Pray for Silence (38 page)

“Keep your eyes open. They might try to use the rain as cover.”

“Bring it on,” Skid says.

“I’m going to douse the lights. But I’ll be in the kitchen. Just so you know.”

“Roger that, Chief.”

Picking up the trousers, I leave the bathroom. The thunder is closer now, a low rumble that rattles the glass in the windows. The air is thick with humidity and the wet-earth smell of rain. I walk the house, turning down the
wicks in each lantern as I pass. In the upstairs bedroom, I extinguish the last lantern when the first fat drops of rain hit the windows on the west side of the house.

I can feel the energy of the storm now. That sharp zing in the air, the anticipation of violence. I feel a similar anticipation running through my veins. Predator hunting predator. I’m ready for him.

The cloud cover obliterates any moonlight and the house is incredibly dark. I wish for a flashlight as I descend the stairs. But even blind and deaf, I feel as if my other senses are heightened. Even with the thunder and the drone of the rain, I would know if someone were in the house.

I’m reassured by the .38 in my pocket, the backup .22 sheathed at my thigh, the knife in my boot. I’ve branded the location of each weapon into my brain. When the time comes, reaching for the right one will be second nature, pure instinct, no hesitation. Pausing at the front door, I check the knob. Unlocked, the way I want it. I peek out the window. Lightning flickers, illuminating the white rail fence and the cherry tree beyond the porch. The rain is coming down in torrents. The branches of the trees sway in the wind, spindly fingers clawing at the night sky.

The rain will affect visibility. If someone were to approach the house on foot, Skid and T.J. may not see them. They wouldn’t be able to alert me. But I’m not unduly alarmed. The killer is expecting an Amish family, not an armed cop.

Leaving the living room, I head toward the kitchen, keeping an eye on the windows. I’ve already decided that if someone were to enter the house, they’ll probably do it via the kitchen door. It’s the point of entry farthest from the bedrooms. Not visible from the road. And there’s plenty of glass to break if needed. Tonight, that won’t be necessary because I’ve left the door unlocked. . . .

I decide to spend the night there, at the table, where I have a decent view of both the rear and front doors. If I’m going to get ambushed, I want to see him coming.

I enter the kitchen. Cool, wet air brushes against my legs. The hairs at my nape prickle. Lightning flashes, illuminating the silhouette of a man, standing just inside the door. Adrenaline blasts through me. I reach for the .38.
Hand in my pocket, fingers closing around the wood stock. Gun coming up. Finger on the trigger.

I’ve got you, fucker.

“Police!” My voice comes out as a scream. “Put your hands up now!”

Lightning flickers like a strobe. I catch a split-second glimpse of wet hair plastered to a pale face. Water dripping onto the floor. Recognition kicks my brain. Jack Warner, I realize and shock reverberates in my head.

He doesn’t obey my command.

“Get them up!”
I scream. “Now!”

I see something in his hand. Too dark to discern what it is. His hand rises. I fire twice in quick succession, center of mass. Thunder drowns out the sound of my gunfire. He stiffens, then drops to his knees.

Something clatters to the floor. Gun, I think. Keeping my weapon poised on the intruder, I kick it away. “Get facedown on the floor! Do it right fucking now!”

“You shot me.”

His voice is startlingly boyish. I’m shaking violently, but my gun hand is steady. If he moves I have no compunction about finishing the job. “Don’t move,” I say as I reach for my radio.

“Drop the gun, bitch. Or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

The voice comes from behind me. Shock is a knife slash across my back.
Two of them,
I think. For an instant, I consider spinning, taking a wild shot. But he’s got me dead to rights. Lowering my weapon, I slowly turn. I see the silhouette of a man. The black outline of a sawed-off shotgun.

Lightning flashes.

Recognition staggers me. Scott Barbereaux levels the shotgun at my chest. I see deadly intent in his eyes, and I know as surely as the rain pounds down outside that he’s going to kill me.

“Drop the gun, bitch.”

Knowing I have a backup weapon, I offer the .38. butt first.

Barbereaux makes no move to take it. “Drop it and kick it to me.”

Moving slowly, I do as he says, kicking it so that he has to come closer to retrieve it.

He directs his attention to his fallen comrade. “How bad are you hurt?”

“She got me twice,” Warner chokes out. “I’m bleeding. I think it’s bad.”

“You’re going to be okay. Hold tight.”

