The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [94]
Difford began to relax. He cocked his head and led Officer Travis to the garage door.
“Set the coffee on the table. Take the lead. I already checked out the rest of the house. If he’s here, he’s in there.”
“No, Difford. He’s right here.” Officer Travis moved faster than Difford would have thought a fat man could. He whirled, his arm arched up, and Difford saw his eyes right before the man’s fist snapped back his chin.
He went down hard, but his hand got around his gun. Don’t panic, don’t panic.
He pulled his gun out of his holster. Shoot, dammit, shoot.
The baton caught him square on the forearm; dimly he heard the crack of his arm breaking. Fingers went numb. Gun flew across the room and hit the wall.
Get his feet. Kick out his feet. Get him down.
His ankle hooked Beckett’s. He pulled hard. The baton caught him across the cheek as Jim toppled. Ringing filled his ears. He tasted something rusty in his mouth, blood. Shit, it was pouring down his chin. What had happened to his teeth?
He planted his good arm on the floor and started crawling for his gun. Faster, faster, faster.
Tess, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
He heard the rustle of nylon and knew Jim was beginning to rise. He picked up the tempo, forcing himself to move. The gun was so close, twenty feet, ten. If he could just get his hand out—
Beckett sat on his back hard, slamming Difford to the floor. The breath left him in a giant whoosh and he couldn’t get it back. Hands wrapped around his throat and began to squeeze. He fought, he squirmed against the floor. The world spun away and he sank into the blackness.
The void didn’t hurt.
And it lasted only a minute. Then the pressure was gone. His lungs instinctively inhaled, his eyes fought to see. Vaguely he felt Beckett rise. He saw his gun kicked far away. Beckett picked up a kitchen chair. He strode down the hall and jammed it beneath the closed door of Samantha’s room.
And Difford knew what was going to happen then. The chair told him clearly what Beckett didn’t want his daughter to wake up and see.
Beckett walked back down the hall. Difford tried to pull himself away, but his broken arm refused to move and blood and teeth were already pooling in his throat. He shimmied three more feet, then Beckett’s hand curled around his ankle, pinning him in place. He couldn’t quite stop his own whimper.
“I have a few questions for you,” Beckett whispered in his ear.
A sliding rasp. A knife appeared before Difford’s gaze.
“Sergeant Wilcox was too easy,” Beckett murmured. “Have you ever noticed that cops have the lowest threshold for pain? They spend their whole life studying it and thinking that because they have, they’re immune to it. It will never happen to them.”
“Son of a bitch,” Difford gasped.
“Shh. Don’t wake Sam.”
Difford’s eyes shut. He felt something trickle down his cheeks. It might have been tears.
“Make it hard, Difford. Give me a challenge. I want a challenge.”
Jim Beckett went to work.
BECKETT MOVED IN the moon-shrouded living room. First he picked up the phone and dialed in to the officer on duty.
“Bravo Fourteen,” he intoned. “Checking in, all’s clear.”
“Roger, Bravo Fourteen.”
“Talk to you in an hour.” Officer Travis signed off.
It was now one A.M. At two A.M. the new shift would arrive. Jim had to keep on schedule.
He opened the garage door. He arranged Difford’s body in the trunk. Returning to the kitchen, he attended to the mess with paper towels. Blood was oily, harder to clean up than people expected. He’d read of a couple in the Midwest who’d opened a business cleaning up after death. Homicides, suicides, they took care of everything and made a lot of money. While in prison, he’d been tempted to write to them