Next he checked the bedrooms. Mario and Gena had slept in the front one, Angelina in the smaller back bedroom. Both were empty. Again, in the front room, the windows were out. Between the two bedrooms was the bathroom, and he found himself hoping he'd find them huddled in the bathtub or something. No luck there, either.
Where in hell could they be? The only place he hadn't looked was the attic. He hoped to hell they weren't up there, because it was so damn dangerous, but some people, when faced with danger, automatically went as far up as they could get. He studied the ceiling, and there it was, right above his head, in the little hall between the two bedrooms: the pull-down attic stairs. If they were up there, Gena had pulled the stairs back up after them.
The ceilings were just eight feet high, so he easily reached the cord and pulled the folding stairs down. "Gena?" he called up into the darkness. "Angelina? Are you up there? It's Cal."
The silence was broken by a little voice saying tremulously, "Daddy?"
He felt quick relief. Angelina was alive, at least. He cleared his throat. "No, sweetheart, it isn't Daddy. It's Cal. Is your mommy up there?"
"Uh-huh," she said. There were scrambling noises; then her small tearstained face appeared at the top of the stairs. "But Mommy's hurt, and I'm scared."
Ah, shit. Grimly Cal started up the stairs, almost certain he'd find Gena lying in a pool of blood. If she'd been shot, it had happened while she was in the attic, because there was no blood anywhere downstairs that he'd seen.
Angelina scrambled back when he reached the top of the stairs, giving him room. She was wearing her pajamas and was barefoot, which alarmed Cal until he saw the pile of old clothing that had been dragged out of a box; she had been using the clothes as covers.
The attic wasn't finished; plywood had been placed over the floor joists of about half the space, while the other was just bare joists with insulation batting laid between the two-by-sixes. The floored space was crammed with stuff: a neatly taped Christmas tree box, old toys, a dismantled baby bed, boxes of discards. Staying bent over, he picked his way through the clutter to where Gena was sitting propped against an old chest of drawers. Angelina scrambled to her mother's side, and Gena put her arm around her, holding her close.
Gena was ghostly white, but as Cal went down on one knee beside her, he checked for blood and didn't see any. The attic was dim, the only light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling and the vents, too dim for him to tell much. He took her wrist and checked her pulse; it was too fast, but strong, so she wasn't shocky. "Where are you hurt?"
"My ankle." Her voice was restricted, her tone almost soundless. "I sprained it." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Mario... ?"
Cal gave a little shake of his head, and her face crumpled at having her worst fear confirmed. "He - he told us to hide up here while he found out what was going on. I waited for him all night, expecting him to c-come get us, but - "
"Which ankle?" Cal asked, cutting her off. She had a lifetime to mourn her husband, but he had a lot to do and a short time in which to do it.
She hesitated, her eyes filling with tears, then indicated her right ankle. Cal swiftly pushed up the leg of her jeans to see how bad the ankle was. The answer was: bad. Her ankle was so swollen her sock was tightly stretched, and dark bruising extended above the fabric. She hadn't vet gotten ready for bed when the shooting started, so she was wearing jeans and sneakers, and because of the cold she hadn't removed the shoe. That was good, because if she had, she wouldn't have been able to get it back on. This would slow her down big-time.
"It was cold," Angelina put in, her big dark eyes solemn as she rested her head against her mother. "And dark. Mommy had a flashlight, but it went out."
"It lasted long enough for us to find that box of old clothes we used to keep warm," said Gena, drawing a shuddering breath as she tried not to break down in front of her daughter.
Cal was wordless with dismay. She had turned on the flashlight and left it on? She was damn lucky both she and her daughter were alive, because if sunlight could get in through cracks, light from inside would show through those same cracks at night. The fact that the attic wasn't shot full of holes confirmed for him that the shooters were using thermal instead of night-vision scopes; night vision would have magnified the faint light coming through those cracks, lighting up the attic like a neon sign saying, "Shoot Here!"
They had done everything wrong, but somehow they were still alive. Man. Sometimes it just worked that way.
"All of us are gathering at the Richardsons' place," he said. "Their basement is completely protected. It's too small for everyone to stay there, but it'll do until Creed and I get something figured out."
"F-figured out? Call the cops! That's what you do!"
"The phones are out. No electricity, either. We're stranded. As he spoke he looked around, trying to see if there was anything useful up here that she could use as a crutch. Nada. He'd have to think of something, but first things first. "Okay, we need to get out of this attic; there's no protection up here. Angelina needs to put on some warm clothes and some shoes - "
"I can't walk," Gena said. "I've tried."
"Do you have an Ace bandage I can wrap around the ankle for support? I'll find something you can use as a crutch, but you have to walk. You don't have a choice. It'll hurt like hell, but you have to do it." He kept his gaze steady on hers, telling her without words how dire the situation was.
"Ace bandage? Ah... I think so. In the bathroom."