Jeffery Deaver - XO

Oh, no. How to handle it?

Dance, Harutyun and Madigan were in the FMCSO cruiser speeding away from Alicia’s apartment in the Tower District. Dance told the men that Alicia was already at Kayleigh’s house and then said into the phone, “Is Darthur there?”

“No, he’s gone. We thought it was all over with, with Simesky dead.”

“Get out. Can you run into the woods?”

“I… No. I’m upstairs. I don’t think I can jump. And I’d have to go past her if I went downstairs. Can I talk to her? Why does she-”

“No, you have to hide, stay away. She has a gun. We’ll have troopers there as soon as we can but it’ll be twenty minutes. Are you in a room with a lock?”

“My bedroom. Yes. But it’s not much.”

“What about a weapon?”

“My gun’s downstairs, locked up.”

“Just barricade yourself in the room. And stall.”

“Oh, Jesus, Kathryn. What’s going on?”

“Barricade yourself as best you can. We’ll be there soon.”

The siren spread outward on the hot, dry air and the urgent blue and white lights ricocheted off cars and signs and windows as they raced through the evening.

“KAYLEIGH?” ALICIA CALLED again from downstairs.

Where was she? Kayleigh wondered. Still in the kitchen? The den?

“Down in a minute.” She stared at the door.

Close it, girl! What’s the matter with you. Buy time. Lock it, barricade it.

At the door she called, “Just out of the shower. I’ll be down in five.” She closed and locked the door. But the chair she tried to wedge under the knob was too low. Her dresser was too heavy to move. The vanity table wouldn’t stop Mary-Gordon.

Find a weapon. Anything.

A nail file? A lamp?

Don’t be an idiot, jump!

She ran to the window. Below her was not only concrete but a wrought-iron fence. If she didn’t break her back she’d be impaled.

Listening at the door again, ear against the wood.

“Kayleigh?”

“Be down soon! Have a beer or make some coffee!”

Jump out the window. It’s your only chance.

Then Kayleigh thought suddenly: no fucking way.

I’m fighting.

She grabbed the vanity stool and ripped off the Laura Ashley padded covering. The furniture was five pounds of hard wood. Not much but it would have to do. I’ll lure her up here and bash her head in.

Kayleigh moved to the door, listening. She took a firm stance, gripping the stool like a baseball bat.

Then her phone rang.

Squinting at the screen. The number was vaguely familiar. Wait… It was Edwin Sharp’s! She recalled the number from the label of the redwood tree toy he’d helped Mary-Gordon pick out.

“Hello, Edwin?”

He said tentatively, “Hey, Kayleigh, listen. I’m almost there. Alicia asked me not to call you, just to come over. But, I don’t know, what’s this all about? Is it some kind of settlement thing? I don’t want anything from you. It wasn’t your fault what that guy with the congressman did.”

And with a heart-shaking jolt, Kayleigh understood. For whatever reason Alicia had set up Edwin. She’d asked him here too and was going to make it look like he killed her.

“Oh, Edwin, there’s a problem.”

“You sound funny. What’s the matter? I mean-”

“Stay away! Alicia’s here. She’s going to kill me. She wants to-”

A pause. “You’re not, like, serious?”

“She’s setting you up. She’s here now.”

“I’ll call the police.”

She said, “I did. They’re on their way.”

“I’m five minutes away.”

“No, Edwin, don’t come here! Go to Bradley Road, the minimart. Stay there, stay with people. That way nobody can blame you for whatever happens.”

It was then that Kayleigh smelled smoke.

Edwin was saying something. She ignored him and turned her ear toward the door. Yes, the crackle of flames was coming from downstairs.

No, no! My house, my guitars! She’s burning them! Like Bobby and the file sharer and Sheri, she’s going to burn me too.

“Kayleigh, Kayleigh?” Edwin’s voice rose from her phone.

“There’s a fire, Edwin. Call the fire department too. But don’t come here. Whatever you do.”

“I-”

She disconnected.

And the bitter, stinging smoke began to seep under the bedroom door.

THE SMOKE AND flames were growing.

Love is fire, love is flame…

My house, my house, Kayleigh thought as tears of sorrow, of pain from the smoke, of fear rolled down her cheeks. My guitars, my pictures… Oh, this can’t be happening!

The door was hot to the touch now and outside the window, reflections of the flames from downstairs flickered across trees and the lawn.

Kayleigh debated. Where was Alicia? She couldn’t stay downstairs in the flames, of course. She’d probably left.

Well, fuck her. I’m saving my house!

Kayleigh ran into the bathroom and grabbed a fire extinguisher, years old but, according to the gauge, still charged. She unlocked the bedroom door and eased it open. The fire was concentrated in the hallway on the ground floor and on the stairs themselves, the carpeting. It gave off thick clouds of astringent smoke from the flaming nylon. Sparks zipped through the air. Kayleigh caught a full breath of the foul stench and retched. She lowered her head and got a breath of more or less clean air, another. She stood. The fire wasn’t out of control yet. If Alicia had left she could put out enough of it to get to the kitchen, where there was a much bigger extinguisher. And the hose in the garden.

She eased out.

Just then a huge bang from downstairs resounded through the house, a flash in the smoke. A bullet plowed into the door near her head. Two more.

Screaming, she dove back into her room and slammed the door, locked it. Kayleigh decided she had no choice but to risk a twenty-five-foot jump to the ground. Would she break her legs and just lie there in agony until Alicia shot her? Would she get speared on the fence and bleed out?

But she wouldn’t burn to death, at least. Running to the window, she flung it open and looked out toward the road. Not a single flashing light yet. Then she gazed down, trying to judge angles and distances.

She found a place she might land, just past the fence. But then she saw, at the exact spot she’d land, Alicia’s shadow, moving back and forth, almost leisurely. She was at the front door and probably anticipating Kayleigh’s jump and aiming at that very spot.

Shadows…

Kayleigh sat down on the bed, grabbed a picture she had of Mary-Gordon and hugged it to her chest.

So, this was it.

Mama, Bobby, I’ll be with you soon.

Oh, Bobby…

She thought of the song she’d written for him years ago. “The Only One for Me.”

More tears.

But just then another gunshot resounded from downstairs… Then two or three more. Kayleigh gasped. Could the police be here after all?

She ran to the window and looked out. No, no one was here. The driveway was empty, except for Alicia’s truck. And there were no flashing lights on the horizon.

Two more shots.

And from downstairs, a voice calling her name.

A man’s voice.

“Kayleigh, come on, hurry!”

She opened the door cautiously and peered down.

Jesus! Through the smoke she could just make out the form of Edwin Sharp, beating down the flames on the stairs with his jacket. Alicia lay on her back, on the marble of the hallway, eyes gazing up, unseeing. Her face was bloody. She’d fallen onto a patch of burning wood floor and her clothes were on fire.

Kayleigh understood: Edwin had ignored her warning and continued to the house anyway.

“Hurry!” he cried. “Come on! I called the fire department but I don’t know when they’ll be here. You have to get out!”