In that moment, I realize I probably only have seconds to live. Terror sweeps through me. Vaguely, I wonder if I can hit my lapel mike without being noticed. Even if I can do that, I know that unless I can somehow keep Barbereaux and Warner talking, T.J. and Skid won’t be able to get here in time to save me.

I look down at Warner. He’s lying on the floor to my left, bent slightly, holding his abdomen with both hands. A slowly growing puddle of blood encircles his body like a black halo.

I turn my attention to Barbereaux. “I’ve got EMT training. Let me stop the bleeding.”

Barbereaux hikes the shotgun. “Where’s that fucking Amish kid?”

Only then do I realize he still believes Billy Zook can identify him. I try to think of a way I can use that to my advantage. A dozen lies fly at my brain. “I’ll take you to him,” I blurt out.

“You’ll tell me where he is or I’ll cut you down where you stand,” he says between gritted teeth.

No matter what happens, the one thing I will not do is reveal the boy’s whereabouts. “I’m a cop, Scott. If you kill me, they’ll put a needle in your arm.”

Behind me, I hear Warner whimper. “I need to get to the hospital.”

I glance over at him. The puddle of blood has doubled in size. I can smell it now. That awful, metal-and-methane stench. “He’s bleeding out. Let me help him.”

His expression doesn’t change. There’s no sympathy for the dying man, no fear of discovery, just a deadly determination and all of it is focused on me. “You’ve got one more chance. Where’s that fuckin’ kid?”

“He’s at a safe house, surrounded by a dozen cops—”

He moves so quickly, I don’t see the blow coming. One moment I’m scrambling for a lie, trying to think my way out of this. The next I’m reeling sideways. For a crazy instant, I think he’s shot me, then I realize he swung the shotgun, striking my left temple. I stumble, make a wild grab for the counter, careen into it hard enough to cave in the wood front, and go down hard.

The next thing I know, I’m on my back. Barbereaux straddles my chest,
shoving the shotgun crossways against my throat. “Where’s the kid!” he screams.

Around me the room spins crazily. Lightning is like a strobe on his face. The shotgun grinds hard against my windpipe and Adam’s apple. I turn my head, try to raise my hands to push it away, but he’s got them trapped with his knees.

“You better start talking!” he shouts.

I open my mouth, but the steel barrel is crushing my voice box. Cursing, he removes the shotgun.

I gulp air. “We set you up,” I croak. “That kid didn’t see anything. We knew you’d show.” I cough. “Cops are outside.”

“Well, aren’t you a smart little bitch?” Cruelty and a barely controlled rage glints in his eyes. We stare at each other while the storm rages on. A few feet away, Jack Warner groans in agony. Then Barbereaux smiles. “If you’re talking about that hayseed fuck in the barn, he’s dead.”

Skid.
I stare at him, outrage billowing through me with such force my entire body trembles with it.
Not Skid. Not one of my own.
My brain chants the words like a mantra. And in that moment, I know I could kill this man with my bare hands if given the chance.

Somehow I muster the presence of mind to keep him talking. “It’s over,” I tell him. “We know about you and Mary Plank. She kept a diary.” I barely hear my own voice above the roar of blood through my veins. “She wrote about you.”

His eyes sharpen and for the first time I see uncertainty. He didn’t know about the journal. I’ve got his full attention now, so I keep going. “We know what you did to her. We know everything.”

“She was dumber than a box of rocks,” he says. “Had the mentality of a ten-year-old.”

“She was just a kid.”

“She liked to fuck.”

“She loved you.”

His smile chills me. “If she’d named me in some book, we wouldn’t be here, you lying bitch.”

He slaps me open-handed in the face, then rises and walks over to Warner, taking the shotgun with him. I use that moment to take a quick physical
inventory. My head throbs where he hit me with the stock. I think of the .22 mini-magnum strapped to my thigh, the knife in my boot, and I realize I still have a chance to get out of this alive. I push myself to a sitting position, then get to my feet. The room dips and spins, so I hold on to the counter for support.

A few feet away, Barbereaux bends and pulls Warner to his feet. Warner groans. “I need to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll get you there, buddy. Just hang tight. Let me figure out what to do with the bitch, and then we’ll go.”

