The Summer House
- Автор: Паттерсон Джеймс, Дюбуа Брендан
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-53955-5
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Summer House». Краткое содержание книги:
To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate. But the major and his elite team arrive in sweltering Georgia with no idea their grim jobs will be made exponentially more challenging by local law enforcement, who resists the Army’s intrusion and stonewall them at every turn.
As Cook and his squad struggle to uncover the truth behind the condemning evidence, the pieces just won’t fit — and forces are rallying to make certain damning secrets die alongside the victims in the murder house. With his own people in the cross-hairs, Cook takes a desperate gamble to find answers — even if it means returning to a hell of his own worst nightmares...
No worries.
He pulls out his pistol, gets ready to go to work.
Lillian puts her hand on Gina’s shoulder, is about to say, I want to get on I-16 before the drunks start leaving the roadhouses, when there’s a sharp bang! and the door leading outside blows wide open into the small, old house.
The woman on the other couch screams, and the guy to her right — Gordy, is that his name? — stands up and says, “Hey, what the hell—”
A man in military-style clothing ducks in with a pistol in his hand, and Lillian stands, putting her arms up in the air, thinking, Oh, damn it, it’s a police raid. These morons have finally been caught dealing their dope.
Funny how all cops nowadays feel like they have to dress up like soldiers, like this one, with fatigues, black boots, belts and harness, a black ski mask over his head.
Gordy says, “Hey, guy, I know my rights—”
He stops talking when the man with the pistol points it at him — and with horror Lillian recognizes there’s a suppressor on the end of the pistol, just like in the movies — and in two muffled reports, Gordy falls back onto the couch, his skull blown open in a blossom of brain and bone.
A spray of blood hits the face of Sally, who is now screaming louder, and the other guy on the couch scrambles over the side, toppling the couch. Lillian pushes Gina, screaming, “Run, run, run!”
Gina ducks down and picks up her girl, who’s still giggling, and Lillian shoves her sister and niece away as she grabs a dirty couch pillow and throws it at the gunman.
“Gina!” she screams at her sister. “Run!”
Polly in her arms, Gina runs up the stairs, Lillian pounding the steps right behind her.
Chapter 2
The main part of the old house is cleared within seconds by his squad, and as he goes past the bodies, picking up warm shell casings and carefully digging out spent bullets as he does so, one thought comes to him: how often Hollywood gets this part wrong.
They love showing a squad like his breaking into a residence, screaming Go, go, go! or Down, down, down! Truth is, you move quietly and with deliberation, clearing and securing everything before moving on.
He heads to the wide wooden stairway, the others following him. Stops at the foot of the stairs. Makes the necessary hand signals, and they go up, sticking to the left side to reduce the sounds of creaking steps.
Halfway up the stairs he pauses, hearing frantic movement overhead.
When they got to the top of the stairs, Gina slammed open the door to the left with her free hand, saying, “Stuart, Stuart, oh, God, Stuart...”
Lillian broke right, going to the other bedroom, sobbing, panting, not wanting to think of what just happened, who that man was, not wanting again to see in her mind the spray of blood from Gordy being shot in the head, and above all, not wanting to think of the man coming up the stairs after them.
She nearly stumbles over the piles of clothing, shoes, and more crumpled boxes and beer cans strewn across the floor. Two beds. One bureau. Trash bags with clothing. Open closet door.
Two windows. One with an air-conditioning unit that’s not running.
The other leading out to safety.
Lillian gets to the window, yanks at the bottom.
It won’t move.
“Please, please, please,” she whispers.
She yanks again.
Nothing.
She senses the man with the gun is nearing the top of the stairs.
Lillian is too scared to turn around, dares not turn around.
Another tug.
A squeak.
It moves, just enough for her to shove her fingers in between the window and the sill.
“Please, please, please,” she prays, whispering louder.
She gives the window a good hard shove, leveraging her weight, her shoulders and arms straining from the attempt.
The window grinds open.
Fresh air flows in.
Lillian bends over, ducks her way through, as she hears the other bedroom door slam shut.
He’s nearly at the top of the stairs when he hears a window slide open, and then he gets to the landing.
Room to the left, room to the right.
The door is open to the right-side room. The other door is closed.
He looks back at his squad, gestures to the nearest two behind him, points to the left door, and they nod in acknowledgment.
He steps into the room on the right.
Empty.
Trashy, of course, but there’s no one he can see.
The window is wide open.
He’s focused on clearing this room, but he can’t help but hear the door to the other room open, a woman scream, and a man call out, “Hey, hey, hey—” followed by the friendly thump of a pistol firing through a sound suppressor.
Then a sentence is uttered, and two more thumps wrap up the job.
He moves through the room, dodging piles of clothes and trash. An overhead light from the top of the stairs gives him good illumination.
The closet is empty.
Fine.
He goes to the window, leans over, peers out.
Lillian is biting her fist, trying hard not to breathe, not to sneeze, not to do a damn thing to get noticed. She’s under one of the two unmade beds in this room, trembling, part of her ashamed that she’s wet herself from fear.
There are slow and measured paces of someone walking through the room, and then going over to the open window.
She shuts her eyes, her mother’s voice whispering to her from more than twenty-five years ago: There’s no such thing as the bogeyman, she would say. Just close your eyes and pray to Jesus, and everything will be all right.
Oh, Mamma, oh, Jesus, please, please, please help me.
He leans out the window, lowering his night-vision goggles to take in the view. More trees, more scrub, and a collapsed small wooden building that looks like it was once an outhouse.
Possible. This place is so old it would fit right in.
He looks closer to the side of the two-story summer house.
He’s up about six or so meters. Hell of a drop.
And what’s below here? Two rusty fifty-five-gallon oil drums, a roll of chicken-coop wire, and a pile of wooden shingles and scrap lumber.
All resting undisturbed.
He flips up the night-vision goggles, ducks back into the room, sees his squad mates have joined him. He holds a finger to his lips.
Moves across the room.
Lillian is still praying, still trembling, still biting into her fist when a strong hand slides under the bed and grabs her ankle, dragging her out.
She shrieks and rolls over and puts her hands up and says, “Please, please, please, no, no, no!”
Someone grabs her shoulders, holds her down. Another man — the one who just shot Gordy — drops to one knee and looks down at her. Lillian takes a deep breath, hoping it will calm her.
It doesn’t.
The man has military-type viewing equipment on his forehead, he’s wearing military fatigues with some sort of harness and belts, and over one pocket where there should be a name tag is a strip of Velcro, meaning the name tag has been stripped off so he won’t be identified. The ski mask from before is pulled up, revealing a friendly and relaxed face.
“Please,” she whispers.
“Shhh,” he replies. “Just a few questions. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Lillian just nods. Answer him, she thinks. Don’t ask questions. Just answer.
He says, “There was a man in the bedroom on the other side, with a woman and a child. Downstairs there was a woman and two other men. Is there anybody else here?”