72 Hours (A Thriller) (9 page)

The Hammonds collapsed upon each other in relief.
 
Lindsay clutched a hand to her chest.
 
There was a moment of breathlessness.
 
Then they began to laugh.
 
The stress and anxiety that had begun that afternoon was finally catching up to them, and there was nowhere else to go with it but to channel it into laughter.

Lindsay kissed both kids on the forehead and hugged them to her.
 
The noise hadn’t been her imagination, but her imagination had gotten the best of her.
 
She put her back against the wall and slid to the floor.
 
Wyatt lay on his back on the floor, legs folded, arms crossed over his forehead.
 
Ramey dropped to her knees, still smiling.
 
They had survived a false alarm.

A gunshot split the stillness.
     

The laughter and the moment of relief ceased instantly as a bone chill settled over them.
 
It had been a single pop of gunfire.
 
Not from inside the house, or even from right outside, but certainly from within the neighborhood.
 
From somewhere along Vista Verde Drive.

Then another loud pop, followed by a third shot.
 
About the same distance away.

Lindsay wasn’t naïve enough to chalk the gunfire up to mere coincidence.
 
This had to do with them.
 
It was time to act.
 
Time to move.
 
Hesitation would get them killed.

She snapped her fingers at the kids and whispered urgently, “Back to the garage!”

The kids ran, keeping their heads low.
 
Hurrying through the kitchen, opening the door to the garage and descending the three concrete steps to the cool slab floor.

Lindsay felt her pulse rise again.
 
She paused at the door to the garage, listening.
 
She swore she heard distant voices.
 
She needed to know what was happening outside.
 
To her left was a laundry area, with a closet right inside the door.
 
Inside were boots and flip-flops, an umbrella and a battered Frisbee on the floor, and rain slickers and coats hanging from a closet rod.
 
She grabbed a cotton hoodie from a plastic hanger and put her arms through the sleeves.
 
She tugged the hood over her head and zipped the front to her chin.
 
Then she went out into the garage.

The kids were huddled on the floor in front of the Escalade.
 
She saw only the whites of their eyes through the gloom.
 
She kneeled down, pulling them close.
 

“Wait right here,” she said.
 
“Don’t move a muscle.
 
Don’t make a sound.
 
If I’m not back in ten minutes, call 911.”
 

“Please don’t go out there, Mom,” Ramey pleaded.

“They’ll see you,” Wyatt said.

“I’ll only be a minute.
 
I’ll be right outside the house.
 
Don’t worry.
 
Just please don’t come looking for me.
 
I need you to stay right here where it’s safe.
 
Promise?”

Ramey managed a timid nod.

Wyatt wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye with the sleeve of his shirt.

Lindsay scrambled on her hands and knees to a corner of the garage opposite the door to the interior of the house.
 
There was an exterior door with a window.
 
She turned the lock.
 
She glanced back toward the kids but saw only a vague, silhouetted representation of them through the gloom.

She turned the knob and eased the door open.
 
She stepped onto a sidewalk that traced the rear perimeter of the house.
 
Beyond the sidewalk, surrounded by a lush, well-tended lawn, was an in-ground pool.
 
The backyard was boxed in by a wooden privacy fence.
 
Her heart raced as she followed the curve of the sidewalk to the junction of the side of the house and the fence.
 
The fence was too tall for her to see over, and there were no gaps between the wooden slats.
 
She wouldn’t know what she was heading into until she headed into it.
 
She lifted the metal latch and gently bumped the small gate open with her forearm.

The moon was full and bright in the night sky.
 
Streetlights illuminated the length and breadth of Vista Verde Drive at intervals, dull light falling across manicured lawns and long hedgerows.
 
She made her way in a bear crawl to the front corner of the house.
 
She didn’t realize she was trembling until she raised her hand to adjust the hood.
 

Now she definitely heard shouts rolling her direction from up the street.
 
She heard car doors and could see headlights moving methodically along Vista Verde Drive.
 
She heard the sounds of conflict.
 
Husky male voices arguing.
 
Suddenly another crisp pop of gunfire.
 
Her throat went dry.
 
Whoever it was – and it sounded like there were plenty of them – they were making their way toward her.
 
And they clearly meant business.
 
These people had come to make a quick five hundred million dollars at her expense.

Lindsay found herself gripped by panic.

She could see bodies crossing through the beams of headlights, shadowy figures on foot advancing from house to house, consuming the neighborhood like a plague.
   

Somehow she’d been found out.
 
It seemed inconceivable.
 
Impossible.
 
She’d told no one.
 
She’d not planned the route of escape from Brentwood in advance.
 
It had been a last second decision, made on the spot as the Escalade sped away from the three intruders who had tried to kill them.
 
But none of that mattered.
 
By some apparent fluke in the universe they’d tracked her to Vista Verde Drive.
 
So she’d simply have to escape again.

Engines growled and music pulsed.

She crept across the lawn, crouching alongside a hedgerow, then stared at the shorn grass between her feet and shook her head, trying to grasp how all this could have happened.
 
The sounds of anarchy grew more prominent.
 
Gunfire popped.
 
Glass shattered as windows were bashed in.
 
She heard sirens rising through the folds of the hills.
 
