“Sit.” Bree guided Ricky onto the step. “Put your head between your knees.”
The kid obeyed, the arrogance and overwhelming dumbassery apparently scared out of him. Tears and snot streamed down his face. “It hurts.”
But it could have been so much worse. Bree could have shot and potentially even killed him. The realization swam like mud through her gut until she wanted to puke. This wasn’t the first time she’d been involved in a shooting, but the other incidents had been with adults. They’d made the choices that brought them into her sights. This felt different. For all Ricky’s faults, he was just a kid, and she couldn’t see him the same way.
Ricky lifted his chin. “My dad’s gonna sue.”
Bree had no doubt he would. She’d resolved the situation without anyone getting seriously hurt, but the truth didn’t always matter. “Are you related to Jasper?”
Ricky shook his head.
“Did you come here to buy heroin?” she asked the teen.
“I don’t sell drugs!” Jasper yelled from the grass. He sounded indignant, as if the question were offensive.
“Are you sure there’s no one else inside the house?” Matt asked him again.
Jasper hesitated, then said, “Yeah.”
Bree didn’t like the way he’d paused, but she couldn’t clear the house until backup arrived.
A siren wailed in the distance.
Ricky’s posture stiffened. “I’m not saying anything else without a lawyer.”
Great. Now he uses his brain.
Bree suppressed an eye roll. “I need your parents’ contact information.”
Ricky balked. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Bree rubbed an ache in her temple. “You know I have to call them.”
Ricky grumbled but gave her his father’s phone number.
She glanced at Jasper, to the bleeding teenage shooter, to the vomit spatter, which she now noticed had splattered her pants as well as her shoes.
She almost said, Could this night get any worse, but stopped herself.
Because it could always get worse.
Two deputies arrived. Lights swirled from the tops of their patrol cars. Bree instructed them to lock the prisoners in their vehicles. She stopped at her SUV and retrieved her AR-15 for Matt. He couldn’t aim a handgun, but he could shoot a long gun just fine.
Working as a team, she and Matt entered through the front door. Ten steps into the house, a foul odor hit the back of her throat. The smell was unmistakable. “Decomp.”
“Yes.” Matt coughed.
Something—or someone—was dead.
The front door opened directly into a living room. The black vinyl couch was peeling and ripped. Several piles of cash and a game controller occupied the coffee table. The only other furniture was a huge, new-looking recliner that faced a big-screen TV mounted on the wall. A video game console sat beneath the TV.
A pistol lay on the floor.
Bree gestured to it. “That could be the one Ricky used to shoot at us. He said he left it on the floor.”
They moved quickly through the rooms. In the hall closet, they found a sawed-off shotgun under legal limits. Once the rooms were cleared, they’d wait for the warrant to come in before conducting a detailed search. Bree didn’t want any recovered evidence to be thrown out of court.
The kitchen was worn but surprisingly clean. The primary bedroom contained a king-size bed, one nightstand, and another big TV. The second bedroom held a desk and computer. They checked closets and peered into any spaces large enough to conceal a person. But they found no one.
A short hallway led to the laundry room and another door.
Bree had seen narrow windows in the foundation. “Basement?”
With a nod, Matt stopped beside the door. Their eyes met. She silently counted to three, exaggerating the words with her lips. On three, Matt opened the door. The smell that rushed out pushed them back a step.
Belly roiling, Bree covered her mouth and nose with her lapel. “Something is definitely dead down there.”
Matt’s face pursed in disgust. He pulled out his flashlight and shined it down a set of stairs. They could hear movement in the darkness. Bree reached past him and flipped a wall switch. Light illuminated a narrow set of wooden steps.
Bree sized up the stairwell. Stairwells were the worst—which was why they were called fatal funnels in training. If someone was hiding down there waiting to ambush them . . .
To control her heartbeat and minimize the onslaught of adrenaline, Bree took a few deep breaths—then regretted it. She gagged as the smell of rotting flesh filled her sinuses and mouth.
Matt’s face tightened, and his skin had paled. He was breathing shallowly.
“Let’s get this over with.” Bree kept her shoulder to the wall and started down. She moved slowly but steadily, making sure she could see each slice of the room before any potential armed suspect could see her. The basement had been roughly finished. Sheet vinyl covered the concrete floor, and the cinder blocks had been painted a pale shade of blue. Three walls had been fitted out with metal shelving units. Rows upon rows of glass tanks lined the shelves.
The movement she’d heard from upstairs had been slithering.
Snakes occupied the tanks.
Next to her, Matt muttered, “Fuck.”
“Seems to be the best word to sum up our entire night,” Bree agreed.
“There must be fifty of them.”
Bree began counting. “More than fifty.” Her gaze locked on a tank that contained a rotting snake carcass. “At least seventy-five. Plus, a few dead ones.”
“That explains the smell.”
“Bright side,” Bree said. “Dead snakes are better than dead people.”
“You make a good point.”
A thin rattling sound drew her toward a tank. With her gun raised, she approached. The snake inside was thick-bodied and reddish brown in color. A diamond pattern flowed down its back. The animal lifted its triangular-shaped head, stared at Bree, and hissed. The tip of its tail quivered, sounding like a small maraca.
See? Her night could get worse.
Matt drew in a sharp breath. “That’s a rattlesnake.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Matt watched the ambulance containing Ricky and a deputy pull away. Another deputy had taken Jasper to the sheriff’s station.
Bree approached, cell phone in hand. “Warrant’s in. Ready to search the house?”
She’d obtained an emergency search warrant for Jasper’s house. Shots fired at law enforcement gave her a compelling reason for a late-night phone call to a judge.
“I guess.” Matt didn’t mind snakes, at least the ones that weren’t venomous. “Handling rattlesnakes feels like it’s above our pay grade.”
“No kidding. We’re not handling anything in the basement.” Bree started toward the house. “We have a guy who handles snakes at animal control, but he doesn’t have the capacity for the sheer number of animals we’re dealing with. I called the zoo. They’re sending over a team of specialists. When they get here, we’ll revisit the snake pit.”
Matt followed Bree into the house. They started in the living room, donning gloves. Bree started lifting couch cushions. “Found a Glock.”
Matt opened a drawer in the coffee table. “I’ve got a bag of weed.”