Dust to Dust

She nearly fell down the stairs when the gunshots were fired. Someone was breaking into the house with a very large gun. Diane didn’t hesitate. She ran to the chest of drawers in the closet and got her gun and ammunition clips. She carried them and her cell up to the attic. She closed the door at the top of the attic stairs and pulled a large chest in front of it. Light from the security lamps shined through one of the dormer windows, giving the attic a spooky glow. She called 911 and explained to them what was happening. She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, shoved a clip into the butt of the gun, loaded a round into the chamber, and clicked on the safety.

“Stay on the line, ma’am,” the operator said.

“Can’t. I think he is in the house. I’ll call back when I can.”

“Ma’am, stay…”

Diane hung up and called Chief Garnett for good measure.

“I’ll make sure they are on their way,” he said. “You have a gun?”

“Yes. I’m holed up in the attic. This is some bold home invader. He must know the police are about to come,” she said.

She listened for footfalls. Frank’s house didn’t have carpet. He had polished wood floors and sound reverberated off them. She heard the footsteps downstairs. Diane took up a position behind a large trunk near the wall. She knew it was filled with Frank’s old National Geographic magazines. They ought to be a fairly decent bullet stopper. This vantage had a view of the door but was not in front of it. If he came up the stairs and began blasting through the lock and moved the chest of drawers, she would have time to shoot before he got to her. It seemed like a good plan.

Only now did Diane notice that her heart was racing and she was sick to her stomach. She heard footsteps on the main stairs. Maybe he wouldn’t find the attic stairs. They were hidden in the bedroom closet.

Her cell rang. Damn, she forgot to put it on vibrate. She answered with a whisper.

“Diane, are you all right? You sound hoarse. This is Vanessa. Mother remembered-”

“Can’t talk now, Vanessa. I’ll call back.”

A booming gunshot slammed against the attic door.

“Is that gunfire?” said Vanessa.

“Yes. Got to go.”

Chapter 41

Diane dropped the cell, rested her shaking arms on the trunk, and aimed the gun at the doorway. If he came straight through the doorway, he might not think to turn to the right until it was too late. He would have to lean into the door to move the chest. He would be off balance. That would give her time-if she was lucky. He hit the door with another earsplitting shot. What if there were more than one of them? Damn, she hadn’t thought of that. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

The chest jumped as another bullet slammed through the back. It sounded like an elephant gun, it was so loud. Diane checked to see if the safety on her gun was off. It wasn’t. Shit. She would get killed if she didn’t start thinking. She moved the switch with her thumb.

Sirens whined in the distance. Hurry. Please, hurry.

The intruder shot the door twice more. The sound was so loud the entire neighborhood should have heard it. She thought she could hear him reloading-clink, clink.

The chest began to inch forward. He was pushing on it now. Diane steadied her gun. He apparently put his shoulder into it, for the chest moved forward at least three feet and he stumbled into the room-facing Diane. He raised his shotgun toward her as she fired three times and ducked behind the trunk. She felt the floor shake when he fell. At the same instant, a blast from his shotgun shook her eardrums and the wall behind her exploded, debris falling over her. Diane lay still a moment, stunned. When her head cleared, she wanted to peek over the trunk, but she was afraid it was a trap. What if he was playing dead? What if he had backup? She was stuck. She crouched behind the trunk and listened to his breathing. It came in gasps, sounding real enough, but she didn’t believe it.

“Help me,” he whispered.

She was too scared to move, too wary to trust. She tried to think what to do, but her brain was too panicked.

Damn, she thought. I’ve been in bad situations before. Why am I suddenly such a coward?

She stayed low and moved slowly to look around the side of the trunk next to the wall. There was a six-inch opening between the wall and the trunk she could have seen through, if it weren’t so dark. The only significant light reflected through the windows from the security lamps. They had suddenly gone dark. The motion detector outside had timed out. Only dim light from the floor below seeped up the stairs and through the open doorway. It did little to illuminate.

The sirens were louder. Help was coming. But the sirens were too loud. She wouldn’t hear him if he moved. Diane stayed still and listened hard through the noise. She stared through the space beside the trunk until her eyes became adjusted to the darkness. She saw a booted foot moving, trying to get up. She shot at it and he yelped.

She heard him whimper and mutter something she couldn’t make out. He seemed to be down, but Diane didn’t trust him. She waited, tempted to shoot him again.

Get some backbone, she told herself.

She heard banging on the door downstairs. The police. But what if it was Frank? He wouldn’t know what he was walking into. She rose slowly, keeping her back flat against the wall, and surveyed the darkened attic. She saw the dark form of the intruder squirming on the floor. The shotgun was within his reach. She aimed her gun at him and made her way slowly to the downed form and kicked the shotgun aside. She stepped over to the door, keeping him in sight, keeping her gun trained on him, and flipped the light switch.

The sight startled her. The man on the floor looked like Ray-Ray Dildy. No, it looked like a slightly younger and different version of Ray-Ray Dildy.

What is this, some kind of maniac crime family?

“Police!” Muffled voices came from downstairs.

Diane walked around and picked up his gun. She looked down at his face. He was scared and suffering. She could see he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but one of her bullets had managed to hit him through the arm opening and another in his leg.

“Help will be here soon,” she said, and walked out of the room, down the attic steps, and out to the stairs. She stood his shotgun in the corner of the stairwell.

“I’m up here,” she called.

She heard running through the house from the rear. They had found the broken back door. She walked down the stairs, her hands held high where they were clearly visible to the police. The first person she saw was Douglas Garnett. He met her at the base of the stairs.

“The intruder is wounded on the attic floor,” she told him.

Diane sat on the living room couch, leaning forward with her head in her hands while the police secured the house. The intruder had wanted her to answer the door. He was going to shoot her and walk away. Frank would have come home and found the door open and her lying on the floor, dead. She took a deep breath and stood up when she heard the paramedics coming down the stairs with a stretcher. They were the same ones who had been making the runs to Marcella’s house.

“Didn’t we just take this guy last week… and wasn’t he dead?” one of the paramedics asked Diane as he and his partner passed with the stretcher.

“Must be the same family,” she muttered.

As they went out the front door, she thought she heard one of them mumble that he was going to write a book.

Frank came in a moment later, alarm and bewilderment on his face. Diane looked at him with tears in her eyes. He had gotten away early. What if he had arrived when the intruder came blasting through the door? She put