Rosalyn watched the murder of crows ascend upward into the sky from the back seat of the cop car. The black specks of screeching terror aligned together in the air, and drifted westward, away.
Sign of an early winter, she thought.
Rosalyn thought she saw something move then, through the fence in Hardy's backyard, on the other side, thought she saw a shadow, black like the crows, but larger, pass off beyond into the woods.
The cop had left her handcuffed in the back, and all the doors were locked. She knew that if she tried to get out, the alarm would go off, and the cop would be back down here in a second. Besides, that was if she could even smash through the bulletproof windows.
She could hear the sound of men's voices shouting at each other from inside the house, but from inside the cop car, she couldn't make out the words they uttered.
She knew there had been a shooting and that the cop who arrested her initially wanted to get rid of her, drop her down to the station before coming, but that his partner had been hit with a bullet, and he had to rush back to Hardy's house.
What she saw then made her foot strike out and kick the back of the driver's seat in front of her. Tara. Poking her head over the neighbour's fence, and even from Hardy's driveway, Rosalyn could see how her blonde hair stuck off uncombed, and unfurled.
Rosalyn pushed her face against the plastic net that was strung between the front and back seats of the car. Pushed her face outwards, hoping Tara would see, hoping Tara would somehow help her get out.
A gunshot blasted off then, and Rosalyn's head cranked back toward Hardy's house on her left. When she looked back toward the neighbour's fence, Tara's face was gone.
She sunk back into her seat, and while in mid-sigh, another gunshot fired off from within Hardy's, and then another blast echoed behind it.
She felt herself slip down on the seat now, taking cover below her window.
The siren of a cop car erupted from down the road, and Rosalyn heard the volume of it grow steadily louder. Then two things happened at once: a figure cannoned into Hardy's backyard, a streak of blonde hair trailing behind her, and Rosalyn saw at the last moment, before she passed out of view, that it was Hardy, and at the same time, the screen door in front of Hardy's house banged against the house as it was kicked open, and House brought a man out, handcuffed from behind.
She saw then that it was a man she'd only seen on Instagram, in selfies with Tara, the kind of face she thought handsome, but could never trust. It was something to do with the eyes, the razor-sharp greenness of them, and how they hovered above those long, angular cheekbones, and when he smiled in photos it was the release of a kind of happiness she didn't trust.
A kind of sensual, malevolent happiness, like the kind a stalker must feel when he ensnares his prey in his sight from outside her window, knowing all the time that he himself lies unseen, un-thought of, an un-active virus hiding dormant in the human body.
Two cop cars power-braked to a halt at the lip of the driveway, one after the other. And then Sergeant House opened the backdoor of his car, Bobby's head lodged forward toward her.
YOU ARE READING
Escape From Norriswood
Mystery / Thriller"Naughty girls can make a lot of money," Bobby had said again. Click. "And we're going to make you a lot of money. Enough to pay your way through college." He brought the Polaroid down from his eye. "Now let's get some shots of you in the bedroom."...
