Airtight by David Rosenfelt

locked and decided he wanted to wait for me inside. Climbing through a window would have been completely out of character for him, but with what he’d been going through, his behavior might be tending towards the unusual.
    I went around to the back of the house. There was a ladder there; I hadn’t put it away after a visit by the satellite TV guy. I looked in through the window, and didn’t see anyone inside, so I placed the ladder against the house, as gently as I could.
    I climbed up to a window in a guest bedroom, since I knew the lock on it was broken. If you’re going to break into a house, it’s easier if it’s the one you live in, since you know the nuances.
    It was difficult climbing up to the window and then through it with my gun drawn, but the potentially most dangerous part of this operation was when I physically went through the window. The truth was that if there was somebody waiting for me there with a gun, having my own gun drawn would be of little help. Of course, if it was Bryan, having my gun drawn would make me feel like an idiot.
    I got into the room undetected, and made my way out to the hallway, and then to the top of the steps. There was a light on in the den, which was just to the left off the stairs, but I could have left it that way. I’d know soon enough.
    Having the high ground in battle is almost always an advantage, one of the exceptions being when the battlefield is a house in Paterson, New Jersey. If there were people down there, they could have been in a number of places, pointing their weapons at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for my convenient arrival.
    I edged towards the outside wall of the den, then quickly moved in, gun in firing position. There was a man sitting on the couch; he wasn’t Bryan, and he wasn’t anyone I had seen before. The other thing he wasn’t, even though he was staring at my gun, was worried.
    “You noticed the window I left open. Not bad … I was testing you.”
    I kept the gun pointed. “Who the hell are you?”
    “Chris Gallagher. You killed my brother.”
    “The Marine,” I said.
    He nodded. “The Marine.”
    I lowered the gun, but still held it in my hand. Gallagher was far enough away from me that I’d have time to raise it and fire if he made a move. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “Think what you want.”
    “Steven never hurt anyone in his life, except himself.”
    “His clothes were hidden in his closet with Judge Brennan’s blood all over them; they matched the DNA. He had a gun and raised it to shoot me when we came in. Maybe you didn’t know your brother as well as you think.”
    “You got a brother Bryan, right?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “You know him pretty well?”
    “I do,” I said, not liking where this was going.
    “Heard from him today?”

 
    Chris Gallagher described the situation calmly, without apparent emotion.
    If that approach was to worry his audience, in this case me, it worked really well. His words reflected the fact that he was in total control, but his manner drove it home even more forcefully.
    “I was here last night, looking for you. Your brother was on the porch; wrong time, wrong place. Not that it matters, but there’s a certain justice to it, don’t you think?”
    “I don’t. Bryan has nothing to do with this.”
    “And my brother had nothing to do with Brennan. But you made sure he’ll never have his day in court, so the world can always think he’s a murderer.”
    “I didn’t want to shoot your brother. I wanted to talk to him, to question him and, if the facts warranted it, to arrest him. He made that impossible, and I’m sorry about that. I was sorry about it before you came here.”
    If I was getting through to him, he was hiding it well. “You’re full of shit.”
    “Where’s Bryan?” I asked.
    “In major trouble.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “He’s in an underground room, with no way out. Plenty of food and water, and a seven-day air