Beyond the Farthest Star

  There was no reply. An unbroken strip of yellow light showed under the door. No longer was there the shadow of shoes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ADAM PATTED THE BATHROOM door once with his fingertips as he backed away from it. He was praying as earnestly, as fervently, as he ever had in his life.

  How close to the edge of the abyss was she? Should he run his shoulder into the panel and burst in, or would that ruin any reconsideration he had achieved?

  How long should he wait before speaking again?

  How he prayed for wisdom. Wisdom not only to know what to say, but how to say it and when to speak.

  How could he break through the emotional and spiritual barrier between them? Built of years of harsh, unfeeling words, and cemented by attitudes of blame and guilt, it was far more solid than the flimsy bathroom door.

  Still no word from inside Anne’s cell.

  Adam heard a noise behind him. Had Maurene gotten tired of waiting? If she spoke to Anne, would that be good or bad right now?

  He turned.

  Framed in the entry was the lanky form of a pallid, scowling teen dressed in a dirty jacket and Levis. He had a ball cap pulled low over his forehead. His right hand was thrust into a coat pocket. Adam recognized him as being one of the boys from Anne’s band. But what was he doing here now?

  “Son,” he said quietly, “this isn’t a good time for—”

  “You got that right,” Kyle retorted, advancing into the room. “Since you come here, nothin’s been right. No good times anymore. Now where is she?”

  Adam couldn’t help it. Involuntarily, a flicker of his gaze betrayed Anne’s location.

  Adam noted the way the boy’s jaw tightened and his face grew even more pinched with suppressed anger.

  “It’s Kyle, right?” Adam said. “Really not a good—”

  “Shut up!” Kyle hissed. “I gotta gun, and I know how to use it.” Beneath the thin material of the windbreaker’s pocket, Adam easily spotted the outline of something that looked like a gun muzzle. “Already used it once tonight, so I got nothin’ to lose.”

  Trying to move the confrontation outside of the room, Adam leaned toward Kyle, but the boy backed up into the corner behind the open outer door. “Don’t come any closer,” he threatened. “Don’t want to, but I could just kill you too.”

  Adam’s thoughts were screaming. “Kill him too? Did that mean he had killed already … or that he had come here to kill Anne?”

  A moment earlier he had been praying for Anne to unlock the bathroom and come out.

  Now he prayed the exact opposite.

  “Look, Kyle, can we talk about this?”

  Slowly at first, and then with greater speed and violence, Kyle shook his head. “Gotta think. Keep quiet and let me think.”

  Blaring sirens shattered the stillness. Flashing strobe lights destroyed the crystalline night. Sheriff Burns’ patrol vehicle was momentarily airborne as he floored the accelerator and crested the hill above the Starlight Motel.

  Joyce’s voice crackled over the radio: “Luis, the motel manager at Starlight said he called here two hours ago. Said he reported a young woman matching Miss Wells’ description went into 215. Musta been Kyle who took the call, Chief. Luis sure didn’t talk to me. Musta been Kyle.”

  “10 – 4, Joy-cee,” Burns said, biting down on his lip and pressing even harder on the throttle. “Notify Alamo PD. Have ‘em send backup. I’m almost at the Starlight now.”

  “Be careful out there, Gene.”

  Remembering the conversation about Anne Wells’s poetry, Burns was chagrined and fearful. Instead of the preacher’s daughter being a psycho who attacked people, now it seemed she might be in line to be the next victim.

  Anne studied the childish scrawl. She held it to the light shining down from over the basin and examined it as if she had never seen it before.

  The stick figures were as basic as any painting could ever be. Two larger human forms and one smaller one. One male and two females.

  They were labeled: MOMMY—DADDY—ME.

  The image of her mother was painted in pink. Adam’s figure was in dark blue.

  Anne’s was in bright green.

  No black, nor gray, nor even brown. Pretty colors equated to happiness.

  Anne recalled that emotion as one she had heard about but could not recollect experiencing. Had she been truly happy when she had painted this? She had been proud when she presented it to her parents. She remembered that feeling.

