The man with the knife regarded Kevin with his cold eyes. “Go into the kitchen and bring two of those strong wooden chairs in here. Place them in front of your girlfriends, facing the couch.”
Cait watched as Kevin walked into the kitchen. She wondered if he might be able to grab something and use it as a weapon but realized the man with the knife had positioned himself so he could monitor Kevin’s progress the entire time. In less than a second, if he sensed a threat, he could slice Cait and Virginia both from head to toe.
Kevin returned a moment later, lugging one chair in his beefy hands, moving slowly. He set it down a few feet from the couch and then rotated it so that it was facing forward. Cait wondered why he hadn’t grabbed both chairs at the same time; he was certainly strong enough. Then she realized he was stalling, dragging things out as long as possible, slowing everything down while searching for an opportunity to take the offensive.
Kevin turned, his right hand resting lightly on the chair back. “What’s your name?” he asked.
The other man paused for a moment. “Milo,” he said.
“Hi, Milo. I’m Kevin. What’s this all about?”
“I don’t care what your name is, and as for what’s going on here, you’ll find out soon enough. I think you’ll find the upcoming spectacle to be very revealing. But for now, just do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut.”
“Okay,” Kevin answered agreeably. “You’re in control,” he said. “We’re all doing exactly as you say.”
“You’re right about that. You will do as I say, if you know what’s good for you, that is. Now stop stalling.” He knelt and reached into the backpack at his feet, rooting around for a moment while keeping his gaze fixed on his three prisoners.
He pulled out a roll of reinforced duct tape and tossed it to Kevin. “Secure the old bat in the chair, nice and snug. I want two strips around each wrist and two around each ankle, tight to the chair. No wiggle room.”
Kevin turned to Virginia and nodded gently at the chair with a grim look on his face. It was obvious he didn’t like the way things were playing out. Cait watched as her mother eased into the chair and placed her arms on the armrests, making it easy for Kevin to secure them. He muttered something Cait could not decipher and the man immediately shouted “Shut up!”
When the job had been completed to the man’s satisfaction, he said, “Now slap a strip across her mouth.”
Kevin complied and in a matter of seconds Virginia was trussed up tightly, completely helpless and unable to speak, facing the couch.
“Go get the second chair,” the man continued. “Set it down right next to the first one. Think of it as stadium seating for the live show that’s due to begin,” he made an exaggerated display of looking at his watch, “any minute now.”
Kevin disappeared into the kitchen again, returning moments later with another chair. He seemed to have abandoned his delaying strategy; it took only about half as long for him to carry the second chair into the room as it had taken to bring the first. He dropped it onto the floor in the prescribed spot with a thud, then turned and faced the man with the knife.
“Now, sit your ass down in it,” Milo said. “That’ll be where you enjoy your girlfriend’s starring role in this little performance art exhibition.”
Cait shifted her gaze back and forth between the two, her muscles clenched, tense and afraid. Amazingly, Kevin still seemed at ease, leaning with one hand on the back of the chair, while the man with the knife—Milo—appeared nervous and twitchy. Milo opened his mouth to say something and that was when Kevin flinched, startled, and glanced into the hallway in surprise before returning his attention quickly to Milo.
A suspicious look darkened Milo’s face; it was as if a cloud passed in front of his eyes. He leaned forward and craned his neck, twisting his gaze to the left, determined to see what had caused Kevin to jump.
Cait reflexively glanced into the hallway at the same time. She wondered what Kevin had seen. Whatever it was, it had disappeared. The hallway was deserted.
Out of the corner of her eye, Cait saw Kevin’s fingers flex once and then he straightened his body quickly, lifting the chair as he did so. He pivoted and took one long step toward Milo, uncoiling like a baseball pitcher striding toward home plate. He whipped the chair in a sideways arc, head-high, as Milo swiveled toward the oncoming danger.
