No, not now.
‘What the hell are you doing up there?’
There was the fast scamper of feet as Hendricks came halfway up the stairs until his head was above the landing floor level. He was staring straight at the other guy’s butt. Evan stared straight at the top of his head. If he stood up now, it was all over.
‘I don’t fucking believe it,’ Hendricks yelled.
‘Okay, okay. I said I’m coming.’
His hands came off the rug. He straightened his back. Through the fabric of his pants, Evan watched his thigh muscles tense as he prepared to heave himself to his feet. His knee joint clicked, the sound as loud as if they’d all pulled their guns and fired at once. He stood.
Through the guy’s legs, Evan saw the side of Hendricks’ head.
‘Give me strength,’ Hendricks spat in disgust as he turned back down the stairs. ‘Keep this up and you’ll have all the time in the world to tidy the rug in your prison cell.’
The guy turned and followed him downstairs, muttering under his breath: ‘It wasn’t the wind. And it wasn’t no mice either.’
Evan heard Hendricks’ voice from the hallway.
‘Got everything you need? Want to do a quick bit of vacuuming before we go.’
‘Up yours, Jason.’
Evan pictured the smirk on his face and smiled with him.
Hendricks ignored him. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
Evan didn’t know whether they were popping out for Pizza or whether they were about to leave for good. Hendricks couldn’t possibly think he could stay hiding in his basement forever. On the other hand, was he going to simply walk away from everything he had here? The most likely answer was he was going to lie low until he could find out if Faulkner died or not. That meant they were probably coming back.
He considered going down and confronting them. He had the gun and he could hold them until Guillory got there. It was too risky. He knew Faulkner was making a good recovery and might not even press charges against his brother-in-law, but Hendricks might think he’d killed Faulkner. That would make him desperate to escape. Added to that, the other guy also had a gun. And if it was the army buddy, he knew how to use it a whole lot better than Evan did. Discretion was definitely the better part of valor on this occasion.
He heard them go into the kitchen.
‘Where’s the damn key?’ Hendricks said, sounding very pissed indeed. ‘It was in the lock.’
The tightness in Evan’s chest came back with a vengeance that took his breath away. He had the key in his pocket. Why had he done that? He should have left it where it was.
‘Don’t look at me,’ the other guy said in a defensive tone, ‘I didn’t touch it.’
‘That makes a change.’
It went very quiet in the kitchen. Were things falling into place in Hendricks’ mind? The rug and now the missing key. Surely it was obvious there was an intruder in the house. Or was he blaming his friend?
‘Haven’t you got a spare?’ the guy said.
‘Of course I’ve got a spare. It’s in this drawer. But I want to know what happened to the one that was in the lock.’
‘What the hell for? Was it your favorite?’
Evan heard the smirk again.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘You want to watch who you’re calling stupid.’
‘Is that so?’
‘I’m not the one who brained Faulkner. Now that’s stupid.’
‘Really. What would you have done? You’re not exactly the go-to person for useful suggestions.’
Their voices were raised now. Evan prayed it would turn into a full-scale fight. Then they’d forget about everything else.
‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t have brained him, that’s for damn sure. If I was going to brain anyone, it’d be that other interfering bastard.’
Upstairs, Evan’s blood ran cold. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and his legs went weak. Jacobson had been right. He was in real danger from Hendricks and his partner. Thank God he hadn’t gone down and confronted them.
Then a sudden realization took hold in his mind. His whole body trembled. He didn’t know if it was from fear or excitement. He’d been worrying about them finding him in the house while they were trying to make their escape—because, like Guillory, he was after them for attacking Faulkner. But the interfering bastard remark couldn’t be about that. He’d only spoken to Hendricks once and that had been before Faulkner was attacked. Meaning, if they saw him as a threat, it was because his interfering was getting close to something else. And that could only be one thing.
The disappearance of Daniel Clayton.
Chapter 37
‘MAYBE I’LL DO THAT too,’ Hendricks said downstairs.
‘Well if you do, make sure you do a proper job this time.’
Hendricks laughed derisively.
‘That’s great coming from you. At least I’ve got the balls to do it.’
‘Is that so? It was you who got us into all this shit in the first place.’
‘Me? You—’
Evan didn’t catch the end of the sentence as it was drowned out by the sound of someone crashing into the table. One of them had shoved the other one. There was the scrape of chair legs on the floor, a slap and one of them grunted.
‘You better put that back down, you retard,’ Hendricks said, ‘or I’m gonna shove it up your ass sideways.’
Then, before it could go any further there was a sound that stopped them in their tracks. Evan pictured them standing staring into each other’s faces, panting, their mouths hanging open, all thought of their argument gone as they heard it. The sound of a car pulling into the driveway.
‘Shit. It must be the police again,’ Hendricks said. ‘Come on. Before they see us.’
Evan heard the pair of them run across the kitchen into the hallway. He heard the basement door open, then slam shut. Everything went quiet. Outside, the car drove around the side of the house, pulling to a halt outside the back door. The light in the kitchen was still on, spilling out into the yard. The car doors sprung open and two people jumped out, slamming the doors after them. Seconds later he heard impatient banging on the back door, Guillory’s voice shouting over the top of it.
