Anticipate the unexpected and assume the worst. That was what his first partner had told Charlie when he started working patrol. Now, years later, he had plenty of ways to fill in the blanks. All of them bad.
He assumed that the person who had broken into Mia’s house was still inside. That he—or they—was armed. That he was dangerous. And that he was panicked. Panicked was worst of all. Panic led to poor decisions. Panic led to people getting hurt, even killed. That was why he had asked the responding officers to shut down lights and sirens before they arrived, lower the volume on their radios, and silence their equipment.
“Go wait by your car,” he told Mia now.
“But what about—”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I don’t have time to argue.” He turned away so he could scan the house, looking for clues, for anything out of place. Had he seen movement in the glossy green leaves of the camellia bush next to the side porch?
He stepped onto the porch, keeping out of the line of sight of the open door. In the porch light the cop, with cheeks as red as apples, didn’t look much older than Gabe. “Who’s inside?” Charlie asked in a voice not much louder than a whisper.
“That’s not yet been determined. I found the door open, indicating that we had an active B&E-type situation. I entered, heard movement, and attempted verbal contact. When there was no response, I exited and waited for backup. They just arrived.”
“We don’t just have a burglar or burglars,” Charlie said. “We’ve also got a fourteen-year-old kid in there. Name of Gabe Quinn. Did you see him?”
The rookie shook his head. “I didn’t make visual contact with anyone.”
Charlie thought. If he called out to Gabe and the kid responded, would that simply provide the burglar with a ready hostage?
“We know you’re in there!” he called into the darkness. “Come on out with your hands up!”
A long silence. Long enough that Charlie had time to wonder just how bad things were going to get. Then a voice came from overhead.
“Charlie? Is that you?”
The tightness in his chest loosened. “It is. Stay where you are, Gabe. Are you alone? Are you safe?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.” His voice was shaky. “Are there other cops here? Besides you?”
“Yeah. Two.”
“I think they think I’m the bad guy.”
“What?” Charlie wasn’t sure he was following.
“When I was talking to you on the phone, this guy started yelling at me from downstairs to get my hands up or he’d shoot me. But instead I hid.”
He looked at the cop next to him. Now the rookie’s whole face was red.
“Did you tell him you were a cop?” Charlie asked.
A pause. “I’m not certain I identified myself as an officer.”
He exhaled sharply, then called upstairs to Gabe, “Just to be safe, we’re gonna clear the house. Stay put until we say otherwise, okay?”
When it came to the search, the rookie redeemed himself. They worked in speed and in silence, using hand signals, taking quick peeks—alternating high and low—slicing the pie when they went around corners, leapfrogging down hallways, never forgetting about the fatal funnel of a doorway and never turning their backs to an uncleared room.
When they reached the top of the stairs, Charlie called out for Gabe, asking where he was.
“In my room.”
“Okay. Just give us a sec.”
Brooke’s room was clear, as was the bathroom. In Mia’s room the bed was unmade, but only on one side, as though she still expected Scott to show up and reclaim his half.
Finally Charlie opened the door to Gabe’s room. It appeared empty. The closet door stood open.
“All right, Gabe, you can come out.”
The chair in the front of the desk slowly began to inch out into the room, then Gabe unwound himself onto the carpet. Charlie holstered his weapon and reached down to pull him to his feet, marveling that the kid had managed to contort his body into a space not much larger than a milk crate.
“Your mom’s outside. She wants to know where Brooke is.”
The boy’s face paled. “You mean Brooke’s not outside? I told her to wait on the side porch. I told her.”
There was no point in telling a fourteen-year-old that he had made the wrong decision. Judging by the horrified expression on his face, he had already figured that out for himself.