Cut to the Bone(18)
Branch looked at Emily, she at Marty, and all three at Annie.
They walked inside, shaking their heads.
9:12 p.m.
“Your people were everywhere,” Branch said, facial scar jumping with his scowl. “How could Bloch just disappear?”
Annie’s counter-stare could melt titanium. “No idea,” she said. “Doesn’t seem possible.”
“Yet, he’s not here.”
“Think I don’t know that?” Annie snapped. Then, softer, “Sorry.”
Branch waved it off.
Emily left them to decide what came next.
She walked into the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the stench. She went to the dented stove, turned off the gas under the skillet. Two walleye, so overdone they curled like Fritos.
As the bacon grease quit popping, she studied the small, cheerless room - white enameled sink, harvest-gold appliances, gouged linoleum in a shiny pink not found in nature, sheet-metal cabinets filthy with God-knows-what - and found herself agreeing with Annie. It simply wasn’t possible to slip past a dozen SWATs with nightscopes, thirty backup officers, and a snuffling pack of shepherds. This guy wasn’t Houdini, so where-
Creak.
She looked around but saw nothing. Probably the house settling. Her own did that constantly. Or her imagination was working overtime-
Creak.
Nope. It was both-ears real, and somewhere over her head.
She looked up.
There was a spidery crack in the middle of the grease-splotched ceiling, between two plastic “beams.” It was the length of a prone man, and the only one of surrounding dozens that opened and closed like fish gills.
Shifts in pressure from the other side.
Skin prickling, she eased her Glock from her hip holster and leaned toward the debating team in the living room.
“Hey, guys,” she said, keeping her voice la-di-da while putting a finger across her lips. “Bloch left us some walleye. You hungry?”
They trooped in, staring at Emily’s up-stretched arm.
“Guess we interrupted supper,” Annie said, spotting the fish-gilling. She pulled her gun from her holster. Marty and Branch followed suit.
“Yes,” Emily said. “It’s a shame he couldn’t join us.”
Branch squeezed Annie’s arm, pointing at the narrow hall to the bedrooms.
The location of the attic hatch.
Annie hand signaled her troopers to follow. Two grabbed stepladders. The rest checked their HKs, Benellis, and Arma-Lites.
“This guy’s gone,” Branch said, keeping up the patter. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Marty replied. “You heading back to the office?”
“Home,” Branch said, loosing an exaggerated yawn. “I’ve been in these clothes all day. I’m starting to smell as bad as you.”
“Har-har,” Marty said.
A SWAT held up five fingers. Five seconds till Annie popped the hatch.
“This whole situation smells bad,” Emily said, locking her front sight on the crack. “I don’t know how Bloch did it, but he’s definitely disappeared. We need to analyze every-”
“Devlin Bloch! This is the Naperville Police! Do not move!”
It was Annie, her command bellow shaking the shingles.
“You’re in the attic, over the kitchen, under the insulation! SWAT officers with automatic weapons are aiming from below and all sides! If you move, they will open fire!”
Silence.
“You have five seconds to answer me, Devlin Bloch! If you remain silent, I’ll assume you’re armed, and you’ll be extracted the hard way! Five, four, three-”
“All right!” a voice shrieked. “I give up!”
“Do exactly what I say,” Annie said. “Do you understand?”
“Just don’t hurt me!”
“We won’t, as long as you follow my instructions.”
“I will!”
“On the count of three, get on your feet. Slowly. One, two, three.”
Sheetrock groaned. Ceiling crack widened. Grease peeled away like wet bandages.
Emily leaned into the living room. Annie and two other SWATs stood on ladders, wedged into the attic hole, checking out Bloch through nightscopes. Another SWAT readied a pole-mounted floodlight. Annie positioned it, pulled the scopes, mouthed, “Go.”
“Any weapons on you?” she said as 2 million candle-powers blasted the rafters.
“No.”
“Take off your shirt so I can see,” Annie said. “Turn all the way around.”
Thirty seconds passed.
“Now drop your pants. Turn all the way around.”
Thirty more seconds.
“Now your underwear. Turn all the way around.”
“That’s my dick in there, honey, not a-”
“Drop ‘em,” Annie said. “Now.”