Evan slid out from under the bed and stood up. He was happy to let them in now. Hendricks and his accomplice were down in the basement and he’d be able to send them down there after them. With any luck Ryder would go first and get shot before Guillory saved the day. His only concern was Faulkner’s gun. He didn’t want to be caught with it. He turned the landing light on and called down the stairs that he was coming. Then he ran into Hendricks’ room, pulled open the drawer to the nightstand and dropped the SIG-Sauer in. You can explain that to them as well, you bastard.
Guillory was still pounding on the door as Evan trotted down the stairs and along the hallway to the kitchen.
He didn’t want to use the key he had in his pocket. He wanted to keep that one in case he decided to come back again. He remembered Hendricks saying that the spare was in the drawer. He put his hands on his head just to be on the safe side and stepped into the kitchen. The table had been knocked across the room and one of the chairs was upended. There was a large kitchen knife sitting on the table.
Too late he realized he was still wearing the cotton gloves. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice with the shock of finding him there. Guillory’s face through the glass door panel was a picture. Evan scanned the room quickly and saw one of the drawers pulled half way out. Hendricks must have been in the middle of getting the spare out before they started arguing. He dropped his hands and held up his finger to say wait just one minute. Then he walked over to the drawer and opened it all the way. He was in luck. There was a bunch of spare keys on a ring. He took them out and crossed the kitchen to the back door.
Guillory was standing outside with her hands on her hips and a hurry-up look on her face. Ryder was eating something without closing his mouth properly. Evan hadn’t paid a lot o
f attention to the key he used to lock the door but there was one on the key ring that looked like a probable match. He slipped it into the lock and it turned first time. Yes. Then he pulled the door open and stood aside.
‘What in God’s name are you doing here?’ Guillory said as she stepped past Evan.
Ryder followed her without saying anything.
Be thankful for small mercies.
Evan hadn’t had enough time to get a story together. He decided to say as little as possible. People with a guilty conscience always give too much information.
‘I wanted to have a look around.’
‘You mean you fancied a bit of breaking and entering.’ Guillory said. ‘I see you came prepared.’ She pointed at Evan’s gloved hands. ‘Or do you just feel the cold more than most people?’
So much for not noticing, Evan thought, pulling the gloves off and stuffing them in his pocket.
‘No, the door was unlocked. I locked it behind me.’
Guillory didn’t look as if she believed him but there was no evidence of a break-in.
‘What time did you get here?’
He had to tell them the truth. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been in the house the last time they came. He’d just told them the door was unlocked, so if they’d got there first they would have found it open, not locked.
‘I got here just before you did.’
‘You can’t have. We’ve been sitting down the road waiting for the past fifteen minutes at least. Nobody passed us. You didn’t walk across the fields, did you?’
‘I meant just before you arrived the first time.’
‘You were in the house the whole time?’ Guillory’s voice had taken on a sharp edge.
Evan nodded.
‘Why didn’t you let us in?’
‘Because I was hoping to avoid this conversation.’
‘I bet. And stop us doing our job at the same time.’
Evan started to say something but Guillory cut him off.
‘If the door was unlocked like you say, we could have had a look around ourselves.’
‘And not had to come back again,’ Ryder added.
Evan was sensible enough to hold his tongue. He wasn’t in what you’d call a position of strength. It was time to play his ace.
‘You’ll be glad it worked out that way,’ he said.
‘Oh, really?’ Ryder said.
‘Yes, really. Because I can tell you exactly where they are.’
‘They?’
‘It means more than one person.’
‘Okay Buckley, drop the wisecracks,’ Guillory said.
Evan was sure he’d seen a smile cross her face.
‘Who are they?’
‘Hendricks and a friend.’
He’d been about to say he thought it was an army friend that Hendricks went to prison with, before he caught himself. He didn’t know how much Guillory knew and didn’t want to have to start explaining it all from the beginning.
‘Okay. Where are they? And what’s been going on in here?’
She walked over to the table and picked up the knife.
‘They were starting to have a fight just as you got here. They’re in the basement now. This way.’
Evan led them to the door leading down into the basement.
‘I heard them run down there when you arrived.’
‘You heard them?’
‘I was upstairs.’
They didn’t need to know he’d been hiding under the bed. He wondered if he smelled of decaying rat.
‘Upstairs doing what?’ Ryder said. ‘You weren’t hiding under the bed, were you?’
Evan said nothing but his face must have given him away.
‘Ha! I don’t believe it,’ Ryder exclaimed, a huge grin splitting his normally sour face. ‘The big, tough detective was hiding under the bed while the bad men were downstairs.’
He laughed like it was the best thing he’d heard in a month.
Evan felt his face grow hot.
‘At least I can fit under the bed,’ he said but Ryder was laughing so hard he didn’t hear.
‘Okay children,’ Guillory said, ‘that’s enough.’
Ryder wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye.
