Andy reached out and his fingers found his own gun in the icy snow. Shaking, he pulled his arm up and fired at the killer.

The killer ran. Andy didn’t have the strength to pull the trigger again. The gun slipped from his hand as he lost consciousness.

45

Liberty Lake
10:30 a.m.

Matt stared at the bright yellow tarp that covered Andy Knolls’s body. Blood had seeped out into the snow next to him. Ten feet away was more blood, but no body—the paramedics rushed Officer Eric Tolliver to the hospital before Matt arrived, though the prognosis was dismal. He’d lost a lot of blood. But Andy had been dead on the scene.

He hadn’t gone inside yet, but the first responding officers had cleared the house. One deceased male, identified as the owner, Peter Richmond. His family wasn’t here, a small blessing.

Michael gave Matt a moment alone and took charge of the scene, for which Matt was grateful. Two officers were putting up a tent over Andy’s body to protect him from the falling snow until the coroner could arrive and transport him to the morgue. Matt moved one of the bricks that had been placed on the corners to keep the tarp secure. He held up the canvas and stared down at Andy’s body.

He’d been stabbed in his side, and the knife had gone deep. The killer sliced up. From the amount of blood and the location—and how quickly he died—Matt suspected that his heart had been compromised.

Andy had gotten off a shot and based on the evidence in the street had hit the subject. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but drops led to the corner, where they stopped.

Andy had reported, only minutes before the report of shots fired, that he spotted a dark gray Camry at the corner of Vine and Dover.

“I’m so sorry, buddy,” Matt whispered.

What had gone wrong? How had the killer gotten the drop on them? Did they see something suspicious inside? Did the killer surprise them? Why would he approach the house at all once he saw the car? Had it already been too late?

Michael came over. “Matt, we have a huge problem.”

He covered Andy back up, replaced the brick. “What?”

“Liberty PD has the victim’s wife and two daughters at the roadblock. She says that her husband is in the house with her two youngest children. PJ, age five, and Sheila, ten months. Wants to know where they are.”

Matt immediately shouted for the responding officers. “Who cleared the house?”

“We did.” A cop approached, and gestured to his partner. “The deceased was found in the hallway. The suspect isn’t inside.”

“There were two children in the house.”

The cop paled. “We didn’t find any other bodies.”

“Could they have run out?”

“A five-year-old in this weather?”

Matt was furious. He pointed to the two cops. “Talk to every single neighbor on the street. About what they saw, about the kids. Harris, with me. We’re searching the house again.”