The Dead Room

clearly. And in the midst of all of this her mind clutched the brass ring, the only thing that was keeping her alive: the location of Ben’s body. She had to convince Reynolds and Humphrey to take her out of the house so they could drive to the location of the body. Once the house was empty, the kids would be safe, and Michael could call the police.

Jamie lay sideways against the floor, struggling to breathe. She was pretty sure Reynolds had broken several of her ribs.

‘Take… you,’ she said.

Reynolds stood somewhere in front of her. She could hear his sneakers pacing the carpet near her head, and he was breathing hard – not from the physical exertion but from anger.

‘Take,’ she said again. ‘Take… ah… ah… you.’

Humphrey said, ‘She’s speaking.’

Jamie cracked an eye open and saw Reynolds’s blurry shape leaning close to her.

‘What’s that, hon?’

‘Take… you… ah… there.’

‘I want you to tell me where he is.’

‘Take… take… you.’

Humphrey said, ‘Let her take us there, Kevin. What’s the harm?’

‘I still don’t believe her,’ Reynolds said. ‘I think she’s got him stashed away somewhere. I’m smelling a trap. This cunt is real crafty, was going to ambush me this morning. Ain’t that right, sweetheart?’

Reynolds leaned in closer. ‘You were a cop. You know who Ben is, don’t you? Your husband told you, I know it. Ben’s worth more to you alive than dead. You call one of your friends on the force and tell them what you saw in the basement?’

Jamie licked her lips. It took a great effort to speak. ‘No.’

‘You’re more stubborn than your husband. But I’m aiming to fix that.’

Jamie thought she heard a car door slam shut.

Humphrey said, ‘Clean-up crew is here.’

‘Tell them to pull into the garage,’ Reynolds said. ‘I want to load her into the van.’ Footsteps walked past her and then she felt Reynolds grip the back of her chair and pull her up into a sitting position.

Now she felt his breath, heavy with booze and cigarettes, against her ear. ‘I’m going to get you to talk. I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do, one way or another, you’re going to tell me every little detail.’

65

Darby took the corner too quickly. The tyres skidded across the wet pavement as she pulled on to a long suburban street full of big homes and nice lawns. Lots of space between the houses, lots of the windows dark. She drove out of the skid and heard the GPS’s computerized voice giving her the directions. The house she was looking for would be on her left, less than half a mile up the road.

Tearing down the street, she saw a brown van parked in a driveway. Through an open garage door, she took in the quick movements of three men dressed in suits and carrying big plastic tackle-boxes and large briefcases. Her attention was fixed on the man lighting a cigarette by the van’s open door – the man who had checked her car for bugs, the head of Chadzynski’s Anti-Corruption Unit, Lieutenant Warner.

Warner saw the Mercedes and looked puzzled but not afraid – puzzled as to why his boss, the police commissioner, had decided to come here.

Concerned now, he stared at the Mercedes’s tinted windows as he jogged across the front lawn. Darby tucked the SIG underneath her thigh, pinning the gun to the seat. Then she hit the gas.

The car bumped over the pavement and then tore across the front lawn, spitting up grass and dirt.

Warner turned, the cigarette dropping from his mouth, and started to run.

Darby hit the back of his legs. He bounced up over the bonnet. His head slammed against the windscreen, showering the glass in a web of cracks, and she saw his cheap suit disappear above her as he tumbled across the roof.

Gripping the wheel with both hands, she slammed on the brakes and drove out of the skid to prevent a head-on collision with the car parked at the top of the driveway. She slammed into it sideways in a screech of crushing metal and exploding glass.

The Mercedes came to a jarring stop. Darby was thrown against her seatbelt. She unbuckled it, quickly threaded the shotgun strap over her head and threw open the door.

Warner was on the front lawn. She could see him trying to get to his feet. She brought up the SIG and hit him twice with a double tap.

She swung her weapon to the garage, to a man in a dark suit standing in a doorway at the top of the steps. He let go of the blue tackle box in his hands and reached underneath his suit jacket for his sidearm.

Two shots to the chest and he went down, collapsing back inside the house.

She was about to move into the minivan parked in the garage when she saw a second man aiming a Glock.

Darby ducked behind the minivan as he fired. The windows exploded, glass raining down on her, and he kept firing. She counted the shots as she inched her way along the back bumper. She waited until she heard him running.

The door slammed shut. Darby came up and fired two shots against the door.

Sweep the garage.

Clear.

She moved up the steps and checked the doorknob. Locked. She hit the button to close the garage door and then killed the lights.

Switching to the shotgun, she blew off the hinges. Then she blew out the doorknob. She kicked the door down and swung to one side.

Muzzle flashes came from inside the hall. She swung the shotgun around and fired. Someone screamed and she pressed the trigger. Click. She pumped more rounds into the shotgun, then came around and fired again and again as she moved inside the house.

66

The hall, about twenty feet long, led directly into a brightly lit kitchen of beige tiles and oak cupboards. One man lay dead on the floor and another one was crawling away, trying to hide behind the kitchen island. The shotgun blast had shredded most of one leg.

Darby fired another shot at his chest and swung her attention to her right, her weak spot – the half-closed wooden door. She kicked it open and ducked to the side, expecting gunfire. Silence. No movement. She swung around and saw a ceiling lamp hanging above a small room with a bench built into the wall.

She ducked into a small room. She couldn’t use the shotgun in a hostage situation – no accuracy. She threaded the Remington’s strap across her shoulder and switched back to the SIG. Six shots left in the clip and a fresh one jammed in her pocket.

The shotgun resting against her back, Darby turned and checked the hall. Clear.

She looked at the man lying on the floor, bleeding out. He didn’t move. Had to make sure he was dead. She fired a round into his back. He didn’t move. One of her shotgun rounds had hit a plastic toolbox similar to the one she used for her forensics kit. Through the broken plastic she saw cleaning supplies – towels, latex gloves and small bottles of bleach leaking on to the tiles.