The Meridians(81)

The trapdoor behind them, like the door to the office below, started to splinter. Time was running out, to be measured in seconds now, if that.

Quickly, Scott removed the computer from Kevin's grasp. This was perhaps the most dangerous moment of the entire operation. If Kevin chose to throw a tantrum over the loss of his treasured computer, then Mr. Gray was sure to hear that and would come after them that much faster, perhaps even leaving the office and running around to the other side of the building where Lynette was waiting, helpless and alone.

Thankfully, Kevin did not throw a tantrum when Scott took his computer. He just stood there, limp and unmoving as though a part of his soul had been stripped from him, rendering him insensate and immovable. Scott dropped the keyboard to Lynette below, then took Kevin by both hands and lowered the boy over the roof to his mother. He could feel the boy's form held by his mother as she grabbed him from below, then he was on terra firma again and only Scott was left on the roof.

The trapdoor started to give. One more hit by Mr. Gray would do it.

Only milliseconds ahead of Mr. Gray, having no time to move quietly or carefully, Scott threw himself over the edge of the roof. He hit the ground below with a sickening thud and a sudden pain in his right ankle, but forced himself to jump immediately to his feet.

Above them, he could hear the trapdoor splinter.

Before Lynette or Kevin could make a noise, he hustled them under the lip of the building. They could not be seen by anyone from on the roof, but all Mr. Gray had to do was look over the edge of the roof....

It was a gamble, a desperate play against house odds, but it was all there was time for.

The moment stretched out into eternity as they listened to Mr. Gray traversing the roof, the gravel and tar paper roof crunching beneath the man's leather shoes. Lynette's fingers suddenly dug into Scott's shoulder, hard enough that they almost drew a noise from him, which under the circumstances would have been fatal, but he was able to bite back a surprised shout before it left him.

She pointed, and Scott felt his own muscles tense, as well. Though it was still the very early morning, there was a bright moon and starry sky out, providing more than enough ambient light to cast shadows. And he could see the shadow of Mr. Gray on the roof, standing right above them.

They could hear the crackle of his shoes on the edge of the roof, as though he was pacing back and forth, deciding whether or not to jump down.

Scott felt himself tense for an oncoming fight, though he was not at all confident of his ability to overcome the hitman. Granted, Mr. Gray had aged impossibly in the time since he had killed Scott's family, but even so, Scott had not kept himself current in close quarters battle techniques in the years following his departure from the LAPD, so had very little faith in his own ability to overcome the insane strength and determined ability of the skilled killer on their trail.

But in spite of his misgivings, he dropped into a lunge position, ready to spring at Mr. Gray, hopefully taking the man by surprise and quickly gaining the advantage, if the killer dropped over the side of the office building.

His heart felt like it was pounding at a thousand beats per minute. He felt like the blood was no longer merely a fluid pushing through the vast system of veins, arteries, and capillaries that made up his cardiovascular system, but rather was the driving force behind all the universe, his pulse the heartbeat of the galaxy. He wondered how it was possible that Mr. Gray could not hear the pounding of his heart from where he stood, a few feet above.

But apparently he was deaf to the prodigious tympani of Scott's heart beats, for after a prolonged wait on the edge of the roof, they heard him return to the trapdoor.

"Go, go, go," said Scott in a low voice, and pushed Kevin and Lynette toward the door to Mr. Randall's office. As he had anticipated, the door had been broken down, leaving them easy ingress to the office, which was nearly a carbon copy to Scott's own - in layout at least, for it was quickly clear to any who looked that Mr. Randall was a much neater person than was Scott, running his office with an almost military zeal for fastidious cleanliness.

This in itself was a serious problem. They were inside at least, no longer simply waiting under the eaves for a killer to drop down and attack them. But they weren't in a much stronger position than they had been before. The office was so clean that if Mr. Gray did more than just glance in for a fraction of a second, he would be sure to see them.

And unlike the outside, where if Mr. Gray found them Scott would have had time to at least stage a small ambush, if the killer found them in the office, the advantage would be his, for they would have nowhere else to run to, and the ease with which he would be able to spot them would negate any ability of Scott's to attack from the shadows, as it were.

They could only push themselves into a corner that was as far away from the door as possible, and hope that Mr. Gray did not deign to re-check the offices he had already gone through.

Because if he did check, if he so much as looked into the room, he would spot them, and Scott knew what that meant: a quick, though by no means easy, death.

The ball was in Mr. Gray's court. The power was in his hands.

Death was coming for them, and whether it found them or not was a matter of blind luck on a night when luck had already shown itself not partial to their cause.

All they could do was wait. Watch. Hope. And perhaps die.





***





38.