Page 10 of The Secrets We Hide
“Clear!”
Another hard punch.
Emmy held her breath. Hoped. Even prayed.
And then—
A short, sharp beep came from the machine. Then another. Then another.
“We’ve got her back!”
Emmy was finally able to pull enough air into her lungs to fill them. Jude bent at the waist, rested her hands on her knees, took a deep breath of her own.
The paramedics rushed past with Mandy lifted on a back-board. Her shirt had been cut open. Her arms and legs were strapped down. The girl was intubated. Blood was already staining the bandage wrapped around her head. The Ambu bag made a hard hissing sound as air was squeezed into her lungs.
The silence they left behind had an ominous feel to it, like none of this was over.
Jude looked like she was going to ask Emmy if she was okay again.
“Did you see the shooter?”
Jude’s mouth made a noise like she was choosing whether to let Emmy change the subject. “No, but I was standing over there when the gun fired.”
Emmy studied the spot that Jude had indicated—the centerof the hallway between the two back bedrooms. She guessed from the fine mist of blood that the shooter had been standing in Allison’s doorway when he’d fired at Jude. Emmy couldn’t let herself think about her sister almost dying, or the fact that Jude seemed more worried about Emmy than herself. She walked back into Mandy’s bedroom. Tried to follow the probable trajectory. After grazing Jude, the bullet had punched a hole in the wall directly behind her. The exit hole had blown through the Sheetrock. The bullet had crossed the room and chunked into the wall near the headboard on the bed. Emmy could see a glimmer of brass inside the dark insulation where it had finally come to rest.
She looked back across the hallway. She could see straight through to the broken window overlooking the backyard. “Was Allison’s bedroom door open or closed?”
“No idea. I’m blanking on a lot of the details. I know I fell because my elbow and hip feel sore. The next thing I remember is seeing you with the shotgun.” Jude’s hands went to her hips the same way Myrna’s used to when she was about to spout off a lecture. “The kinetic energy from a bullet often causes damage remote to its path. There was no loss of consciousness, but temporary amnesia is an indicator of concussion.”
Emmy wasn’t going to ask her if she needed to go to the hospital. There was a more important question on her mind.
Jude was obviously wondering the same thing. “How did Mandy get into the attic?”
Emmy walked back into the hallway. Looked up. She spotted the panel for the attic pull-down stairs between the two front bedrooms. There was no cord, just an eyehook. You’d need a pole with an open hook to pull down the stairs. And the strength to pull them down. And to pull them back up.
Jude weighed in with the obvious again. “There must be another point of access.”
Emmy walked into Allison’s bedroom. She fanned her hand in front of her face to disperse the debris in the air. The air conditioner had turned on. A breeze was coming in through the broken glass in the window. Particles of blown insulation swirled around the room.
Jude used her elbow to turn on the lights.
Between the mess from the busted ceiling and the detritus left by the paramedics, the space looked more like a war zone than a crime scene. Blood spatter mixed with white dust and particulate. There were empty gauze packets, exam gloves, a pair of trauma shears. A purple Nike running shoe was on the other side of the bed. Left foot. The matching right shoe had still been on Mandy’s foot when she’d been carried from the room. Emmy’s shotgun was on the floor beside it.
Emmy asked, “How many gunshots did you count in the car?”
“Four.”
Emmy nodded. That was her recollection, too.
Jude held up her hand. “Allison’s thumb and forefinger were blown off. I imagine her training kicked in and she reached for the gun. She wouldn’t have just stood there waiting to be shot. That’s how she made it to the kitchen before the kill shot to her chest.”
Emmy hadn’t noticed the chest wound. She’d been too staggered by the prospect of her sister lying dead upstairs. “The glass panel beside the front door was broken from the inside.”
“The first bullet probably passed through her hand.” Jude studied the room. “Obviously, forensics will track it down, but the fourth bullet was probably the one that shot Mandy. The fifth one was fired at my head. Lucky me the killer is a bad shot.”
She would’ve been even luckier if she’d stayed in the backyard like she was supposed to.
“In my opinion, the chances that Mandy will survive are very low.” Jude was looking at the Nike. The impact had knocked the shoe off Mandy’s foot. “It’s not the head wound. She lost a large volume of blood in a very short period—enough to soak through half an inch of Sheetrock. She went into hypovolemic shock on the floor. If they can’t stop the bleeding in her brain, they won’t be able to replace the blood. It’s like trying to fill a sieve.”
