Not all of them will stand for it.
The right side of the room was a wall of fire now. I kept heading down the middle, plowing through the debris, smelling my hair and coat as they began to burn. A stretch of the bookcase fell away from the wall, toppling in slow motion and showering me with burning paper and wood and sparks. I ducked my head and just kept going through it, shouldering forward until I got to the doorway, flapping at the parts of me that were on fire.
The corridor was choked with smoke, but I could hear retching sounds ahead. I stumbled straight through the thick, gray clouds, covering my whole face with my jacket now. The muscles in my shoulder had begun spasming, and I could feel how wet it was, and my arm had started going numb. I hit it with my fist to keep the blood flowing and to send a jag of pain up into my head.
As I made it into the room at the bottom of the staircase, I nearly fell over someone crouched on the ground, rolled into a ball, coughing his guts up.
It was Gary. I grabbed his jacket collar and pulled him along with me, hauling him to the foot of the stairs, screaming down at his face. He finally started moving under his own steam, and we fell up them together. I could barely see his back through my stinging, watering eyes. At the bend in the stairs, I slipped and crashed to my knees. Fisher turned and wrenched his arm under mine, pulling me around and back to my feet.
We stumbled up the last stretch side by side.
This hallway, too, was clogged with smoke. Gary ran straight down it toward the door to the street, which was hanging wide. I stepped over Todd Crane’s body but knew I couldn’t just leave it there and bent to grab his wrist. He made a sound as I pulled him down the hall toward the door, and I realized he was still alive. I felt a muscle in my back tear but kept dragging him until I fell over the doorstep and out into the cold night air.
It was like being reborn.
Cars, night sounds, glints of light. People were backing and running away from the building, shouting, pointing. Smoke was billowing out onto the street. I heard a siren in the distance, heading in this direction.
I staggered a short distance from the doorway, leaving Crane slumped over the step. Gary was shouting somewhere in the melee, though at first I couldn’t see where he was. Everyone seemed to have a much clearer idea of what was going on than I did, to be moving faster and with greater intent, and what took place next happened so quickly that it’s only in recollection that I was even really there.
The man with the gun was advancing toward the little girl, who was caught in the middle of the sidewalk. A gap opened up around her as people ran to get out of the way.
Gary was not running, however.
He had the girl’s arm gripped in his hand. He was trying to drag her behind a big SUV, to get her out of the other man’s line of fire. He was trying to save her.
The girl was fighting him. She was struggling hard, screaming at him, frantic. Gary was shouting, too.
“Bethany!” he said. “Wait!”
The man aimed his weapon straight at the girl.
Gary saw it happening and yanked her back again, rolling his own body to get between them, and the man’s first shot went wide.
People started screaming louder. The sound of sirens was closer now.
The girl suddenly got away from Gary. I can’t imagine where she thought she was going to go. She was trapped, and she wasn’t even running. It was as if she were making it easier for the man who was coming for her. Gary must have known he couldn’t get to her in time, couldn’t get her to safety. But he threw himself toward her nonetheless, knocking her off her feet and shielding her with his body as they stumbled forward.
The man fired four times.
All four shots hit Gary, knocking him back and down.
Gary kept his grip on the girl and crashed down on top of her. They hit the ground together, the girl’s forehead smacking onto the pavement with a sound I heard from twenty feet away.
I was running at the gunman by then, throwing myself at him to smash into his chest—as his gun went off once more, then twice. We fell together into a car door.
The man bounced off, but I was twisted and dropped straight into the gutter. I wrenched my head up to see that police cars were now hurtling into the street.
The man with the gun was back on his feet. He glanced over to the girl and saw a swelling pool of blood across the sidewalk. He hesitated. Then he turned and slipped away, dodging into the crowds.
I pulled myself up onto the sidewalk, pushed myself up to hands and knees. Crawled over to where Gary lay.
The girl was not moving. Her eyes were closed.
Gary’s shirt was red, all over, and the pool beneath him was spreading fast.
My arm gave out, and I collapsed to the ground next to him, my face landing no more than two feet from his.
Much of the back of his head was missing. His eyes were open and flat and dry.
chapter
FORTY-TWO
“We didn’t get him,” a voice said.
I was sitting in a chair in a hospital room, after the most recent of a series of conversations with members of Seattle’s law-enforcement agencies. I’d given a selective account of events during the altercation inside the building in Belltown. It was not the first time I’d given this account. I doubted that it would be the last. I had burns on my face and arms, had lost a chunk of hair. The pain of the wound in my shoulder and its associated stitching was bitterly emphatic, even through a pile of painkillers. My lower back felt like I’d been hit by a truck, and my head hurt in a way that felt as if it would never go away. I was not feeling receptive to news of any kind. I glanced up. Blanchard stood in the doorway.
“I hope you feel better than you look,” he said.
He came in and leaned against the side of the bed, folded his arms and stared down at me. I waited for him to say whatever it was he’d come to say.
“You could be worse,” he said eventually. “You were a lot worse, until half an hour ago. You’re a lucky guy.”
“In what way?”
“Forensic report came in. The bullets that killed Mr. Fisher and the one they dug out of you share a profile with those they found in Bill Anderson.”
“I said it was the same guy.”
“You did. But you know what? Ballistics reports carry a little more weight than the word of an ex-cop, especially one who’s happened to be on hand at every gun fatality Seattle has seen in the last week.”
“And there’s no sign of this guy? He just melted away on the open street?”
“Like he walked away from killing Anderson, and Anderson’s family. The guy is evidently a professional. A professional what, I have no idea. All we do know is that it seems like his name might be Richard Shepherd.”
I don’t think I did more than blink, but Blanchard was watching me closely. “Mean something to you?”
I shook my head. “How do you know his name?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. I want to be sure on something first. You really have no idea of how the fire in the basement started? In these ‘storage areas’?”
“No.” This at least was true. “How bad was it?”
“Bad. The fire department is only really getting down there now. Anything that wasn’t rock is gone. Assuming there was anything there to be found?”
I made a face indicating I had nothing to say on the matter.
Blanchard smiled tightly to himself.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I can go?”
“For now. That’s what I’m telling you,” he said, standing. “You’re a lucky man.”
I followed the detective down the corridor. Walking hurt more than sitting had. Nurses made a big deal out of not watching us. There’d been a couple of armed cops sitting outside my room since I arrived. They were gone now.