The Dead Room Read Online Free PDF

week she had run in this oppressive heat with a sixty-pound backpack full of sand strapped to her back. She wasn’t weighed down now. Even in the mud, she ran fast and well.
    The man had a good lead. There was no way she could close the gap. She debated about stopping to fire when he disappeared from her view.
    A car door slammed shut. Tyres peeled away in a squeal of rubber. By the time she reached the top, all she found was a pair of dimming red tail lights coming from a car far down the dark road. In the distance she could hear the wail of multiple police sirens. Someone had radioed for back-up and the Belham dispatcher had sent out several units.
    As impressed as she was by the quick response time, it wouldn’t do any good. Blakely Road, she knew, connected to Route 135. From there the car could jump on to the main highway, Route 1, and disappear.
    Worse, she couldn’t offer up a description. She hadn’t seen the car or a licence plate. As for the men, the only thing she could say with any certainty was that all three were white. No, make that four. The body was that of a white male.
    Darby holstered her weapon and made her way back down the incline, her legs wobbly from adrenalin. Dozens of flashlights moved through the thick haze of grey and white smoke filling the woods. Everywhere she heard men coughing.
    She cupped her hands over her mouth. ‘ Stand down. I repeat, stand down .’
    A group of patrolmen rushed to her with their guns raised, their eyes red and watery from the smoke. They tried to hold their arms steady as they coughed.
    One of them saw the gold shield clipped to her belt clip and the laminated ID badge hanging around her neck. He motioned for the others to lower their weapons.
    Darby addressed the group. ‘Is Detective Pine back here?’
    The tall one with the cleft chin nodded, wiping at his eyes. He could barely keep them open.
    ‘Find him and tell him the shooters are gone,’ Darby said. ‘Tell him to meet me in front of the house – and tell him to get everyone the hell out of the woods until the smoke dissipates. Call for an ambulance and make sure they bring plenty of oxygen. Get going – wait, not you.’ She grabbed the soft, flabby arm of a short patrolman with a pot belly. ‘I need to borrow your flashlight.’
    He handed it over and stumbled away, gagging.
    It took her a few minutes to locate the spot where she’d first seen the man who had tossed the stun grenade. The area offered a lot of tree cover. A perfect place to hide – and watch. From this location she could see the backyard.
    Her eyes started to water and her throat burned as she ran the beam of light across the ground. She found several footwear impressions – none of them useful – and a single aluminium-foil blister pack.
    Ducking underneath the branches, she moved across the soft ground covered with pine needles and leaves. She threw an evidence cone next to the blister pack. Voices shouted to move out of the woods. One kept calling her name.
    ‘ Coop. Coop, I’m fine. Meet me in the backyard .’
    She made her way back to the incline and saw that most of the flashlights had been shut off. The ones still on were moving away, retreating back to the house.
    A patrolman was on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe. Darby helped him to his feet, then wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She grabbed the last evidence cone from her pocket and slowly retraced her footsteps back to the spot where she’d found the mobile phone. It was gone.

7
    An hour later Darby walked to the corner of the backyard where Pine stood running water from a hose over his face. He had breathed in too much smoke. She could hear his laboured wheezing over the water splashing against the flagstone walkway. He didn’t care about getting wet. His clothes were already soaked and covered in mud.
    Coop was also in the backyard. He stood alongside Michael Banville, watching the photographer taking bracketed shots of the back gate. There was