Free Testament by David Morrell Page B

by the front door.
    “The phone’s been cut,” he told the detective.
    “I know.”
    He felt the detective’s handgun against his shoulder. Realizing this might be one of Kess’s men, he recoiled, falling back against the banister of the stairs.
    “Easy. Don’t get in the way,” the detective told him thickly. “Go back upstairs.”
    “I’ve got to help. Tell me what to do.”
    “Get back upstairs.”
    Someone outside shouted.
    “Me. They’re calling me,” the detective said. He went into the living room, crouching beside the big shattered window, calling out, “Fine! Everything’s fine in here!”
    The man outside shouted again.
    He kept on, the words indistinct. The detective came back into the hallway, swearing.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “A damned mess,” the thick voice came at him. “The shotguns opened up on the cruiser too. Our guys ran for those trees out there, but one of them was hit in the head, and now he’s got blood coming down over his eyes so he can’t see.”
    The detective unlocked the front door and opened it a crack, the night a paler shade of black against the dark of the hallway. A slight wind came up with the rain, blowing coolly in.
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m going out there. I need to bring him in.”
    He listened to the rain outside drizzling on the pavement. “No,” he said. “Stay here. Let the other guy bring him in.”
    “Can’t. If those shotguns start again, we need somebody to shoot and cover us.”
    “But you can do that yourself from here. Please. There’s no reason to go. Don’t leave us.”
    “Have to. I don’t have a clean line of fire because of those trees. The only way to do this is for me to get him while the other man uses his better position to cover me.”
    Breathing nervously, the detective opened the door wider.
    “No. Please.”
    “Don’t you think I want to stay here?” the detective told him. “Don’t you think I want nothing to do with going out there?”

24
     
    And then he was gone.
    He stood in the dark next to the open doorway, listening to the detective’s quick steps off the wooden porch onto the wet sidewalk, onto the soft wet grass, and then in the monotonous spatter of the rain he could not hear him anymore. His hand was still outstretched from where he had grabbed at the man’s arm. He imagined him, finger heavy on the trigger of his handgun, racing low toward one of the fir trees, diving flat onto the cold wet mud-spongy grass, seeing about the policeman hit in the head. Why wasn’t help here by now? Where were more police cars? He couldn’t even hear any sirens on the way.
    Everything was doubling on him, building in circles. He was back to when he had first waited for the ambulance and the police after Ethan was poisoned, standing almost in the same spot, pacing, worrying why help wasn’t there. The poison and the cat. Ethan. Sarah and the house. The calls. Why weren’t any sirens coming?
    Because Webster would leave them quiet, not to warn Kess’s men. And then with the chill breeze from the rain creeping steadily in on him, he suddenly shivered as he realized the police in the cruiser outside might not have been able to radio for help. They might have been in such a hurry to get out of the car that they didn’t have the time. He held his breath, trembling, counting one, two, three, straining to hear the detective struggling back with the wounded policeman over the wet grass through the rain toward the house. Where were they? What was taking them so long? He had a vision of Kess’s men rushing the house and he wanted desperately to close the door on them, but he couldn’t, he needed to leave it open for the detective and the wounded policeman coming through.
    But what if it’s Kess’s men who come running through?
    The shots had caused lights to come on here and there in houses across the street, more lights coming on all the time. Maybe Kess’s men would go away