Page 43 of Devil
At the sound of the hoarse, shallow voice coming from the bathroom, Lily whipped her head around to look at him.
“I heard it, too,” Darius confirmed.
“Dr. Pritchard, do you need help?” Lily said. “Can you open the door?”
Darius was pretty sure opening the door would be a bad idea of epic proportions. But Lily was a doctor, and she’d taken the same Hippocratic oath as doctors everywhere. It wasn’t in her not to help.
“Don’t…” the voice came again. They were assuming it was Jennifer, but the voice was so low and gravelly that, in truth, he couldn’t even be sure it was a woman.
“S’here,” the voice said.
“Yes, we know you’re there,” Lily responded. “We can help you.” Again, Darius was fairly certain they couldn’t, but Lily needed to do her thing.
“No!” the voice said. A long moment of silence passed, and Darius imagined her laboring for breath. “He’s….here.” Lily looked at him again, and he shrugged. He had no idea who she was talking about.
“Are there any windows we could get through?” she asked him.
“The only window I remember seeing that might be in the bathroom was a small slider. Maybe seven feet up. Not big enough to crawl through and too high to look inside, but I can see if I can figure something out.”
She shook her head and leaned her ear against the door again. “Jennifer, can you let me in? It’s Dr. Devillier and Commander Washington.”
“No…can’t…won’t…”
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He was about to offer to break the door down when a floorboard on the second floor squeaked. Her eyes jerked open, and his gaze met hers. They held their breath, hoping maybe they hadn’t heard what he knew they’d heard.
A beat passed, then another. And then a second squeak, this time at what sounded like the top of the stairs. “Stay with the doctor,” he ordered, and before Lily could respond, he moved out of the room and toward the stairwell.
Easing his way across the kitchen floor, he hoped he wouldn’t make the same mistake and step on a creaky board. But the house was close to two hundred years old; his odds weren’t good. He made it as far as the vestibule when those odds won out and he stepped on the wrong board. With his senses heightened, it sounded like a screech echoing through the house. It grated across his nerves and shot straight to his heart.
Knowing there was no way to disguise his approach, he continued hugging the wall and moving parallel alongside the stairs. When he was within arm’s reach of the lower newel, he paused. Glancing up from where he stood, there wasn’t much to see. Tactically, he couldn’t be in a worse position. Not only did the intruder have the high ground, but Darius was blind. There was no way to see if someone was waiting upstairs to ambush him. Not without completely exposing himself.
With no choice but to press on, he gave a moment’s thought to making sure Lily carried Kevlar in her bag from now on. Then, stepping away from the wall with his weapon raised, he walked toward the foot of the stairs, his attention focused on the upstairs landing.
Riser by riser, the stairwell came into view. With every step, he anticipated an attack—maybe a bullet, maybe a knife, maybe a person. But it never came. By the time he had a clear view up to the second floor, the upstairs landing was empty.
He hesitated as doubt crept uncomfortably into his mind. Had the sound been an old house settling? His parents’ home was about the same age, and it groaned and made noises throughout most of the day. Was it possible they’d heard nothing but old wood shrinking and creaking with the cooler fall temperatures? Maybe. But it was also possible they’d heard something—someone—else. Either way, he needed confirmation. Which meant heading up.
With a deep breath, he set his foot on the first riser, his ears straining for any hint of movement above him. He moved to the second, then the third. The next thing he knew, he’d reached the landing. Quickly scanning the area, he noted three doors and a sitting area. The sitting area was easy to clear; he could see the entire space from where he stood. The rooms behind the closed doors were another matter. He assumed two were bedrooms and one a bathroom, but he had no idea which was which.
Deciding to rip the Band-Aid off, he approached the first door. His hand was on the old iron knob when the harsh grating of a weather-swollen window being opened assailed him. Without hesitation, he threw the door open just as a denim-clad leg disappeared through the opening. Lowering his weapon, he rushed to the ledge as the intruder hit the ground in a controlled roll. Then they sprang up and darted toward the forest.
Second or third thoughts didn’t even enter the equation. Seconds later, Darius was out the window, his knees absorbing the landing as he hit the grass. Springing up, he bolted after the person. Needing to gain as much ground as possible before they entered the woods, where agility was more important than speed, he ripped off his respirator mask as his long legs ate up the distance.
His lungs fought for air at the sudden demand on their capacity. He wasn’t worried about being able to keep up—catchingup was another issue—and he knew his lungs, and heart rate, would find a rhythm in a minute or two.
But the intruder was wilier than Darius anticipated and the moment he, or she, hit the woods, they all but vanished. Plowing forward another quarter of a mile or so, Darius slowed, and eventually stopped when the black-clad figure with the balaclava was nowhere to be seen. Finding a large tree to keep his back to, he leaned against the giant sycamore, his gun at the ready, and listened. The forest had gone silent at his intrusion. Within a few minutes, though, the birds started chirping and the insects began calling to each other again.
He remained still, catching his breath and listening. To nothing. There was no way a person could enter the forest and simply vanish. It didn’t make sense. Quickly, his mind sifted through the information he had. If that was Jennifer Pritchard in the bathroom, she was likely dying. She might have created a dangerous virus, but she’d also tried to warn them. It was too late for remorse, but if she could speak, if she could give them any idea what was going on, Lily would hear her.
Lily.
At the thought of her back in the house, focused on Jennifer Pritchard and trusting him to take care of everything else, his heart rate kicked up again. Was it possible the intruder had doubled back?
Pulling out his phone, he used voice commands to send her a quick two-word text. “Lost him,” he said. He wasn’t ready to give up yet, but he did want her to know that he didn’t have eyes on the intruder anymore.
Resting his head against the rough bark, he listened. Nothing but the sounds of nature greeted him. Easing away from the tree, he backtracked to where he’d entered the woods in hopes of finding some sort of trail. Sure enough, about ten feet in, he discovered a few broken branches and a small skid mark, from the toe of a shoe, in the dirt.
He glanced back at the trail he’d taken. He should have slowed and seen what he now saw. Instead, he’d bolted in the direction that looked the most easily accessible. It hadn’t been a stretch to assume that the intruder, who was trying to get away, would take the path that would allow him or her to go the fastest. But it was an assumption that had cost him his lead.
