I traced the molding with my fingers-it framed an opening about two feet square-and moved the palm of my hand to the recessed center of the square and pushed. The panel gave just a little. My heart jumped. This little door meant attic access.
This little door meant freedom. I climbed up another shelf in the closet for leverage.
The door proved hard to budge. I was afraid the shelves were going to yield before I was able to push it open. Finally it gave, and I poked my head into the attic.
The place was huge. The true size of the house wasn't apparent to someone walking through it on the main floor. Inside the house, walls divided the rooms and the true volume of the space was disguised. But the attic had no dividing walls; one immense cavernous vault capped the sprawling home below. And although the house was technically a ranch, with all its living space on one floor, no such limitations ruled the attic space. The height of the attic varied tremendously, not only to accommodate the vagaries of the home's roofline, but also to accommodate the varying heights of the ceilings inside the house.
What I needed was a circulation vent-a louvered opening-that I could remove or kick out to permit myself egress from the attic. To find a vent I had to get from the center of the house to the perimeter. I began to raise myself to the lip of the opening to begin my search.
In rapid order, three sharp blasts from a gun pierced into the enclosed space in the closet. Immediately all strength left my arms and legs. I fell from my perch near the ceiling and tumbled to the floor in a heap.
My fall destroyed the bottom shelf and made a racket. I moaned.
While I waited for more shots I held my breath. But the next sounds I heard were footsteps retreating and an amplified voice from outside the house. One of the cops was calling something to someone inside the house on a loudspeaker. I couldn't understand the words. Finally, I exhaled.
The gunshots had destroyed enough of the door so that light was entering the closet. I could reach my hand through one of the openings and almost touch the doorknob, but not quite. I persisted, slicing my forearm on the splintered wood.
The key was still in the lock. My arm tendons screamed in protest as I twisted my hand to turn the key.
Through the open attic door I heard footsteps above me. Someone was running fast toward the far end of the house, above the master bedroom. More shots rang out.
The blasts seemed to follow the footfalls across the roof.
I felt blind. Activity was going on all around me and I could only guess what was actually happening elsewhere in the house.
I pushed the closet door open and prepared to make a run for safety. But before I took off I looked back into the closet. Had I not been climbing to the attic, the shots that had been fired through the door would have hit me. For sure.
I saw no one as I made my way first to the laundry room, then to the mudroom. I flung open the mudroom door and sprinted toward the police car with my hands high above my head. In what felt like slow motion, I watched two rifles rotate toward me. I dove to the ground screaming, "No! It's me! Help!"
Someone barked, "Hold fire!"
I looked up and back at the house. Russ Claven was crouching on the roof, staring down at the clerestory windows that lit the long central hall. He was tracking someone's movements below. I wondered whether he was tracking Kimber or following Ray Welle. Russ scampered catlike farther down the roof, hovering at the skylights above the master bedroom. He pointed straight down and nodded his head.
I climbed to my feet and ran like the wind to the protection provided by the parked cars, arriving just as Percy Smith was directing his officers to take aim with their rifles in the direction of the master bedroom suite. I hugged Flynn.
She asked if I was okay. I asked about Kimber.
I could tell from her expression that she was hoping that it was I who knew about Kimbers well-being.
"We don't know," she said.
"We lost contact with him."
A large picture window looked down the lane from one end of the master bedroom.
For a split second Ray Welle stood in that window and peeked through the drawn curtains. His eyes seemed to be searching, until finally they found mine and locked. He blinked twice and shook his head maybe an inch each way.
"There he is, in the bedroom window," I said, just as the curtain fell back into place.
"I saw him. He's gone now," said Percy.
On the roof Russ Claven had started gesturing frantically toward the far end of the house. The side closest to the deck. The side nearest the woods.
My brain was working faster than my mouth.
"No!" was all I could spit at first.
"No!"
Percy Smith stared at me.
"What the-?"
In less than two seconds Ray Welle was out on the deck, firing wildly toward the police cars. I ducked from the fusillade and said, "Percy! He wants you to kill him! Don't do it!"
"What?" One of the cops said he had the target.
I yelled, "He wants you to kill him! Don't do-" The cop fired his rifle. The other cop pulled his trigger so closely afterward I could barely feel a gap between the concussions of the blasts. I watched in horror as Raymond Welle tumbled over the edge of the deck and landed with a thick thud on the lawn.
I'd imagined the scene so many times, I felt as though I'd been there before.
Percy Smith said, "Hold fire. Get the ambulance up here." To Percy I said, "Its exactly what he wanted you to do."
Percy replied disdainfully.
"What? You think we shot him? He's not dead. We fired way above his head. Just scared him half to death." To his officers he said, "Keep him in your sights."
Russ had scampered down the roof. I watched as he dropped from one of the copper gutters to the deck just as Ray Welle was struggling to his knees, searching the ground for his handgun. Russ vaulted the deck and flattened the congressman before he had a chance to retrieve the weapon.
Flynn grabbed my hand and said, "Come on. Let's go find Kimber."
I ran after her back into the house.
Flynn and I found Kimber propped up against a wall in the foyer of the house.
He'd been shot once in the left shoulder. From the mess on the floor around him I assumed he had lost more than a little blood.
When I dropped to my knees by his side he said, "I told you I was dying. I just didn't expect it to be so traumatic." He was calm as he made his joke. The symptoms of panic had evaporated.
Flynn took one of his hands and said, "You're not dying, Kimber. You hear me?"
Without turning to face me she ordered, "Alan, get Russ in here."
Kimber's voice was tentative and weak.
"God help me. She's calling a pathologist. Maybe I'm already dead."
I was encouraged that he was continuing to find humor in his predicament, but Flynn was determined in her response to him.
"You are absolutely not dying, Kimber. You just keep breathing. We'll do the rest."
As Kimber opened his mouth to reply, his head fell suddenly to his chest. The whine of an ambulance siren filled the narrow valley. Flynn mouthed, "Hurry!" I ran to fetch Russ and to guide the paramedics back to Kimber.
Once my quick errand was completed Percy Smith wouldn't let me back into the house. He left me leaning against the hood of one of the police cruisers as he explained why I couldn't go back inside. My adrenaline was spent. I had barely enough energy to stay vertical, let alone to argue with him. He moved me into the backseat. I half expected to be cuffed but I wasn't. At least not right away.
I dozed off in the back of Percy Smith's police department SUV on the drive into Steamboat Springs. Once inside the building I fell sound asleep while the local authorities were assembling the cast they had chosen to interview me for details about how Kimber Lister and I had spent the previous twelve hours or so.