Comes a Horseman (30 page)

The goofiness of the cartoon had Brady laughing with Zach within five minutes. Zach kept nuzzling closer to him until he was pressed against his side, a hand resting on Brady's forearm. The popcorn bowl, still half full, was safe in the crook of Zach's legs. Brady started to reach for it, realized the movement would break the position they had settled into, and decided he'd rather not ever taste popcorn again than do that.

Brady stopped in midlaugh when he realized he'd heard something that had not come from the TV. A thud, like something falling over outside. Zach continued chuckling at Shaggy's clumsy antics, and Brady almost let the noise go until he heard a scraping sound, and Coco raised his head, ears perked.

“Don't go in there!” Zach yelled at the television. “Why do they always go into the darkest, scariest places?”

Coco hopped up. He was staring at the darkened hallway that led to the kitchen. The dog's low growl reached Brady's ears over the show's laugh track. Coco took a step back, looked quickly at Brady, then back down the hallway.

“Dad?” Zach was looking up at him. “What's wrong?”

“Shhh.” He gently pushed Zach off him and stood. Zach reached for the remote control, probably to mute the television's sound, but Brady grabbed his arm. “Wait a sec,” he whispered. He couldn't hear anything over the television, but instinctively he thought it best to keep the sound going.

He thought of his pistols—one in his bedroom, the other in the kitchen. Both were in safes that had fingerprint locks; a touch of his hand quickly opened them. But neither was near.

Coco was whining now, continually looking to him for assurance while trying to keep watch on the hallway as well. Finally, he'd had enough and bolted for the laundry room, where a doggie door would release him from the house.

Brady felt it too. Something was coming.

Without taking his eyes off the darkness, he reached down, moved the popcorn bowl out of Zach's lap, and hooked the boy under the arm. “Come on,” he whispered. He pulled his son close to him and walked him around the coffee table. The laundry room also had an exterior door for humans. They tiptoed toward it. Brady reached for his cell phone clipped to his belt, so small these days he often forgot it. Using a single hand, he flipped it open and pushed 911 with his thumb.

“911 operator. What is your emergency?”

Brady whispered, “There's an intruder in my home. Come quick.” He gave the address.

“Sir, can you—?”

He flipped the phone shut and dropped it into his pocket. They were near the door. A long wail, ending abruptly, reached them from just outside the door. They froze. It clearly had been Coco.

Zach lunged for the door. “Co—,” he began.

Brady slapped a palm over the boy's mouth and yanked him closer.

The pungent odor of animals hit Brady like a strong wind. And he
knew
. He snapped his head around, expecting to see the wolf-dogs bounding from the hall. Nothing . . . then a stirring of shadows . . .

Brady bolted past the laundry room door to the only other exit at that end of the room, the stairs to the basement. Pushing Zach down the first few steps, holding his arm to keep him from falling, Brady pulled the door closed. Quietly. Quickly.

“Go, go, go,” he whispered sharply and let Zach loose. The boy shot down the stairs, sure-footed and surprisingly silent.

The basement door had a dead bolt, keyed on the outside to prevent Zach from opening it when he had been a toddler. On the other side, it was operated by a lever to prevent someone from being locked in. Brady engaged the dead bolt and descended the stairs. He moved more slowly than Zach had but just as quietly. In the seconds it took for him to hit the basement's concrete floor, Zach had his hideaway door opened. The boy stepped in and turned, eyes wide and wet.

Brady stopped halfway to the small alcove.

No good,
he thought. The dogs would sniff them out. What . . . what to do? His eyes darted around the room. A washer and dryer, a water heater, metal shelves with cans of paint, cleaning products and . . . He spotted a tub of grease he'd used to lube his SUV's universal joints. Could they strip and cover themselves in grease—would that mask their scent? He remembered a class he'd taken at the academy to acquaint agents with the use of canines in tracking and defense. The instructor said a dog's sense of smell was a million times more acute than a human's. “Even if the target was completely submerged in water,” she'd said, “a dog could pick up his scent from a bubble of breath that breaks the surface.”

Claws began scraping against the door at the top of the stairs.

“Dad, get in,” Zach hissed, pleading.

