knew they were going to kill us and do horrible things to Kendra before
they killed her, whether I was helpful or not. I also knew that the
promise of those transcripts was the only leverage I had at this
point.
Luckily, I'd left my case file in the trunk of my car. 'I've got them
locked in a safe,' I said.
'Good girl,' Derrick said. 'Now where's the safe?'
'Upstairs,' I said, 'in the master bedroom.'
'Aangh,' he responded, like a buzzer on a game show, 'wrong answer. I
personally tossed this place looking for your little friend's peepshow
pictures, and there ain't no safe.'
'It's an old wall safe. It's hidden in the baseboard. There's no way
you'd see it.'
I could picture Derrick searching his memory for the ransacking of my
bedroom, doubting whether he would have noticed an irregularity in the
oversized baseboards. He threw a note pad and pen at me from the
dining room table. 'The combination,' he said. 'Where is it in the
baseboards?'
'Directly behind the bed,' I said, as I scrawled down three numbers
that were all slightly off. If my guess about what was going to happen
was wrong, I could always tell them that the safe stuck sometimes.
Derrick snatched the paper from my outstretched hand and gave it to his
brother, gesturing with his head toward the stairs. 'Here, take
these,' he said, throwing him a pair of gloves from his jacket pocket.
Frank took the stairs two at a time. I heard a few thumps from
upstairs, followed by silence and a few more thumps. I tried not to
think about Frank Derringer being in my bedroom.
After a few more rounds of thumps, Frank scrambled back down the stairs
to the landing. 'That bed is fucking heavy, man. I can't budge it.'
I had sworn at myself many times for buying a solid maple bed that I
couldn't move without the help of a strong friend. But it had just
been added to the very short list of things I'd never get rid of. That
is, if I lived past eight o'clock.
Derrick was less happy with the news. 'Jesus Christ, man.
Can't you do a fucking thing by yourself?' Then he looked around the
room, in search of Plan B. C'mon, pea brain, I thought, watching him
ponder the possible combinations. There's only one right answer
here.
His eyes eventually fell on me. He gestured toward the stairs with his
head and said, 'You, go up and help.' Yes! Good answer, Derrick, good
answer! 'Try anything, and Ken-dra will pay the price,' he yelled as I
went up the stairs, Frank behind me.
Frank was a lightweight. The bed was approximately four centimeters
from where I'd last left it. I walked around to the far side, saying,
'If we each take one leg of the. headboard and pull back, it's usually
the best way to move it.'
I watched Frank take his position on the other side of the bed, and
then I crouched to my knees to reach beneath the bed ruffle and grab
the headboard. As Frank pulled against his side of the bed, I pulled
on my side with my right hand. With my left, I reached inside the top
shelf of my nightstand and pulled my .25-caliber automatic loose from
the tape that held it to the bottom of my drawer. I slid it onto the
floor next to me and then pulled on the bed hard with all my weight.
The bed jerked a few feet away from the wall. Frank rose from his side
of the bed and saw my gun aimed on him before I'd fired off the shot.
If he could've just stood still, the bullet would have hit him dead
center in the chest. Instead, he ran for the door quickly enough that
it caught him in the right shoulder.
I fired off a second shot but missed and hit the doorframe. Damn. Too
much time on the firing range, not enough chasing down wily targets.
Two quick shots rang from downstairs as I followed Frank to the door.
By the time I got there, he was almost to the end of the hallway
leading to the stairs. I fired another shot. I must've hit him,
because I heard a low grunt. I must not have gotten him good, though,
because he turned down the stairs, and my next shot ripped through the
shameless Warhol knockoff on my wall.
Assuming that Derrick would be waiting for me at the bottom, I took the
stairs with my back pressed against the inner wall. I stopped at the
last step before the landing, steeling myself to make the turn. The
pressure of my heart pounding against my chest was fierce, and I fought
to catch my breath.
I poked my head around the corner and then retreated to the safety of
the wall again. Keeping my back against the wall, I began moving down
the second half of the stairs. Tim O'Donnell was still in my Mission
chair, but now blood was oozing from a dark hole in his forehead. From
the looks of things, a second bullet had been fired into his groin.
As much as I'd practiced shooting, I'd never made a sweep through a
house before, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do next. Without
