Page 69 of The Wolves Come at Night
“None of the women are in there?”
“Don’t think so. No movement or lights anywhere else on the premises.”
Don’t know so either, she thought. Shit. This felt sketchy.
They reached the concrete steps up from the sidewalk. The house was well kept, with a small garden in the side yard, the perfect place for flowers and veggies to soak up the southern sun. The garden was fallow now, ready for the colder weather to set in.
“Okay. Here we go.”
She unsnapped her holster and let her fingers touch her Glock, then drift to her Taser. She had a small knot in her stomach, wariness, and something else. This felt wrong all of a sudden, but it was too late to pull back.
With a glance at Lincoln, she used her left hand to knock on the door, sharply, three times.
The spotter’s voice in her ear said, “Movement, he’s moving, he’s coming to the door.”
She stepped back to give herself some leverage if she needed to make a quick entry through the door. It opened, and the man she recognized from the photo as Theodore Burnkin looked at her quizzically, then in total alarm.
“Oh God,” he moaned. “No. Please, no. Tell me she’s okay. Tell me she’s not hurt.”
“Mr. Burnkin, I’m Captain Jackson. No one’s hurt. We just have some questions.”
“Oh, God. Thank God.” He shut his eyes briefly, and she blew out the breath she’d been holding, starting to relax, just as Burnkin bolted. He slammed the door behind him, catching her knuckles, and she ripped her weapon from its holster and kicked open the door with a curse, bursting into the house after him, screaming, “Bring SWAT, bring SWAT.” Lincoln took off to the left to circle around. Burnkin’s feet pounded down the hallway, and she was right behind him, three steps away, two… Her instincts told her to fire, to stop him, but she resisted. She wasn’t going to shoot unless she had absolutely no choice. And she wasn’t going to shoot him in the damn back, either.
Burnkin disappeared through a door, thudding down the basement steps, and she halted before tearing down after him, her back against the doorjamb. Lincoln pulled up opposite her, his Glock out. She could hear the rumblings of the SWAT team as they made entry, knew it was only a matter of moments before Burnkin did whatever he was planning and this would be over.
She held up her fingers to Lincoln in a silent three, two, one, then they dove into the stairwell.
Thirty-Six
Chaos.
Darkness.
Screams.
The hot fire of a bullet, whizzing past her ear, then a barrage from behind her.
She hit the deck, and rolled up against something hard, boxes or a small table. SWAT was in now, the basement overrun with burly men and women, taking up too much of the small space. Lincoln was shouting; Taylor’s ears were ringing from the close-quarter shooting. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t see.
Silence.
Just for a moment, just a heartbeat, but in the tiny pause, her senses righted themselves.
Theodore Burnkin was five feet from her position, on his side, mouth wide in a scream, stretching his arm toward a shiny object that her primeval brain registered as an explosive device.
She knew she screamed the word bomb aloud because there was another barrage of gunfire, and Burnkin went flat and still on the ground just as Lincoln yanked her backward by the collar and pushed her up the stairs in front of him, and then they were out of the basement, out of the house, into the street. SWAT poured out of the door behind them like drunken ants, and seconds later, a soft whump resonated, almost gentle, before it roared to life. The sound was followed by the percussion, then the whole house went up in a ball of fire that tossed everyone in the vicinity to the ground.
An hour later, the fire had been put out, and chilly water gushed through the street. Neighbors for two blocks around had been evacuated until the area could be cleared. The media, with their long-range cameras, were peering into the scene from any angle they could get. A chopper flew in tight circles overhead, broadcasting live.
Taylor did her best to avert her eyes from the curious gazes of everyone around. She still couldn’t hear properly. She sat on the tailgate of an EMT’s truck, a chemical ice pack pressed to her wrist. She was sore and bruised all over, her lip was split, and her chin sported butterfly stitches from where she’d hit the ground when the bomb went off. Her clothes were smoky and torn in a few spots.
But she was alive. Lincoln was alive. The entire SWAT team was alive.
Theodore Burnkin, though, was dead.
And if Carson Conway was in that basement, she was dead now, too.
She heard Huston coming before she saw her, which was saying something, considering the damage to her ears. She struggled to her feet, tossed the ice pack behind her.
