Perilous (10 page)

I crawled over to Callie. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

I pulled her to the side of the kitchen island that my sister was crouching behind. “Mel, do you have your phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Call 9-1-1.”

My sister fumbled her phone from her pocket and dialed. She looked at the screen. “There’s no signal. It just keeps beeping.”

“Forget it. Does Jeff own a gun?” I asked.

“Why? What the hell is going on, Carl?”

“Someone is shooting at us from the back of the property.”

“What? Who would be shooting at us?” She tried to stand to look.

I grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled her back down. “Keep your damn head down. It doesn’t matter who is shooting at us right now. Where is the gun?”

“There’s a hunting rifle upstairs. It belonged to Jeff’s dad.”

“Are there bullets?”

“I think so.”

“Show me. Stay low. Be fast.”

The three of us kept our heads down, ran to the stairs, and then went up.

In the master bedroom, Melissa opened the closet and dug a rifle in a bag from the back. “Here.”

I unzipped the gun, a Remington 740 with a scope. As long as we had usable ammunition, it would work.

“Where are the shells?”

“I think they’re in there,” Melissa said.

I jammed my hand into the bottom of the leather bag and pulled out a box of .30-06 shells. At a quick glance, they appeared fine. I dumped a bunch into the pocket of my black hooded sweatshirt and loaded the rifle.

I jerked my chin toward the house phone in the bedroom. “See if there’s a dial tone.”

Melissa pulled it from the nightstand and placed it to her ear. “Nothing. What’s going on?”

I knew what it was but couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. No cell-phone signal, no dial tone on the home phone, and someone shooting—the bullets were for Callie and I. Someone was trying to kill us.

The window across the bedroom exploded into shattered glass, and a round entered the wall a few feet from me. My sister screamed, and Callie held her head in her hands at the edge of the bed. I pulled them both to the ground beside me. The window was on the same side of the house as the first shot had entered. The trajectory of the round told me the shooter was at a distance from a lower position. With a quick lift of my head, I glanced out the broken window. A hundred yards out, I spotted movement at the side of a storage shed.

“Come on.” I motioned for Melissa and Callie to follow me from the room. “Keep your head down.” Through the doorway, I gathered them into one of the upstairs bathrooms. “Stay in here.” I stepped from the room back into the hall.

“Where are you going?” Callie asked.

“To get the 4Runner and get us the hell out of here.”

“Carl, stay here!” Callie yelled.

A bullet ripped through the hall window at my back and splintered the doorframe of the next room. It registered immediately—multiple shooters.

“There’s more than one. We’re dead if I don’t get us out of here. Just stay put.” I closed the door and put my back to the wall next to the hall window. I chambered a round, and with a quick flick of my head, I looked out. A single man dressed in camouflage and a ski mask was standing next to a tree beside the driveway. The rifle in his hands pointed directly at me. I dropped and rolled to one side. A bullet thumped through the wall beside the window.

I got ready and took in a breath. In one motion, I stood, turned my body into the window opening, aimed, and fired as soon as I saw color in the scope. A mist of red colored the snow beside the tree, and the man dropped.

I rushed back to the master bedroom. Using the bed as cover, I took a shooting position, looking out. I put the scope on the side of the storage shed but saw nothing. Movement caught my eye to the side of the driveway. A man in a camouflage jacket and ski mask peeked out from behind the side of the garage.

I put my crosshairs on the area. The toe of his boot stuck out from the side. He was still standing there. I aimed at the corner of the garage—four and a half feet up from the boot and a foot in. I squeezed the trigger, and the man’s body collapsed into the snow and into my line of fire. I put the crosshairs on him and fired again. Red spray hit the white snow. I tucked the rifle under my arm and yelled to the girls.

“I’m going for the 4Runner. When I honk, stay low and run for the side door next to the driveway downstairs.”

“Are you okay?” Melissa called.

“I’m fine. I think I got two. I don’t know if there’s more. Just wait for the honk and then run.”

“Okay,” Callie yelled.

