But then I rolled the eye doctor onto his side, saw that the exit wound was draining blood. A puddle of it already stained the carpet.
I rammed the sofa pillow against the wound, took off my belt, and strapped it in place. “You’ve got to get some alcohol into the wound,” I said.
“Get out, Cross!” Fowler screamed. “Now, or you’ll never see Christmas morning or your family again.”
I felt the gun barrel against the back of my head. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Tears dribbled down Diana’s cheeks. “I am too.”
I got up, took one last glance around so I could describe the room and everyone’s position in it, then turned and walked to the front door. Fowler followed me, about ten feet behind. I unlocked the door and started to open it, wondering whether Fowler intended to shoot me in the back of the head as I left.
CHAPTER
25
I STEPPED OUT INTO BRILLIANT, BLINDING LIGHT AND JUMPED WHEN FOWLER slammed the door after me. I stood there a moment, hands on my thighs, trying to get control of my breathing, trying to focus on something other than the wounded doctor and the five other hostages I’d left inside with a madman.
“Alex!” I heard Adam Nu yell. “Move!”
I snapped to alertness and started through the snow, toward the lights. Shortly before midnight, it had been a little above my ankles. Nearly two hours later, the snow was well up my shins and falling faster than I’d ever seen in Washington, two, maybe three inches an hour. Rocky Mountain rates.
The farther I got from the house, the more satellite trucks I could see. This was clearly the media event of a slow news day. But, hey, what was Christmas without a hostage crisis? It was a tradition, just like the mandatory car bomb in Bethlehem.
There were also folks from the neighborhood out, which surprised me. There were even some kids. Shouldn’t they all be sleeping? Several folks had camera phones held high above their heads. They clicked. They texted. They Tweeted.
But it was the MPD people who blew me away. There must have been fifty rank-and-file officers now at the scene. They held pistols and four-foot-high shields, and they waited for me. I thought I heard something behind me, but I did not turn. A voice from the crowd called, “Merry Christmas, Detective!”; it was followed by a smattering of applause and a few whistles.
Then I heard a woman’s voice—coming from close behind me.
“Mr. Cross,” she said. “Detective, please wait.”
I spun around. The congressman’s wife was staggering through the snow toward me in her stocking feet, sad, stunned, still shaking like a leaf. She was carrying a shovel. I went to her, lifted her out of the snow, and carried her through the line of policemen in riot gear.
“What’s with the shovel?” I asked as I handed her over to a pair of EMTs inside the shelter behind the police vans.
She looked at me in bewilderment. “He said it was for you. That you were to keep the front walk clear of snow if you wanted to see any more of the hostages alive.” Then she began to cry. “Mr. Cross?”
“Yes, Mrs. Brandywine?”
She shivered beneath the blanket the EMTs had wrapped her in and wouldn’t meet my gaze but said, “You won’t be repeating…the things he said?”
“No, ma’am,” I replied. “I’m not in the habit of quoting madmen.”
The congressman’s wife nodded, her lower lip trembling. “Thank you.”
“It’s got to be a decent Christmas for someone. It might as well be you.”
Book Two
THE YULETIDE MERRY
CHAPTER
26
“WELL, LOOK WHO GOT OUT IN ONE PIECE,” SAID ADAM NU, WHO CAME IN from the storm as the medics moved Mrs. Brandywine to an ambulance. Then Nu gave me a quick hug, which wasn’t like him at all.
I let out a breath. “Yeah, it wasn’t a lot of fun. But if I don’t get some hot coffee and food, I’m going to be useless.”