Neighborhood Watch (34 page)

“Through the kitchen. Out the back door,” Philip said nodding. “It’s your only chance.”

Kristin considered. Spier and Stark were approaching the house. They might shoot her anyway and put the gun in her hand. And what would they do to Jennifer?

Kristin had no choice. She turned and did what Philip Slater capriciously suggested: charged down the hallway and into the kitchen. She practically lunged at the rear door, snapping the lock open and hurrying herself and Jennifer out into the night.

Lights, triggered by motion, dropped a pool of illumination like a net around them. It blinded her, but Kristin continued running with her horrified daughter clutching her hand.

At the hedges that bordered the yard, Kristin caught the heel of her shoe in a gopher hole and went flying into the bush. The branches were like wires, tearing and scratching at her blouse and arms, but the bush broke her fall and she was able to prevent herself from striking the ground too hard.

“Mommy!”

“I’m all right, honey.”

Kristin struggled to her feet. Her shoulder ached from the impact of her palm on the earth when she broke her fall, but she ignored it. Voices were echoing in the kitchen of the Slater house. They would be out the rear door in moments. Kristin seized Jennifer’s hand again and they crossed quickly into another yard and around a neighboring house, where the lights, also triggered by motion, glared as brightly. She continued through the yards, ignoring the pain from the scratches and cuts along her forearms. Her thighs began to ache and she vaguely realized that she had twisted something in her hip as well when she had fallen.

“Where are we going, Mommy?”

“Home,” Kristin said. “We’ve got to get home and call Daddy.”

They came around the side of a house and stepped into the street. Kristin looked back and saw the Slater’s front door wide open, the security car’s bubble light turning. She swallowed her hysteria once more and walked as quickly as she could, almost oblivious at this point to the prongs of pain which had begun to emanate from her pelvis and lower abdomen. Jennifer was too frightened to utter a sound. She followed along as quickly as her little legs would carry her.

They turned up the driveway to their front door. Kristin opened it quickly and stepped into the house, pausing for a moment to catch her breath.

“I want Daddy,” Jennifer said.

“Yes, honey. We’re calling him right now,” Kristin said and started down the steps to the living room. When she turned toward the kitchen, however, she noticed the patio door had been slid open. She stopped.

“Mommy?”

“Shh, honey. Wait.”

Panic seized her again, crawling up and over her ankles, spiking through her thighs. She felt incapable of movement, cemented to the floor by a surge of fear that shot through her heart.

A noise in the hallway drew her attention to the shadow gliding along the wall. Without waiting, she turned herself and Jennifer around and hurried across the living room, up the steps and out the front door.

“Where are we going, Mommy?”

“Out of here to find help,” she muttered and turned left. But as they started down the street, heading toward the front gate, the evening’s Neighborhood Watch patrol led by Nikki Stanley came around the corner. They had obviously been told something. Nikki blew her whistle and Kristin heard, “There they are!” The whistle sounded again.

Kristin veered to her left over the Dimases’ front lawn, around the side of their house.

Lights went on throughout the house and in every house along the street, illuminating backyards, side lawns, and folding back the shadows to eliminate every possible nook and cranny for hiding.

People were shouting behind them. The whistle was blown and blown. Doors slammed.

The sound of the security patrol car squealing to a stop was like a shrill scream through the night. Kristin felt her legs wobble, the pain cutting up and down the inside of her thighs and sticking her in the side with the sharpness of a knife. She gasped, turned this way and that, frantic and terrified that she would make the wrong move and deliver

herself and her child into the hands of Philip Slater’s crazed vigilantes.

They were close behind. She could hear the footsteps over the walks and lawns. People were calling to each other. In one house, the alarm was triggered. More doors slammed.

Beams of flashlights sliced the darkness like random stabs into the night.

“Which way?” she heard Spier call.

“Behind the Dimases,” Nikki Stanley replied.

Kristin turned to her right and crossed through the Meltzers’ yard. The agony was too intense and Jennifer was hysterical. She had slowed so that Kristin was practically dragging her along. Desperately, she searched for an avenue of escape and focused on the small tool shed just to the right.

