Chapter 28 #2
The back door was partly open; the wood was rotting to the point that after a third kick, the door gave way.
She stumbled into the darkness, out of the rain at last, and nearly broke her ankle on an upturned box.
She found herself in a storage room lined with shelves of ancient, canned food, half-collapsed under their own weight.
The air was thick and foul, smelling of pungent cat feces and urine.
Something scuttled in the rafters overhead.
She called Ivan on her phone. "Ivan, I'm in a storage room. Going into the place deeper now."
"Copy," came Ivan's voice, nice and reliable.
She coughed, wiped rainwater from her eyes, and called out loud, "Hello! It's Kendra, coming for you. Where are you? Collier is incarcerated."
A pause. Then, from deeper in the house, somewhere past a barricade of old boxes filled with junk and overturned furniture, a man called out, his voice thin but clear: "Here."
She angled toward the voice and saw a jumble of boxes and bags, a makeshift fortress constructed to allow for a narrow passage through the mess.
She called again, her voice firmer now.
"Over here," a faint reply came from another officer, the words slurred but intelligible.
The way forward was blocked by half a wardrobe, but she shouldered it aside, its doors banging open to reveal a nest of moth-eaten coats. The mess was even worse inside: mountains of newspapers and mail, damp and fused together—musty and moldy.
She picked her way forward, feeling the floor shift beneath her and praying she wouldn't fall through to whatever basement horror lay below.
The voices grew louder, and she knew she was close.
A battered recliner had fallen on its side, and behind it, she saw the shape of a uniformed leg, knee bloodied and twisted at a sickening angle.
She pressed on, pushing the recliner out of the way. The officer wearing his hazmat suit—male, young—looked up at her with glazed, relieved eyes. His partner was nearby, wedged between a shelving unit and a stack of moldy rubber storage tubs, his face pale and sweaty, but he was alive.
"How are you injured?" Kendra asked, already moving to the first officer, shoving aside boxes and bags that had trapped him in place.
“The guy smashed my leg with a bat and hit me in the head, knocking me out,” he said. “I’m sure I have a compound leg fracture and a concussion. I’m seeing double and just threw up.”
“EMTs are on their way. Let me check on your partner.” In the meantime, she called Ivan and put it on speakerphone as she pulled bandages from her first-aid kit. “I’ve found the two officers. Are the EMTs here yet?” She bandaged the officer’s head. She didn’t want to touch his mangled leg.
“They just arrived.”
“Good. Both officers have broken limbs and probably concussions.” She made her way to the other officer and began wrapping his head in a bandage. The place was filthy, and they needed to get them to a hospital and decontaminate their wounds.
“Did he break your leg also?” she asked the second officer.
“And my arm, while I was defending myself.”
Then she heard people coming in through the back door.
“Police officers!”
“The two officers who have been wounded are over here,” Kendra called out. “There’s no one here that poses a threat to them or us.”
One of the officers radioed the EMTs. “You’re good to enter the house.”
They soon came into the house through the back door, as she heard a lot of commotion outside on the side of the house.
Then some of the gloved officers began throwing boxes of clothes onto boxes of magazines and newspapers to widen the path to the front door. They also widened the walkways so the EMTs could reach the injured officers and provide first aid before moving them.
After helping the officers move more debris out of the way so the men could be taken out on stretchers, Kendra checked her messages and saw that Grayson had texted her several times. She called him. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Marcus and I got our guy. I packed up my SUV, and I’m on my way to your house now. How are you doing with your case?”
“The fugitive is in custody, but he shot out my tires.”
“Hell. Are you and Ivan all right?”
“Yeah. The windshield is shot out. We’re good. Luckily, a couple of bears came to our rescue and knocked the fugitive out.”
“Okay, where are you?”
She gave him the address. “I’ve got roadside assistance coming.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Ivan is there with you and the fugitive?”
“Yeah.”
“Is someone coming to retrieve him and the perp?”
“Did you ask George to send someone for you and the fugitive?” Kendra asked Ivan.
“Uh, I’ll do that.” Ivan called George back. “Hey, we need someone to drive my SUV to the location of the fugitive, so I can bring in the perp.” He paused. “Okay, sounds good.”
Roadside assistance showed up, and Grayson arrived at the same time. Grayson helped the man remove and replace her tires.
George picked up Ivan and his charge to take the fugitive to jail, where he would be charged with attempted murder of the police officers and the recovery agents.
Kendra and Grayson retrieved everything she didn’t want to leave in her car while the road assistance guy used a tow truck to take it to an auto body shop.
She stuffed her things down at her feet in Grayson’s SUV, and Grayson moved some things out of the passenger seat to place them in the back, though it was jam-packed already.
“I’m sorry that I wasn’t with you,” Grayson said.
Kendra squeezed his hand. “All that matters is that you’re here with me now. What happened with your fugitive?”
He explained that the guy tried to steal Marcus’s SUV.
The rain suddenly stopped, for which she was grateful.
“Well, Marcus needed you there, and I had Ivan to watch my back, so it all worked out.”
“I’m glad you didn’t go into the house and have to deal with the fugitive inside as the officers did.”
“I’m sorry they had to be injured, but we were in just as much danger and unarmed.”
“I agree.” He drove her to her house, and while he unpacked his car, she went in to shower because of being exposed to so much dirt and mold in the house.
When she was done showering, drying, and dressing, she emptied half of the closet for him and half of her chest of drawers.
He walked into the bedroom, took her into his arms, and hugged her tightly, kissing her soundly. “I figure after I put all my stuff away, it’ll be time to join Amy and Cedric at Brannigans.”
“It will be. Would you like some hot tea? And then I’ll help you.”
“I sure would. Thanks. Green tea is fine.”
She went to the kitchen to make it and then brought the cups into the bedroom and set them on her dresser. Then she started to help him sort out his clothes and put them away.
She planned to organize his clothes in her closet, which was by long-sleeved shirts, short-sleeved shirts, tank tops, pants, and skirts. She had a few jackets and sweaters on another rod.
She hung his clothes in the same manner on rods while he brought in his shoes, but there wasn’t enough room on the shoe rack.
“We’ll have to get another,” she said.
“That’ll work. I’ll put my heavy coats in the coat closet in the entryway.”
“Okay, and umbrellas in the umbrella stand.”
Then he left her to continue sorting out his clothes.
She neatly folded up his boxer briefs and rolled up his socks. He laughed when he came in to grab his tea and finish it, only to see what she was doing.
“You don’t do this with your underwear?”
“I just jam them all in the drawer. My socks are all the same black and the same length, so I don’t have to worry about finding the matching pair.”
She smiled, then she called Amy. “Hey, lady, we finished our cases, and we’ll be there for dinner in a few minutes.”
“Great, we can’t wait to spend the evening with you.”
When they ended the call, Kendra pulled out a blue, silky, ankle-length A-line dress, perfect for dancing.
“Now I like that. What should I wear?” Grayson pulled out a blue blazer, a white dress shirt, and black trousers, and showed them to her.
“Now that’s smart. I completely am all for it. Love it.”
“I love you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
They got dressed before arriving late at the restaurant, just as it began storming again.