Chapter 6 - Fracture
I lunged forward, shifting Noah behind my left side, and hurled myself up the first four stairs.
Meredith panicked. Her eyes snapped back to me, and she pulled the trigger.
The gunshot in the enclosed stairwell was deafening, a concussive crack that blew out the air in my ears and left a high-pitched ring in its wake. The bullet gouged a jagged furrow through the drywall six inches above my left shoulder, spraying white plaster dust across Noah’s hair.
Before she could reset her grip or acquire her target again, a small figure darted into the frame at the top of the stairs.
Lily.
She hadn't stayed in the car. She had come back inside, clutching my heavy metal flashlight from the glove compartment in both hands. With a frantic, terrified yell, she swung the flashlight into the back of Meredith’s knee.
The joint buckled. Meredith shrieked, losing her footing on the polished threshold. She tumbled forward, her arms flailing, the handgun flying from her grip and skittering down the stairs toward me.
I kicked the gun backward into the basement darkness, reached out with my free arm, and caught Meredith by the collar of her silk blouse, slamming her hard against the stair railing to neutralize the fall.
She lay pinned against the wooden balusters, gasping for breath, her eyes rolling in terror.
“Lily, back up!” I shouted, stepping over Meredith and carrying Noah out onto the living room floor.
The front door burst open with a splintering crash.
Four sheriff's deputies swarmed into the foyer, tactical vests strapped tight, handguns drawn, their boots tracking wet grass across the polished white oak.
“Sheriff’s office! Hands! Let me see your hands!”
“Down here!” I roared, dropping to my knees on the ruined carpet, shielding both Noah and Lily beneath my torso. “The suspect is on the basement stairs! She is unarmed! The missing child is here! *Noah is here!*”
The deputies moved with terrifying, mechanical efficiency. Two of them swept past me, their weapons trained down the open staircase, pinning Meredith to the floor before she could scramble to her feet. A third deputy knelt beside me, his hand resting gently on my shoulder, his radio crackling with static as he shouted into his shoulder mic:
“Dispatch, code four on the suspect! We have the juvenile! Repeat, we have Noah Miller! Request immediate EMS to this location for medical evaluation! *He is alive!*”
Noah was clutching my shirt so tightly that the seams were tearing. Lily threw her arms around both of us, her small face buried in her brother’s back, weeping loudly.
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From the stairwell, as the handcuffs clicked around her wrists, Meredith didn't scream or fight. She began to sing—a soft, distorted lullaby she had sung to Noah when he was a toddler. The sound of her voice made the deputies exchange grim, sickened glances as they dragged her backward out of the house.
***