  The figures were holding hands. Over their heads was a sky filled with stars. In contrast to the people, these were carefully crafted with attention to detail, rendered in yellows and oranges and reds.

  One, directly over stick-Anne’s head, was a perfectly formed six-pointed star. Bright blue crayon had lost none of its appeal over the decade since. This star of David, this Bethlehem star, still drew the attention of the onlooker.

  Adam had drawn it. He had drawn it for her.

  Low voices reached her from the other side of the door, but she could make out none of the words. Who else had come in? Was her mother there?

  No, one voice was clearly Adam’s, but the other was also male, only even more muffled and indistinct.

  Could it be Stephen?

  But he almost never sounded angry, and this voice was definitely hostile.

  “Hey? Who’s out there?”

  There was no reply. Probably they couldn’t hear her through the door and over their own conversation.

  Anne focused her attention and concentrated.

  Kyle!

  Adam swallowed hard. His mouth was dry as dust. “Son,” he said to Kyle, “you don’t want to do anything foolish.” Adam’s eyes darted around the room, looking for something to use as a defensive weapon. There was nothing. What was he going to do—pick up a chair and throw it?

  As long as everyone kept calm, this could still turn out without injury.

  The main thing on Adam’s mind was to stay between Anne and the danger stalking motel room 215. Keep it cool; keep it calm.

  He heard a siren’s wail approaching. He knew it had not gone unnoticed by Kyle. Maybe that was a good thing. As long as there were no surprises, maybe there would be no tragedy.

  His hand still indicating the threat concealed within the filthy windbreaker pocket, Kyle backed up farther. His body disappeared into shadow, but the light striking his face from the lamp hollowed his eye sockets and stretched his cheekbones.

  God, Adam prayed silently. Give me the right words to defuse things.

  That’s when things went from bad to worse.

  Without warning, Calvin burst into the motel room through the partially open entry. He was just as brash and jovial as before, clearly unaware anything had changed.

  “Forgot my cell phone, Ad-man,” he said.

  At a sound behind him, Calvin turned. Catching his first view of Kyle, dressed in western shirt and ball cap, Calvin’s eyes widened.

  Kyle spoke first. “Who are you?”

  Calvin squinted and shook his head. “What’s this about, Adman? Who is that?”

  Adam saw Kyle’s hand move within the pocket of the coat. “Son,” he said again, “don’t be foolish.”

  “I asked you a question,” Kyle demanded again in a threatening tone. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Calvin sounded partly amused and partly exasperated at the scene. “Really, Ad-man? What’s going—”

  Kyle’s hand flashed out, gripping the Glock. The pistol was pointed at Calvin’s midsection.

  Calvin backed up, hands stretched out in front of him. His backside came up sharply against the dresser. “Hey, I’m just lookin’ for …”

  “Shut up, puke!” Kyle stormed. “Answer the question. Who are you? What are you doin’ here?”

  Adam saw the terror in Calvin’s expression. “Don’t let him do anything stupid,” Adam prayed.

  In a low, soothing voice Adam offered, “A friend. He’s only a friend from high
school, son. Here visiting my wife and me. You can let him go.”

  “That’s right,” Calvin agreed rapidly. Adam heard the trembling in Calvin’s voice. The man was several shades paler than the walls. As much as Adam despised him, he wouldn’t wish this kind of trouble on him.

  “You got a phone here?” Kyle asked.

  Calvin pointed a shaking finger toward a folded mobile phone lying on the floor between the television and a waste basket. “Musta dropped it. I’ll just grab it and be on—”

  Calvin took a step sideways toward the device, then crabbed instantly back again when Kyle waved the barrel of the weapon.

  “Leave it, puke,” Kyle commanded. “Go on, get out.”

  His hands still open and pleading, Calvin maneuvered around Kyle’s menacing form and backed out of the room.

  “And shut the door,” Kyle added.

  Calvin yanked the door closed so forcefully that the window beside it rattled in its frame.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WHAT WAS TAKING ADAM SO LONG? Maurene prayed for things to go smoothly—for one more crisis to be averted—even though deep down she knew this time was worse … much, much worse.