Virginia cried out in surprise, her grunt muffled by the duct tape, and Milo flinched, leaning away from the makeshift weapon as it whistled through the air. Kevin seemed to have planned for that reaction, though, as the chair’s trajectory was taking it to a point behind the monster with the knife. By reacting as he had, Milo was effectively backing directly into the danger.
Time seemed to slow from Cait’s perspective. She watched for what felt like an eternity as the heavy wooden chair flew through the air, eventually crashing into Milo’s body. His reflexes were surprisingly quick, and he ducked his head out of harm’s way, lifting his shoulder and turning, taking most of the blow on his back. The chair shattered, the seat and legs falling to the floor where they thudded into the corner of the room, the seat-back exploding, sending dozens of wooden projectiles flying around the room.
Milo tumbled, falling in a shower of splinters. The force of the blow ripped the knife from his hand and it clattered across the varnished floor, sliding like a hockey puck on an ice rink. Cait screamed as Milo rolled, reaching for the knife, his hands and feet scrabbling for purchase on the slippery hardwood.
Kevin fell to the right, off-balance after striking the blow. He dropped to one knee, almost tumbling onto his side; then he put his right hand to the floor and pushed off hard, launching himself in the other direction. He took one long stride in an effort to leap over Milo’s scuttling form, desperate to beat him to the knife, and his foot slid out from under him and he crashed in a heap in the exact spot Milo had occupied seconds ago.
He wasn’t going to make it. Cait could see he wasn’t going to make it. She realized only now that she should have been halfway to the knife already. She swore at herself and stood, far too late to make a difference now but wanting to do something to help her fiancé, although she had no idea what to do.
Kevin lunged, crawling over Milo and diving for the knife. His fingertips grazed the handle but then Milo snatched it away as Kevin crashed again to the floor. Then the lunatic rose to his knees and half turned. He raised his arm sideways and in a slashing motion, buried the knife up to the handle in Kevin’s chest.
Blood gushed thickly, soaking Kevin’s shirt. Cait heard another scream and she realized it was coming from her. She took a step toward her injured boyfriend and Milo yanked the knife out of Kevin’s body, sensing the approaching danger. He took a backhanded slash at her without even looking and she pulled up short as the deadly blade whizzed past, droplets of Kevin’s fresh blood splattering her blouse in a delicate pattern.
“Sit down!” Milo screamed. “Sit down!”
Cait did as he said. She had no idea what else to do. She backed toward the couch, watching Kevin, desperate to help him, wondering how badly he was hurt. She was still screaming. She thought she might never stop screaming. The backs of her calves struck the upholstered cushions and she fell heavily onto her butt.
Kevin rolled onto his side, clutching his injured chest, and then, incredibly, pushed off the floor to take another shot at Milo. The moment he removed his hands from the deep wound, blood pulsed out. It was bright red, running like a river, and Cait realized with horrifying clarity that there was a very real chance she was watching her boyfriend die.
Milo turned back toward Kevin, raising the knife and slashing at him again in a quick, panicked motion, before relaxing as he took in the sight of the badly injured man. Kevin stopped and clamped his hand over the knife wound in a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding but succeeded only in soaking his palms with his own blood. He swayed on his feet and began moving again, shuffling grimly toward Milo.
Milo laughed, the sound grating and unexpect
ed after the events of the last few seconds. He stepped forward and shoved Kevin backward and Kevin pinwheeled his arms weakly, the blood once again welling up and out of his chest the moment he removed his hand from the wound. Kevin stumbled once, tripping over the smashed chair seat, then crashed heavily to the floor, the back of his head bouncing off the polished hardwood with a loud Crack!
Kevin blinked once, twice, three times. He shook his head. He rolled onto his stomach, gravity increasing the effect of the stab wound, causing the blood to flow even more heavily. He pushed himself onto his knees, eyes glazed from pain and shock. Then they rolled up into his head and he tumbled face-first onto the floor and lay still.
And Cait screamed again.
