A hundred fifty yards goes by fast at twenty-two hundred feet per second.
When Jonathan closed to within the last twenty yards, he became concerned that no one had yet appeared in the windows or on the porch. His only experience with the Shockley family to date was that they were early risers, and very attentive to their surroundings.
So, where were they?
He pressed his transmit button. “I can’t tell you why, but I’m not liking this,” he said. “Advise the instant you see any movement anywhere.”
Jonathan climbed the three stairs to the front porch and walked to the door. He knocked.
No one answered, but scuffling sounds from the inside indicated that people were definitely at home. He radioed, “I hear people inside, but there’s no answer.”
He knocked again.
Jilly’s voice shouted, “Mama, can we be home yet?”
Jonathan smiled. The stealthy, secret-keeping child had yet to be invented. He heard footsteps, and then the sound of a chain being stripped from its track on the door. It opened a few inches, and there was a very nervous Sam Shockley. She tried to smile, but she wasn’t good enough at deception to get her eyes involved.
“Mr. Harris,” she said. “What a pleasure to see you.”
Bullshit. There was no reason for her to be anything but bothered to see him. She should be ragging his ass for coming by again at all after trying to steal her truck.
“Mrs. Shockley,” he said. “I came by to make sure-”
“We’ve got a runner out the back door!” Boxers shouted in his hear.
“Shit!” He spun and headed for the stairs. He pressed the transmit button. “Gunslinger, clear the house.”
“Don’t hurt her!” Sam yelled. “She doesn’t mean any harm!” She took off after him.
Jonathan cut to his left at the bottom of the steps and dashed around toward the back of the house. There he saw a woman in a plain woolen coat in a dead run across the scrubby harvested corn field.
“Target acquired,” Boxers said in his ear.
“You!” Jonathan yelled. “Stop or we will shoot!”
She started running faster.
Jonathan took off after her, and he knew without looking that Sam Shockley was close behind. In his peripheral vision, he saw Gail sprinting across the field toward the house to clear it of any lingering bad guys. He pressed his mike button. “Give the runner a wide lead, Big Guy. I want to stop her, not hurt her.”
Two, three-round bursts split the peace of the morning before Jonathan could even let up on his transmit button. Dirt kicked up in front of the fleeing girl, directly in her path. She slid to a stop, hesitated and started running again, prompting two more bursts from Boxers’ weapon.
“Next time we hit you!” Jonathan yelled.
The woman stopped again. As Jonathan closed the distance that separated them, his weapon at the ready, she made to run again.
This time, Jonathan fired the warning shots. From this distance, the muzzle blasts would be near-deafening, and as he’d hoped, that was all the convincing she needed. From the back, he wouldn’t have even known she was a she. Her hair had been cropped short, and she wore a stocking cap pulled low.
“Hands straight out to your sides,” Jonathan commanded. “Fingers splayed wide.”
Sam Shockley caught up with him and pulled on his vest. “Don’t hurt her,” she begged.
Jonathan pulled free and pointed his weapon inches from her nose. “Step back, Mrs. Shockley. Do not interfere.”
She blanched and took two steps back. Behind her, Boxers was lumbering across the field to join them.
Jonathan returned his aim to the woman who’d fled. She stood as if crucified, her hands perpendicular to her body, elbows locked. “Our intent is not to hurt anyone,” Jonathan said. “But if you make me, I will.” He paused while Boxers arrived. “Now turn around.”
His jaw dropped. It was her again: the one from the bridge and from the basement. All the toughness was gone now, entirely replaced by fear.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said.
“Are you armed?”
“Please, I just want all of this to stop.”
“Listen to me,” Jonathan said. “Are you armed?”
She shook her head as her eyes brimmed with tears. “No, sir.”
“Big Guy?”
“I’ve got her covered,” he said.
Gail said, “House is clear.”
“Copy, the house is clear,” Jonathan said into the radio. He approached his captive. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Sis-” She stopped herself, and let out a little puff of breath as her head sagged. It was a look of resignation that could mean surrender or suicide bomb. He froze and watched her hands very carefully.
“Colleen,” she said. “Colleen Devlin.”
“Look at me, Colleen Devlin.”
Her eyes came up to meet his.
“This is your come-clean moment, understand? For all I know, you could be loaded with explosives. If you twitch, my friends will kill you. If you have weapons on you, this is absolutely your only chance to tell me without harm coming to you.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Sam said.
Jonathan’s hand shot up for silence.
“No bombs,” Colleen said. “No weapons.” She started to cry.
Looking back to make sure that both Sam and Colleen were covered by Boxers, Jonathan let his M4 fall against its sling and he frisked the young lady thoroughly. She in fact was unarmed. He zip-tied her hands behind her back.
He looked to Boxers and Big Guy broke his aim. “I think we need to go inside,” Jonathan said. “There’s a lot of explaining to be done.”
CHAPTER THIRTY – FOUR
It felt good to be warm. Once inside the house, Jonathan asked for and was given the shotgun he’d encountered the previous day, and when he asked if there were any other weapons in the house, Sam willingly showed him the S amp;W. 357 magnum revolver and Winchester. 30-30, both of them unloaded with trigger locks installed. He allowed himself to relax. A little.
Jonathan sat at the kitchen table with Gail and Sam and Colleen, while Boxers stood in the archway, blocking any means of escape. Colleen sat awkwardly to keep the pressure off her wrists.
“Did the repo man ever show up?” Jonathan asked Sam. It was a friendly place to start the conversation.
Sam gave a wan smile. “No, not yet.”
Colleen looked shocked. “You know these people?” Her tone was one of utter betrayal.
“It’s not like that,” Sam said. “I had no idea-”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Jonathan said, moving quickly to control the conversation. “Sam and I don’t know each other any better than you and I do, Colleen.” He let those words hang. “Do you remember me?”
“You killed my friends.”
Sam recoiled at the words.
Jonathan placed a calming hand on her arm. “Not before you killed a lot of people yourself,” he said. He tempered his words so they wouldn’t sound accusatory.
More shock from Sam.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Colleen said, but the truth was written all over her denial.
“Don’t you remember me shooting at you on the bridge that night?” he asked.
Her eyes grew huge.
“Yeah,” he said. “That was me. And I was about half a trigger pull away from killing you when I got interrupted by that overzealous cop.”
“Are you talking about the shootings in Washington the other night?” Sam said. From the look on her face, it was all bigger than she could process.
“Those are the ones,” Jonathan said. He shifted his gaze and softened his voice. “Tell me why, Colleen.”
“I was supposed to kill myself,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I shouldn’t have run.”
Sam leaned in closer. “Your job was to kill yourself?”
Colleen nodded. “Yes.” Then she shook her head. “No. Only if I was about to get caught.”
Jonathan thought he understood. “I think she’s saying she should have killed herself here. This morning. Is that right, Colleen?”
She bobbed her head yes but looked away again.
“But why?” Sam asked. “Why would you kill yourself?”
“Because it’s the honorable way. It’s the holy way.”
Sam brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, what have they been teaching you?”