Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

Harrow recalled something an older officer had told him when he was a rookie: Kid, this job is ninety-five percent boredom and five percent piss-your-pants fear.

Harrow had laughed, but a look from the older officer had silenced him before adding, It’s okay to be so scared you piss yourself, long as you get the job done.

As they slowed to park, Harrow tugged from his waistband a nine-millimeter Browning he’d gotten from Choi. He checked the clip and made sure one was in the pipe.

“Got a permit for that puppy?” Gibbons asked, looking over in the dark SUV.

“Backup’s not here yet, and I’m going in,” Harrow said. “You really want to see my California carry permit?”

“No,” Gibbons said. “I just want my ass covered if something goes wrong.”

“Covered by me having a gun, or covered by me having a permit?”

“Yes.”

Even though he was tensing for action, Harrow couldn’t help but grin. “You’re some politician, Herm. I bet you’re one hell of a sheriff.”

“Second term, gettin’ ready to run for a third next year. I don’t mind havin’ the brownie points this could earn me, if it goes right... but I’m gonna make damn sure those points aren’t on sharp suckers getting jammed up my nethers, if it goes south.”

Harrow nodded. “This goes right and we get Carmen back, Herm, you’re the hero. Goes south, I’m the goat.”

“We are on the same damn wavelength,” Gibbons said with a cheerfully nasty smile.

The sheriff pulled to the curb and killed the lights, shut off the Tahoe, and they climbed down.

“Across the street,” Gibbons whispered. “Second house from the corner.”

Following the sheriff’s gaze, Harrow made out a white crackerbox, the F-150 sitting in a gravel driveway on this side. House dark, truck empty.

They stayed on this side of the street and walked quietly, two guys out for an evening stroll. Each held their pistols down against a leg, out of view from the house. As they drew closer, Harrow could see a one-car garage at the end of the drive, nearly behind the house. They crossed the street, keeping the F-150 between them and the crackerbox.

At the other end of the block, a deputy from the office was approaching at a walk, his arm stiff at his side as well. Just behind him were Laurene and Choi, the camera crew on their heels. Obviously, they had followed the deputy to the scene.

Gibbons gave them a small wave to hang back.

Deputy Wilson’s voice growled over Gibbons’s radio. “I’m in the back with my AR-fifteen. He’s not coming out this way unless he’s in a bag.”

His voice a hoarse whisper, Gibbons said, “Sit tight, Colby, and for Christ’s sake remember he’s probably got a hostage.”

“Ten-four,” Wilson said.

As they got to the pickup, both men ducked, Gibbons staying at the rear, using it for cover as he trained his pistol on the house. Moving up the driver’s side, Harrow stayed in a low crouch, and hesitated when he was even with the front tire.

He glanced toward the garage and saw nothing to indicate any life back there. Slowly scanning the yard between garage and house, Harrow tried to spot Wilson; but in the darkness, that was impossible.

Harrow reached up and touched the hood of the truck — cold. This vehicle hadn’t moved for some time. He crept forward, and peeked around the front — nothing.

He looked back at Gibbons, who gave him a nod.

They’d never worked together, but both had sheriffed for years, and each had a good idea what the other was thinking.

With Harrow’s nod, they rushed together, Gibbons from the rear of the truck, Harrow from the front. They met on the postage stamp front stoop of the dark, silent house.

Gibbons quietly opened the screen door, and the two stood for a long second listening, poised to make rude entry.

No sound from inside, no TV, no radio, and most important — and disturbing to Harrow...

...no sounds of life.

Carmen was back on the couch again, but as day shifted to night, she felt more frightened than before. Late in the afternoon, when she’d finally managed to overcome her fear enough to sleep for a few minutes, he had roused her, and slit the tape that bound her hands behind her.

“Take off the shirt,” he said, voice as calm as if asking the time.

She fluttered her hands at her sides, trying to get some feeling back.

“No,” she said from behind the tape, and shook her head, seizing the courage to stand up to him.

Then the two prongs of the Taser touched her spine through the fabric of the T-shirt, and she felt her resolve melt.

“You know what this is,” he said, the prongs against her. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

He stayed behind her as she lifted the shirt over her head. He might be watching her back, but she moved carefully to make sure that was all he saw.

She’d wondered if it would come to this — to rape. She had played it out in her mind, and even wondered if it might be to her advantage if he tried that, because he might untie her, and hadn’t he just freed her hands?

Somewhere in her mind, her own voice laughed a shrill hysterical laugh. To her advantage if he tried to rape her? That was a good one...

When she had the shirt off, he said, “Drop it.”

She dropped the garment.

Careful not to step around her, he handed her a blue sweatshirt.

“Put this on.”

As she stood there bare-breasted, holding the sweatshirt before her, she realized it was the Kansas University one he’d been wearing when he abducted her. She held it at arm’s length, disgusted by the thought. It didn’t smell rank, but it did smell like him ... and the thought of having that aroma so close to her flesh repulsed her.

The prongs of the Taser touched her bare back. They were cold and hard and amped her fear up another notch.

“Put it on,” he said.

His voice quavered! Was he frightened? Aroused?

Finally, fear overcame revulsion, and she slipped on the sweatshirt, which was hot and scratchy against her skin. And, as she’d thought, his scent on it turned her stomach.

That was when he’d re-taped her hands, behind her again, and put her back onto the sofa. She saw him pick up her T-shirt, then he disappeared from view. No sound of the lounger reclining, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t sitting in it, just out of view.

Now, with dark of night settling over the room, she couldn’t tell whether he was in there with her or not. Her mouth was still taped shut, and she lay helplessly, eyes on shadows crawling across the ceiling.

When she heard a noise beyond the walls of the house, she froze. She tried not to breathe, afraid her breathing or the pounding of her heart would drown out the sound, should it occur again.

She struggled to identify what she’d heard.

Was it a footfall on a wooden step out front? The wind? Her imagination?

She strained to hear, every fiber of her being focused on listening, her only concession a fast prayer for the sound to repeat.

Then it did.

This time she was sure she’d heard something, and it did sound like feet on a wooden step outside. Then more footsteps, and she realized at least two people were out there.

Someone coming to rescue her?

Caution be damned, she rolled over, onto the floor, and her eyes sought her kidnapper in his chair.

The old lounger sat empty.

Outside, the sounds grew slightly louder. Were those muffled voices?

Through the tape, she yelled, “Help!”

The tape ate up the sound, but if Harrow or the cops or anybody was out there on that porch, she needed to try to let them know she was in here... alive!