“Don’t be absurd,” Pittman said. “If I killed him, what would I be doing here?”
The door opened. The uniformed servant appeared, his brow deeply furrowed. “Mrs. Page, I heard loud voices. Is anything wrong?”
“George, phone the police!” Denning said.
“The police, sir?” George looked puzzled, glancing toward Mrs. Page for an explanation.
“Bradford, what do you think you’re doing?” Mrs. Page demanded.
“Hurry! Before he kills all of us!”
Pittman stood, making Denning cower. “Bradford, I’d stop drinking if I were you. It affects your behavior and your judgment.” He turned to Mrs. Page. “I regret that this happened. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for agreeing to talk with us.”
Jill stood as well. “We appreciate your time.”
Pittman shifted toward the doorway. “With Bradford in this condition, obviously it’s pointless for us to continue this conversation.”
Mrs. Page looked bewildered.
“Good evening,” Pittman said. “And thanks again.”
“Call the police, George!” Denning insisted. “Before they get away!”
“No,” Mrs. Page said. “I don’t understand this at all. Bradford, what on earth has gotten into you?”
Pittman and Jill passed the servant, left the room, crossed the shiny hardwood floor of the vestibule, and opened the door to the porch, its pillars casting shadows from lights among shrubs.
3
“We’d better hurry,” Jill said.
In the cool night air, she and Pittman started down the brick steps from the porch, about to reach the murky area beyond the lights on the lawn, when Pittman faltered, touching Jill’s arm. “More trouble.”
Jill tensed, seeing what he meant. “Our car.”
It was parked in front of the mansion. Revealed by streetlights, two rugged-looking men in windbreakers were staring at the front license plate on the Duster.
Pittman backed up. “They must have been watching the house.”
“Why would they…?” Jill retreated quickly up the steps toward the porch. At once she realized. “Eustace Gable knows his daughter is a threat. He must have arranged for the house to be watched in case we came here.”
“And the Vermont license plates on our car,” Pittman said. “They’re probably the only ones on the street. They connect us with our visit to Grollier Academy.”
As Pittman and Jill hurried toward the mansion’s front door, one of the men shouted, “Hey!” Pittman turned, seeing the man point at him. Simultaneously Pittman saw a dark Oldsmobile appear beyond the cars parked in front of the house. It skidded to a stop. Men scrambled out.
Pittman gripped the doorknob, praying that the servant hadn’t locked the door after they’d left. Exhaling with relief when he made the knob turn, he shoved the door open, lunged inside behind Jill, slammed the door, and locked it.
The noise caused startled voices in the room to the left. As Pittman swung toward that doorway, the servant loomed into view, Mrs. Page and Denning behind him.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Page asked. “Why did you come back?”
“I’m afraid we brought you trouble,” Pittman said. “There isn’t time to explain. We have to figure out how to—”
“Six of them.” Jill stared past the lace curtain of a high, narrow window next to the front door.
“Six?” Mrs. Page veered past Denning and the servant. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“They’re coming up the sidewalk,” Jill said.
Pittman stepped closer to Mrs. Page. “You’re in danger. What’s in back? How do we get out of here?”
“Danger?” Denning’s voice shook.
“They’re separating.” Jill strained to look out the window. “Two in front, two going along each side of the house.”
“Mrs. Page, those men are from your father,” Pittman said.
“My… ?”
“The two in front just pulled out handguns,” Jill said.
“Mrs. Page, I think they intend to kill all of us,” Pittman said. “They’ll make it look as if I did it.”
“Kill us?” Mrs. Page looked horror-stricken. “Why?”
“Because your father’s afraid of what you might have told me. We have to get out of here.”
“Some of them will go to the back,” Jill said. “They’ve got the house sealed off.”
“My father would never try to kill me.”
“He killed your mother, didn’t he? Why wouldn’t he kill you?”
Mrs. Page’s eyes widened with shocked understanding.
“The two in front are coming toward the porch,” Jill said.