  From Maurene’s point of view, inside the car in the motel parking lot, things went from nothing happening to everything happening at once.

  One moment there were no other people anywhere in sight and no activity.

  The next instant a police car, siren screaming, screeched into the lot and skidded to a stop. Sheriff Burns bounced out.

  Was he really drawing his pistol?

  From the lighted lobby bustled a short, stocky, dark-complected man Maurene recognized as the motel manager. He and Burns met behind an SUV.

  The manager pointed upstairs, in the direction of Calvin’s room. When he stepped out from behind the GMC Tahoe, Burns yanked him back. Then the sheriff sent the Hispanic man running—running—to the first-floor row of rooms under the overhang of the second story.

  “Call all of ‘em!” she heard Burns bellow. “Tell ‘em to stay indoors till I say different.”

  Anne! What had happened to Anne? Terror rose in Maurene’s gorge, burning her throat, choking her. Waving frantically toward the sheriff, she emerged from the car. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”

  “Stay in your vehicle, Mizz Wells, please.”

  “Is it Anne, Sheriff? Tell me! Is it Anne?”

  “Just stay in your car!”

  The flashing blue and red police lights jetted up into the ceiling of the motel room. Kyle appeared shaken, but when Adam tried to move a step nearer, the boy growled at him, waving him back with the Glock. His free hand moved to the deadbolt of the door and snapped it closed. His movements were nervous, twitchy.

  Adam tried again to reason with the teen. “You know the police are here, son. Why don’t you—”

  “Why don’t you shut up?! Fat old man Burns isn’t gettin’ in till I finish what I come to do.”

  “What, Kyle? What did you come here to do?”

  Adam was afraid he knew the answer already, but keeping Kyle talking seemed preferable to watching the brooding figure talk himself into doing something drastic.

  With a downward slash of the gun hand, Kyle bellowed at Anne: “Tell ‘im, freak! Tell ‘im how I warned you there wasn’t any boundaries ‘tween you and me!”

  The deadly, black pistol wavered but lifted and moved until aimed at the center of the bathroom door.

  “Tell ‘im ‘bout that trophy buck just seconds from dead and him not knowin’ it!”

  The room’s doorknob rattled. Kyle’s attention flicked toward it, but the gun hand never wavered.

  Adam heard Sheriff Burns call out, “Open this door, Tucker. I know it’s you in there.”

  Coaxing, Adam said, “Come on, son. This has gone—”

  Burns hammered on the door. “Tucker! Open up!”

  Keeping his tone even and smooth, Adam tried to offer a reasonable counterpoint to Burns’ commands. “There’s no other way out of this room, son.”

  Without warning, Kyle snapped the Glock around and fired through the door. In the confined space it resounded like a thunderclap and a sledgehammer striking the door panel in the same instant. The air was full of acrid smoke and the racket Sheriff Burns made tumbling out of the way, yelling, “Keep back! Everybody, keep back!”

  The muzzle of the pistol came instantly back toward Adam, who had jumped at the discharge but had not otherwise moved.

  Tears streamed down Kyle’s cheeks. His face was contorted with emotion, his voice choked with it. “Next is fer you, Pastor. ‘Less you step away from that door.”

  Adam tensed his stomach for what he saw was coming. There was no remorse in Kyle’s expression—just a complete commitment to madness. The tears were hot, angry tears.

  “Are you in the bathtub, Anne?” Adam called out.

  “Step away from that door,” Kyle menaced. “Won’t tell you again.”

  “Anne,” Adam repeated urgently, “are you in the tub?”

  “Yes,” came Anne’s muffled response.

  “Move over, Pastor,” Kyle repeated, waving the gun.

  Adam folded his arms across his chest. He shook his head. “‘Fraid I can’t do that, son. All the way down inside the tub, Anne?” Adam urged.

  “Yes. I’m in the tub, yes!”

  “Move!” Kyle shouted.

  “Good girl, Anne.”

  “Move! Now!”

