When Don opened his eyes, his head hurt and there was a line running through his vision. More accurately, he head felt as though the sutures of his skull had split and the bones were riding against each other like tectonic plates in an earthquake. When he explored it with his fingers, the line proved to be the baseboard; he was lying on the kitchen floor. Slowly, slowly, Don got to his hands and knees and then pulled himself up to the counter. He left bloody fingerprints on the wood. Normally, he had an iron stomach—an occupational perk—but seeing blood in his brother's house made Don feel sick. Hand-over-hand, he made his way to the sink and ran cold water over his wrists until the chill finally registered.
It was still hard to think of Charlie as a home-owner, especially in the kitchen. Not that his brother didn't cook. He did, and quite well, but he was not exactly domestic. Charlie followed recipes meticulously and the results were usually faultless, if unoriginal. Don had been over a few weeks ago and Charlie had made chili in exact accordance with a recipe from the newspaper. It had been good, but… "This chili has no soul!" Alan had said sadly when Charlie had gone back to the kitchen for more rice. He had sounded so mournful that Don had laughed until he choked.
Charlie. Alan. Don focused his thoughts by sheer will. He couldn't let his mind wander. First things first: jacket pocket, cellphone, police. At least his throbbing head put his bruised thumb back in perspective, he thought grimly. He took a step; something snapped under his shoe. It was the belt clip from Terry's CD player: fighting dizziness, Don glanced around the kitchen. The CD player had cracked under his weight when he'd fallen near the stove; its voices were finally silent. Don took in the rest of the room, pretending it was an anonymous crime scene. The contents of a drawer scattered over the counter. One kitchen chair knocked over. His empty holster hanging on the back of a second chair. The weapon, his own hammer, in the corner. His handcuffs kicked under the table. No jacket. Wait…empty holster. Oh, God.
Don blinked, trying to clear his fuzzy vision. He reached down, keeping his head perfectly level, and fumbled for his cuffs. He remembered how he'd teased Terry, offering to let her bring hers to dinner with Alan… Alan. Charlie. Focus. His jacket was gone. His gun was gone. Someone was loose in the house.
Don put the cuffs in his pocket and let himself out the back door, closing it quietly behind him. No need to let his attacker know he was up and about. Charlie would have his cellphone with him in the garage. The voices started up again as he moved toward the garage and he reached up to pull off the headphones off before remembering that the headphones were still tangled in the kitchen chair. The voices were coming from the garage, but there was something familiar in their manic intensity. Don was confused, off-balance, slow to remember things, slower to react. Of course the kid hadn't stayed in the house: Don had told him Charlie was in the garage. Stupid, stupid…okay, not the time for blame. Don took a deep breath. His body was starting to fight the pain, his vision was clearing. He could hold out for a little longer.
Leaning against the wall of the garage, Don tried to gauge the intruder's position by the sound of his voice. Instead, he heard Charlie.
"Anthony—Anthony! Listen to me," Charlie's voice wavered "You need to calm down. We both need to—look, you have to, you've got to just….Hey, don't! Don't do that. Just…uh,. stop, put that down…"
Anthony Padgett. The student with the crazy notebook. Don was furious with himself: he'd recognized that Padgett was unstable and dangerous, had seen something that reminded him of the profiles he's studied at Quantico and still he'd done nothing! What did he expect, an engraved invitation? Weren't those notebooks invitation enough? The panic in Charlie's voice was almost more than Don could take. His brother was not equipped to deal with this kind of threat. Just having someone with a gun in the garage, his special place, was enough to make Charlie act irrationally.
The second voice—Anthony's—was talking now. Ranting about math. Don couldn't tell if he was making any sense at all, but the voice was kind of muffled; he'd bet Padgett was facing the back wall, back to the open door, blocking Charlie's exit. Suddenly, Charlie let out a painful yelp.