Hockley buckled his seat belt and pulled it hard. All around him he could see scared, disbelieving faces. Darn it, he was scared and disbelieving, but there wasn’t much else that they could do.
Keep it slow and measured and straight on, he told himself, and aim for the window farthest away from Andrew.
Hockley revved the engine and mounted the pavement, turning into the blazing house. His knuckles were white and his mouth set as he drove over the patchy winter lawn and the ornamental aisle—aware and sorry that he was driving over Polly’s flowers.
Keep it slow, measured, and straight on. Fifteen miles per hour should give it just about enough of a knock.
There was a path clear of people and Hockley pressed his foot on the accelerator. The wall surged before him, faster than he would have expected, and he hit it squarely at thirteen miles per hour. The air bag punched him and the crash rebounded through his body. He looked up, dazed, and all he could hear were the sounds of hammers against the bricks.
Kupitz yanked the door open and dragged him out. “Hock, are you all right?”
The fire chief and two of his men were finishing the job. The crash had destroyed the window and dislodged a handful of bricks: enough for men to go through, enough to reach the motionless body on the floor.
The heat was building up and now even the second floor was eerily illuminated. Madison, half of her face hot and half cold, swept her eyes over the crowd and over the firefighters. She didn’t know what she was looking for, and she hoped that she would recognize it if she saw it. If the killer was there, if he was moving among them, would he try to stop them from saving his victim? Would he reveal himself in a look?
So far, Madison thought, he had kept himself hidden: his was not an assassin’s mission to immolate himself for the sake of achieving his object. He had been careful, he had been cautious.
Let him be wary a little longer, Madison prayed. Let him be prudent and not try anything in the middle of this mess.
The SWAT team was already on its way back to Ludlow but nobody knew how long it would take for them to get there—and, once they did, whether there would be more victims to be counted.
“Here we go . . .” The fire chief shone his heavy-duty flashlight inside the basement. “In and out, people. No lingering for mementos.”
His words were still in the air when his body disappeared into the hole followed by two firefighters; a third one was left to point the flashlight inside the dim room and prevent anyone else from going in.
A puff of smoke leaked out of the opening, floating out into the air like poison. It found Madison’s throat and she coughed. The firefighters had been wearing masks, but Andrew Howell had not, and he wasn’t moving. Any second now, they would pull him out; any second now, he would be out. Brown and Madison kept their focus on the crowd, their hands resting on the butt of their sidearms, seeking out something—or someone—that might not be there at all.
Madison heard raised voices from inside and knew that something was wrong. There was swearing and loud exchanges muffled by the men’s gear, and she tried to peek into the hole. The beam of light cut through the smoke and her eyes found the men standing around the body in the corner. Andrew Howell lay with his arms spread out and his legs bent to one side and . . .
Madison blinked.
Above her something crashed in the living room. The heat was becoming unbearable, but she couldn’t move from where she was. And she couldn’t look away from what she saw.
“They’re going to need an ax,” she said to Brown, and she ran to the fire truck.
“Give me an ax,” she said to one of the firefighters. “Quickly.”
The man didn’t ask why—or who she was—and as Madison turned to the blazing house she saw Kupitz and Hockley disappearing into the hole. The ax was heavy in her arms, and every detail stood out in the full horror of the moment: the sheen on the steel blade and the curve of the handle, and her breath catching in her throat. They needed an ax because Andrew Howell lay in a heap on the concrete floor in the basement of his pretty wooden house, and around his right ankle the jaws of a steel trap had been snapped shut. The trap’s chain was wrapped around a heavy beam, and no one in that basement was going anywhere.
“Here . . .” she said, and she passed the ax down into the gloom. If they tried to pry open the trap’s jaws, it would take too long and the man might bleed out. How much time did they have? The killer didn’t have to do anything. All that was left was to stand back and watch. He had already done enough, and the house would do the rest.
Colville County had decided to catch up with the rest of the world in madness and evil, and they, who had been sent to help, were failing. The glint of metal around the man’s foot was the mark of their failure.
There was a sudden surge of heat as some of the upstairs windows blew out and shards of glass rained around them. A piece caught the material of Madison’s coat by her shoulder. A firefighter stood before them and started to push Brown and Madison backward.
“They’re still inside,” Brown said to the man, but he put the flat of his gloved hands on their chests and pushed them back firmly.
The chief and the deputies were in the basement with the other firefighters, and neither Brown nor Madison were inclined to do as they were told.
Chief Sangster stared at the figure on the floor. One of the firefighters had taken off one glove and was feeling under Andrew’s jaw for his pulse. It was Polly’s Andrew, for Chrissakes.
“Fast and shallow. Going into shock,” the man said.
Sangster wanted to cough out the taste in his mouth. The smoke was getting thicker as it seeped under the basement door, but everybody’s eyes were on the thing, the dreadful thing, hanging on the man’s ankle.
“Pull the chain tight,” Kupitz said to Hockley, and he did.
“Ready to move him as soon as we’re clear,” the fire chief said.
Normally Hockley would have made a crack about Kupitz hitting his hand and not the chain, but all the jokes had gone out of him. Koop looked ready to smash his way into hell if necessary. Hockley nodded, pulled the chain tight from the end with the locked jaws, then watched his friend raise the ax high above his head and swing it down hard.
The blade hit metal a couple of inches away from the beam and split the link open.
“Let’s go!”
“Take his shoulder.”
“Lift the trap and keep the weight off the foot.”
“On my count . . . one . . . two . . . three . . .”
Brown and Madison saw Sangster emerging from the hole.
“Back away. Give ‘em room.” The firefighter finally managed to get them to inch away.
Through the haze Madison saw them carry out the limp, lifeless body. They were almost completely out of the building, almost all clear and safe, when the air was torn by a crash. A wave of heat knocked into them: the ground floor had collapsed into the basement. Madison walked backward away from the house.
How many men had gone in? How many had come out?
Brown spun her around; he looked suddenly stricken. There were cheers for the firefighters, and some people were clapping. They really had no idea about what was going on.
“The killer hit Edwards by mistake,” Brown said.
Madison nodded.
“How did he realize that he’d gotten the wrong guy? Why did he come for Polly’s husband?”
Somewhere behind her Hockley was calling out Kupitz’s name, his voice ragged and raw.
Brown eyed the crowd. “How did the killer find out that he’d gotten the wrong guy?”