Ridley Pearson - Killer Weekend

“Dryer?” Walt asked, not slowing.

“Special Agent in Charge Dryer is in the Command Center.”

“Tell him it’s Shaler. He’s going for Shaler.”

“I’m not your message boy!” the agent shouted after him.

Walt jumped into the Cherokee-and sped away. Five minutes later he was negotiating the streets of Ketchum. He parked uphill a block from Shaler’s house, pulled the shotgun from the dashboard, and double-checked its load. He realized too late that his protective vest had come back from cleaning and was still in his office.

The crickets chimed. A dog barked in the distance. The smell of wood smoke lingered in the air. He moved stealthily in shadow, avoiding the streetlight, quickly closing the distance to Shaler’s house. This was the identical route he’d ridden as a pedal patrolman eight years earlier, and for some reason he thought of his brother and how much he missed him. He snuck down a driveway and past a neighbor’s house. He slipped over a rail fence that bordered Shaler’s driveway, his heart tight, his breath short.

Procedures called for him to wait for backup: Dryer’s men couldn’t be far behind. His earpiece carried the monotonous prattle of his dispatcher’s voice. He needed silence. So he called in his location and went off-air.

He approached Shaler’s kitchen door stealthily but not wanting Dryer’s sentries to mistake him for an intruder. He paused and studied the layout, looking carefully for signs of the agent guarding the back door.

No one.

Adding to his confusion, the interior lights were out. This went against protocol. The place should have been lit like a Christmas tree. He carefully made his way to the back door. His shoe hit something slippery right as his nose picked up the metallic smell of blood.

He one-handed the shotgun and checked the shrubbery with his Maglite. Twin soles faced him. The agent had been clobbered. His head was bleeding-a good sign. He was out cold.

Walt moved quietly through the door and into the kitchen. The all too familiar hallway stretched before him.

Trevalian would have taken the agent’s gun. No vest, he reminded himself.

He crept down the hallway, the flashlight off but held beneath the shotgun.

The first door hung open: a small bedroom. Empty. The study door, to the right, also open. The room empty.

His eye caught a glint on the carpet. He reached down and touched it: sticky. Blood. It could have been an agent’s, or Shaler’s, but something told him Trevalian’s stitches had popped. He worked down the hallway, passed a bathroom and a linen closet.

One door remained: Shaler’s bedroom. Consumed by his memory of eight years earlier, his courage waned as his scar pulsed with pain.

He twisted the head of the flashlight, kicked open the door, and stood to the side, expecting a shot.

Then, an enormous crash of glass. Someone-something-going out a window. He dove into the bedroom, the shotgun pressed tightly against his shoulder. Looked left…right. Clear. Belly-crawled to the louvered doors of the closet. Clear.

Walt got to his knees. Shaler lay in the bed, absolutely still. But then the flashlight caught her: It wasn’t Shaler but a mannequin.

A safe room? A panic room?

He kicked some errant glass from the broken window and climbed outside.

A man in uniform-a sheriff’s deputy-was well up the hill, keeping to shadow. He dragged a leg behind him.

Walt heard sirens approaching.

“Halt!” Walt yelled out at the top of his lungs.

Trevalian ducked into shadow.

Police cruisers and sheriff’s vehicles slid around both street corners nearly simultaneously-behind Walt and in front of him. They stood off, aware of the limited range of the shotgun. Their overhead racks threw off colors as two searchlights were aimed onto Walt from opposite directions-each blinding the other car and leaving Walt a fuzzy, glowing image between them.

Walt was no longer wearing his uniform shirt, and the word was out that a sheriff’s uniform had been stolen.

“Hands in the air!” a megaphone voice called out.

Walt dropped the shotgun, shouting, “It’s me!” He turned to face his own sheriff’s vehicle.

“Stand down!” Brandon ’s voice called out to the Ketchum police car. “It’s Sheriff Fleming!”

Amplified shouting back and forth, with Walt caught in the middle. He knew the quickest way to resolve this was to lie down on the asphalt until the Ketchum cop got it right.

Doing so now, Walt peered into the shadows, wondering if they’d lost Trevalian. Again.

T revalian arrived at the mansion’s front door sweating, bleeding, and out of breath. A man on the run. He pounded hard on the twin doors, pushed the intercom button repeatedly, and then pounded on the door again. He looked behind him, back toward the gate, then returned to pounding on the door.

A man came from the side of the house. He wore a blue blazer and a scowl. He held a gun and was backed up by a second man behind him. Who now appeared to Trevalian’s left.

“Hands on your head. Step away from the door. Good. Hands where I can see them. Okay…on your knees-”

“I can’t. My knee…Listen,” Trevalian said frantically, “you gotta get me out of here. We’ve got to do this someplace else. You know who I am? I’m being pursued.” He lay down on the driveway. “We have to hurry, fellas. The owner of this house…Ask him. But make it quick.”

Less than a minute later he was loaded into a golf cart and driven around back-through a gate in a ten-foot-high fence-and escorted into what appeared to be a guesthouse. It was all hardwood floors and Stickley furniture. Indirect lighting and lots of glass. The city of Ketchum spread out below, just past the silhouette of the helicopter sitting on its concrete pad on the edge of a vast lawn. Four security guards kept their distance. The man to speak to him wore a Tommy Bahama floral shirt and pale trousers. He offered Trevalian a bottle of water. Trevalian gulped it down.

“So talk,” this man said.

“Not to you,” Trevalian said. “With all due respect. Him, or nobody. And if you kill me, then the three letters that are in a mailbox in town get picked up in the morning and go to the sheriff, the newspaper, and CNN. They contain all the details about this job-the e-mails, the payments. You think anything is totally untraceable? You want to take that chance? I get what I want out of this, and I give you the location of the mailbox and you put a little lighter fluid down it, and no one’s the wiser. And if you think you’ll beat the mailbox’s location out of me-give it your best shot.”

He chugged some more water, draining the bottle.

Tommy Bahama left the building. He returned more than ten minutes later with yet another security guard-that made five-and a man in his sixties wearing a white terrycloth robe and leather slippers.

“Mr. Holms,” Trevalian said. “I’d stand, but the knee’s a little worse for wear.”

“I believe you’ve made a mistake,” Stuart Holms said, waiting as Tommy Bahama helped him into a seat.

“The mistake was yours-or whoever called me back. The package was not at home. You had bad intel. There was a mannequin in her bed.”

“You’ve got the wrong man,” Holms said.

“I’m a little short on time, Mr. Holms. The sheriff is out there looking for me. Secret Service. Police. We haven’t got long. Elizabeth Shaler cost you. Payback is payback. I understand that. If I’ve made a mistake, then turn me over to them. If, on the other hand, I’ve not, then we should be talking about me spending a few days in your panic room, or catching a ride in your helicopter.”

Stuart Holms regarded him with contempt. “Then we wait for the police.”