The Missing Page 0,79
through the periscope, she caught a fast glimpse of Banville heading inside the front door. Washington lay on his back, his hand scrabbling at his chest.
Darby opened the van’s back doors and ran to the driver’s side door, legs rubbery as she got behind the wheel, relieved to find the keys dangling in the ignition. She started the van and hit the gas hard, bouncing in her seat as she drove across the front lawn – BOOM over the earpiece. Banville fired back in a tight pattern, two shots each.
Darby stopped the van between Washington and the front door of the house and, using the van as a shield, got out and ran for the downed officer.
The fabric of his jacket was torn open from the shotgun blast. No blood. Darby unzipped his jacket. Through the torn fabric she saw body armor with a trauma plate.
Washington’s eyes, wild and glassy, looked up at her, his throat working, making wet, gurgling sounds.
Darby gripped him under the armpits. ‘Hold on, you’re going to be fine,’ she said, repeating the words over and over as she dragged him across the lawn, the fierce wind blowing leaves everywhere.
Over the earpiece, new sounds between the gunfire: shouting and glass shattering.
Darby managed to hoist the upper half of the man’s torso into the back of the van. Jumping back outside, she lifted the man’s legs and pushed him back across the carpet.
Kneeling beside him, Darby removed the SIG Sauer pistol from his shoulder holster. She ripped open his shirt, buttons popping off, and undid the Velcro straps from the vest to relieve the pressure.
Glass breaking – not coming from the earpiece but from outside.
SIG gripped in her hand, she slammed the van doors shut.
Boyle was standing on the garage roof with a shotgun.
Darby dove to the ground – BOOM, the blast hit the back doors. Rolling to her side, she scrambled to her feet and ran to the driver’s side door – BOOM, the blast ricocheting off the van’s bulletproof plating.
Ears ringing, she brought the gun up over the front hood and aimed at the roof –
Boyle jumped onto the driveway.
He’s going for the car, she thought and fired two shots.
Too wide. Both shots hit the side of the garage. Boyle stumbled and fired again – inside the garage. Banville must be in there.
Boyle turned and headed into the woods.
Darby followed, catching a glimpse of Banville inside the garage. She ran into the woods, chasing the sound of branches snapping ahead of her, running hard and fast like she did in her nightmares, branches and leaves whisking past her face and arms and hands.
A shotgun blast hit a tree close by. Her legs froze and she tripped and fell, tumbling hard against the ground full of rocks and downed branches. Darby got back up and heard Boyle running her way, coming closer, coming fast.
More footsteps crashing through the woods behind her – Banville. No sounds in front of her.
Where was Boyle?
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see the ground in front of her, how it dipped and fell and leveled off. Darby headed up a hill, pushing her way through a thick brush of trees, the handgun big and awkward inside her clenched fist.
The ground leveled off. Left or right, make a decision, hurry.
She turned left and came face-to-face with Daniel Boyle.
Darby brought the handgun up. Boyle swung the butt of the shotgun hard against the side of her head. Bright sparks of pain danced in front of her eyes as she fell backward and hit the ground. Boyle stepped on her hand, crushing her fingers against the pistol, and pressed the hot muzzle of the shotgun against her throat.
BOOM and Boyle staggered backward against a tree. Banville came around and shot Boyle in the chest and still the shotgun came up and Banville shot him again and again, Boyle’s face collapsing, deflating like a balloon as he slid down the tree in a wet, red trail.
Chapter 63
Darby’s legs were shaky. She couldn’t stand. Banville put his arm around her waist and escorted her away from the body. She kept turning around to make sure Boyle wasn’t chasing her.
‘He’s dead, he can’t hurt you,’ Banville said to her, more than once. ‘It’s over.’
By the time they exited the woods, the road wasn’t dark anymore. Police cruisers were parked everywhere, their revolving blue and whites bouncing off the trees and windows of Boyle’s home.
A red-faced cop stood in the driveway. Sheriff Dickey Holloway