72 Hours (A Thriller) (5 page)

She told them, “Sit against the wall.
 
I’ll be right back.”

The kids huddled on the floor in the corner of the shower furthest from the shower door.
 

Lindsay heard someone at the bedroom door.
 
The doorknob giggled.
 
Then there was a loud thump as the intruder put his shoulder to it.

She pulled open the door to her huge walk-in closet.
 
The ceiling was twelve feet high, with shelves all the way to the top.
 
She placed a step stool in the back corner and balanced on it, reaching for a hatbox.
 
She managed to tip it, brought it down to the floor, and removed the lid.
 
There was a hand towel inside, and wrapped within the towel was a handgun James had left for her after the divorce.
 
She had never handled it, and it scared her.
 
She didn’t know if it was loaded but there was another gadget in the box that was slender and metal and filled with bullets, so she grabbed it also.

The pounding at the bedroom door grew more intense.
 
The intruder started shooting holes in the door.
 

Lindsay crawled on all fours from the closet to the bathroom, closed the bathroom door with her elbow, and then scampered to the shower door.
 
She gently clicked the glass door shut, then huddled with her children on the tile floor.
 
The acoustics of the shower amplified even the smallest sound.

Lindsay held the two pieces of the gun in her lap.

“Put the clip in,” Ramey whispered.

Lindsay clumsily clanked the metal objects together, but could only shrug.
 

Ramey took the gun from her, snapped the loaded magazine into the pistol grip, pulled back the slide and released it, chambering a round.
 
Then she handed it back to her mother.

Lindsay stared at her daughter.

Ramey gave a small shrug.
 
She whispered, “Watch enough TV, you’ll learn to do just about anything.”

They heard the bedroom door slamming against the dresser, followed by the hollow, cracking sound of splintering wood.

“He’s busting through!” Wyatt said in a panicky whisper.

There was another splintering crash, and the sound of panels of wood toppling to the floor, then abrupt silence.
 
A moment later the bathroom doorknob turned, and the door slowly opened.

CHAPTER 10

The photographer’s name was Soji and he worked for a tabloid in Hollywood.
 
He loved the job because of the constant adrenaline rush.
 
He lived for the chase.
 

Soji had picked up on the Dunbar story from the Johnny Smackdown show.
 
His car radio was always tuned to 99.1 FM.
 
He’d been trailing a B-list actress for most of the day, a teenage burnout already on the downhill slide to rehab.
 
He was bored with her smoking cigarettes and flipping him off, so when Smackdown announced the address of this Hammond lady and the headline-grabbing bounty on her head, Soji decided he’d race over, get the first pics, and maybe score some serious cash.
 
But he hadn’t expected to find himself caught in the middle of the action.
 
He had really stepped in it this time.
 

He flattened himself behind the Prius until the thugs from the van were up close to the house.
 
The gunshots totally freaked him out.
 
When the black and white rolled up, he was looking for a way out, but was blocked in.
 
He found himself caught in the crossfire and decided he’d have to abandon the Prius if he had any hope of surviving this.

Gunfire popped above his head as bullets punched holes in the cars.
 
He craned his neck around the rear of the Prius and spotted the cops using the cruiser as a shield from the gunfire coming from the front of the house.
 
One of the officers was calling for backup.
 
Soji thought that sounded like a good idea.

Soji was turning to scamper away down the street when he noticed a flash of movement inside the Chevy van.
 
He hesitated, hunkering down.
 
Slowly and silently, the sliding door of the van glided open.
 
A third man was inside.
 
He had a shaved head and a long goatee.
 
He wore jeans and a stained wife-beater undershirt, his arms sleeved with tattoos.
 
He eased one leg at a time out of the van, moving with stealthy silence, like a panther on the prowl.
 
Then Soji spotted the sawed-off shotgun in his left hand.

Soji held his breath and rested against the back tire of the Prius, withdrawing as far out of sight as possible.
 

The officers didn’t notice wife-beater as he eased around the front end of the van.
 
Soji wanted to warn them somehow but he’d be a dead man if he made a sound of any kind.
 
All he could do was watch.
 

Wife-beater was only six feet away when he pulled the trigger.
 
The first blast lifted the cop on the right completely off his feet.
 
The cop on the left, the radio still in his hand, had less than a second to react, and that was only enough time for the synapses of his brain to connect and send the message to his conscious mind that the end had come.
 
The second blast exploded into his back and he was dead before the first cop hit the ground.
 
He crumbled into the open door of the cruiser.

Smoke twisted out from the barrel of the shotgun.
 
Wife-beater grunted his satisfaction, then called to his buddy stationed at the front of the house.

“RICO!
 
THEY’S ICED, BABY!”

Wife-beater then sprinted toward the house.

Soji could see the bodies and the spray of blood on the police cruiser.
 
Down on all fours, he backpedaled out of the driveway until he was sixty or seventy feet down the sidewalk, outside the fence that bordered the Hammond home.
 
He vomited, then wiped his mouth on his Lakers jersey and sat there until he got control of his nerves.

CHAPTER 11

The intruder entered the bathroom.
   

Lindsay and the kids watched his distorted silhouette through the opaque glass of the shower door.
 
