“Pretty crazy, right?”
This came from the woman beside me. She was in her early twenties, long blonde hair and green eyes. She didn’t look at me, only faced forward. She wore a long, white coat.
An ambulance siren chirped, and I turned back to the driveway. The police made an opening in the barricade and forced the people back so it could drive out. Its lights were off. It wasn’t in a hurry.
When I turned back, the woman was gone, replaced by a man in his late sixties fumbling with a cigarette and lighter.
I sucked in a deep breath and ducked under the yellow tape, rounded the wooden barricade, and ran toward the driveway, toward the house, toward Stella. When one of the officers shouted behind me, then another, I only ran faster. When I passed the guardhouse, I spotted another officer, this one staring at me, barking orders into the radio attached to his shoulder. I forced my legs to push harder.
I rounded three bends before the house came into view.
Black smoke streamed up from the west side. Where the white SUVs had been, two fire trucks now stood. Coils of hose ran from the tanks up into the house, through a door off to the side. The front door stood open, and people were rushing in and out—paramedics, police, officials in plain clothes. Nobody I recognized.
Standing between me and the house were three more Pittsburgh PD officers. The one in the middle shouted, “Far enough, kid! Stop right there!”
I faked left, then bolted to the right, tried to rush past him, but one of the others tackled me from the side, and the two of us tumbled to the ground. He twisted my arm around to my back, and I felt a handcuff clasp my wrist. He tried to get my other arm out from under me. I rolled, but his bulk held me down.
“Stop squirming, dammit!”
With the help of one of the other officers, he managed to tug my free arm out and pull it back, locking it behind me with the other handcuff.
He took his knee out from the small of my back and stood, tugging at my arms. “Get up.”
“I need to get in there!”
“Get up.”
They lifted me to my feet, and I tried to break free but couldn’t.
“You don’t understand, I—”
“Put him in the back of that one,” the officer on my left said, nodding toward a squad car parked near the fountain.
The first officer began dragging me toward the car.
Another cop opened the car door as we approached.
“Get Detective Brier!” I shouted. “Tell him I’m here! I need to get inside! I need—”
The first officer pushed the top of my head and tried to force me down into the car. “I don’t give a shit what you need, kid.”
“Get Detective Brier!”
A man in plainclothes standing near the front door heard me and looked up. “Who did you say?”
“Detective Brier. Tell him I’m here,” I repeated.
“And who are you?”
“Jack Thatch. He’ll know.”
The man frowned. “Put him in the car.”
And the officer did just that, slamming the door behind me.
I beat on the windows, kicking at the glass and the car doors.
They ignored me. All of them.