  The muzzle flash was like a brilliant white star exploding in front of Adam’s face. The explosion blinded him and deafened him.

  It seemed an age before the sledgehammer struck Adam in the chest, flinging him back against the wall beside the bathroom door. Once there, time continued frozen, while Adam slid ever so slowly downward into the dark.

  Since hearing the shot Kyle fired at the sheriff, Anne had been huddled inside the bathtub as if it were her own private bunker … or a porcelain coffin. When another shot detonated just outside the bathroom door, Anne screamed.

  Adam was out there! Her father was out there! What was that thud that made the walls vibrate? Was that a cry of pain?

  There was no time to analyze, because immediately after the second shot came a whole fusillade of gunfire. Blasting through the thin panel of the bathroom door as if it were tissue paper, each round smashed into the tub.

  Hammer blows, detonating below the lip of her shelter, filled the air with white ceramic shards. Bullets that missed the outside wall of the tub skimmed over the top edge to crash into the tiled wall behind it.

  Porcelain and tile shrapnel rained down on Anne, curled like a baby within the womb of the tub.

  Would it never stop? How long could this assault go on? When would a bullet find a weak spot and blast completely through? What if Kyle kicked in the door? Then the tub would provide shelter no longer.

  God, help me! Anne’s heart cried. I don’t want to die!

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  STEPHEN STOMPED HARD on the brakes as he wheeled into the parking lot of the Starlight Motel. It was like the scene from an action movie or a war film. Bright flashes of light and dull claps of thunder erupted from the room in the middle of the second floor. The glass of that room’s window was shattered, and there were holes blasted in the door.

  The sheriff was crouched behind the pastor’s car. With one hand he kept his sidearm aimed at the second-floor doorway where Stephen had last seen Anne.

  Anne!

  With the other arm Chief Burns kept Mrs. Wells pinned behind the trunk of her vehicle.

  “My daughter!” she shouted. “My husband! Both in there! Let

  me go!”

  “Keep back!” Burns ordered. “Help is coming. The Alamo PD is sending help.”

  “A shootout? With Kyle?” Suddenly the pieces of the nightmare came together for Stephen. “Chief!” Stephen said urgently. “Let me help! I know I can talk to him.”

  “Nothin’ doing,” Burns responded. “He already shot his daddy. He
shot at me. He’s been shootin’ up the inside of the room too. We’re waitin’ till Alamo SWAT gets here; then we’ll move.”

  “But my husband! My daughter!” Maurene protested. “They may be wounded! We can’t wait!”

  An approaching siren echoed off the hills. “We can and we will. Help is coming now.”

  When Maurene struggled in the sheriff’s grasp, Stephen saw his chance. Bolting toward the stairs, he started up them two at a time.

  “Hey!” Burns yelled. “Get back here!”

  “He won’t shoot me!” Stephen called back. “I can talk to him!”

  If he could just get inside the room without getting shot by mistake, Stephen believed Kyle would not shoot him in cold blood.

  Maybe.

  But Anne was in there. And Kyle was in a murderous rage.

  Stephen had seen that pistol of Jackson Tucker’s. Forty-five caliber, semi-auto. Once when Kyle’s father was passed out, Kyle had sneaked the gun out of the truck and displayed it.

  One clip. Kyle had pulled it out to prove he knew how to work it. One clip only.

  Stephen was outside the door now.

  Screeching tires and more sirens overflowed the parking lot. Sheriff Burns clamored, “Hold your fire! Up there on the balcony? That’s not the one! Don’t shoot!”

  How many bullets did Kyle’s gun hold? Ten? Twelve? Stephen remembered how fat and deadly the cartridges looked.

  Surely it couldn’t hold more than that.

  How many had Kyle fired already?

  The explosions Stephen had witnessed like detonating stars beneath the roofline of the motel had seemed like a Fourth of July fireworks show. How many?

  Too late for it to matter now.

  Call out to Kyle or bust in the door? Some shot had shattered the lock, and the entry looked loose in its frame.

  Break it down?

  No time to think it over.