Hangman's Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

instinctively into a crouch.
    Then another crack, and I hear the screech of a car racing down the street.
    I look up and see Cecil stumbling toward me. “Drop, drop!” he shouts to me as he falls against the fence. I lower myself to the ground as a burning smell penetrates my nostrils. I see a car’s red taillights already fifty yards gone and speeding away. The car has a bumper sticker with a quarter moon. The moon seemed to be grinning.
    My hearing is muffled by the blasts, but I can make out a guttural groan from Cecil, who is on the ground, propped up against the chain-link fence. He is holding his wrist and his yellow shirt is darkening across the bottom. Samuel lays motionless on his back with his head turned to the side and a puddle expanding rapidly around his body. A gush of blood seeps down the sidewalk, over the curb and into the street. The flow is torrential; it is like a main has broken. Samuel’s broad mouth is open, as are his eyes, as if he can’t believe it either.
    I step close, into the river of blood. The warm liquid soaks through my shoes. “Samuel?” I say. His head is tilted more over to the side than it should be, with his cheek resting flush against the sidewalk.
    He doesn’t answer, and he won’t. Samuel’s head seems unnaturally angled, I now realize, because it is no longer completely attached to his neck.
    I have spent so much of my life training; for this I am completely unprepared.

 
    CHAPTER 2
    â€œ S O WHAT HAPPENED here?”
    The police officer has a pudgy face and a buzz cut, and he is a good six inches shorter than me. We are twenty yards down the block from the crime scene, where other officers are at work. This guy has a pad out and is ready to write.
    The real answer to his question is that I have no idea at all what happened here. I am completely disoriented, and I keep forgetting to breathe. I feel like I have been simultaneously sat on and flung through the air.
    But I need to be helpful, so I begin to put words together, enumerating what facts I can: a driver came out of nowhere and fired at us, twice. My name is Nick Gallow, and I live here in Philadelphia. The man who was taken away in the ambulance just a few moments ago is Cecil Wilson of Massillon, Ohio, and the person being zipped into a body bag is Samuel Sault.…
    â€œSamuel Sault the football player?” the officer asks, his voice squeaking high for a moment. I would bet this night-shifter is not even twenty-five years old. “He just signed his contract, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDamn,” the officer says. “We can’t catch a break.”
    It takes me a moment to comprehend that the “we” he is referring to is the Sentinels.
    â€œHow many people were in the shooter’s car?” he asks.
    â€œI didn’t really see.”
    â€œHow about the car? Can you tell me anything about that?”
    â€œIt was a four-door, dark-colored,” I say. “Black, I think.”
    â€œYou think?” the officer asks, concerned.
    â€œCould have been dark blue,” I say. “Or maybe even dark green.”
    The officer sighs. “So all you know is it’s dark. Did you get the make?”
    I search my memory for any kind of brand emblem or signature. “No.”
    The officer’s brown eyes flare with exasperation. “Anything distinguishing about the car? Anything at all? Please. This is important.”
    â€œThere was a bumper sticker with a quarter moon on it,” I say. “The moon looked like it was grinning.”
    â€œGrinning?” the officer asks dubiously. “How can a moon grin?”
    â€œI don’t know, but that’s what it looked like.” I feel like I am failing, useless. I inhale deeply, hoping to steady my nerves.
    â€œHow about the license plate? Did you get a look at that?”
    â€œNo,” I say, cringing inwardly. “No license plate.” How is it that