38
Boredom was the part of police work that Hollywood never seemed able to capture in their silver screen portrayals of law-enforcement officers. Or, more likely, they could capture it, they just didn’t want to. Rico Petralli figured that was probably it. After all, who wanted to pay twelve bucks a ticket, not including highway robbery charges for snacks and drinks, just to watch bored cops drive around all day in their cruisers busting teenage punk gangbangers and rousting smelly homeless guys from park benches? Moviegoers wanted to see car chases and flinty-eyed detectives and gun battles, Rico figured. He certainly did when he went to the movies.
But the fact of the matter was real police work involved mind-numbing boredom, hours of it, day after day, much more often than it involved car chases or flinty-eyed detectives doing anything besides sipping bitter coffee on stakeouts. Certainly more than it involved gun battles. Rico had been an Everett cop going on four years now and had never once fired his weapon in anger.
So when the Granite Circle call came in—an old lady worried about her neighbor—he shook his head wearily. He was only a quarter-mile away, closer than anyone else, which meant that he had no choice but to respond.
He hated these types of calls—“Is everything all right, ma’am? Are you sure, ma’am?”—even more than most. They represented not just boredom, but awkwardness as well.
Rico knew he would have to explain that the next-door neighbor—who had undoubtedly been peeping out her bedroom window—was concerned and had been sticking her nose into business that wasn’t hers. The “intruder” would end up being a visiting relative who had shown up unexpectedly or something. Rico sighed and shook his head wearily.
Boredom.
Rico’s day hadn’t been all that great to begin with, and was undoubtedly about to get just a little worse. He pulled into Granite Circle, struck by the absolute stillness of the neighborhood. There didn’t seem to be a single person around, which was silly. There had to be at least one—the citizen who had gotten a glimpse of something that had made her nervous and called it in.
He scanned the numbers on the fronts of the houses and eased to a stop behind a Buick parked in the driveway at Seven Granite Circle. He reached down and picked his hat off the seat next to him and placed it on his head, turning off the cruiser’s engine and climbing out of the vehicle reluctantly. Something was not right. Something was…off. It took a moment for him to figure out what that might be, and then it struck him like a sledgehammer.
The place was quiet. Too quiet, as the cliché went.
The house was graveyard-still. The silence was unnerving. It was deathly.
Rico climbed the stairs and pressed the doorbell and waited, his right hand resting on the butt of his service revolver. For a long time nothing happened, and he began to wonder if he had gotten the address wrong. He looked around. The neighborhood remained quiet and still.
Then the door swung open and a man filled the doorway. He was young—around Rico’s age—and appeared preoccupied. And he was sweating, as if he had just been involved in some form of heavy physical activity. Like beating his wife, maybe?
“Yeah? What is it?” he said, an edge to his voice.
Rico tried to look past the man and into the house and found he couldn’t. The dude’s body was blocking his view and besides, the hallway behind him was filled with shadows, too dark to make out much of anything. “Everything all right, sir?”
“Sure it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Rico ignored the question. “What’s your name, sir?”
The man hesitated and then answered. “Milo Cain.”
“Anyone else home with you, Mr. Cain?”
“Nope. I’m here all by myself.”
“Really. Because we received a call from a neighbor concerned about the resident at this address. A resident who happens to be a lady. Can you shed any light on that for me, Mr. Cain?”
“I sure can’t. Sorry. Like I said, no one else is even here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m kinda busy…” He began closing the door in Rico’s face and Rico reached out with his left hand to block it. His right hand stayed where it was, on the butt of his weapon.
“May I come in for just a moment, sir?”
A shadow of something—annoyance, impatience, fear?—flickered across the man’s face and Rico thought for a moment the guy might actually try to force the door closed in his face despite his efforts at holding it open. It had happened before.
And then the man shrugged and said, “Whatever. Can you make it quick? I’m trying to prepare for a little party I’ll be hosting later.” He smiled and the sight chilled Rico. The man’s eyes were cold and calculating and distant.
Rico stepped through the door and as he did a moan floated on the air, coming from somewhere inside the house. He hesitated for a half second, confused. It sounded like a man’s voice, not a woman’s, and the dispatcher had specifically stated the complainant was concerned about a woman being in danger.
