Wilkes watched Dubois leave the room. The girl listened until his footsteps receded down the stairs, then crept from the bed and grabbed a hardcover book from the almost-empty bookcase. She propped the book against the door and went back to bed. If Dubois returned and found the door shut tight, he’d know she was suspicious and back off to try something else. If she left the door cracked open, he’d assume she’d bought his story and try again…only to knock over the book and alert her.
Wilkes allowed it was clever enough, but the agent was an idiot-easy to fool.
He pulled back from the probe eyepiece and swiveled his neck, working out the kinks. Then he stood, as much as he could stand in the low-roofed attic, and stretched his legs. Getting too old for this…but it wouldn’t be much longer now.
As he moved, pain shot through his side. The wounds from Jack’s bullets. One had been little more than a graze, the other going straight through muscle. Neither critical. He’d get them checked out soon enough, but in the meantime, they were slowing him down, something he didn’t need. If not for those wounds, he wouldn’t even be here-he’d have taken the girl down in that alley yesterday. Jack’s fault. But he’d pay for it soon enough.
He looked across the room at the small attic dormer window and resisted the urge to slide over and look out. He knew he wouldn’t see Jack. But he was out there, watching the house, making sure their girl stayed safe.
For the hundredth time in the last few hours, he wished it was Jack down there instead of the girl. Not only could he have paid him back for that fiasco in Vegas, but killing Jack would stick it to Evelyn in the only place that cold bitch would ever feel it. But, if he couldn’t kill Jack, then perhaps, as revenge went, this wasn’t such a poor substitute.
He’d seen the way Jack had looked at the girl in the opera house. At the time he’d chalked it up to good acting, but now he preferred to believe otherwise. Jack didn’t take partners. Wouldn’t even work with him when Evelyn had suggested it. But now that had changed, and he wasn’t just working alongside someone, but taking her everywhere, keeping her close, trusting her to watch his back. And that someone was an attractive younger woman. That was significant. It had to be. And if it was, then killing this girl just might hurt Jack more than any bullet.
Kill the girl. Hurt Jack. Maybe even sting Evelyn a little, robbing her of a new prize pupil at an age when she wasn’t likely to see many more.
He wanted to be there when they realized they’d lost her. Not just lost her, sacrificed her. He’d tried to tell himself that he would never have fallen for their scheme, that even if he hadn’t recognized the girl, he wouldn’t have slid into the trap. But in all honesty, he wasn’t so sure. It was a clever ruse. Evelyn had always been so damned clever, so quick to rub it in. Now she’d see she wasn’t the only one.
When he’d arrived, after following Dubois from the press conference, he’d lamented his lack of supplies. He hadn’t been prepared for this, and had to make do with the few things he’d had hidden in his rental car, all designed to kill one person. He had no idea how many people were in there. Was it just the girl and the one FBI agent? Or had Evelyn cut a deal with the Feds, meaning there’d be a house full of them? Or were Evelyn and Jack themselves in there, waiting for him? He wasn’t stupid enough to sneak down and find out, not when he had the perfect perch.
A bomb would have been ideal. Blow the whole house up. Then it wouldn’t matter how many Feds were guarding the girl. But all he had was a tiny thing that wouldn’t do any good unless he put it right under her bed, and the explosion would have the Feds locking down the place in seconds. Then, while he’d been waiting, he’d slipped into the empty house next door, up to the attic and with a bit of work on some rotted boards, slipped through to the adjoining one. And there he’d found the answer to his prayers: the access door that led into the walk-in closet of the master suite…a master suite with a gas fireplace.
He checked his watch. Twelve minutes to go. Time to find himself a good, safe spot to watch the fireworks.
FIFTY-ONE
For five minutes after Dubois left, I lay in bed waiting for his return. Then I sat up. I knew I needed to give it longer than that-he’d be waiting for me to fall back to sleep before returning-but something was niggling at the back of my brain, pestering me to get up.
I checked the clock. Still seven minutes before Jack or Quinn would wake me. Maybe that was it-like waking just before the alarm goes off, wanting to grab a few more minutes but unable to squelch that inner clock saying it was time to get up.
I reached for my radio to call them and say I was up. As I swung my legs over the bedside, the smell hit me. Faint…but familiar. A memory flash. I’d been eight. Brad and my mother had gone out, and I’d wanted to cook dinner for my dad. That was the only time I’d ever heard my father yell at my mother, when he’d come home, and found me alone…passed out on the floor because I’d forgotten to turn off the gas after making his meal.
I leapt to my feet so fast I tripped and nearly dropped my gun. I recovered, and raced out the door. So this was Wilkes’s plan-knock everyone unconscious and make easy work of the killings.
As I hit the hall, I heard the hiss of gas, not from downstairs, but from a bedroom. The gas fireplace in the master suite. I started to run, then checked myself. It could be a trap.
I lifted my gun then looked down at it and froze. Fire into a room full of gas?
I stuffed the gun into my holster, so I’d have both hands free…and so I wouldn’t instinctively fire if I saw Wilkes. As I holstered the gun, I thought of the radio. I’d left it in the room, running on instinct and thinking only of my gun. I considered going back, but that steady hiss of gas changed my mind. Shut that off first, then worry about the radio.
I stopped before reaching the doorway, and let my eyes adjust to the near dark as I listened. The hiss of gas from within covered any sounds, but that would work both ways. I reached into my pocket and made sure I had my penlight handy. Then I peered around the doorway.
The room was empty. In a sweep, I took in every place a man Wilkes’s size could hide. Dresser-too low. Bed-see-through iron headboard. The closet. It would have to be the closet. As I slunk along the wall, I paused to take out my penlight. Then I moved alongside the door.
Empty hangers clinked as I swung the door open. A walk-in closet. Empty except for a forlorn handful of hangers and a couple of plastic storage containers. The storage containers were stacked in the middle of the large closet. I looked up to see an attic access hatch above that stack. Was that how he’d come in? Shit!
I backpedaled out of the closet. My gaze flew to the hissing fireplace. Get that turned off first, then-
I took one step and froze. There, at the base of the fireplace, was a little box. On the box, a timer, a simple windup timer. And it was about to go off.
Dubois! I had to get to him-
No time!
“Dubois!” I screamed. “Get out!”
I grabbed the nearest thing, a brass planter with a fake tree. I seized the thin trunk with both hands, and swung the planter at the window. It flew through the glass, the planter sailing free into the backyard.
One brusque sweep with the tree to clear the glass from the sill. Then I threw it aside.
“Dubois!” I screamed, voice cracking.
I backed up and took a run at the window. Grabbed the sill-vaulted through-a whoosh behind me-searing pain-a smack like an airbag going off-the force of explosion propelling me out the window-ground flying up to meet me-darkness.
I came to with a jolt, my limbs flailing as if I was still falling. I tried pushing myself up. A sudden “Oh, my God!” wave of pain, and I fell face-first to the grass again.