“Of course he is,” I said to Parker as I started up the loose-dirt hill.
When I peeked over the ridge, I didn’t see any sign of Bassman, but I did see a figure on the deck. He was a short Hispanic guy in tighty whities, with a tribal tattoo on his shirtless chest, and he was staring straight at me as he raised a pump-action shotgun.
Before I could duck, get my hand onto the pistol grip of the rifle strapped to my back, or say my act of contrition, a half-dozen FBI SWAT guys appeared in the backyard from the side of the house, firing. The glass doors on the deck blew in, along with most of the gunman, as a fusillade of MP5 fire ripped open the entire front of him, from his crotch to his throat.
I stood there, frozen, watching helplessly as the SWAT team rushed in through the back doors.
If they hadn’t come, I would have been dead, I thought. A second later, I would have been gone. I knew it in my bones.
I shook all over.
I’d never been to war.
Until now.
CHAPTER 54
I pulled myself together by the time Parker arrived behind me. I raced with her around the pool and around the dead guy on the deck, into the house.
“Down! Freeze!” cops were yelling. From somewhere a woman was crying.
As we passed a bathroom, Parker tapped me on the back.
“Mike! Oh, shit, Mike! It’s him!”
“Who? Perrine? Where?”
I turned. It wasn’t Perrine. It was Scanlon. I recognized him from his passport photo. Barely. He was on his back in the tub, on top of the torn shower curtain. His hands were handcuffed behind him, and his throat was cut to the bone.
We scoured the house for another twenty minutes before one of the ATF SWAT guys found the trick door in the wine cellar. Beyond it was a steep set of circular stairs, with faux castle walls and candelabra, leading toward a Gothic, dungeonlike door on the bottom.
“What the hell is this?” Emily said as one of the hostage rescue guys in front of us pushed it open.
“They left this out on Realtor dot com,” I said.
The door led to a large octagonal room with benches along the crimson walls and a huge platform bed in the middle of it. Strapped on the bloodred silk moiré walls were lots of very interesting objects. Whips, handcuffs, leather hoods, and other assorted adult devices that, when bought off the Internet, probably arrived in plain brown packages. There was a sophisticated sound system and even a mounted camera in the ceiling.
“Now I think I know why the previous owner got a divorce,” I said.
One of the commandos pushed open yet another door, on the other side of the room. There was another long corridor behind it. It dead-ended at a brick wall with a little ladder bolted into it. At the top of the ladder was a hatch. An open hatch.
I poked my head out. The escape hatch opened up onto the trail, not twenty feet from where we’d been stationed behind the house. I shook my head. Then pounded my thigh with my fist.
No! If we’d still been in position, we would have heard Perrine escaping. Now Perrine could be anywhere.
“He’s in the woods behind the house,” one of the commandos called into his radio. “Get the chopper! Light the park south and east of the target house, and, dammit, get K-nine into the park!”
When I went back into the underground sex chamber, Bassman was standing there, examining one of the curios on the wall. I just stared at the jackass, about as pissed off at anyone as I’d ever been in my life.
He finally noticed me staring. No wonder he made detective, I thought.
“Can the eyeballing, Bennett,” he said, puffing up his already pretty puffed-up self. “You need to get something off your chest, open your trap.”
Actually, I did need to get something off my chest. But I forgot to use my words. I took two steps forward and punched him as hard as I could in the mouth.
He grunted as his head snapped to the side. Then he screamed as he rushed forward and rammed his shoulder into my chest, knocking out my breath as he bulled me backward. He was about to get me down when I wrapped a leg around the back of his ankle and spun us both sideways. Bassman landed hard on his back, beside the bed, with me on top of him. I punched him three times quick again in his face before two of the SWAT guys could peel me off him.
“What are you, crazy?” Bassman yelled, thumbing blood on his lip.
“We could have had him!” I screamed back, going berserk. “He was here! We had him! But you had to charge the hill, didn’t you? Had to screw things up like the two-bit flake that you are!”
“Screw you, Bennett!” he screamed. “You’re full of shit! Screw you!”
“You already did it for me,” I told the dumbass. “Don’t worry, Bassman. You already royally did.”
PART THREE
CHAPTER 55
In the morning, Mary Catherine left Trent in charge of pouring the pancakes and went down into the cellar to find another apron. Rummaging through a packing box, she glanced up as she heard soft footsteps coming down from one of the upstairs bedrooms.
“Hey, Chrissy,” she heard Trent say.
Oh, boy, let the games begin, Mary Catherine thought, moving some Christmas ornaments over to get at another U-Haul box. Trent was at the age when his goal in life, the very purpose of his existence, in fact, seemed to be teasing the girls as much as he possibly could. And Chrissy, being the youngest, was his favorite target.
“Good morning, little sister,” Trent continued sweetly. “So nice to see you this happy day. Sleep well?”
“What are you doing?” Chrissy said skeptically. “You’re not supposed to have the oven on. Where’s Mary Catherine?”
“Who knows?” Trent lied. “I’m doing an experiment, Chrissy. See how this batter is running off the spatula and splattering onto the pan? This is exactly like when somebody gets shot and all the blood goes flying all over the place. Imagine I was just shot, OK, and I’m bleeding to death, and this pan here is covered in my blood. Isn’t it awesome?”
Mary Catherine shook her head, smiling. What is it with boys? she thought. How do they even come up with this stuff?
“Stop it, Trent!” Chrissy said. “Blood doesn’t even do that. You’re lying.”
“No, it’s true,” Trent said sagely. “Blood splatters like crazy. Way worse than this, especially if a bullet nicks an artery. I saw it on TV.”
Note to self, Mary Catherine thought. Change the TV’s parental channel locks as soon as possible.
“You know what else?” Trent continued. “I bet Dad is right now looking at blood splatter on a wall next to a dead body. I mean, that’s what Dad does, right? He’s a cop. So whenever they find a dead guy with bullet holes in him or a knife sticking out of his neck, they call Dad in to the scene. Isn’t he lucky? Isn’t that so cool?”
Mary Catherine winced, waiting for Chrissy to start screaming or crying, but was surprised when nothing came out.
“Actually,” Chrissy said calmly, “it’s not cool. It’s just really gross, like you.”
Yes! Mary Catherine thought. Chrissy was learning to defend herself. One good thing about being a member of a family this big was developing the ability to use the occasional sharp elbow. Excellent job, young lass, Mary Catherine thought. Offense was always the best defense.
“Mary Catherine!” Trent yelled down the cellar stairs a second later. “Chrissy called me stupid!”
“Stupid?” Mary Catherine said, winking at Chrissy as she made it back into the kitchen. “I believe the term I heard your sister use, young man, was gross.”