Hostage

'Let me untie you. We can hide in the walls.'

'No! They might hurt Daddy! Listen, if they find out that you're not in your room, I'm going to tell them that you got out. They won't know you're still in the walls. They'll never even think of that! But if both of us are gone, they'll take it out on Daddy. They might hurt him!'

Thomas thought about it.

'Okay, Jen.'

'Okay, what?'

'We're not going to leave him. I'm going to get us out of here.'

Je

'You leave that gun alone! They'll kill you!'

'Not if I have the gun! We can hold them off long enough to let in the police, that's all we have to do.'

She twisted hard in the chair, trying to see him.

'Thomas, don't you dare! They're adults! They're criminals and they've got guns, too!'

'Don't talk so loud or they'll hear you!'

'I don't care! It's better than you getting killed!'

Thomas reached up, pulled the tape back over her mouth, and rubbed it hard so that it would stick. Je

'I'm sorry, Jen. I'll untie you when I get back. Then we can get Daddy out of here. You'll see. I won't let them hurt us.'

Je

They're going to kill you.

They're going to kill you.

Thomas slipped back into the crawl space, working his way carefully through the dark.

The little bathroom off the garage was as dark as a cave when De

'This could work.'

'Fuckin' A, it could work.'

'But you never know what the police are doing or where they might be. We have to give them something to think about besides us.'

'They'll be watching this house. They got nothing else to do.'

Kevin said, 'I don't like any of it. We should give up.'

'Shut up.'

Mars went into the garage and stood by the Range Rover. De

'C'mon, Mars, we've got to get goin' here. We don't have all the time in the world.'

Mars turned back to him, his face lit by the dim light from the kitchen.

'If you want to get away, we should burn the house.'

De

'That's not a bad idea. We could start a fire on the other side of the house.'

Kevin raised his hands.

'You guys are crazy. That adds arson to the charges against us.'

'It makes sense, Kevin. All the cops will be watching the fire. They won't be looking at the neighbor's yard.'

'But what about these people?'

Kevin was talking about the Smiths.

De

'They'll burn.'

The back of De

'Jesus, Mars, nobody has to burn. We can put'm here in the garage before we take off. We'll figure somethin' out.'

They decided to use gasoline to start the fire. De

De

'What the fuck?! What's going on?'

They hurried to the front of the house, gasoline splashing from the bucket.

'Kevin! Watch the French doors!'

De

'Holy shit.'

The television showed the L.A. County Sheriffs rolling through the dark streets of York Estates. De

'This is fucked. Look at all those cops.'

De

'Fuck!'

Everything had once more changed. One minute he had a great plan to slip away, but now all sides of the house were lit up like the sun and an army of cops were filling the streets. Overhead, the helicopters sounded as if they were about to land on the house. Sneaking through the adjoining neighbor's yard would now be impossible. De

De

'I'm going to check the windows again, okay? I gotta make sure Kevin isn't falling asleep. Mars, you keep an eye on the TV. If anything happens, yell.'

Mars, leaning against the wall with his face to the shutters, didn't respond. De

'What's going on? Aren't we leaving?'

'The goddamned Sheriffs are here. They're crawling all over the goddamned neighborhood. They got snipers out there!'

De

Kevin, of course, made it worse by putting on the pussy face.

'What are we going to do?'

'I don't know, Kevin! They got so many lights out there I can't see a goddamned thing. Maybe I can see better on those televisions back there in the safety room.'

Kevin suddenly turned toward the rear of the house.

'Did you hear that?'

De