Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

in the woods where I’d come from. West to east. Police foot patrol. Problem was, other than the driveway, that was the best way out. They must have parked a quad bike up on the trails and moved in on foot. Vehicles were coming from the south, and the only other land route out was north, along the coast.

No more time.

Two Ford Explorers with flashing lights pulled into the drive. The sirens stopped. The cops inside the vehicles scanned the woods on either side with spotlights. I heard a car door slam, and the crackle of a radio. I slipped between the bushes and the house and started to slowly creep north. I figured I could get away, then double back to the west and get the bike from where I had left it on the logging trail.

But north was not going to happen. Two more handheld lights were coming through the brush. A second foot team. Another radio squawking cop code. Two foot teams plus the approaching cars. Which meant that I was cornered against the house. I crouched at the building foundation, keeping my head down, relying on my hearing and peripheral vision. The police were moving along the ridge, so I moved in the other direction, laterally below the ridge.

When I got clear I saw the opportunity to move behind their position and make it north into the woods. But I stopped. The two foot teams were coming together in a huddle about fifty feet away. I couldn’t hear them speaking, but I wanted to hear them. So, I moved back in.

I shimmied into a bush around the foundation corner. Dangerous, but maybe useful. Another cop was coming from the west. Then I heard the cops from the vehicles. They had found Abrams’ body. Footsteps up on the deck. Then a male voice, gruff.

“Shit.” A guy came out and leaned over the railing coughing and cursing. The cops below looked up at him. He got his breath and said, “Dead. One dead woman.”

A female officer called up to him from the huddle. “Want me to call it in, detective?”

“I’ll call it in.” When he spoke into his radio there was the weird double sound of a real live voice and its remote twin coming from the two-way radios clipped to the patrol belts. “Dispatch, this is thirteen, I have a one eight seven at the Beaver Falls Lodge. Repeat, one eight seven. Need an ambulance and a supervisor.”

The radio squawked twice. The dispatcher’s voice came back. “Copy that, thirteen.”

The cop upstairs went back inside. I figured thirteen was a badge number. His voice returned in the ghostly form of a radio squawk only. No live sound this time. “Base, this is thirteen again. Let me know as soon as state comes through.”

Base squawked back. “Roger that.”

One of the cops below the deck said, “Jesus Christ.”

I figured they were going to find the games room soon. I started slipping around the other side of the house. I got to the west side of the building and one of the police teams had started to circle round to the north, so that was blocked off again.

I remembered the zodiac.

I moved down to the outbuilding through a gulley below the driveway. The door was open and it was pitch dark inside. I moved slowly and felt around. The police radios were squawking up at the house. It was a matter of minutes before the detective in charge thought to send officers down to the shed.

My plan was to get the boat out quietly. Then, start it up once I was out far enough. But I needed something to get the boat’s motor started, since I didn’t have a key.

I moved methodically in the dark, feeling my way along a work bench. A cop light beam swung across the shed and shone through the small window on the side. For a brief flash I saw the tool peg board before it went pitch dark again. I started feeling my way along the workbench and running a hand across the tools.

People who are without sight can use touch to see, or echolocation, like bats. I visualized as I passed my fingers along the peg board. First up was a section of pliers. Different types, different sizes. Next were hammers. Then there were rubber mallets in a couple different sizes. After that were the wrenches. Looked like they had a full set of combination wrenches, all the way from eighth-inch to three inches. Finally the screwdriver section. What I needed was a long screwdriver. That way I could bypass the starter and spark the engine up.

I was running my fingers down from the top of the board to the bottom. The top were shorter screwdrivers. The head didn’t matter. I needed a long one. When I got to the place where I expected to find one, it was missing. I checked again. Then checked on the work table below the peg board, in case someone had left it there. Nothing.

I stepped carefully around the workbench, feeling with my hands. There was a doorway to a second room. Outside, I could see the beam of a powerful light cutting through the foliage. It was the spot from one of the police vehicles. I waited until it came across again, into the window, and focused my gaze into that room. When the light slashed across the inside of the shed I was able to make out the shape of someone crouched into a corner. There was blonde hair involved.

I spoke into the dark. “You alright?” There was no response. But I heard her breathing. Shallow and hurried. I scuttled over in the dark. I said, “You can hear me. Just say it.”

The blonde girl said, “Keeler?”

I said, “Yes.”

She said, “You didn’t get on the plane.”

“No.”

The blonde girl said, “I didn’t do it.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Okay.”

I said, “I need to get out of here, for a couple of reasons.”

She said, “Take me with you.” I didn’t