Pittman turned to the servant. “Did you do what Denning wanted and call the police?”
“No. Mrs. Page told me not to.”
“Then you’d better call them now.”
“There isn’t time!” Denning whined. “The police won’t get here before—”
Glass shattered at the back of the house. Denning whirled toward the sound.
Pittman reached beneath his sport coat and pulled out the .45, the sight of which made Denning’s face become the color of cement.
From the porch, someone tried to turn the doorknob.
“Jill,” Pittman warned, “get back.”
She hurried toward Pittman as he told the servant, “Switch off the lights in the hallway.”
The vestibule became dim, illuminated only by lamps in the room that they had left.
More glass shattered at the back of the house.
“Jill, if anybody tries to come through that door, do you think you can use the gun in your purse?”
“I’m so scared.”
“But can you?”
“Yes, if I have to.”
“Good.” Pittman rushed from the vestibule toward the rear of the house. “Find a place to hide,” he heard Jill saying.
“The car,” Mrs. Page said.
At the rear of the house, Pittman crouched in shadows, clutching his .45, concentrating to hear the sounds of someone climbing through a window.
“Yes, the car,” Denning said.
From the porch, shoulders slammed against the front door.
“The car? Forget it,” Jill said. “Some of those men are outside in the back. They’ll shoot us if we try to get to the garage.”
“You don’t understand,” Mrs. Page said. “It’s in the basement.”
Shoulders kept slamming against the front door.
“What are you talking about? The basement?” Jill sounded hoarse, her throat dry from fear. “What’s a car doing in the basement? What good would—?”
From a room at the back of the house, Pittman heard footsteps scraping on broken glass. He clutched his pistol tighter, aiming.
“The garage is down there,” Mrs. Page said. “The garage is under the house. If we get to the car, we’ll be safe.”
“No!” Jill said. “We’ll be trapped. If we try to drive away, they’ll shoot through the windows and doors and—”
“Why must you be so stupid? Listen to me. Listen to what I’m telling you.”
Pittman heard Mrs. Page’s high-heeled shoes on the vestibule’s hardwood floor. A door opened, echoing.
“Stop,” Jill said.
“Down here,” Mrs. Page insisted.
“I’m going with you,” Denning said.
A man’s footsteps scurried across the vestibule, joining the urgent rapping sound of high-heeled shoes descending stairs.
“Wait for me!” The servant quickly followed.
“Matt!” Jill shouted.
From the back of the mansion, Pittman heard other footsteps scraping on broken glass. A shadow moved. Pittman fired, his ears ringing from the .45’s fierce blast. The recoil threw him off balance. From the darkness at the back of the house, he saw what seemed to be a spark. Simultaneously he felt more than heard a bullet strike the wall next to him. For a frenzied moment, he feared that the blast fr
om his .45 had deafened him. In a greater frenzy, he realized that he hadn’t heard the shot from the back of the house because the gunman had used a silencer. The ringing in Pittman’s ears had obscured the muffled spit. He fired again, squirming backward, flinching from the impact of four soundless bullets striking the wall where he’d been crouching.
“Matt!” Jill screamed.
We don’t have a chance, Pittman thought, scurrying faster backward. We can’t possibly kill all six of them.
“Jill, come on!”
“Where!”
“The basement!”
As Jill rushed past him, hurrying down the stairs that the others had used, Pittman fired once more toward the back of the house, spun and fired toward the front door, then charged into the stairwell and slammed the door shut.
Not that the closed door would do him any good, he suddenly realized. It did have a lock, but the knob for the bolt was on the opposite side. He couldn’t possibly keep the gunmen from coming through.
Fear made him nauseous. Lights in the stairwell revealed stone steps that led to a concrete floor. Jill had already reached the bottom. Pittman backed down, aiming toward the closed door. He saw the knob being turned and fired, his ears ringing worse as the powerful bullet splintered the door, walloping through, a man on the other side screaming.
