Page 110 of Confessions of the Dead

“No matter what I do, I’ll always be second best. Your consolation prize. If I died, would you be sad or relieved?”

“Matt!” Peterson shouted from outside. “Don’t make me ask again.”

“You don’t have to answer,” Addie said. “I already know.”

Before Matt could say anything else, she was halfway up the stairs. She turned the corner at the landing and vanished from sight.

At the radiator, Josh yanked at his handcuffs, tried to pull free, but that thing was older than both of them and made of cast iron. It didn’t budge. He glared at Matt. “Uncuff me and give me a gun!”

“Not a chance.”

“How many are there? You seriously think you can hold them off without me?”

“You know I can’t cut you loose.”

Josh licked his lips nervously. “I didn’t kill my wife, and Ididn’t kill my kids. I would never do that. It doesn’t matter how bad things might have been between me and Lynn, I couldneverdo that. You and I may not see eye to eye, but you have seen me at the range, you know I can shoot. Give me a fucking gun.”

“Matt!” Peterson barked again. “I got people all around. I’m gonna give you a ten count to send the girl out. You don’t do it, and this will get sloppy.”

“She’s not here, Stu!” Matt shouted back. “Ellie took her. I don’t know where they went.”

Several seconds slipped by, then Peterson broke the silence. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

Josh rattled the handcuffs again. “Let me go, Matt!”

“Shut the hell up!”

Josh gave the cuffs another yank, then craned his neck. “Ellie took the girl up to Buck’s place, Stu! They left maybe half an hour ago!”

When Peterson replied, he sounded like he was right outside the front door. “Is that so?”

“Matt has a shotgun! He’s in the front room with me! Gabby is in the kitchen watching the back, and he sent the pregnant one upstairs! They’re both armed, too! You don’t need to come in here—head up to Buck’s, you’ll get what you want!”

Matt’s grip tightened on the shotgun. It took everything he had tonotput a hole in Josh.

Peterson said, “If the girl’s gone, you won’t mind if me and the boys come in and have a quick look-see, will you? Not that I don’t believe you, but I’d prefer to confirm that with my own eyes.”

Matt did his best to keep the fear from his voice. “Get back in your truck and go home, Stu! You do that, and I’ll give you a pass on all this. You don’t, and you’ll find yourself in a cell come tomorrow!”

Three quick shots rang out with a metallic clang as they struckthe outside of the door near the lock and ricocheted. Sounded like they came from a .45, but Matt couldn’t be sure.

“The door is steel core with two dead bolts,” Matt told him. “Same with the back. You’re not getting through. Get the hell out of here!”

“There are many ways into a house, Matt. You know that. Many ways to make someone come out, too.”

The large picture window above the couch shattered with a rain of glass. A rock the size of Matt’s fist bounced off the coffee table, rolled across the floor, and came to rest near the far wall. Matt heard glass break upstairs and near the back of the house, too; that was followed by a scream from Gabby in the kitchen.

Clutching the shotgun against his chest, Matt started toward her when a Molotov cocktail sailed through the opening where the picture window had been and shattered on the floor, setting the hardwood aflame.

Outside, Stu Peterson yelled, “Come out when you’re ready, Matt! I’m a patient man—I’ll wait for you!”

85

Sheriff Ellie

BUCK SLAPPED ELLIE’S GUNto the side and didn’t so much as flinch as the bullet tore through the wood decking at his feet and vanished in the earth below with a thunderclap. His eyes never left hers. She might have fired again if he hadn’t twisted the gun from her hand and taken it from her, even as her index finger twitched.

She was in some kind of shock.

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