I jogged down the stairs and grabbed the keys from the holder by the door. I didn’t see movement outside from any window. The butt of the rifle pressed into my shoulder, I twisted the handle, pushed the door open, and retook my firing stance. I saw no one. I stepped back and to the side to check against the outside of the house—again, no one. I stepped out and whipped the rifle barrel to the right—nothing. My back pressed against the house, I walked toward the driveway. I stopped at the edge of the house. The man I’d shot by the garage lay dead in the snow. I glanced around the side—no one, other than the man I’d shot from the upstairs hallway window.

I stayed low and ran to the garage service door. Looking up the driveway as I ran, I saw a dark sedan parked sideways at the entrance of the property. I opened the garage door and scanned left to right with the rifle. The garage was clear. I started up the 4Runner and hit the button for the overhead door.

I honked twice and pulled out.

Viktor sat in the corner of his cell next to the bed. He held the thin piece of chain link fence he’d found outside against the floor and ground the end of it back and forth against the cement. By his estimate, a total of thirty-one hours had been spent on the process so far. The edges were flat, and the tip was thin. Viktor pulled it to his eye to inspect the tool he’d created. He saw a flash in the small window of the door.

“Shit.” Viktor quickly jammed the small piece of metal into the elastic waistline in the back of his pants.

The rectangular food door opened. A covered tray slid through the slot.

Viktor walked over, took it, and pulled the lid from the top. The tray was empty, just like the last three.

The guard closed the food door and relocked it. He knocked his knuckle against the window and looked at Viktor. “Enjoy your meal,” he said with a sneer. He pushed the food cart to the next door and disappeared from Viktor’s view.

Viktor went back to his position on the floor next to the bed. He pulled the piece of metal from his waistline and brought it to his mouth. With the flattened part between his teeth, he pulled down on the longer side, hoping to make a ninety-degree angle on the end. The piece wouldn’t bend as it was still too thick. He went back to rubbing it against the floor.

I waited in the idling 4Runner at the side door for Melissa and Callie until I saw them in the doorway. “Come on! Run!” I waved them out with my hand.

They both jumped in the back driver’s side. Callie slammed the door as soon as they were inside. I clicked the truck into four-wheel drive and pulled away from the house.

I glanced into the rearview mirror to see my sister staring out at the dead body in the snow.

“Carl!” Callie yelled. She pointed past me, out through the windshield.

My attention shot forward. A third man was standing next to the black sedan at the base of the driveway. He grew larger as we sped toward him. He wore the same outfit as the other two and held a pistol.

“Get down as low as you can. Brace yourself,” I said.

Melissa and Callie tucked in behind the driver and passenger seats. I got as low as I could while still being able to drive and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. I saw him fire three times before I veered right and lowered my head completely. Bullets ripped through the windshield and side glass. The 4Runner bounced as it left the driveway and clawed through the snow. When a bullet came through the back window, I popped my head back up just enough to see. The street was in view just beyond the small culvert.

“Hold on!” I yelled.

The nose of the 4Runner bounced down into the culvert. I kept the gas to the floor, and we shot up into the street. The front tires hit first, jarring my chin against the steering wheel. The back tires came down one at a time. I yanked the wheel to the right. The truck slid into the oncoming lane and veered toward the ditch on the far side. I kept the steering wheel pointed right. The rear tires caught the snow-covered gravel at the shoulder and straightened us out—directly at an oncoming car.

“Car!” Melissa and Callie yelled in unison.

I didn’t have enough time to react. The driver coming at us shot right into the ditch to miss us. A cloud of snow flew past our broken driver’s-side windows. He’d missed us by inches. I stared into the door mirror as the car shrank in the distance. The snow brought the car to a stop a hundred yards from the street in a field. I kept the gas pinned and found our lane heading east. My eyes were still fixed on the door’s side mirror. I saw a man exit the car. Every part of me wanted to go check if he was all right, but we couldn’t go back.

“Melissa, do you have your phone?”