The two men at the front door had been a diversion, Pittman thought. They had pounded on the door to drive everyone toward the back of the house, where the men who’d broken in waited with silenced pistols. The slight commotion at the front probably hadn’t attracted much attention from the street. The silenced pistols couldn’t be heard outside the mansion.
No one knows what’s happening in here! Pittman thought. The servant was supposed to have phoned the police, but Pittman hadn’t seen him do it. Had the servant been distracted by fear? Nobody realizes we need help! We’re trapped down here! The only way someone outside can know we’re in danger is…
The blast from Pittman’s .45. That could be heard outside. As he continued to stare up toward the door to the basement, he saw the knob being turned, and he fired again, his ears suffering from the pistol’s torturous blast, the confines of the basement magnifying the roar.
Someone outside is bound to hear, Pittman told himself. Although the ringing in his ears was excruciating, he prepared to fire yet again. But suddenly a warning instinct told him that he was almost out of ammunition. How many times had he fired? He strained to remember. Six. He had only one round left. If they try to rush us…
Jill, he thought. She hasn’t fired yet. Her pistol’s still fully loaded. He spun toward her, wanting to trade weapons, and froze in surprise at the sight of the car in the basement. Its length and height were totally unexpected. It was a silver Rolls-Royce, its paint and chrome gleaming from obvious daily care. Someone had backed it in. A pulley in the ceiling led to a garage door that could be raised electronically.
Pittman’s surprise was offset by dismay when he saw how panicked Mrs. Page, Denning, and the servant were. They had scurried into the car, slamming the doors, evidently locking them. Jill was straining to open the driver’s door while Mrs. Page struggled to shove a key into the car’s ignition switch.
“Mrs. Page, unlock the door! Let me in!” Jill’s shout was muffled by the ringing in Pittman’s ears.
Pittman redirected his attention toward the door at the top of the stairs. Again the knob turned. Again he fired. The ejection slide on top of his pistol stayed back, indicating that the weapon was empty.
No! He shoved the .45 into his coat pocket and ran toward Jill. “I need your gun!”
She was so preoccupied, pounding on the driver’s door, trying to get into the Rolls-Royce, that she didn’t seem to notice when Pittman took the pistol.
It held more ammunition than the .45. As a consequence, Pittman felt briefly confident. But then he realized that he was still trapped. If Mrs. Page started the car, opened the automatic garage door, and sped away, it wasn’t possible for Jill and himself to defend themselves against six gunmen.
The door at the top of the stairs opened slightly. Pittman fired, the recoil from the 9 mm less violent than that from the .45. It was obvious what the gunmen were doing—holding back, staying on either side of the door, taunting Pittman by moving it, trying to entice him into wasting all his ammunition.
Sickeningly, his heartbeat surged as he wondered why the police hadn’t arrived. Surely a neighbor must have heard the shots and phoned for help. Why were the police taking so long?
Jill kept pounding on the driver’s door. “Let me in!”
Abruptly Mrs. Page pushed a button that caused the locks to disengage, making a thunking sound. She opened the door. “I can’t get the car to start!”
“My father owns one of these! Let me try! Move over!” Jill shoved at her, squirming behind the steering wheel.
Pittman ran to the car and saw that Denning was scrunched next to Mrs. Page and Jill. He yanked opened the passenger door, dragged Denning out, and shoved him into the backseat with the servant.
As Pittman dove into the back with them, he yelled to Jill, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Jill slammed her door and turned the ignition key. “It doesn’t work!”
“Try again!”
“It doesn’t want to turn all the way!”
Pittman scurried from the car and aimed toward the stairs. “Hurry!”
“The key!” Jill said. “This isn’t the right key!” Hands shaking, she sorted through other keys on a ring.
Even with his protesting ears, Pittman heard sounds on the stairs. Shadows, then shoes came rapidly into view. He fired. Splinters from concrete spattered the shoes. The gunmen scrambled back out of sight.
Jill shouted, “Got it!”
