11th hour

Chapter 88

I heard a phone ringing from far, far away, then someone was shaking my arm, saying, “Lindsay, wake up.”

I was jerked out of a deep well of sleep.

“What’s up?”

I was in the passenger seat of the unmarked car two hundred yards from Will Randall’s yellow house. The house was dark and Randall’s SUV was still in his driveway.

“What time is it?”

“Just after one thirty,” Conklin said. “Brady called. There’s been a shooting in the alley behind Zeus. A drug dealer took some shots to the head and chest.”

“Randall couldn’t have done it. Could he?”

Conklin repeated what Brady had told him: a busboy had seen two men pass through the kitchen. The one identified as the victim was known to the busboy as a dealer. The second man was six feet tall, dark-haired, and looked like the narc who’d busted the busboy’s cousin five years before.

“The busboy was shown a photo array,” Conklin told me, “and tentatively identified Randall. He couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.”

William Randall was dark-haired, six one, and had spent five years in Narcotics — but I was staring at his car. It hadn’t moved.

Randall must have left the house by the back door, taken some other vehicle to Zeus, and shot the dealer while I was taking a snooze. It was quite possible.

We had agreed not to use the radio, so I called Brady on his cell, told him I wanted to go into Randall’s house, see if our man was missing or if he was asleep in his bed.

Brady said, “If Randall is home, treat him with all due respect. He’s Meile’s pet.”

What if William Randall was home and had committed tonight’s shooting? That meant he had most likely committed all of the shootings we attributed to Revenge.

The Randall house was full of kids.

What if Randall took his children hostage?

What if he decided to make a stand?

If I had been wearing boots, I would have been shaking in them, thinking about all of the truly bad things that could happen if we went into Randall’s house. But I saw no choice. If he knew he was being watched, there was no telling what he would do. We had to get him away from his children.

“Screw Meile’s pet. Send backup,” I told Brady. “Send everything you’ve got. If I’m right, I don’t want to play patty-cake with this guy. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to him. Profusely.”

Two unmarked cars arrived within minutes. I told the officers to park on Golden Gate, then proceed to the back of the Randall house on foot and cover the exit. And I told them that the suspect was a cop.

“If you encounter him, he could be wearing a uniform or he could ID himself as a cop. Treat him as you would any suspect who is armed and dangerous.”

More cars streamed silently onto Elm, their sirens and headlights off. I briefed six more unis, told them that we had a murder suspect inside the house, that he was armed and dangerous, that there were five children and at least two other adults inside.

I sketched out a plan, and then Conklin and I went up the long flight of outdoor steps that led to the front door. Conklin stood back with his gun drawn.

I rang the bell and then knocked, calling out, “Sergeant Randall. This is the police.”

I prayed that we could reason with William Randall.

I prayed that bullets weren’t going to come flying through the door.