"This is bad," Tolliver said slowly. He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. We parked at the front of the house. The rain drummed on the roof of the car. "I think you better call your cop buddy," he said to me. "I think we better stay out of that house until we have someone with authority here." He switched on the dome light.
"I can't count on him being the one on call," I said, but I dialed his home number on the chance that Hollis was snug and warm and dry in his little house. No answer. I tried the sheriff's office. The dispatcher answered. She sounded distracted. I could hear the radio squawking in the background. "Is Hollis on patrol?" I asked.
"No, he's answering a call about a tree being across the road on County Road 212," she snapped. "And I got a three-car accident on Marley Street." I could see that a personal call to a busy officer would not be priority.
"Tell him to come to the Teagues' house as soon as he can," I said. "Tell him it's very important. I think a crime's been committed there."
"Someone'll come as soon as they can get free from the ones we're sure about," she said, and she hung up the phone.
"Okay, we're on our own," I told Tolliver. He switched off the light, leaving us in a dark island of dry warmth. The cold rain was pelting down, drenching the lawn and rinsing off the car. The flashes of lightning were only occasional. I could stand it, I told myself. We'd parked at the end of the sidewalk that led directly to the main doors. The garage, with its door into the kitchen, was to our left on the west side of the house.
"I'll go in the front, you go in the garage door," I said. By the distant glow of the streetlights, I could see Tolliver open his mouth to protest, then close it again.
"All right," he said. "On the count of three. One, two, three!"
We leapt from our respective sides of the car and took off for our separate goals. I reached mine first, without being hit by anything except leaves and twigs snapped from a tree by the high winds.
The front door wasn't locked. That might not mean anything. I was pretty sure that in Sarne no one locked up until they turned in for the night. But the hair on my neck prickled. I pushed it open, but only a foot.
The door opened directly into the large formal living room, which was unlit and shadowy. The rain running down the big picture window and the streetlight shining through it made the room seem underwater in the glimpse I had before I crouched and rolled as I pushed the door wide open. A shot whistled past and above me. I scrambled to take cover behind a big chair. I'd never held a gun in my life, but I was regretting my lack of firepower at this instant.
There was a scream from somewhere else in the big house. I thought it came from the back, maybe from the family room.
Where was Tolliver? But he'd have heard the shot. He'd be careful.
For an unbearably long moment, nothing more happened. I wondered how many people were hiding from each other in these rooms, and I wondered if I'd survive to find out.
Gradually, my eyes became used to the faint and watery light. Though the drapes had been partially drawn, I could identify the furniture by shape.
There was another doorway directly opposite the front entrance, and I was pretty sure that was where the shot had come from. I took a deep breath and rolled from the armchair to a coffee table. Next step, the couch. That would put me within a few feet of the other doorway, which was the only way into the rest of the house, if I was remembering the layout correctly.
"Nell!" I yelled, hoping to distract the shooter from Tolliver's progress, wherever he was. "Sybil!"
There was an answering shriek from the second floor. I didn't know which one of them was yelling, and I didn't know the location or number of people in the house, but I did know all of them were alive. Not a buzz in my head.
I'd been feeling very determined, but now the storm kicked up a notch. The rain began lashing harder at the window and soaking the carpet through the open front door. The rumble of thunder became almost continuous, and the crack of lightning followed right after. I felt as though I was pinned on a map and the lightning could see me, was tracking me, getting closer and closer until it could hit me again. Then I'd lose everything. The unimaginable pain would arc through me for the second time, and I'd lose my sight or my memory or the use of my leg, or something else irreplaceable. I moaned in fear, covering my eyes, and when I took my hands away, a man was standing over me with a gun in his hand.
In a desperate attempt to save my life, I dove at him, grabbing him around the knees and bringing him down. The gun went off; he'd had his finger on the trigger, oh God oh God. But if I was hit I didn't know it yet, and when he swung the gun at my head I grabbed his wrist with both hands and clung to it, literally for dear life.
Maybe my intense fear made me stronger than usual, because I was able to keep my hold on him though he hit at me with his other arm and thrashed around to shake me off. He was trying to bring the gun to bear on me, trying to force his arm into a straight line so he could fire at me, and as we rolled around in a snarling heap I saw my chance and sank my teeth into the fleshy heel of his hand and bit down with all my might. He gave a cry of pain—yay!—and let go of the gun. I would like to say that had been my intent, but if it was, I'd made the decision on a level I'd never tapped consciously.
Then the lights came on in the room, blinding me, and a shape I thought was Tolliver leaped forward. All three of us were in the melee on the floor, crashing into tables and sending heavy lamps toppling to the pale carpet.
"Stop!" screamed a new voice. "I've got a gun!"
We all froze. I still had my teeth in the man's hand, and Tolliver had raised a heavy glass ornament shaped like an apple to bash in his head. For the first time, I unclenched my teeth and looked up at the man's face. Paul Edwards. He was a far cry from the suave lawyer I'd met in the sheriff's office. He was wearing a flannel shirt and khakis and sneakers, and his hair was completely disheveled. He was panting heavily, and blood was streaming from his hand where I'd bitten him. Most striking of all was the absence of that calm assurance he'd had, the certainly that his little world was his to rule and order. He looked more like a raccoon that had been treed—bared teeth and glinting eyes and hissing noises.
"Oh my God, Paul," Sybil said, the gun wavering in her hand. Dammit, why does everyone have a gun? Sybil's was smaller, but looked just as lethal. "Oh, my God." She was as struck by the transformation as I was, probably more. "How could you do this?"
I hoped she was asking him, not us. At least the light had made the storm retreat in my forest of fears. Tolliver gently set the glass apple on a table by the kitchen doorway.
"Sybil, I couldn't let them know." He was trying to sound reasonable, but it just came out weak.
"That's what you said before, when you made me call them. I still don't understand."
Tolliver and I might as well not have been in the room.
I noticed for the first time that Sybil had a scarf tied to one wrist, and the other wrist was deeply scored with a red line. He'd had her tied up.
"Where's Nell?" I croaked, but neither of them answered. They were so focused on each other, we weren't even on the same planet. I noticed that Tolliver silently bent to retrieve Paul's gun where it lay against the baseboard. The gun looked horribly functional in the expensive, feminine room, which right now was not looking its orderly best. Tolliver slid the gun under the skirt of the couch. Good.
"Sybil, we were together for so long," Paul said. "So long. You'd never divorce him. You'd never even agree to quit sleeping with him."