Page 63 of Dying Breath
Running up the stairs, she headed in the direction she thought he was in. As she entered the room, she paused. He was standing on a chair in front of an open wardrobe, scrabbling around to get something from the top shelf. A voice inside her head yelledGun!Not caring where it was going to land her, she racked the baton and then ran at him. Swinging it as hard as she could, she smacked it across the back of his legs. He shouted out in anger and pain. Her hope and determination renewed, she hit him again, even harder, across the back of his head. He lost his balance and hurtled towards the floor. The crash was so loud that the wooden floorboards shook and she wondered if they were both going to fall through the ceiling into the flames below. Within seconds she was on top of him, dragging his hands behind his back. She cuffed one of his wrists and locked the other cuff around hers. Then she felt a wave of heat so hot it singed the back of her hair as the flames whooshed into the room.
* * *
The garage was full of thick smoke now. Browning looked at Mattie, who was searching the van for its keys so they could ram the doors from inside. Mattie was swearing profusely because there were none to be seen. The sound of the metal door being whacked from outside was deafening. The smoke coming through the gap under the kitchen door was suffocating them, making them cough. Mattie had never been so angry – if he was going to die he’d be fucked if it was by being burnt to a crisp in Patrick Baker’s garage.
At last, the door buckled enough that they could lift it up a couple of metres off the ground. Mattie dived under it first, glad to be able to gulp clean air into his lungs. Browning, who was slightly bigger than him, took a little longer to wriggle out. Mattie and one of the other officers grabbed his arms and yanked him through. He looked at the sunlight and breathed a sigh of relief. Toby helped Browning up and Mattie looked around.
‘Where’s Lucy?’
His voice was so high-pitched that it sounded as if it belonged to a woman. Toby pointed back towards the burning building and Mattie let out a cry full of anger and fear.
* * *
Lucy couldn’t breathe. The landing was alight and the heat was intense. There was no escape that way. Slamming the door shut, she dragged Patrick towards the window and looked down to see Mattie below. She banged her fist on the glass to get his attention.
Toby poked Mattie’s arm. ‘There she is!’
A fire engine turned into the drive and Lucy felt her heart fill with hope. Maybe this was all going to work out okay and she hadn’t just done the stupidest thing in her entire life. Not sure where she was getting the strength from, she opened the window as wide as it would go and pulled the dazed Patrick to his feet so they could take in breaths of clean air. The floor underneath her feet was getting hotter and hotter by the minute. Not sure if it was going to hold them long enough for the fire crew to put up a ladder, she looked down at the drop; it wasn’t that far. The worst she could do was to break a leg; maybe a little concussion. Before she could think it through any longer, she felt a strong push from behind. She felt her legs go from under her and she fell through the open window, her arm almost being pulled from its socket by Patrick’s dead weight as he fell on her and the pair of them began to freefall to the ground. She didn’t even have time to scream, it all happened so fast.
* * *
Mattie, Toby and Browning watched in horror as Lucy came tumbling out of the window, followed by Patrick. There was nothing anyone could do to help. There was a loud thud and Mattie looked away. Browning ran towards the bodies on the ground and saw that, by pure luck, because of his weight Patrick had landed first, with Lucy sprawled on top of him. Both of them groaned and Mattie, who’d been holding his breath, ran towards them. He bent down to check she was okay and she stared at him.
‘I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder.’
He looked at the way it was positioned and nodded. ‘Ouch – yep, I think you might have.’
The officer who had been watching it all with his mouth open ran towards Lucy and unlocked the cuff around her wrist. Not taking any chances, he snapped it down onto Patrick’s free hand. Mattie lifted Lucy off the semi-conscious man on the gravel and walked her away.
‘Are you mental? What were you thinking?’
She began to laugh, a little too wildly, and knew she was on the verge of hysteria.
‘Yes, I probably am. I was thinking that there was no way he was going to die in that house and get away with murder.’
Browning and Toby began to laugh with her – there was something so wrong yet so right about her euphoria that even Mattie joined in.
‘Boss, you’re a fucking liability. But we wouldn’t want you any other way.’
She looked at Browning. ‘Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment.’
They were quickly hustled out of the way by the fire officers, who were running around with hoses and shouting commands at each other. One of them ran over to Patrick with an oxygen mask and she wanted to tell him to let the bastard choke, but she didn’t. She’d risked her own life to make sure he would go to court, so it was probably best that he didn’t succumb to smoke inhalation.
An ambulance arrived soon after and Patrick was loaded onto a stretcher. The two Taser-trained officers got in with him. For a fleeting second, she had a vision of him overpowering them and escaping. Then it was gone – he was concussed, definitely winded and probably very pissed with her for whacking him so hard with that baton. It didn’t matter; she could live with the use-of-force forms she would need to fill out back at the station. Another ambulance arrived to take a look at her and she let Mattie lead her into the back of it, where she was surprised to find Stephen smiling at her.
‘I’ve come to treat the casualties.’
‘I’m fine, just strained my shoulder.’
He tilted his head. ‘Yeah, you have. Just a little – so do you want me to pop it back in now or do you want me to do it back at the hospital?’
‘Now, please. I’m too busy to go to the hospital.’
He turned on the gas and air canister, passing her the mask. ‘Take a few deep breaths and close your eyes. It will only hurt for a minute, I promise.’
Mattie turned away and cringed at the loud crunch as her shoulder popped back into its socket. Lucy swore loudly and her face went white underneath her soot-stained complexion, but she nodded at Stephen.
‘Thank you.’