Brady's eyes took in his son and then darted to the stairs. He could make a break for the gun in the kitchen . . . just burst through the door and run for the safe . . . and be torn apart.

Would that end the hunt? Would the dogs and the killer leave Zach alone? As much as his heart ached at the thought of Zach losing him now, it would be better than the boy dying. So far, the killer had never taken two victims at once.

Sweat stung his eye. He wiped it away.

“Daddy,” Zach pleaded behind him.

But this was different. The killer had left his geographical killing region to come for one of the investigators of his crimes. Was this attack intended to be a warning to back off ? Vengeance for assessing blame on the killer by seeking him? Whatever else this was, it was something new.

But will the killer be satisfied with my death alone?
Brady thought, getting back to the only thing that mattered.

The noises of
Scooby-Doo
on the television upstairs abruptly stopped. Someone had switched it off. Next, he would break open the door at which his dogs were scratching.

Brady moved to the base of the stairs.

“Daddy?” Zach still whispered, but desperation made his voice harsh.

Brady grabbed the broom, stepped on the handle near the bristles, and snapped it upward. He held up the three-foot stake. The break was sharp and pointed. If he reached the top of the stairs before the door opened, he might be able to surprise the killer, jab the broom handle through his neck. Brady knew he stood no chance with the dogs. They'd surely kill him. But without a master, they would at most scratch and stiff at the hideaway's entrance until they got bored or help arrived. Zach would live.

He turned to tell Zach to close himself in the hideaway and not come out no matter what he heard. And his eyes fell on a bottle that he must have inadvertently placed on top of one of the fake boxes attached to the hideaway door. It was a chance, though so slim he shouldn't take it. If it failed, Zach would die.

A tear broke from Zach's eye and streaked down his cheek. Brady decided his next actions before the drop hit the floor.

He grabbed the bottle of bleach, relieved to feel the weight of a near-full container. He unscrewed the cap and poured the liquid on the floor, making sure to cover the area around the hideaway first, then out to the base of the stairs. He began splashing the rest of the floor so the area nearest the hideaway would not look as though it had received special attention.

He pointed at the shelf of cleaning products and whispered, “Zach, the ammonia.”

Zach ran to the bottle.

“Pour it on the bleach,” Brady said. “Hold your breath.”

The basement door rattled.

“Hurry,” he said.

Seconds later, Zach said, “Done.”

Brady's eyes immediately started stinging. The back of his throat felt raw. Bleach and ammonia formed nitrogen trichloride, a toxic gas. Brady had read that the mixture killed a couple dozen uninformed housewives a year. The fumes should be a million times more offensive to dogs. He hoped that it would keep them from entering the basement, even when their master found the hideaway, as he inevitably would, and Brady sprang out with the stake. It would be an uneven battle, ax against stick, but with the dogs out of the way, Brady thought he stood a chance. Perhaps, if luck favored the Moore men tonight, the killer would retreat at the prospect of a face-off without his combat hounds. Not likely . . .

“Okay, okay.” He pushed Zach into the alcove, stepped in beside him, and quietly pulled the door closed. He stooped to look out the peephole. The fumes must have filled the entire basement in the thirty seconds since they mixed the chemicals, for it seeped though the hole, causing his eye to water. He wiped it and stared at the base of the stairs.

The basement door crashed open. Claws clicked rapidly on the wooden steps. Two dogs—for the life of him, they looked like wolves—shot to the bottom step and froze. One howled and jumped back, disappearing up the stairs. The other whined. It tried to sniff the floor but jerked its head back violently. Still, it brought its paw forward to step down, whined again, then slowly backed up the stairs.

A voice boomed from out of sight. Brady couldn't tell if the words were jumbled by the wall between them or if they were spoken in a foreign tongue.

Another wolf-dog, this one smaller but equally ferocious looking, came into view. It approached the basement cautiously, looking back frequently to someone who issued sharp but still illegible words. Like the last dog, its head snapped back suddenly from a whiff of the fumes. It turned to go up, then circled around for another attempt to enter the basement. It made a choking-coughing sound, turned again, and was gone. The voice came like staccato drumbeats, angry.

Brady pulled his eye away, wiped it. It felt like someone had rubbed a pencil eraser over it. Zach was gripping him from behind, his hands trembling. Brady reached back to rub his arm. He put his other eye to the peephole.