The screen door slammed behind Rico. The face of the man standing in front of him gave away nothing. Then Rico heard the sound again—definitely a moan, definitely a man’s voice—and in one smooth motion unholstered his Glock. He reached out to grab the man, whom he expected to retreat.
But the man didn’t retreat. He stepped forward, rattlesnake-quick, reaching behind his back and producing a knife he had hidden in the waistband of his trousers. His hand was a blur as he slashed at Rico and Rico squeezed off a shot and the gun bucked in his hand and a loud roar filled his ears and fire flew from the end of the barrel and a massive hole appeared like magic in the hallway wall behind the man and Rico realized he had missed—
—and he felt a stinging pain in his throat, like someone had taken their fingernail and dragged it across the skin. Suddenly his uniform shirt was wet. It felt as though he had stepped into the path of a fire hose. He could feel the wetness flowing down his chest and his belly like a wave.
He reached up reflexively with his left hand and covered the damage to his throat as he pulled the trigger again with his right. By now the man had sidestepped to his right and even though Rico’s aim was better this time, the man was no longer there. The same roar filled the little house and the same fire flew from the barrel of Rico’s gun, but this time the bullet disappeared somewhere past the end of the hallway. Rico registered screaming now, loud screaming, coming from a room off the end of the hall.
He stumbled forward, aware of the man approaching him from the left. He pulled his hand away from his throat and saw that it was drenched in blood, his blood, lots of blood. It flowed like a tiny river, splattering his shoes as it struck the hallway floor. Rico knew he was in big trouble and he slapped his left hand back on the gash in his throat and incredibly he splashed blood into his eyes and he heard a desperate keening moan and dimly realized it was coming from him.
Rico lurched backward toward the front door. He had to get out and regroup, had to call for backup. And an ambulance. Then he felt a sting in his side, just under his ribs, and he turned his head and saw the man pulling the knife out of his side and that was when he heard the sirens in the distance and he knew everything would be okay. Backup was coming.
Rico fumbled with his gun, trying to turn to his left and bring it to bear on his attack
er, but his fingers were starting to feel numb and the gun seemed like it was getting heavier by the second. It no longer felt like a 9mm Glock sidearm, instead it felt to Rico like he was trying to maneuver a five-gallon bucket of water.
He fell to his knees and slipped in the blood on the floor, rolling onto his side as he worked on getting off another shot. But the man had moved again, he was like a fucking magician. He had somehow gotten behind Rico and the gun was now pointing in the wrong direction. Rico twisted his weapon and realized he couldn’t shoot now or he would likely put a bullet into his own head.
And where were those fucking cruisers and ambulances? He could hear them, why hadn’t they arrived yet? The sound of the sirens had grown much louder, except now it didn’t resemble sirens as much as it did the buzzing noise his mother’s clothes dryer used to make when a load of laundry had finished drying. It sounded like his mother’s dryer, only the noise didn’t stop; it just kept buzzing and buzzing, getting louder and louder like the dryer was moving down the hall.
Rico realized through his mounting fuzzy confusion that he wasn’t hearing sirens at all. Nor was he hearing a clothes dryer. The noise was coming from inside his own head.
And that made sense. He had never had a chance to call for backup. Had never had a chance, period. The guy had suckered him and Rico had made it easy for him. Out of nowhere, the old cliché, “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight” popped into his head and it occurred to him in retrospect that the saying wasn’t entirely accurate. Sometimes bringing a gun to a knife fight can be just a bad an idea.
The blood continued to gush from his neck, casting the scene in a bright-red pulsing glow, and Rico realized the knife-wielding motherfucker had severed his carotid artery. He was fucked. The buzzing noise had continued to increase in volume and now it was more of a roar, like a helicopter was hovering out of sight just overhead. Dark clouds roiled at the edges of his vision, which was beginning to flicker, and he struggled to breathe, gasping vainly, and he knew he would lose consciousness soon.
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