“Hands where we can see them. Raise your hands NOW!”
Liam fell to his knees; arms lifted high above his head. His body was shaking when he felt the guns pointed at him.
“Please,” he said. “This is my house. I live here.”
“Keep your hands where we can see them!” one of them yelled. “Don’t make a single move, or we’ll shoot!”
Liam could hear the anxiousness and deep fear in the officer’s voice. He didn’t dare to do anything but what he was being told. Meanwhile, boots were moving across the floors, and he heard someone yell Clear before more boots tramped around and then stopped. A door was opened, and Liam realized it was the one leading to Tim’s room.
“Please, my son’s in there!” he yelled, but no one listened. There was so much yelling that he couldn’t be heard. Shaking in fear, Liam began to cry and scream Tim’s name, just as he heard Tim’s voice say something that he couldn’t make out, but he sounded scared and desperate.
“Please,” Liam tried. “Please.”
And that was when someone yelled the word that no one wants to hear, especially not coming from an officer’s mouth:
“Gun! He’s got a gun!”
The shot that followed might as well have hit Liam straight in the heart. It hurt just as much as if he was the one who had been shot. Liam felt himself frozen in a scream as he fell to the ground, face first, while his hands were being cuffed behind his back.
TWO WEEKS LATER
Chapter 11
Matt looked into one of his boxes, then pulled out an old snow globe that he had gotten from his dad before he died. He turned to look at Eva Rae, who was hunched over her computer in the living room.
“Where can I put this?” he asked.
She didn’t look up. He exhaled, then placed it on the shelf above the fireplace. He grabbed a wooden sculpture that he had bought on one of his surfing trips to Bali when he was younger.
“How about this one?”
It was Saturday, and they both finally had some time off. During the week, Matt was busy with his detective work, and Eva Rae was writing her next book on profiling, which she had a contract for. He wasn’t so sure that she was actually working on it and not on this new obsession of hers, though. She still hadn’t told him much about what she was doing or why she had been in Philadelphia two weeks ago. She hadn’t told him where he could put his stuff either, so now he had begun simply placing it where he could find room.
“Eva Rae?”
She finally looked up from her screen. “I’m sorry?”
He smiled. “Where can I put this? It can’t fit on a shelf. It’s too big and should stand on the floor. It would look good over here; don’t you think?”
He placed it in the corner by the recliner. Eva Rae didn’t look like she agreed. She just smiled like she had no idea what he was talking about.
“You don’t think it looks good over here?” he asked. “Maybe it’ll be better by the fireplace?”
“It’s probably fine,” she said.
“I don’t want it to be probably fine,” Matt said. “I want us to agree on these things. If you don’t like it there, then I’ll find somewhere else for it.”
“No, it’s fine.”
His shoulders slumped as her eyes returned to the screen. Could she not spend just a few minutes on him?
“No,” he said. “Something is wrong. What is it?”
She looked up again. “It’s just…well. We don’t really have much room in the house for all this extra stuff. Do we really need to have an old wooden…thingy…in the middle of the living room?”
Matt looked at the sculpture in his hand, then nodded. “I see what’s going on. You don’t want any of my stuff in your house.”
“That’s not what I said,” Eva Rae said. “You’re twisting my words. I’m just asking how important this thing is to you. We are a lot of people living in this small house, and frankly, it’s getting a little cramped.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be if your children would pick up some of their toys,” Matt said as he put the sculpture back in the box.
“Excuse me?” Eva Rae said. “Isn’t Alex allowed to play with his toys anymore?”
“Well, you don’t’ see Elijah leaving his toys everywhere.”
“Because your kid only sits in his room, playing on his iPad. My kid likes to play with real toys,” Eva Rae said.
Matt glared at her. “And it’s your house, right? So, your son is more entitled to make a mess than Elijah and I are. I get it.”
Matt grabbed the box and lifted it, then carried it out in the garage, where he found a shelf for it. He closed it up with tape, wondering how long it would be before he’d be using his boxes again. Living with Eva Rae hadn’t exactly been the treat he had thought it would be. She barely gave him the time of day, always so busy on her computer, and he wasn’t getting any closer to having Elijah opening up to him. He was always in his room, playing on his iPad or Xbox, never saying a word to anyone.
Two weeks, Matt. It’s been two weeks. Give them time to get used to the new arrangements. It’ll get better. Eventually, it will.
Matt felt the tension building inside of him and decided he’d take a walk. It wasn’t like Eva Rae or Elijah would miss him anyway.
Chapter 12
THEN:
DeVilSQuaD666: Did you see me clear out that high school?
FanTAUstic345: You did that?
DeVilSQuaD666: Yeah. It was on the news and all. Pretty sweet. They searched for those bombs for hours, giving the kids the entire day off.
FanTAUstic345: Police are looking for the guy who called in the bomb threat. You might get in trouble.
DeVilSQuaD666: No way. They’ll never know it was me. I’m too good.
FanTAUstic345: You done this before?
DeVilSQuaD666: About 10 now.
FanTAUstic345: You do anything else?
DeVilSQuaD666: Sure. Did local TV station in CA twice. It was all over the news too. They had to evacuate during live broadcast Bahahaha.
FanTAUstic345: Cool. You do anything else?
DeVilSQuaD666: I am about to.
FanTAUstic345: Like what?
DeVilSQuaD666: Watch me clear out that comic conference next weekend. Look out for the news.
FanTAUstic345: Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago?
DeVilSQuaD666: That’s the one.
FanTAUstic345: You wouldn’t dare.
DeVilSQuaD666: Watch me.
FanTAUstic345: I sure will. I’ll be watching every second of it.
Chapter 13
I glared at the door to the garage where Matt had disappeared. I wondered if I should go out there and talk to him. I couldn’t stand seeing that look in his eyes. I didn’t mean to hurt him; I really didn’t, but it just happened.
The thing was, I was frustrated. Not with Matt, but with the case. I had watched every news clip I could find about the police raiding Liam Berkeley’s house and shooting his son, and it got to me every time. I knew this could have been avoided if only the guy would have given me a chance to explain.