Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(16)

Pritchard’s voice trailed off as he slowly tilted his head. He was looking sideways at the floor, his eyes fixated on the stained and tattered Persian rug directly underneath Elizabeth’s feet.

Pritchard raised his forefinger to his lips. Shhhh.





CHAPTER 20


PRITCHARD QUICKLY resumed talking, rambling on about setting up around-the-clock surveillance of the house and how the teams should be manned.

But no one was listening. They weren’t supposed to. It was Pritchard’s hands that were doing the real talking.

He was pointing at the slight curve of the wood floor beneath the rug. His other hand was motioning for two of the officers to move the coffee table sitting on top of it. As for how the table should be moved, that was a given.

As quietly as humanly possible.

Elizabeth stepped back off the rug, eyeing the slight curve of the floor. The wood was warped. It was an old house. The warping could’ve been caused by years of winters and summers, heat and cold. Over and over.

Or it could’ve been something else. Like a section of the floor had been removed and put back, on and off. Over and over.

Pritchard clearly had a gut feeling it was the latter.

The second the coffee table was moved, he pointed down and spun his finger. Still, he kept talking, the sound of his booming voice masking the footsteps of the officers as they rolled up the rug.

Everyone stopped and stared at what was underneath. It sure looked like a hatch.

The circle was no bigger than a manhole cover, the deep cut along the perimeter the product of a reciprocating saw and a pretty steady hand. The cut itself was also wide enough to get your fingers in and lift.

Why a circle and not a square? Elizabeth knew why. She figured everyone else in the room did, too. It was a common question in law enforcement interviews. Why are manhole covers round?

So they can’t fall in.

“You guys see that Yankees game last night against the Angels? Man, that Mike Trout has got some serious range in center field. I’ve got to hand it to him,” said Pritchard, holding out his hand.

Everyone nodded, including Elizabeth. Never mind that she knew—or cared—as much about baseball as she did seventeenth-century Russian poetry. Pritchard was asking for one more toy.

The house that didn’t have a basement according to planning and zoning apparently now had a basement. Or at least something underground—something deep and dank enough to shield body heat from thermal imaging. It was time for plan B.

Make that plan R.





CHAPTER 21


THE SWAT commander, Munez, reached for the Range-R radar device strapped to his left hip, handing it over to Pritchard. No bigger than a stud finder but definitely its far more advanced cousin, the device used stepped-frequency continuous-wave radar to detect motion behind walls. Or, if need be, below hatches.

Pritchard continued talking baseball as he pressed the device flush against the floor. The Yankees needed better starting pitching. The bullpen was overused. What else was new?

All the while, he kept his eyes trained on the device’s readout. Finally he shook his head. There was no movement happening underneath them.

Munez quickly bit off the cap of a pen and wrote something on the palm of his hand. He held it up. One word: Rover?

Pritchard shook his head again. It was either a calculated risk or an insane amount of impatience. The hatch could’ve been booby-trapped, but bomb-squad rovers had only one gear: slow. Pritchard didn’t want to wait.

No one else wanted to wait either. Without prompting, the two officers who had rolled up the carpet positioned themselves on either side of the hatch, ready to lift. Everyone else formed a wide circle, their guns all aimed at the hole that was about to be.

“Get out of here,” Pritchard whispered to Elizabeth.

She wasn’t sure if she heard him right. “What?” she whispered back.

“I said, go wait by the truck.”

Elizabeth was never so sure of a decision in her life. Wait outside? “Fuck the truck,” she said.

Pritchard smiled. Then he held up three fingers. On the count of three …

Up came the hatch, immediately tossed to the side like a Frisbee. Every hand on every gun tightened, all eyes waiting for some kind of movement or sound. There was neither.

“Stick,” said Pritchard.

The officer to his right quickly handed him his search mirror. It didn’t exactly qualify as another toy, but it was the only tool for the moment.

Pritchard extended what amounted to a glorified selfie stick, angling the mirror while Munez shone a light into the hole. From her angle, Elizabeth could make out part of a ladder.

“Anything?” asked Munez.

Pritchard didn’t answer. Instead, he handed over the mirror to Elizabeth and climbed down the ladder. “That explains the no movement,” he announced moments later, his voice slightly echoing.

Elizabeth thought he meant the space was empty. It seemed like the only explanation.

Then she caught a glimpse in the mirror of what was lying next to Pritchard’s feet. There was another explanation.

The dead don’t move.





CHAPTER 22


LANDON FOXX shook my hand and promptly told me how he really felt. “You shouldn’t be here, Reinhart,” he said.

“That’s odd,” I replied. “I could’ve sworn you were the one who gave me the address.”