The Watcher in the Wall (30 page)

She tried to ignore the pain. Focused on getting free. Limped down the dark, narrow hallway, fast as she was able. Reached the end of the hall just when Gruber realized she was missing, made the kitchen with its dirt and detritus, an expanse of dark and shadow between her and the trailer door.

She could hear him behind her, back on his feet and angry, chasing
her, closing the distance. Knew she had to keep going, couldn’t be sure her ankle would hold up long enough. Couldn’t know for certain she wouldn’t just collapse.

Only one way to find out.

Madison pushed herself off the wall. Stumbled forward, slipped on the old linoleum, her balance total crap with her arms taped behind her. Nearly fell, her ankle screaming, threatening to topple her.

She stayed upright. Aimed for the door. Gathered every ounce of her strength and threw herself at the night beyond.

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Stevens and Windermere
hurried into the trailer park, crouched low, their pistols drawn, flashlights aimed down at the ragged road.

Stevens was a shadow. Windermere could hear him beside her, hear him breathing, his shoes shuffling across the pavement, a carpet of dead leaves covering Frey Lane. Watched the beam of his flashlight sweep along the trailers as they passed them, searching for number eighteen. Gruber’s trailer.

This was creepy. The whole park was like a graveyard of bad juju, and it didn’t help that Madison Mackenzie was at Gruber’s mercy, somewhere inside. Windermere felt her heart pounding, heard Madison’s scream echoing in her head. Pushed herself to move faster, find her before Gruber did what he’d come here to do.

Then she heard Stevens cough. Low, just loud enough to get her attention. He’d killed his flashlight, was gesturing across at a sagging double-wide. Windermere couldn’t see the house number, but she knew they’d found the right spot. Could tell from the hammering noises coming from inside.

Muffled grunts and wood splintering; not exactly rhythmic. More like someone was battering something. Windermere raised her Glock, her flashlight, too. Spotted the trailer’s open door and crept toward it.

A violent crash from inside. A heavy weight, falling hard. Windermere crossed the gravel front yard, her shoes kicking up stones as she went. Hurried toward the door, flashlight aimed inside, nothing beyond but dim shadows and the vague outline of old furniture, countertops, garbage and debris.

And then, a girl.

Madison Mackenzie, her mouth taped over, arms restrained, came
flying
out of the trailer. She made the front door at about the same time as Windermere, collided with her, knocking her back. The girl was screaming through the duct tape, her eyes wide and terrified. Windermere made a grab for her, missed, felt Madison squirm past her and tumble into the yard. Turned around to catch her, break her fall, a reflex, and when she turned back to the door, there was Gruber.

He was at once smaller and more menacing than she’d imagined. Five eight or five nine, hardly overpowering, thick around the middle, and those thick, greasy glasses. He was breathing heavy, his mouth contorted into a rictus of frustration, anger. He was holding a long carving knife.

The girl had distracted her. Windermere had lowered her gun when she reached for her, tried a bear hug and missed. Now she turned back
to Gruber, raising her Glock as he lunged with the knife. Knew she wouldn’t make it; Gruber was quicker. Forgot about shooting him and raised her left arm to ward off the blade, felt the knife cut her, hot and sharp. She fell onto the gravel, Gruber looming above her. Watched him raise the knife again, knew he aimed to kill her. Then Stevens’s pistol roared, and Gruber staggered back, back through the doorway and into the dark trailer.

And then Stevens was beside her.
“Carla,”
he said. “Shit. Did he get you?”

Windermere put her other hand to her forearm, felt blood, the fabric of her favorite jacket in tatters. Didn’t feel the pain yet, her adrenaline taking care of it for now, pushed Stevens away. “The girl.”

Stevens turned, shined his flashlight down Frey Lane, caught Madison Mackenzie running into the arms of Agent Wheeler and an Indiana state cop three or four houses down.

“Safe,” he told her. “She’s okay, Carla.”

Windermere released her wounded arm. Picked up her Glock. “Great,” she told Stevens. “Then let’s go get Gruber.”

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Gruber staggered back
through the open doorway, more from the shock than the gunshots themselves. Saw the cops outside, two of them, and knew this game was over. Madison Mackenzie was gone.