She tried handing it to me. I watched the rearview mirror and pushed the phone back toward her. “Is Scott still at the Cedarburg PD?”

“Yeah.”

“Call him. Get police to your property. Have someone check on that guy we just ran off the road.”

I saw Callie in the rear view mirror. She was looking out of the shattered back window.

“Is he coming?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Was that for us?”

“Had to be,” I said.

“Viktor?” she asked.

“I don’t know who else, Cal.”

I could hear Melissa on the phone and looked at her over my shoulder. “Is that him?”

She nodded.

“Is he at the station?” I asked.

She asked if he was at work. “He’s there,” Melissa said.

“Tell him we are on our way there. Have him meet us out front.”

She did.

I looked back at Callie. She was gripping her arms, huddled toward the middle of the seat. In our rush out of the house, no one bothered to grab jackets. I unzipped my hooded sweatshirt, took it off, and handed it back to the girls. “Here, try to keep warm.”

“What about you?” Callie asked.

“I got the heat vents.”

The cold air whipped through the broken windows of the SUV. The heater had no chance of keeping up. Callie and Melissa huddled in my sweatshirt in the backseat.

We pulled in to the Cedarburg police station ten minutes later. I parked nose first between two cruisers at the front. The three of us got out. Scott Cooper, accompanied by two other officers, walked from the front doors and met us on our walk up to the building.

“Let’s get inside. Is everyone all right?” Scott asked. He was a little heavier than I’d remembered, but his short blond hair was the same as it had been since high school when he dated Melissa. Below his name plate was another that read: Sergeant.

We followed him in and stood in the enclosed entryway of the police station. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, and tile covered the floor. The far wall had a general office and a dispatch window. Locked doors led into the police department itself. Hot air blew from the vents to combat the arctic air blowing in from the front doors opening. I got as close to the vent as I could to defrost.

“We’re fine,” I said.

“What the hell happened, Carl? Melissa said someone was shooting at you guys out at her place?”

“There’s two dead at the house, one more that was blocking the driveway and shooting at us as we left.”

“What?” Cooper asked.

“I think it was a hit squad.”

“Hit squad?” the other officer asked. The plate on his tan police jacket read McIntyre. He was tall and thin with jet-black hair forming a widow’s peak at the front.

I nodded.

“We put a two-four-six across the radio right after Melissa called. We should have police at the house within a few minutes,” Cooper said. “You guys come with me.”

Cooper opened the door to the right of the dispatch window and walked us into the station. We made our way past the front dispatch command center and through their small bullpen. I took the place in: six desks, four additional officers, and a handful of miscellaneous staff milling about. At the back left of the building, Cooper opened the door to a conference room and sat us inside. McIntyre took a seat at the end of the table.

Cooper sat next to Melissa. “Are you okay, Mel?” he asked.

She leaned back in the chair and rubbed her eyes. “I’m okay.”

“How did they know where we were?” Callie asked.

In the rush to get out of there and get the girls somewhere safe, I hadn’t even thought about it. The truth was, I didn’t know. They’d known our plans somehow. They knew we’d be at my sister’s, and they knew where my sister lived. I thought about it further.

“I don’t know, Cal.” I looked to my sister. “Melissa, let me see your phone.”

She handed it to me, and I dialed my father’s house. A dozen or so rings later, the call went to their answering machine. I tried his cell phone, followed by my stepmother, Sandy’s. Both went to voice mail.

“Shit.”

“What?” Melissa asked.

I handed her the phone back. “I tried calling Dad. No answer on any of their phones. The cell phones are turned off. They’re going straight to voice mail.”

“They could be out and about or something. Dad’s not the best with remembering to take his cell phone.”

I said nothing. She was right, but it was doing nothing to ease my mind. If they’d found her address, they could just as easily have found my father’s.

“You’re going to have to expand on this hit-squad stuff, Carl,” Cooper said.

I let out a breath. “It’s a long story, Coop. Blowback from a case is the easiest way to describe it.”

“You have to give us more than that.”

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, I laid out the highlights of the story for him.