“Shh, honey. Just follow Mommy,” Kristin said opening the shed door.

Jennifer resisted being dragged into the hole of darkness. Visions of rats and other creatures were scrawled across the screen of her imagination.

“Please, honey. We’ve got to hide from the bad people for a few minutes, Jen. Come on,”

she coaxed and pulled her in beside her. Then she closed the shed door, leaving them in coffin-like darkness.

“I’m afraid, Mommy.”

“It’s all right. Shh,” Kristin whispered, and knelt down as best she could to embrace her.

Jennifer whimpered, but was too frightened to cry loudly. Kristin held her tightly and they waited and listened.

Footsteps went past. There was more shouting. A beam of light hit the shed, but quickly moved off.

“Split up,” she heard Spier say. “I’ll go west.”

“Right,” Stark replied.

Kristin held her breath and waited. Then she inched the shed door open and peered out.

The yard was clear. Off to the right, people were shouting and flashlights continued probing through the darkness.

“I want Daddy,” Jennifer wailed.

“Me too, Jen.”

There was still too much activity around her house and she had to assume that whoever had been in there waiting for her might still be.

“Let’s go home, Mommy.”

“We will. We’ve got to take a little walk first, honey.”

She led her out and decided to go toward the lake where they might safely wait for things to calm down. Surely it wouldn’t be too much longer before Ted came home anyway.

There was just enough illumination from the stars and the reflection off the water to provide a direction.

“We’ll be all right. They won’t find us. Soon, Teddy will be home. It’s going to be fine,”

Kristin babbled, cheering herself on, encouraging herself as if she were a schizophrenic.

Jennifer was as much terrified by Kristin’s actions and words as she was by the pursuit of these angry people.

They cut through some brush, under some trees and down a path, when suddenly Kristin stopped. A shadow that was clearly the silhouette of a man loomed before them. He had to have seen and heard them, yet he hadn’t moved. He waited patiently. Kristin looked back. She saw the flashlights twisting and turning in the night, blocking any effective retreat.

“Mrs. Morris?”

She grabbed Jennifer and stepped back into the darkest shadow.

“Who is it?”

“Easy, Mrs. Morris. It’s all right.”

He stepped toward her until she could see his face.

“Thank goodness,” she gasped.

Detective Martin smiled.

“Are you all right?”

“No. I’m exhausted. You know I’m pregnant and my daughter is terrified. These people have gone crazy.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s not a very pleasant situation, not for anyone.”

“Why were you waiting in here like this?” Kristin asked as she wiped Jennifer’s face.

“I intercepted a call and drove up. When I saw which way they were all running, I just assumed you might be headed down here. What’s going on exactly?” he asked.

She caught her breath and told him about Marilyn Slater and what Philip was planning to do.

“She actually shot herself?”

“Yes and when he handed me the gun . . .”

“I understand.”

“So I ran out of the house and he has everyone thinking I’m to blame. He either

participated or had something done to Angela Del Marco,” she continued without

catching her breath. “I found our notebook in his office closet.”

“Don’t say? He kept that there?” Detective Martin nearly laughed.

“Let’s go back. I want to call my husband,” she said.

“They’re really wild back there, ma’am. I suggest we go this way,” he said, nodding toward the lake.

“What?”

“Toward the lake,” he said, gesturing more emphatically.

“Why? You can stop them. You’re a policeman. We’ll go back.”

“No, ma’am. We can’t go back. We’ll go this way now,” he insisted. When she didn’t

move, he reached out and seized her right elbow. “This way, Mrs. Morris.”

“Why?” she asked, but took a few steps under his pressure.

“Keep going, Mrs. Morris. That’s it. Follow the path. Go on,” he coaxed, pushing her from behind now.

“Why are you doing this? We can go back; we’ll call my husband.”

“Right there, Mrs. Morris,” he said pointing to a rubber raft on the shore.

“What? You want us to go to the other side of the lake?” she asked, trying to make some sense out of his instructions.

“Sure.”

“But why?”

“It’ll look good. Make some sense,” he replied.

“I don’t understand.”

“Simple. You found this boat and thought it would be the best means of escaping the madness,” he said.