More flashlights. The lady cop on the ground where she’d fallen, her partner with the pistol crouched above her, checking her wound. Gruber backed through the trailer, into the little kitchen. Knew he only had seconds to get free.

He backed into the kitchen counter. Knew the cops were coming, could hear more of them approaching. They would surround the trailer. They would wait for him to come out, or they would storm inside and shoot him dead.

Gruber dropped the knife. Pulled Curtis Donovan’s revolver from his back pocket. Fired out through the front door, wild, didn’t wait to see if he’d hit anything. He pushed himself off the counter, ran down the long hallway to his room, and Sarah’s, Earl’s on the back side. He was bleeding, he could tell, his left side starting to burn. The cop had shot him twice, shoulder and rib cage. Impossible to move without feeling it, his whole body screaming.

But he had to run. He did, passed his old bedroom, made it to Earl’s room, halfway to Sarah’s door. Heard the police behind him, crossing the threshold, their flashlights like laser sights. Knew he was dead if they caught him.

Gruber steamrolled through Earl’s bedroom. A dingy old mattress in the middle of the floor; he slipped on it, nearly fell. Made the rear window and punched through the glass with the butt end of the gun. Cleared the shards away with the sleeve of his jacket and hefted himself over the sill.

He struggled, clawing at the outer wall of the double-wide, kicking his feet, until he’d pulled himself through the window and landed with a crash in the scraggy bushes beyond, his shoulder on fire, his midsection the same. Pulled himself to his feet and kept going.

Behind him, the cops had burst into Earl’s bedroom. Gruber didn’t look back. He ran.

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Stevens and Windermere
followed Gruber into the double-wide, the whole trailer shaking and crashing as he bulldozed his way through. Found themselves in an old kitchen, a narrow hallway to their left. Heard glass breaking somewhere in that direction, didn’t slow down, kept moving.

Stevens took the lead. Windermere followed, her arm starting to ache, the blood really coming. Ignored the pain, but cursed herself anyway.
You could have taken him down, Supercop. But you blinked.

Stevens passed a door on the left, an empty room. Made a right turn into somebody’s bedroom and Windermere followed, the beam of her flashlight glancing down the hall as she went, a broken door hanging off its hinges, the remains of a wooden dresser behind. Then she was turning, chasing Stevens into the bedroom and toward the back, a broken window about waist high, Stevens shining his light through.

“He got out there,” Stevens said, breathing heavy. Aimed his light at the backyard, more trailers beyond. “Bastard made the jump and I lost him.”

Windermere reached for her radio. “We need this park surrounded,” she said. “
Now.
If Gruber gets out to that forest, he’s gone.”

The radio crackled, affirmative responses. Windermere stared out the empty window. Touched her hand to her arm and drew back, wincing, eyes tearing.

“Damn it, partner,” she said. “I think he really
got
me.”

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Gruber heard voices
as he ran from the trailer, men calling to each other, radios crackling. Engines rumbling. Knew there were more police out there, many of them. Knew they wouldn’t stop searching until they found him.

None of them had ever lived in this trailer park, though, or spent time in the forest beyond. Nobody knew this place like he did.

Gruber ducked into the shadows of the next trailer over. Crept around to the rear of it, moving slow, cautious, careful not to step in any of the debris that lay scattered, pieces of scrap wood and siding, a hot-water tank, a plastic kiddie pool. He could hear the men in the distance, figured they were congregated at the park gate, fifty yards away or so. Could see light, intermittent, flashing against the trailers opposite him, the treetops, flashlights and red-and-blues from the police cars. Heard the crunch of boots on gravel.

Gruber ducked low and hurried through the yard behind the trailer as fast as he dared, weighing the odds he would stumble on something loud against the certainty that the police were coming behind him. He
was still holding the revolver, knew he’d probably have to use it again if he wanted to escape the trailer park with his life.

The backyard ended in a low fence, most of the boards rotted away or torn out. Gruber hopped the fence, cut through the next backyard toward the trailer opposite, his lungs burning already, gasping for breath. He’d never been an athlete. Never taken care of his body. Never imagined he’d need to.

