“That was an amazing shot,” I said. “The chain. Thanks for that.”
I wanted to ask her about that shot-something was bothering me about it, but I decided that could wait until things had settled down a little.
She shook her head, obviously frustrated with herself. “It took me four shots.” She brushed some scorched, matted hay off my shoulder.
Her voice felt as gentle as her touch, and my troubled relationship with Lien-hua seemed like something that had ended a very long time ago.
Cheyenne let her hand pause on the side of my neck. “I’m glad you made it out of there, Agent Bowers.”
“I’m glad you made it out as well.” I looked into her eyes and saw the fire from the barn reflecting in them, dancing across them.
“You sent me out first,” she whispered. “You were willing to stay behind, to-”
“Shh,” I said.
At last she let her hand glide from my neck.
And then we were both quiet for a few moments, but our eyes kept carrying on a conversation of their own.
The first ambulance rolled to a stop beside Thomas. Two EMTs jumped out and hurried to him. On the other side of the field, three men wearing CSU jackets were heading toward the house.
I would’ve liked to keep standing there staring into the rich depths of Cheyenne’s eyes, but I knew I needed to get back to work.
“I’m going to take a quick look up there before things get crazy.”
“Right,” she said, her voice losing its softness, returning to normal. We were working a case again. We were professionals. “John likes snakes,” she added, and I remembered that she’d searched the house briefly when we first arrived at the ranch.
“He likes snakes?”
“He has half a dozen aquariums filled with them. And one of the rooms in the house is locked, I didn’t get in there. I heard the barking and came to help you at the barn.”
“I’ll check it out.”
“I’ll see if I can get a more detailed description of the suspect from Bennett.”
“Good,” I said.
“All right.”
An awkward pause. I found it hard to look away from her. “So, I’ll see you in a few minutes,” I said.
“OK.”
Then, simultaneously I stepped to the right and she stepped to the left so that we were standing face to face again.
“Hmm,” she said. “Great minds.” She grasped my arms, held me gently in place, and stepped past me to the right.
It wasn’t easy redirecting my thoughts onto the case, but I closed my eyes, took a couple breaths, then opened them and started for the house.
Soot and ash roiled through the air all around me.
I thought of the heart laying on Heather’s chest… the wide streak of blood on the floor of Taylor’s garage… Kelsey Nash huddled on the floor, left to die in the freezer… Thomas Bennett bound to the wheelchair beside the cage…
Considering the appalling nature of the crimes John had already committed, I wondered what kind of evidence we might discover inside the ranch house.
53
As I neared the house, I reminded myself that, even though we hadn’t caught John yet, we were right on his heels and closing in fast.
Helicopters.
Roadblocks.
The net was tightening.
I’ll get you, John, I thought. You’re mine.
But even as the thought crossed my mind, so did another: Don’t be so sure.
I glanced again at the smoldering remains of the barn and thought of how John had been ready for us, how he’d set a trap that had almost burned Cheyenne, Thomas, and me alive. I thought of how he’d managed to enter and leave the morgue without appearing on any surveillance cameras… of how he’d been able to find Sebastian Taylor, one of the most elusive men ever to land on the FBI’s most wanted list…
And then, as I considered the recorded message in the mine and the handwritten note he’d left for me in Sebastian Taylor’s garage, all of the facts, everything, I had a disturbing thought that I wanted to discount, but that I couldn’t shake. Maybe you’re not the one closing in on him, Pat; maybe he’s the one closing in on you.
But then I arrived at the house, and my thoughts were interrupted by the shouts that came from one of the CSU members inside.
An officer standing beside the front door rushed inside, and I ran up the steps behind him, close on his heels.
The first thing that struck me was the heat-mid-eighties, maybe higher. Someone had cranked the thermostat. All the lights were off, and when I flicked the switch by the door, nothing happened.
The hallway was nearly black.
Turning on my Maglite, I shouldered past the confused-looking officer now blocking my path.
Two CSU technicians stood at the end of the hall staring into the kitchen. “Easy, Reggie. Easy,” one of them said. Then, “Where’s Harwood with that shovel?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Rattlesnake,” the man said in a hushed tone, as if saying the word softly would somehow make the snake less dangerous. The grimy kitchen window let only a dim haze of light into the room, and as I eased past him, my flashlight beam found the snake: a healthy-sized Western Diamondback, coiled in the middle of the kitchen, rattling its tail.
Beyond the snake, Reggie Greer stood cornered by the sink.
“Forget the shovel,” the guy beside me said. “Just shoot it.”
“Not with Reggie behind it,” I said. “We miss the snake, the bullet could ricochet and hit him.”
“Yeah, let’s not shoot it,” Reggie said.
“There are better ways.” It’d been almost two decades since I’d worked as a wilderness guide and had been trained to deal with venomous snakes, but I figured I could at least remember enough to get the snake safely out of the house.
“Got another one in the bathroom!” someone yelled.
I heard the officers around me edging backward. But one set of footsteps was approaching me. A cautious-looking woman with dark hair appeared beside me. I recognized her. Officer Linda Har-wood. She carried a shovel and a spade.
“Let me,” I said.
I accepted the spade and ventured into the kitchen as she stepped back with the shovel.
The snake wavered its head toward Reggie, then wound its body into a tight circle.
Rattled.
“It’s gonna strike,” Linda whispered.
“Shh.” I lowered the blade end of the spade in front of the snake’s head, and the rattlesnake turned its attention to the spade and tracked its movement. Reggie took a nervous step toward the refrigerator.
“Stay still,” I said. “They’re attracted to movement.”
He stood still.
The rattler was now focused on the spade. Slowly, I moved the blade toward its head and then twisted the handle, hooking the snake’s neck in the crook of the spade like you might do with a real snake pole or snake stick. I slowly rotated the spade, relying on the rattlesnake’s natural inclination to coil and hold on.
Lifted it up.
“Back up,” I told the people in the hall. “Let me through.”
They seemed agreeable enough.
By the time I’d turned around, the hallway was clear.
Carrying the snake, I exited the house and walked to a nearby fence row. Even though I knew that lots of people don’t like snakes and would just as soon kill it, I deal with enough death in my life and I don’t believe in killing things that don’t deserve to die. So I carefully lowered the rattler to the ground, shook it free from the end of the spade, and stepped back. The snake went for cover beneath a scrub pine, where it coiled again and eyed me.
“Where did you learn to do all that?” one of the police officers asked.
“I watch Animal Planet,” I said.
“Why didn’t you just kill it?” he asked.
“It wasn’t that snake’s time to die.”
“There’s a bunch of smashed aquariums in one of the bedrooms,” an officer yelled from the front steps of the house. “There’s snakes all over in there!”
Then it was clear to me why the suspect had killed the lights and turned up the thermostat: he knew we’d sweep the house and he’d entrusted it to his pets to slow us down. The heat would liven up the snakes.