First Impressions, Page 3

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  The small, New England cape had a central front door, painted blue, and two large picture windows on either side, but only three blue shutters, one of which hung by a single hinge. Scraggily hedges weighted down by snow fronted the house on either side of the cracked, cement stoop. There was no storm door. Carefully, I tried the doorknob. Locked.

  I clenched a penlight between my teeth, which kept them from chattering, and worked the deadbolt. The simple pin-and-tumbler cylinder made raking the pins with a pick and tension wrench a piece of cake. If I could keep my fingers from going numb in the cold. I managed.

  I pocketed the burglar tools and the penlight and drew my Colt .45 autoloader, hoping I wouldn't need to shoot anyone.

  I checked the clock on my cell phone. Twelve minutes had passed since Ritter left to go around back.

  Holding my breath, I stepped into the dark interior, moving directly into a wide living room. Nightlights were plugged into outlets all around the room, illuminating the space with a pale dull hue. Old couches and overstuffed chairs were shoved in piles to the right. Their cushions were soiled, torn and tossed in disarray. A broken wooden table lay on its side with a rolled-up carpet folded and leaned up against it. Something in the house smelled as if it had been left on the stove too long, and might still be there.

  Two open archways led to the back of the house. Urine and mildew smells assaulted my nostrils. I covered my nose with the back of my hand and held my breath-it didn't help. And why was it so damned hot inside?

  In the haze a shadowy figure rolled off one of the couches and suddenly popped to his feet like a crazed jack-in-the-box.

  I brought the .45 up in a two-handed grip. "Freeze!"

  He didn't.

  He ran for the back of the house.

  "Colin! I know who you are." That bought me a second of hesitation before he ducked into the next room, swallowed up by the darkness inside. "My name is Grace deHaviland," I called out. "I'm a bail enforcement agent. I'm here to take you back to Columbus."

  "I ain't going back," he shouted from somewhere in the darkness.

  "Yes, you are," I said with confidence.

  I sidestepped toward the doorway, my .45 aimed at the blackness further on. I squinted, looking for any sign of movement. "The only question is how much trouble we're going to have making it happen."

  "Get back!"

  "I can't do that, Colin."

  I heard noises upstairs. Hard, angry footsteps stormed across bare wooden floors. I was close enough to the doorway to get an overview of the layout inside-a staircase leading upstairs, a hallway to the back of the house. Two rooms off to the right, bedrooms maybe.

  A voice shouted down from the staircase. Female. Raw, and angry. "Colin! What the hell are you doing down there?"

  In the darkness I watched a scarecrow of a woman stomping down the stairs wearing nothing but panties and a soiled-gray cami top. She was barefoot. Her dishwater blonde hair was a frizzy mess. She had a little boy in tow, his forehead furrowed as he wiped sleep from his eyes.

  Allison Raynor and her son, Jimmy.

  Colin shouted up the stairs. "Go back upstairs, Allie. I'm handling this."

  "Handling what?" Seeing me, Allison narrowed her ghoulish eyes. Wide, bloodshot orbs surrounded by dark, baggy circles. Her face was gaunt, so thin and wasted away it looked like a death mask. "Who the?"

  The hand not clutching Jimmy's wrist come out from behind her leg. It held a gun. She squeezed off two rounds. I dove to the right, cursing as I knocked over a table and crashed into the rolled-up carpet. Sprawled on the dust-covered floor, I brought up my gun, aiming it at the doorway and half expecting to get a bullet in the face. Instead I heard Colin and Allison shouting, and footsteps. Running.

  I scrambled to my feet coughing from the moldy dust I'd stirred up, and charged toward the doorway. At the door frame I crouched, swept the hallway. Clear. Were they hiding in the two rear bedrooms? No. I would have heard the doors slamming shut. Had they run upstairs? No. Those footsteps would have sounded different; I would have been able to tell, even over the pulse hammering inside my ears. Right?

  I made my way toward the back of the house. Another doorway. I darted into a mudroom filled with coats and boots, mittens and scarves. Here a door led out to the back. It was closed. Again no slamming doors, no blast of ice-cold air from outside. I moved directly into the kitchen. Empty.

