring up at the ceiling. A hole smaller than a dime penetrated his skull just above the right eyebrow. There was no need to check for a pulse. I doubt he ever sa
w the face of his killer. Bored, and upset about guarding an empty house, he would have heard the garage door open and casually walked out to investigate. A burst of light from the muzzle flash might have registered, and then nothing. Not the sound of the shot that killed him, no understanding of what just happened. I recognized him as the young officer named Baker, who had taken the call at Breem’s flower shop. A kid who liked to talk like a TV cop.

  Chavez stepped in behind me and stared in disbelief at the fallen. He had lost only one other cop in his tenure as chief, and now, seeing a second one, the heartbreak registered in his eyes instantly. His shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes and crossed himself.

  I looked away and noticed that one of the burners on the stovetop was on, its blue flame glowing in the half-light, warming nothing, the hiss of the gas sounding like the warning of a snake coiled to strike.

  I stared at it for a moment, then looked out through the passageway toward the dining and living rooms. I stepped past the body and moved to the edge of the tiled kitchen floor. The only light in the living room came from a faint glow through the curtains. Instead of the warmth of the morning light I had always felt in this room, violence had transformed it into something grotesque. The light seemed designed to draw me farther in, the furniture in the room, props to disguise the house’s real purpose. Harrison stepped up beside me. His eyes were wide with adrenaline. His temple damp with sweat.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  I looked into the living room, past the high-back reading chairs and the mission couch toward the dark hallway at the other end, where I could hear the faint sound of the TV. I knew everything there was to know about the room, but it was as if I had never been in it before.

  “What you don’t like is that this feels like a trap,” I whispered.

  I’d seen it in other houses, other living rooms and kitchens and bedrooms. I’d seen it in the eyes of battered women whose homes had become a nightmare to escape from.

  “Walk out onto Colorado,” Gabriel said.

  I looked over at Chavez, who was kneeling next to Baker. He looked up, then got to his feet. I nodded.

  “Start her.”

  He gave James her instructions. I took a breath and tightened my fingers around my Glock.

  “I’m walking.”

  I stepped onto the carpet of the dining room and glanced back into the kitchen. Chavez was staring at the blue flame of the burner.

  “There’s something I want you to hear,” Gabriel said.

  “What?”

  “I want you to hear your daughter die.”

  “No.”

  “Run.”

  I turned to Chavez, who was reaching out to turn off the burner.

  “Tell James,” I said urgently.

  He turned off the burner and the blue flame disappeared with a clicking sound.

  “Faster,” Gabriel said. “Faster.”

  As I started into the living room, Chavez began to follow, then turned and looked back toward the stove as if he had heard something. Harrison started to raise his hand and then shake his head. From down the hallway I heard a cry of pain.

  “No, Mom,” Lacy screamed.

  Harrison started to move back toward Chavez, gesturing with his hand, shaking his head. “No, no no.”

  “Oh, God,” Chavez said in surprise.

  He turned and looked at me. Then the kitchen disappeared in the flash of an explosion that swallowed him up in its brilliant white light. Harrison was in the air, tumbling backward over the dining room chairs. Instinctively, I started to turn as blue fingers of burning natural gas reached out across the room and touched my face like a warm Santa Ana wind, burning into my eyes as if I had stared unprotected at the sun. The only sound I heard was dishes falling out of the cupboards and breaking on the floor like a hard rain.

  I dropped the phone and reached for the motion detector on my chest to protect it from the flying debris, but by then it was over. I could hear Harrison on the floor, tangled up in upturned chairs, moving as if caught in a spiderweb. A fine dust was drifting out from the kitchen and covering everything like a snowfall. I was on my knees, though I didn’t remember falling. I looked down at the motion detector on my vest, but all I could see in the center of my vision was a dull, round disk of faint light, as if a heavy gauze had been put over my eyes. There was no detail. I couldn’t see the motion detector. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. On the edges of my vision, I could make out dull shapes and colors, but the center . . . there was no center, just dull gray light.

  I touched the glass of the motion detector and my fingers caught on the uneven edge of a crack. I waited for another flash of ignition and a rush into oblivion, but it didn’t come. A trickle of moisture slid down my cheek, and I reached up to find blood draining from my ear that was facing the blast.

  I looked toward where I had seen Harrison tangled in the chairs.