They stared, unblinking, as he moved around the bathroom.
 
Lindsay held the gun outstretched in both hands, fighting her nerves to hold it steady.
 

The intruder opened and then closed a closet door.
 
Towels and toiletries inside.
 
Then he inspected the space beneath the sink counter, then he moved toward the shower door.

Lindsay touched the trigger.

The intruder placed a hand on the door handle, his silhouette big and foreboding as refracted through the seeded glass.
 
The plastic catch clicked.

Lindsay closed her eyes and fired.

The opaque glass exploded.
 
The intruder stumbled backward, clawing at the bathroom counter with a flailing arm, his gun skittering across the tile.
 
The glass rained to the floor, Lindsay and the children screaming.
 
Lindsay fired again, and then a third time.
 
The intruder groaned once, twisting onto his knees, then slumping facedown into glass.
 

Lindsay pulled the kids up, and together they shuffle-stepped past the body.
 
They had to find a way out of the house.
 

They crouched in the bedroom doorway, then exited to the left.
 
The hallway ended at stairs that descended to a shorter hallway that opened onto the kitchen.
 
There was an exterior door in the kitchen that would grant exit from the house.
 
At the top of the stairs, they paused to listen.
 
The gunfire had ceased for the moment, and the question became what exactly did the cease in gunfire mean?
 
Lindsay prayed it was a sign that the police had secured the scene.
 
Then they heard more sirens approaching.

CHAPTER 12

Wife-beater found one of his partners seated on the front stoop of the house.
 
The meat of his shoulder was ripped open and there was blood everywhere.

“Yo, Rico,” Wife-beater said.
   

Rico had the opposite hand pressed to the wound.
 
His eyes were closed, head wobbly.
 
He groaned.

“You good to go?”

Rico didn’t respond.
 
Blood had pooled beneath him.
 
He’d taken a bad hit and wouldn’t last much longer.
 

Wife-beater glanced over at the shattered window.
 
He saw no sign of Ponch, and so he figured Ponch must have gone in through the window.
 
Wife-beater loaded two fresh shells into the shotgun and brushed the drapes aside with the stock of the gun, stepping through the open window frame.
 
He could hear cops coming.
 
He’d have to kill her quickly and then make tracks.
 
He wanted that money so bad he could hardly stand it.

CHAPTER 13

Lindsay led the way into the kitchen, her heart pounding.
 
They reached the exterior door.
 
The deadbolt was locked.
 
She peered through the window in the door to make certain no one was out there.
 
Outside the door was a small patio area with a round table sitting in the shade of a big umbrella on a pole.
 
The table was matched with four patio chairs.
 
Beyond the patio the lawn was landscaped with trees and shrubbery.

The door to the garage was on the other end of the kitchen.
 
The Mercedes was there.
 
So Lindsay had a choice to make: slip into the garage and hope for time enough to get the door up and back the Mercedes out, or make a run from the kitchen patio to the Escalade at the front of the house.
 
There wasn’t time for debate.
 
She turned the deadbolt and gently opened the exterior door.
 
It sucked against the rubber seal.
 
Then she had a change of heart.

She turned to the kids and gestured, whispering, “The garage.”

Sunlight streamed in through the big windows above the sink and through a skylight in the kitchen ceiling.
 
A counter was built into a pass-through wall, making the dining room visible from the kitchen and vice versa.
 
There were several barstools along the counter where the kids often sat to do schoolwork.
 
They were halfway to the door to the garage when a gun blast roared through the room.
 
A nearby cabinet door exploded in a cloud of wood particles.

They screamed, dropping to the floor for cover.
 
Lindsay caught a glimpse of movement from an interior hallway.
 
They reversed course and she ushered them back to the exterior door.

“Rrrrrrrrruuuuuunnn!” she screamed.

Time moved in slow motion.
 
Out the door, past the decorative stonework of the breakfast patio, sprinting hard around the west end of the house on legs of rubber.
 
Suddenly the Escalade came into view as they rounded a corner, the three doors still standing open.

CHAPTER 14

Soji found the courage to return to the Prius.
 
He wasn’t completely blocked in, but he’d have to do some quick maneuvering.
 
He put the transmission in drive, pulled forward about fifteen feet into the driveway, threw it in reverse, cutting the wheel hard counterclockwise, and backed the rear of the car as close to the gate as possible before carefully cutting the wheel the opposite direction and squirreling the little car through a slim gap between the iron gate and the Chevy van.
 
He was home free.
 
He was backing into the open street when he heard another shotgun blast and saw the Hammonds making a dash for the Escalade.
 
Without even thinking, he grabbed his camera and started snapping pictures.

CHAPTER 15

The Escalade was still running.

Lindsay screamed at the kids to get in.
 
No time for doors, no time for seat belts, no time for hesitation of any kind.
 
Wyatt and Ramey were barely in when Lindsay jammed the transmission into reverse and punched the gas to the floor.
 

Wife-beater came out of the house and ran toward the SUV like a mad man.
 
He leveled the shotgun at them and a flash of fire bloomed from the end of the barrel.

Spray from the blast pebbled the windshield and pocked the hood.