‘We’ll have to try extra hard to keep that out of the papers.’
Evan wanted to punch him in the gut but wasn’t sure he’d get his arm back. He turned to Guillory.
‘I think Hendricks’ friend has got a gun.’ He told her about the empty shoe box in the closet. ‘Why don’t you send Ryder down first? He’ll provide an impenetrable shield for the rest of us.’
They both ignored him. It was all business now at the mention of the gun. Guillory told him to move back out of the way and they both drew their own pistols. Evan could see that Guillory’s was the same as the one he’d taken from Faulkner’s trailer. Guillory pressed herself flat against the wall, turned the door knob and pushed the door open. On the other side of the doorway Ryder reached round and flicked the light switch on. Guillory called down into the basement, telling the men down there to come up with their hands on their heads. Nobody came forward. Guillory repeated her order. There wasn’t a sound coming up from the basement, and no movement either. Guillory looked over and nodded at Ryder then took a deep breath and started slowly down the stairs. Ryder followed her down. It was only about fifteen seconds before Guillory called up to Evan that it was okay to come down. Evan hadn’t heard a thing.
Chapter 38
HE WENT DOWN THE steps into the best kept basement workshop he’d ever seen. Two of the walls were lined with metal shelving full of every imaginable kind of tool, dozens of tins of paint, boxes of screws and nails and just about every other kind of household item you could imagine. There were bays along the third wall with lumber neatly stacked in them. Workbenches lined the other wall with peg boards fixed to the wall above, more tools hanging from the pegs. There were a number of large woodworking machines in the middle of the room—a table saw he recognized and some others he didn’t. Ryder was sitting on one of the workbenches swinging his legs and Guillory was poking around the contents on the shelves. The only thing missing was Hendricks and his buddy.
Evan looked around in amazement.
‘I heard them come down here.’
‘Are you sure you weren’t taking a nap on the bed instead of hiding under it?’ Ryder said. ‘And you dreamed the whole thing.’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
He still had the smell of the decaying rodent in his nostrils, a dull ache in his nose from squashing it into the floor.
‘So where are they? Hiding under this bench?’
He looked down between his legs.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t make all this up to try to distract us away from the fact that we caught you breaking and entering?’ he said, his tone losing all its mocking quality.
‘Why would I do that if it could be disproved so easily?’
‘Beats me, but you meet some pretty stupid people—’
‘If we’re talking of stupid, the only reason you caught me is because I let you in. If I hadn’t, you’d have just gone away empty handed again. I assume you weren’t going to break in yourselves.’
‘No, we leave that to people like you.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘You don’t keep a dog and bark yourself.’
‘Tell us again exactly what happened,’ Guillory said over her shoulder, in an attempt to stop the bickering and get back on track.
‘They were in the kitchen fighting when you drove up. Hendricks’ buddy was threatening him with the kitchen knife. I heard them stop and then run down the hallway and down here. I heard that door slam.’
Evan jabbed his finger at the door at the top of the stairs.
‘All I know is they’re not here now. And you’ve been wasting even more of our time.’ Ryder said.
‘This is where they came from.’
Ryder slid down from the workbench he was sitting on
.
‘What?’
‘They were down here all the time I was here. Then they came up and were about to go out when you turned up.’
‘What were they doing down here? A spot of woodworking.’ He kicked the workbench. ‘Perhaps they’ve got plans to remodel the house.’
‘I know what I heard.’
‘And I know what I’m hearing. I’m hearing a crock of shit.’ Ryder’s face was getting redder by the minute. ‘I think I’m going to book you for B&E and wasting police time.’
‘Give him a break, Easy.’ Guillory said, turning away from the shelves.
‘Easy?’ Evan said, confused. Then it clicked and he smiled. ‘Please, not Easy Ryder. More like Up-tight Ryder, if you ask me.’
‘Actually, nobody did ask you. Although that doesn’t normally stop you poking your nose in.’
‘Actually, it’s E-Z for Edward Zachary,’ Guillory said, also smiling. ‘His parents weren’t to know they were going to make that film.’
‘That’s got to win some kind of award for the most off base nickname,’ Evan said
‘I’ve had enough,’ Ryder said. ‘You two jokers can stay down here, but I’m going to check out the rest of the house.’
‘There’s nothing there,’ Evan said, immediately regretting it—he’d given Ryder an easy shot.
‘Really? After the accuracy of your most recent information,’ he threw his arm wide to take in the whole of the Hendricks-free basement, ‘you’ll forgive me if I check it out for myself. Maybe use my eyes, not my ears.’
He turned and headed up the stairs, then stopped again.
‘By the way, you seem to have lost part of one of yours. Maybe it’s under the bed.’
He carried on up the stairs, laughing to himself as he went. Evan gave him the finger to help him on his way.
***
‘THIS WASN’T A VERY clever idea,’ Guillory said, after Ryder had gone.
They could hear him banging around upstairs even though Evan knew the house was empty.
‘I suppose you’re right.’
Evan was quiet for a moment. He didn’t care what Ryder thought of him, but he needed Guillory on his side.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 20