He almost jumped back when he saw a man standing in the basement. He had come down quickly . . . and completely silently. Brady's first thought was that he was in costume. Long, tangled hair flowed to his shoulders. A red beard bushed out from his face and down over a knitted shirt. He wore tight pants that appeared to be tanned leather and boots that rose to midcalf. A shaft of wood extended down from his right hand, culminating inches from the floor in a broad blade. He was stocky and muscular. Brady wondered if his broom-handle stake, stuck anywhere in that tree-trunk body, would bring him down or just tick him off.

The man was squinting at the wet floor. The rise and fall of his chest indicated he was taking short, shallow breaths. Smart. He stepped close to the washer and dryer, barely visible to Brady's left. In a move that made Brady's stomach fold in on itself, the man hefted the ax over his head, readying it for quick service. He leaned out of view. Brady heard the washer lid bang open, then the dryer door.

Didn't he know the appliances' small capacities?
Brady thought, a chill finding his spine. Or could he be looking for Zach specifically?

The man stepped into the center of the basement, halfway between the stairs and where Brady and Zach hid. Starting at the steps, he scanned the room, slowly rotating like a sprocket in a machine. He was taking his time, hunting for clues to his prey.

That's when Brady's cell phone rang.

41

J
umping back from the peephole vision of the killer in his basement, Brady felt the cell phone spasm silently at the bottom of his front pants pocket.

Thank God they had visited Karen's grave before heading to the video store and then home for cartoons and popcorn. The cell phone's ring was still set to vibrate. However, after three vibrating rings, it would automatically switch to a loud chirping. It was on its second vibrating ring as he shoved his hand into his pocket. He got his fingers around it and pulled. His fist, gripping the phone, refused to leave the pocket. Ring number three. Frantic, he blindly pushed several buttons with his thumb, hoping one of them would be the disconnect key, which silenced the ringer until the call was lost. His heart lodged in his throat . . . The fourth ring didn't come. He let out the breath he had been holding and leaned to the peephole.

The killer had not heard. His eyes were red and watering. He was continuing his slow rotation in the center of the room, scrutinizing every possible hiding place, every crack in the wall. The house had been built before the fire code that required basement windows. The bleach and ammonia were wet. The dogs had identified the door upstairs through which they had fled. The killer knew his prey was down here, somewhere.

He turned and faced the hideaway door. He stared directly at Brady, but Brady knew the rowboat wall hanging made the peephole and his eye invisible, even to close inspection. The killer scanned the top edge of the “wall,” then squinted down at the fake boxes attached to it at floor level.

Just boxes,
Brady thought, willing the words into the killer's head.

The man stepped toward Brady. And kicked the boxes. They made a hollow thud and held firm. He immediately raised his ax to strike the hideaway door.

Brady reared back. He pushed Zach against the far wall, held up the broken broomstick, and braced himself.

That ax will tear through like a knife through bread,
he thought.

But nothing tore through. After only a moment, Brady ventured a peek. The killer was there, ax poised high, both hands gripping the handle. He was squinting at the exposed main-floor joists that composed the basement's ceiling, as if deep in thought. Then Brady heard the distant but increasing warble of a police siren.

Yes!
he thought.
Go! Run, you scum!

Instead, the killer dropped his gaze to the wall and swung the ax.

Brady jumped away, a half-second ahead of the blade as it ripped through the wall. It tore a jagged line down the drywall from head-height to waist-height. Crumpled gypsum and dust exploded over Brady.

Zach screamed, a startled yelp. He must have pushed against the light switch, because the single bare bulb above them came on.

Seeing the power of the ax, Brady realized their only hope lay not in the broom handle but in stalling their demise until the cops arrived; the sirens were near. Brady dropped the stake and did the first thing that came to mind: he grabbed the ax blade. He felt the flesh of his left palm split under the metal's sharpness. The killer yanked on the ax. The blade slid partially away from Brady's grasp. Blood made it slippery. Brady tightened his grip. He felt certain the blade was touching bone; he could squeeze no more. The killer tugged again, but Brady held on. He opened his mouth to scream an obscenity at this beast who'd invaded his home, but what came out was a guttural roar.