“What do you mean? I found this boat?” A dark realization like a shadow of ice fell over her heart. She took a step back, tightening her grip on Jennifer’s little hand.

“Get in the boat, Mrs. Morris.
Now,
” he demanded. It all came raining down over her in a cloudburst of understanding. “You’re with him, aren’t you? You . . . you were the one who investigated Sol Feinberg’s supposed suicide, too, but he hadn’t committed suicide, had he?”

“Get in the boat, Mrs. Morris.”

“Why? Why would you want to help a madman?”

“Well, his money’s not mad, Mrs. Morris. He’s got a lot more than he needs. Whereas me? I come from a family that could only dream about living in Emerald Lakes. Maybe I’ll move into your house someday soon,” he added.

“You can’t get away with this. Lieutenant Kurosaka—”

“Get in the boat, Mrs. Morris. If I have to tell you again, I’ll shoot the little girl,” he added, pointing his pistol at Jennifer, “and we’ll just blame it on one of those crazed Neighborhood Watch patrolmen.” Instinctively, Kristin pulled Jennifer to her. She felt her daughter’s silent sobbing. “I mean it,” he added. She heard the sound of a gun’s hammer being clicked back.

Exhausted herself, she put Jennifer into the raft obediently and got in beside her.

“Why do you want us in here?”

“We’ll see how well you two can swim,” he said. “In your hysteria,” he continued,

creating the fabricated scenario, “you overturned.”

Swimming in her condition wasn’t impossible, but saving Jennifer at the same time . . .

“Please. We don’t care about this place. He can have what he wants. We’ll move away.

We’ll sell the house for practically nothing. We’ll—”

“All that will happen anyway, Mrs. Morris. You shouldn’t have been so damn

determined and so damn independent. Team players are all Mr. Slater wants in Emerald Lakes,” he said, and started to push off and get in the raft himself when suddenly, a gunshot cracked.

Detective Martin snapped his head back. His eyes widened with surprise, but as he fell back, he propelled the raft forward. He slid into the water behind them, dropping as if he were being dragged down by a shark. Kristin screamed and out of the darkness came

Lieutenant Kurosaka.

“Hold on, Mrs. Morris,” he cried just as Harold Spier appeared behind him.

Kristin shouted, but to her surprise Spier ran past Kurosaka toward the shore and leaped into the water like a professional life guard. With a few quick, long strokes, he reached the raft.

“Easy, Mrs. Morris,” he said. “Just sit back.”

The powerful man hooked his arm over the side of the raft and dragged it back to the shore. Then he helped Kristin and Jennifer out under Lieutenant Kurosaka’s approving eyes. Carl Stark came running from the left to join them.

“What the hell’s going on?” he asked. “I heard the gunshot.”

“Help me drag Martin’s body out of the water,” Spier replied in response. Kurosaka

moved forward to offer Kristin his hand and guidance as she continued to step over the rocky terrain.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Morris?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m too numb and confused at the moment.”

“Understandable,” he said. “Let me help.” He went to lift Jennifer and she started to cry.

“It’s all right, honey,” Kristin said. “Lieutenant Kurosaka is our friend. I think,” she added in a whisper. The real life events had become a nightmare of such twisted

proportions she didn’t trust her own eyes and ears anymore.

Kurosaka lifted Jennifer into his arms and started up the path.

“Can you walk, Mrs. Morris? I can send for the paramedics.”

“I’d rather just walk,” she said. “I don’t want to stay here a moment longer than I have to.”

“Very good.”

She started behind him when Stark came alongside. He took her arm to guide her around some bushes. She turned sharply and looked at him.

“Just part of the job,” he said.

She almost laughed, but she saw he meant it.

When they stepped out of the darkness and onto the street, they confronted a clump of residents gathered at the front of her house, their flashlights directed downward, some off. Another patrol car had arrived and the two uniformed officers approached Kurosaka, who directed them back to the lake.

At the driveway Kristin turned and looked at her neighbors. Nikki Stanley appeared to have shrunken in size. She resembled a naughty little girl who had been caught

misbehaving. Her face was filled with almost as much confusion and fear as Kristin’s was.