The Rolls-Royce’s engine roared.
“Hurry!” Pittman fired once more at the stairs and dove back into the car. “Lock all the doors!”
Jill pressed a button that engaged the locks. She pressed another button. With a rumble, the garage door began to rise.
Pittman glanced in dismay through the car’s rear window. The gunmen were charging down the stairs.
“They’ll shoot out the windows!” Pittman yelled. “Stay down!”
“They can’t!” Mrs. Page shouted.
A bullet struck the rear window, ricocheting.
“My husband was afraid of terrorists!”
“What?”
Jill revved the Rolls-Royce, speeding forward as the garage door rose above the hood. With a crunch, the car’s roof struck the rising garage door. But the Rolls kept hurtling from the garage. It soared up an incline and jounced down onto ground level. Through the windshield, Pittman saw three of the gunmen crouched in a shadowy lane behind the house. They were waiting, aiming toward the car. He couldn’t hear the shots from their silenced weapons, but the upward jerk of the pistols showed that the gunmen were firing. Bullets struck and deflected off the hood and the windshield.
“What the—?”
“The windows are bulletproof!” Mrs. Page said. “The whole car is! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”
Jill swerved, increasing speed, veering past the gunmen, who now fired at the side of the car.
Pittman felt the vibrating impact of the eerily muffled bullets hitting the Rolls.
Jill struggled with the steering wheel. “This thing handles like it’s a tank!”
“At the time, I thought my late husband was insane to want an armored car!”
A gunman appeared ahead of them, firing directly at the windshield, diving for cover as Jill sped past. She swerved from the narrow tree-lined lane and reached the side of the house, aiming the Rolls along the brick driveway toward the street. There hadn’t been time to turn on the headlights, but the glare of lights in the shubbery at the front combined with the glow of streetlights, showing that the dark Oldsmobile the gunmen had arrived in was parked directly in front of the exit from the driveway. There wasn’t any way past
it. Other cars were parked everywhere along the curb, preventing the Rolls from veering off the driveway, across the sidewalk, and onto the street.
“Brace yourselves!”
Jill tightened her grip on the steering wheel, directing the Rolls toward the front fender of the Oldsmobile blocking the driveway. “I hope this is a tank!”
In the backseat, preparing himself for the collision, Pittman felt the Rolls increase speed. The Oldsmobile grew alarmingly, seeming to fill the windshield. The Rolls struck it with such force that the Oldsmobile jerked sideways.
Pittman felt as if his chest had been punched. His head snapped back. Next to him, Denning slammed onto the floor. As the Rolls kept heaving forward, ramming the Oldsmobile farther sideways, the servant groaned. In the front seat, Mrs. Page shoved her hands against the dashboard to absorb the shock.
Even though Pittman’s ears kept ringing, he couldn’t help hearing the crunch of metal and the crash of glass. The Oldsmobile had been jolted sufficiently sideways that the Rolls slammed past it, scraping an Infiniti parked at the curb but hurtling forward, reaching the street and streaking across it. Jill stamped the brake pedal. But the heavily armored car barely slowed. Jill swung the steering wheel to avoid the cars parked on the opposite side of the street. But the Rolls—never meant to be so heavy—responded sluggishly. One of the cars across the street seemed suddenly huge. The Rolls struck it, more glass shattering, metal crumbling. The Rolls rebounded, its distinctive winged woman hood ornament and thickly slatted, shiny grill falling onto the pavement.
From the backseat, jolted by the two collisions, Pittman watched Jill in dismay as she tugged the car’s gearshift into reverse and stared behind her. Working the steering wheel, she tried to maneuver the car so that it wasn’t positioned diagonally across the street, blocking both lanes. Too late. Pittman was suddenly knocked sideways by the jolt of another collision. A car coming along the street hadn’t been able to stop in time to avoid hitting the Rolls. Headlights glaring, a car coming in the opposite direction squealed to a stop before it struck the other side of the Rolls.
Desperate Measures Page 29