The other man is too weak to stand, so Barbereaux yanks out a chair, muscles him into it, then turns to me, thrusts the shotgun at me. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

He’s going to kill me; I see intent in his eyes. It’s just a matter of time. The realization sends a shudder of terror through me. Holding his gaze, I ease my right hand down, feel the mini-magnum through the fabric of my skirt. I wonder if I can take aim and pull the trigger without having to draw the weapon out from under my skirt.

“You still have a chance to get away if you run now,” I tell him.

“You know this isn’t going to end nicely for you, don’t you?”

“If you kill a cop, they won’t ever stop looking for you. Ever.”

“You’re forgetting one thing.” One side of his mouth curves. “They don’t have my name.”

“We have you on disk. It’s only a matter of time before they tie you to it.”

He smirks nastily. “I guess that’s why you’re here, dressed like that. Because of all that fuckin’ evidence you’ve got.”

“We’ve got the other disks, too. The ones we found at Long’s place.”

“Just when I was starting to think you’re smart, you blow it by saying something stupid.” He shakes his head, feigning pity. “There’s nothing incriminating on any of those disks. Just that little bitch getting what she wanted. Who do you think planted them, for fuck sake?”

Now it’s my turn to smile. “You screwed up. We’ve got you dead to rights on one of the disks.” I need to buy some time, keep him talking, thinking.

Next to Barbereaux, Warner coughs up a spray of blood. “For God’s sake . . . get me to the hospital. Fuckin’ dying . . .”

Barbereaux steps quickly away from the other man, casts me an irritated look. “Bullshit, I went through every disk.”

“You willing to stake your life on that?” I shrug, let the statement hang. When he says nothing, I add, “Technology is an amazing thing. You’d be surprised by the information those techies can pull off a disk these days. That scar on your hand?”

He glances quickly down, then back at me. The look he gives me is so utterly devoid of emotion that it’s like looking into the eyes of a corpse. I sense he’s going to raise the shotgun and kill me. The urge to appeal to his compassion is overwhelming, but I know it would be futile. He’s a sociopath, incapable of feeling remorse. My heart pounds so loudly, I can no longer hear the storm. Keep him talking . . .

“How could you do that to those two girls?” I ask.

“It’s a sick world out there. It was all about the money. The snuff flick went to the highest bidder.” He says the words as if he’s talking about negotiating the sale of a used car instead of the final minutes of life for two innocent girls. “Some people get off on the whole death thing.”

His mouth twists into a terrible grin. “If we had more time, I’d like to get some vid of you in those clothes. A lot of men out there dig the Amish shit. I bet you’ve got a tight little snatch.”

He’s looking at me the way a wolf looks at a rabbit it’s about to devour. In the back of my mind I wonder if T.J. saw them approach the house or if the rain obscured them. Staring at Barbereaux, I’m keenly aware of the .22 pressing against my thigh. The lapel mike of my radio just a second away. I know he’ll gun me down before I can reach either.

I scramble for a way to keep him talking. “We know you killed Long, too.”

“That motherfucker died of stupidity.” Mild amusement drifts across his expression. “Lethal dose.”

“There’s still time for you to run.”

“I don’t think so.” He raises the shotgun.

Terror paralyzes me. I can’t breathe, can barely think. “If you kill me, they’ll hunt you down. They won’t stop until they find you.”

“I’m not going to kill you.” He glances at Warner and whispers, “He is.”

I look at Warner. His face is the color of paste and slick with sweat. His glazed eyes find mine. “You’re about to become another Todd Long,” I tell him.

Warner opens his mouth to speak, but no words come.

Barbereaux’s finger tightens on the trigger.
Out of time,
I think. Panic spreads through me like a wildfire burning hot and out of control. I launch myself at him. My palms hit the barrel hard, shove it up. The muzzle explodes. The concussion hits me in the face like a punch. Plaster rains down. Barbereaux steps back, brings down the muzzle, takes aim. All I can think is that I’m too far away to stop him.

As if in slow motion, I see the muzzle flash. Thunder explodes. The next thing I know I’m flying backward into space. My chest feels as if it’s been caved in by an axe. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. A scream sounds in my head, and then the night rushes in and yanks me down into the abyss.

Tomasetti hit one hundred miles per hour on Highway 62 just out of Brinkhaven. He knew it wouldn’t look good if some local yokel stopped him. He wasn’t in the best mental state, thanks to Kate. That wasn’t to mention the booze he’d sucked down earlier. He wasn’t sure what his blood alcohol level might be, but it was probably over the limit. He had his badge to back him up, but with some cops that only went so far.