He reached the next trailer. More voices behind him, louder, doors slamming. He could feel his wounds, his shoulder and his side, burning like a hot fireplace poker jabbed into his insides. They were getting worse as the adrenaline wore off, hotter and hotter, the pain growing. He wasn’t going to die, he didn’t think, but he couldn’t be sure. He just had to get out of there.

Gruber skulked around the side of the trailer. This one was almost collapsed, the walls hanging inward, the roof just a pair of steel rails and the night sky beyond. There was no light out this far, no movement. One row of trailers on the other side of the road, and then nothing but forest beyond. He was almost there. He could make it.

Gruber peered left and right, squinting in the darkness, saw no signs of life up or down the road. Gathered his breath and his courage and ran, crossed the road as fast and quiet as he could, heard no gunshots behind him, no voices. Reached the trailer on the other side, the shadows, and slowed down again. Caught his breath. Kept moving, toward the edge of the park. The fence, the back gate, the dirt road. Donovan’s car.

He’d just reached the last trailer’s backyard when he heard it. Was staring through the darkness, to the fence, could almost see the Lincoln in the clearing beyond, when the radio crackled somewhere ahead, across the yard and at the park boundary. A cop, somewhere out there,
running down the fence line, moving fast. If he found the car, they would all come running.

Gruber crept across the yard to the gate. Heard the crunch of the cop’s footsteps approaching, and crouched low against the fence, the revolver at the ready. Then he saw the cop. A little guy, short and stocky, ten feet away, and closing in quickly.

Gruber didn’t have time to think. No time to do anything but attack. He launched himself from the fence, swung the butt end of the gun, and caught the cop in the temple. Knocked him down, saw the man reaching for his sidearm and fell on top of him, swinging down with the revolver again and again until the cop was quiet, the ground bloody.

It was over in seconds. The cop hadn’t had time to call or cry out, reach for his radio. Gruber wiped the gun clean. Then he stood. Hurried out through the gate to the road beyond, the white Lincoln. Found the keys, started the engine. Drove away, fast as he dared, the park gate still dark in the rearview, no sign yet of any more cops.

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Stevens left Windermere
with a couple of Indiana state troopers, made them promise to get her to an ambulance. Helped her out of the trailer and then circled around back, pistol and flashlight raised, setting off in the direction he’d last seen Randall Gruber.

The night was all flashlight beams and distant voices, the hulks of
dead trailers and overgrown lawns. He hurried across the Gruber backyard, ducked alongside another dark trailer, fast as he dared, his whole body tensed and ready for Gruber to come at him from the gloom, swinging that knife.

But Gruber didn’t come. Here and there, Wheeler’s men searched other trailers, alongside the state troopers and the rest of the cavalry. Now and then, shouts would erupt in the darkness, triumphant, chase-is-on shouts, only to fall silent within the span of seconds, false alarms everywhere, shadows playing tricks.

Stevens kept searching. Crossed another cracked roadway, another derelict trailer. Wondered if Gruber would try to hide out, if he’d run. Figured he’d shot Gruber once for certain, probably twice, figured a guy as unathletic as Gruber wouldn’t have much taste for setting out on a chase. Figured he’d probably try and lay low, wait until the heat died.

Figured they’d be good if they locked the park down, established a perimeter, called in the canine unit, and waited for first light.

Still, he walked the park. Found his way to the back boundary, a low fence, a gate, some kind of clearing. And something else, too, something that caused a glint when his light reached it.

He got on the radio. Told the cavalry, quiet as he could, that he was approaching the park fence. Told them not to shoot him, whatever they did. Then he crossed the yard to the fence.

He’d made it halfway there when he realized the glint in his flashlight beam had come from a pair of steel handcuffs. And that the handcuffs were attached to the belt of an Indiana state trooper.

A young guy, from the look of him, a rookie, or close. Stevens reached the body, saw the blood, lots of it. The man’s face had been fairly bashed in, some kind of blunt object. He was dead.

“I got a man down,” Stevens told the radio. “Back of the park. I need an ambulance, and I need backup,
now
.”

He scanned his flashlight up from the body. Through the gate to the woods beyond, the clearing. It wasn’t just a clearing, he saw, walking through the gate. It was a road, narrow, dirt and gravel and cavernous potholes.