Richard was driving; Pete was navigating. Doing 90 on the Ventura Freeway, the address on Sumac was fifteen minutes from the station, tops. Richard was fervently hoping to pick up a Highway Patrol escort.
“Get off at the Van Nuys off-ramp,” Pete barked, “and for chrissake, try not to get us killed, okay?”
“Can’t find a cop when you need one,” Richard muttered.
“Now, south on Van Nuys, across Ventura Boulevard to something called Roblar Place, then hang a left. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Richard said, careening around corners at speeds the unwieldy news Van was definitely not meant to travel, with its bulky microwave mast jutting in the air.
“Okay, down Roblar one block to Knobhill Drive, go south till you round a bend, and… yes! There’s Sumac Drive! Go right, go right, to 6420…” They both scanned the numbers on the small clapboard and stucco houses.
“There’s Maxi’s car!” Richard shouted. He screeched to a stop opposite the black Corvette, and he and Pete jumped out of the van. The address was on the other side of the street, three houses down.
The gate was locked. Richard put his right hand on the top crossrail, hoisted himself up and over the sharp, rusty iron spikes, and dropped to the ground on the other side.
“Open it for me,” Pete yelped, and Richard tried.
“Can’t,” he said, rattling the handle. “It’s locked from the inside—need a key.”
Richard left Pete standing on the dirt sidewalk eyeing the gate and the iron fence, while he sprinted up the path to the front door. He rang the bell; no response. He tried the knob; the door was locked. He backed off and scoured the parched front yard, mostly dirt and weeds, with a few persistent blades of grass. There was a small pile of rocks in a corner, probably used for some kind of decorative garden at one time. He hefted the biggest boulder, about the size of a watermelon. Maxi was in there, and she wasn’t having tea. She hadn’t shown up for work, and she hadn’t called in, so something was up, and Richard wasn’t about to be polite.
Pete was laboriously trying to climb up the outside of the iron wall, not easy at 220 pounds in slippery Italian loafers. He stopped and watched as Richard held the rock in front of him, dug in his Nikes, and made a fast run toward the house. Just before he hit the front door, he shifted his hands behind the rock and slammed it through the hardwood, just inches from the doorknob. The rock splintered the aged wood and opened a wide gash in the door as it fell inside.
Richard quickly reached in and grabbed the doorknob. He was relieved to feel it give, unlike the setup on the front gate. The door pushed open. He barged into the living room bellowing, “Maxi! Maxi, where are you?”
Suddenly, from behind the door, someone grabbed him by the shoulder, and he heard his jacket being slashed down the back. He whirled around to face a tall, thin, frenzied woman with glazed dark eyes. She’d reared back and was ready to strike again with what Richard knew immediately was the Black Sabbat cross.
With both his hands, he landed a mighty shove at her mid section, knocking her backward off her feet onto a cluttered glass-topped coffee table that shattered when she landed. With four long strides Richard vaulted out of the dingy living room to the back of the house.
Stumbling into the bedroom, he gasped to see Maxi shackled to the bedposts, her head to one side, her eyes closed, and her clothes ripped apart, revealing a gaping, bleeding wound that looked like it had rent her torso in two.
Was he too late? He leaped to the bedside and reached for the base of her neck to find a pulse. It was weak, but steady. “Maxi,” he said. “Can you hear me, Maxi? It’s Richard. I’m going to get you out of here.”
He reached into his inside coat pocket where he always kept a few oversize paper clips to clamp scripts together in the field, and he twisted one of them straight. Grasping the handcuffs on Maxi’s right hand, he inserted the aluminum tip into the lock. Deftly moving it back and forth, he listened until the tumblers released, then opened the cuffs and gently removed Maxi’s bruised wrist. He leaped around the bed and did the same with the other set of handcuffs.
He stripped off his jacket, revealing the bulletproof vest that had saved him from a vicious gash down his back. Before they left, Pete and Richard had fastened on Kevlar vests—they were kept stored in the backs of all Channel Six vans.
Richard propped Maxi up and slipped his jacket behind her. Its silk lining would be safer against her skin than the filthy bedding, he reasoned. He pulled her torn blouse back over her wounds, and buttoned his slashed coat across her chest.
Carefully picking Maxi up, he wondered if the deranged lady of the house had been knocked out. He’d been so intent on finding Maxi that he’d left her there in the living room, sprawled in shattered glass. He didn’t hear any sounds now in the small house.
Quickly, he loped out into the hallway, carrying Maxi. He peered around the corner into the living room. Zahna Cole wasn’t there. The front door was still open, and he could see Pete outside, standing in the middle of the street. Pete had evidently abandoned his attempt to scale the wall.
Richard ran to the door with Maxi in his arms, yelling, “Pete, quick, I’m going to hand Maxi over the gate to you; she’s hurt—”
In midstride, he was about to hit the stoop when Zahna flew at him with an unearthly shriek from behind the door. He shifted Maxi’s weight to his left arm, ducked down, and with his right hand he lunged for the woman’s legs, getting a grip on one of them and yanking it up from under her body.
She dropped to the floor, but immediately began pulling herself up. She was gaunt and frail-looking, but from somewhere she was able to summon an uncanny strength. Richard darted back into the living room, quickly swooped Maxi down onto the couch, and was about to turn and go for Zahna, but in the seconds that he’d been turned away, the woman had jumped onto his back with tremendous force and was poised to deal him a strike to the neck with the deadly cross that was still clenched in her fist.
In that instant, a blast ripped through the room, and her grasp on the weapon released. Richard threw himself over Maxi to shield her, and watched the cross fall to the grimy carpet, to be anointed with a stream of blood that splattered off its painted colors. He lunged for it, picked it up, and whirled around to see Zahna Cole clutching her bleeding wrist, and Mike Cabello standing in the doorway holding a smoking gun.