  “I can’t see,” I said, though I couldn’t even hear my own words.

  If Harrison responded, I didn’t hear it.

  I pulled myself to my feet, then turned and looked down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. It had the appearance of a cave descending into the earth. All I could see was a circle of darkness with a halo of faint light around it.

  Something moved in the darkness.

  “I’ll fire,” I yelled, raising my Glock.

  The darkness seemed to pulsate, but nothing moved out from it.

  I tried to picture the hallway from memory. A dozen steps. I took a step. My legs started to buckle, then stiffened and held. The gun felt impossibly heavy, and my hand began to tremble as I tried to point it into the blackness ahead.

  One step, then another. My foot slipped on a piece of debris on the floor and the weight of the vest on my shoulders began to pull me over until I regained my balance.

  I gripped the gun with both hands and worked my way along the wall, staring into the blackness.

  A breath, then another.

  I stepped up to the bathroom door and pushed it open. On the edges of my vision, the faint shape of the pale yellow shower curtain hung as if suspended in air. I swung the gun back and forth, my free hand groping into the blank space in the center of my vision.

  The room was empty.

  I turned and raised my Glock toward Lacy’s room. At the bottom of my vision I could just make out a dull line of light at the base of the door. The faint blue flicker of a TV inside the room, maybe. I reached out until my hand found the handle, then I flung the door open with as much force as I could gather. The dull glow of the TV appeared to sit in the center of the room. I swung the gun back and forth trying to focus on the edges of my sight. Nothing moved. There was no sound, though I didn’t know if that was because I couldn’t hear anything or because there was nothing there. I took a step and my foot tangled up in something on the floor. My heart began to race.

  “Lacy,” I whispered. I knelt straight down so as to not change the angle inside the motion detector on the vest and reached out until I touched it. Taffeta. It was her dress from the pageant. I started to gather it up in my hand as if I could protect her by gathering up all her things then I stopped and let it slip from my hand.

  I backed out and moved toward my bedroom door at the end of the hall. The walls on the right were covered with family pictures. I counted them with one hand as I held the gun with the other, each step taking me further back into family history. The blood from my ear ran down my chin and dripped onto my shirt. Sweat filled with tiny particles of dust from the explosion fell, stinging my eyes. The hallway appeared to fall away from me, tumbling into complete blackness.

  I reached out my hand to find the door, but it vanished into the darkness as if it had been severed. I pressed my back against the wall and tried to wipe the sweat and dust from my eyes, but it did no good.

  Breathe. Take a breath, then move.

  I could feel the frame of a picture against my back. I knew from its shape that it was a picture of
Lacy as a child, sitting atop her father’s shoulders.

  I heard the sound of my heart beating like the pounding of a fist against a wall. I reached up to the motion detector and felt the vibration of my heart beating through it like a lit fuse.

  “I’m still here, you son of a bitch,” I whispered.

  In the darkness something seemed to pass inches from my face. I swept my gun across the darkness. It was like passing it through ink. Nothing was there.

  I groped along the wall until my hand found the door frame, and then the handle. How much time had passed? Thirty seconds? A minute? Too much.

  In one motion I turned the handle and threw myself at the darkness in front of me. The door flew open and a faint sheet of light rushed at me. The bedroom was little more than a pale field of gray with a corona of light around the edges. I swept the room with my Glock, searching for a hint of movement or color, anything that would give away Gabriel’s position.

  “Lacy!” I shouted.

  I heard a voice and swung to my right. The blurry glow of the TV floated in the air several feet away.

  “Lacy, where are you?”

  A muffled cry rose from behind me. I turned and moved toward the sound, stretching my hand out to find what my eyes couldn’t. I took a step, and then another, but my hand found nothing.

  “Lacy, make a sound if you can.”

  A barely audible shriek tried to escape its gag.

  “Lacy, try again.”

  It was fainter this time.

  I took a step toward it then felt the warm air of a breath on the back of my neck. I spun around raising my Glock into the murky gray field in front of me.

  “I know who you are, Gabriel, or would you rather I call you Philippe?” I said. “Give it up. The house will be surrounded in minutes.”

  I saw a break in the field of vision to my right and squeezed the trigger, firing a shot. The tube of the TV exploded with a shattering of glass and a rush of air.

  I took a step back, swinging the gun to the left. “Harrison!” I yelled.