Then she heard something overhead and turned an eye skyward.
 
Helicopter lights winked into view through the treetops.
 
A small hope twinkled in her heart.

But then a crippling thought crashed through her chest.
 
Vista Verde Drive ended at a cul-de-sac.
 
There was no way out except the entrance to the street where all hell had broken loose.
 
The Escalade would never make it through.
 
They’d be shot to pieces.
 
The escape route had been blocked.
 
They were caged in.
   

Lindsay moved closer, following the hedgerow to its terminus at the property line.
 
She passed through a gap in the hedge and found herself crouching at the edge of the street.
 
She crept through dappled moonlight and ducked down, flattening herself on the blacktop.
 
A silver car eased around the bend of the street, at such a minimal speed it hardly seemed to be in motion at all, insects flicking about in the headlights.
 
It was an old Ford Falcon with the windows down.

Lindsay noticed the barrel of a shotgun angling out from the passenger side window.
 
They were hunting her.

The Ford Falcon stopped in the street.
 
Men got out and approached a house four down from the lawn where Lindsay lay.

Sirens wailed.
 
Two minutes away.
 

Wind from the helicopter made the treetops sway.
 
Lindsay tried to signal it with an upraised hand.
 
Then it turned broadside to her and her stomach dropped.
 
It wasn’t the police.
 
It was a news helicopter.
 
NBC out of LA.
 
They weren’t there to attempt a rescue.
 
They wanted carnage.
 
Blood and gore.
 
She jerked her arm down.

The spotlight from the TV chopper swept up the street toward the growing chaos.
 
Small packs of men were advancing on foot.
 
She could see lights winking on in homes all through the neighborhood.
 
She heard cries for help.
 
Short bursts of staccato gunfire as home owners attempted to defend against the intruders.

Lindsay decided she’d seen enough.
 
It was time to run.
 
They had to evacuate because Vista Verde Drive was no longer safe.
 
She was sprinting across a lawn when her toe caught on a sprinkler head and she went down hard on her face.
 
Got the wind knocked out of her.
 
She gasped for breath, momentarily disoriented.
 
As she staggered to her feet, the spotlight from the helicopter beamed down directly on her.
 
She was blinded.

A voice called out over a loudspeaker.
 
“LINDSAY?
 
LINDSAY HAMMOND?”

Lindsay froze, petrified.
 
She glanced up at the aircraft silhouetted against the night sky above her, and then immediately regretted acknowledging them.
 
She stood, slightly hunched, at the center of the disc of white light.
 
The wash from the rotors generated a swirling mess of anything not solidly secured on the lawn.
 
The wind whipped the hoodie from her head as her hair flailed wildly.
 
The noise from the chopper was deafening.

“LINDSAY HAMMOND?
 
ARE YOU LINDSAY HAMMOND?”
 
The voice coming out of the speaker crackled.
 
It was blaring.
 
Lindsay was certain the entire neighborhood could hear it.
 
She shielded her face from the rotor wash with one arm and raised the other arm into the air above her head to wave them away.

“Leave!” she shouted.
 
“Go away!”

She staggered forward a few yards.
 
The disk of light followed her every move.
 
She was almost to the wooden gate leading to the backyard.
 
The gate bucked against its latch in the wind.
 
Lindsay gasped for breath.
 
Only a few minutes ago she had been seated with Wyatt and Ramey in the calm stillness of the kitchen.
 
Now her plan to ride out the three days in anonymous seclusion had blown up in her face.

She reached the corner of the house, then stopped to turn and look.
 
The commotion at the top of the street was now shifting quickly in her direction.
 
She saw silhouetted figures on foot racing down the street.
 
The NBC helicopter was like a beacon, showing them the way to her.

They would reach the house in less than a minute.
 
She had sixty seconds to collect the kids and get out.
 
She flung the gate wide open.
 
It rocked on its hinges, clattering into the fence.
 
She pushed through the exterior garage door, shouting for Wyatt and Ramey through the darkness.

“We’ve got to go!
 
Now!
 
Run!”

They scrambled to their feet and hurried to the open door.
 
She ushered them out onto the back lawn.

“GO!”

“Where?” Ramey asked.

“Just go!” Lindsay cried, pointing away from the house.
 
“There’s no time!
 
They’re coming!”

Beyond the swimming pool, the lawn sloped fifty or sixty feet, the grass slope abutting the wooden fence.
 
There was no gate.
 
Lindsay had to think quickly.
 
The helicopter hovered overhead, the disc of white light tracking them.

“Here,” Lindsay said.
 
She formed a stirrup with her hands, and one at a time the kids stepped up, Lindsay hoisting them to the top rail of the fence.
 
They clambered over and dropped to the other side.
 
When only Lindsay was left, she sprang with her legs, grasping for the top rail, grabbing hold, heaving herself up.
 
She swung the first leg over, straining, splinters digging into her hands.
 
In the instant before she tipped her bodyweight to drop outside the fence, the first of the mob burst through the gate at the rear of the house.
 
Lindsay was lit by the disc of light from the helicopter as she made eye contact with the thug for a fraction of a second.
 
He had the wild eyes of a mad man.
 
Before he had time to flinch, Lindsay released her grip on the top of the fence and dropped into darkness.