  A single bulb shone over the sink. Its weak light revealed a porcelain sink and cheap Formica countertops. A folding metal table filled the small kitchen space. On it were dishes, plastic bottles, bags of fertilizer, Pyrex beakers, a Bunsen burner-burning-rubber tubes and under it all, a propane gas tank. The littered contents and the noxious fumes from the flaming Bunsen burner told me what I'd stumbled into.

  A frigging meth lab.

  The windows were boarded over with plywood, keeping out prying eyes.

  I looped around the table, rushed through the empty dining room and shimmied up to the far side of the large archway leading back into the living room. Across the room I saw Colin and the boy. They'd reached the front door. Had it open, dropping the temperature in the house by ten degrees.

  "Don't do it, Colin. Don't you run."

  He leveled me with a hard stare, holding the boy tight. Jimmy stared at me too, wide-eyed, scared in his Iron Man pajamas. Where the hell was Allison? She was the one I worried about. She was the one holding the gun.

  She didn't remain hidden for long. Having circled around she came at me from behind, from the kitchen. I caught movement from the corner of my eye, her shadow in the doorway blocking the glow of the single kitchen light. It gleamed off the gun she held and aimed. A Browning 9mm.

  The woman fired.

  I dropped to one knee and brought up gun, supporting it with my weak hand, lining up my shot.

  Before I could fire, the rear door burst open. Allison spun. In quick succession I heard two shots and Allison scream. Her body fell back. With pin-wheeling arms she crashed into the table causing its flimsy metal legs to buckle and collapse. Two red splotches soaked her soiled cami. Two well-placed shots. One in the gut. One over her right breast.

  Ritter remained crouched at the back door, his arms locked in a two-handed grip. His stare steely over the gun sights. He was slow to straighten up.

  I rushed to the doorway. Flames whooshed up from the table, now collapsed. The toppled burner had ignited a river of spilled liquids now pooling on the floor. The flames licked at Allison's body. In that little bit of time, the fire had already climbed several feet into the air.

  Colin called out from the front door where he'd remained. "What's going on?"

  Ritter moved toward the burning pyre, and pulled at Allison's blazing body, trying to tear her from the flames.

  Shit. I moved closer, raised my arm against the heat, thinking it was too late for the woman. "Ritter!"

  Already the heat was intense enough to drive me back. I had to squint against the brightness of the fire, the toxic smoke. My eyes watered and my nose and throat burned. "It's too late!"

  "No!" Ritter wiped sweat sheen from his brow. "Get out! The propane tank?it's gonna blow."

  Crouched over Allison, he rolled her and patted at her burning clothes, to smother the flames. I rushed to the metal table, crushed and bent and mangled, flipped it over to the crashing of tin plates and shattering glass. The flames whooshed up around it with an angry roar. I stomped down the table, smothering much of the fire underneath. Still, the spilled liquids, spreading, continued to burn. The flames raced quickly across the floor and climbed up the kitchen counters and walls, bubbling and peeling the old yellow paint. Flame engulfed the splattered propane tank.

  I'm a city girl and don't know much about propane tanks, but even I knew having one in the middle of a bonfire is not good. As I tried to edge around the inferno something grabbed my arm and pulled me back. Colin Maynard rushed past me, charging in from the dining room. He held two sofa cushions in
his hands.

  Using the cushions like oversized oven mitts he scooped up the burning tank, coated in flaming liquid, and shouted at Ritter, "Open the door! Quick! Get out of the way!"

  Ritter swung the back door open. Broken glass crunched under his feet. Colin ran at him with a wave of flames shooting off the tank. He pitched the tank out into the backyard, tossed the two flaming cushions away and shouted, "Get down!"

  The back door slammed shut. The three of us turned and hunched to the floor, waiting for the explosion. It didn't take long. The blast came with a resounding boom, followed by the sound of shredded metal pelting the back of the house and breaking windows.

  In the silence that followed I let out a breath. "Jesus."