Chương 13
“I already am.”
Barnes kicked the door again.
“Come out and I’ll stop.”
Emily started sobbing.
“I can’t.”
“Don’t open it,” Sarah said.
Barnes must have heard her voice through the phone.
He stopped.
Then he spoke very softly.
“Who are you talking to?”
Emily clamped a hand over the phone.
The line muffled.
Nobody in the hospital room moved.
Price whispered, “We’re at the access road.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
Six minutes had become four.
Or five.
Time stretched when someone else was trapped.
Barnes struck the door again.
Wood splintered.
Emily screamed.
“Door’s breaking.”
Price’s voice sharpened.
“Troopers moving now.”
I said, “Emily, get behind something.”
“There’s nowhere.”
“The radio cabinet.”
“It’s bolted.”
“Get behind it anyway.”
The door cracked again.
“Dennis,” Price said.
“What?”
“Keep her talking.”
I understood why.
A conscious voice was information.
A silent phone was not.
“Emily, tell me about the window.”
“What?”
“The window.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
“It’s high.”
“What do you see?”
“Trees.”
“Anything else?”
“A light.”
“What kind?”
“Red.”
“Tower beacon.”
Price said, “Confirmed.”
Emily coughed.
“Can I get out the window?”
“Can you reach it?”
“No.”
“Then don’t waste time.”
“I don’t want to die.”
Sarah sat beside the phone.
“You’re not going to.”
I looked at her.
She looked back.
We both knew it was a promise she could not guarantee.
Emily said, “Tell my mom I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Sarah’s voice turned hard.
“You can tell her yourself.”
“I should’ve listened.”
“To what?”
“She told me to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“The records.”
“Why didn’t you?”
A tiny laugh came through the coughing.
“Because she said I was nosy.”
Tyler smiled despite himself.
“Sounds like you.”
Emily laughed once.
Then Barnes rammed the door again.
The chair scraped several inches.
Emily cried out.
Price said, “We have visual on the building.”
Gunfire exploded through her line.
Sarah flinched.
Tyler tried to sit higher.
“Price?”
No answer.
More shots.
Then shouting.
Emily screamed.
“What’s happening?”
I kept my voice level.
“Stay down.”
“Barnes is gone.”
“What?”
“I don’t hear him.”
“Do not open the door.”
“I hear people outside.”
“Don’t open it.”
Someone shouted faintly through her phone.
“State police.”
Emily began crying harder.
“They found me.”
“Stay where you are until they identify themselves.”
A man’s voice called, “Emily Carver, this is Colorado State Patrol.”
Price came back on the hospital phone.
“We have Barnes contained outside.”
“Contained?”
“He’s behind a vehicle.”
“Armed?”
“Yes.”
“Renner?”
“Not here.”
“Emily?”
“Entry team is at her door.”
We heard men moving furniture through Emily’s phone.
Then one voice said, “Emily, we need you to back away.”
She crawled.
The door opened.
For several seconds there were only voices.
“Hands visible.”
“She’s got a phone.”
“Medical.”
“She’s conscious.”
A medic said, “Hey, Emily, look at me.”
She began sobbing so violently that words disappeared.
Sarah lowered her forehead to Tyler’s hand.
Price said, “She’s alive.”
Tyler exhaled.
His whole body seemed to collapse into the mattress.
Sarah whispered, “Thank God.”
I asked, “Barnes?”
Price did not answer immediately.
Gunfire cracked through her phone again.
Then one shot.
Then silence.
Cho’s voice came faintly.
“Weapon down.”
Another officer shouted something I could not make out.
Price breathed hard.
“Barnes is in custody.”
Tyler opened his eyes.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
His expression changed.
Not relief.
Something closer to disappointment.
I understood it.
That frightened me.
Sarah understood it too.
She squeezed his hand.
“Good.”
Tyler looked at her.
“Why good?”
“Because dead people don’t answer questions.”
He stared at the ceiling.
Price said, “I need to go.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Renner.”
“We’re looking.”
“He left Emily with Barnes.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out before he reaches Crane.”
“Crane is under guard.”
“Then before he reaches anyone else.”
“I know.”
The line ended.
Emily’s phone remained connected.
A medic was asking her name and date of birth.
Then Emily said, “Is Tyler still there?”
Sarah leaned toward the phone.
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Tyler took it carefully.
“Hey.”
“I’m sorry.”
He frowned.
“You already said that.”
“I know.”
“So stop.”
“I thought you were dead.”
He looked at me.
“So did I for a minute.”
Emily made a broken little laugh.
“I saw him shoot you.”
Tyler went still.
“You saw?”
“Through the window.”
His face emptied.
“I thought you were unconscious.”
“I was awake.”
“You saw both?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Tyler’s eyes filled.
“Did he laugh?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
He turned his head away from all of us.
Sarah touched his hair.
He pulled away.
“I knew it.”
“Tyler.”
“I knew I didn’t make that up.”
“No one said you did.”
“He did.”
“Who?”
“Deputy Kessler.”
I leaned forward.
“When?”
“On the road.”
Sarah’s hand stopped.
“Before the ambulance came.”
Tyler’s breathing accelerated.
“He knelt next to me and said Barnes fired because I rushed him.”
I looked at Sarah.
“He said if I told people anything else, nobody would believe me because Barnes had the body camera.”
Price had said Kessler was first on scene.
And Barnes’s body camera had supposedly malfunctioned.
“How long was Kessler there before the ambulance?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Barnes leave?”
“For a while.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was Kessler alone with you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He took my phone.”
Sarah stood.
“He took it?”
Tyler nodded.
“He said it was evidence.”
The room became very quiet.
The threatening messages had come from Tyler’s phone.
Kessler had possessed it before anyone else claimed it missing.
I reached for Sarah’s hospital phone.
“Call Price again.”
Before she could dial, someone knocked on the open door.
Deputy Kessler stood outside.
He was not in uniform now.
He wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt.
His right hand was hidden inside the front pocket.
He looked at Tyler.
Then at me.
“I was hoping we could talk privately.”
I did not invite him in.
Sarah moved between Kessler and Tyler’s bed.
“You can talk from there.”
May you like
Kessler glanced toward the nurses’ station.
“I don’t want an audience.”
