She forced herself to her feet. Her body felt heavy and slow, filled with a bone-deep exhaustion. All she wanted to do was get on the airplane and go back to sleep. She had no doubt she would be unconscious all the way back to Tampa. “How long was I out?” she asked, trying to stifle a yawn and mostly failing.
“Almost half an hour. That was the slowest-moving line outside of the DMV I’ve ever had the misfortune of waiting in.” Cait could see the concern still etched in Kevin’s eyes. He was trying to keep the conversation light for her benefit but was clearly worried about her and she loved him for it.
“Let’s get moving,” he said. “We have a date with two coach-class seats on the next flight out of this burg, but if we hurry, we might have enough time for a quick dinner first. Play your cards right and I might even buy you a drink.”
“Ooh, big spender,” she teased halfheartedly.
“If you’ve ever eaten in an airport restaurant, you know just how big.”
“And you’re going to spring for drinks too? What did I do to deserve this?”
“Drink, I said. Not drinks. I want you just buzzed enough to accept my advances but not so trashed you’ll fall asleep before we’re done. Again.”
Cait burst out laughing, something she wouldn’t have believed possible even ten minutes ago. “As if I could ever fall asleep with you at the controls, lover-boy.” She hooked her arm around his and he shrugged both duffel bags over his shoulder. They moved through the crowd, weaving and bobbing, making slow but steady progress through the terminal until spotting a franchise steak house.
Once again Cait thanked God for her boyfriend. She felt better already. Sure it had been a lousy day, one of the worst ever, but she was ready to put it all behind her. Things were going to be just fine.
CHAPTER 30
The neighborhood appeared bleak and deserted. Milo took his time walking toward the house. He wasn’t in any hurry, and as he meandered along the flagstone walkway he examined the homes flanking 7 Granite Circle. All of the yards were empty and so were most of the driveways, their pavement stained and discolored by leaking oil and other automotive fluids. This wasn’t the type of upscale area where the homes had garages, so it was easy to tell that most residents were at work.
All-in-all, Milo was satisfied. The area was relatively secluded, given its location in densely packed Everett. There were fewer than a dozen homes on the cul-de-sac, all probably constructed at the same time and by the same builder using a cookie-cutter approach more than a half century ago. It had the feel of a solidly blue-collar neighborhood, the kind of place where the husbands and wives both worked full-time, struggling to earn enough money to avoid falling behind on the mortgage. Milo felt there was at least a decent chance that the older lady from his visions was the only person at home in the entire fucking development.
He climbed three chipped concrete steps to the tiny landing and rang the doorbell. He had no particular plan in mind, no elaborate ruse developed with which to gain the trust of the woman. The days were long past, if they had ever existed at all in a hardscrabble neighborhood like this, when an older woman, living alone, would ever allow a young man she didn’t know into her home unless she had set up a service appointment and the man provided adequate identification, none of which was the case here, obviously.
So why waste the time and effort required to even try sweet-talking his way inside? Milo Cain believed in the straightforward approach. It had worked many times in the past and he had every confidence it would work again today.
He waited after ringing the bell. Nothing happened. He waited a little longer, tempted to ring it again, but the last thing he wanted was to frighten the woman so badly she refused even to open the door. He had visions of her retreating to her phone and calling the cops.
At last his patience was rewarded as the heavy storm door swung inward and an older, frail-looking woman regarded him suspiciously from behind her still-closed screen door. Milo recognized her instantly as the woman from his visions. “Yes?” she said, clearly not inclined to proceed any further without good reason.
Milo put what he hoped was a harmless-looking smile on his face as he pondered how to proceed. The question he faced was a simple one: Was the screen door locked or not? If it was, getting inside was going to be a problem, maybe even an impossibility. He could break the door down, it was constructed only of flimsy aluminum, but he didn’t think he could manage it quickly enough to prevent the woman from slamming the heavy storm door closed and then locking it.
But how likely was it that the screen door would even be locked? With the storm door closed and locked there would be no reason to lock the lighter screen door as well; it would accomplish nothing in terms of added safety and would be a pain in the ass for the homeowner when it came time to enter or exit. Milo tried to remember one single time his adoptive parents had locked the screen door in their home when he was growing up and could not.
He concluded it was extremely unlikely this door was locked.
All of this went through his mind in two or three seconds, but it was enough time that the woman’s demeanor changed from mild city-dweller suspicion to growing alarm. She opened her mouth as if to say something else—Milo had still not uttered a word—and then seemed to think better of it and retreated back into her house, stepping clear of the storm door and swinging it closed in his face.
So the decision was made for him. It was now or never. Milo reached out and turned the handle and pulled on the screen door and thought, open sesame, and as he had hoped, it flew open, light as a feather and about as effective, security-wise. He slipped the steel toe of his left work boot inside the door frame and the storm door rebounded like a basketball off an iron hoop, clipping the woman on the shoulder and knocking her to the floor where she fell with a surprised “Oomph!”
Milo’s smile widened and he walked into the house, stepping over the body of his host, who lay sprawled on the floor, too surprised even to scream. Yet. He nudged her clear of the doorway with his foot and eased the storm door closed, making sure to lock it behind him. “So, how are you?” he asked.
The woman came to her senses and began scuttling backward down her hallway, looking up at him with an expression of growing fear on her heavily lined face. And there was something else as well. It looked to Milo a little like resignation, as if she had been expecting his arrival but had been unsure exactly when he would show up. She moved surprisingly well for someone who appeared so frail.
She continued crab-walking backward, apparently forgetting the hallway wall was behind her. She slammed into it with a loud crash and a small handgun toppled out of the right pocket of her sweater. It dropped to the floor next to her and her eyes instantly darted up to his, the fear that had already been etched on her face morphing into all-out panic.
Milo leapt forward. The woman grabbed her gun and flicked off the safety—Milo could see it, plain as day, right on the side of the handle—but before she could bring the weapon to bear on him, he wound up like a football placekicker and booted it right out of her hand. It sailed through the air and then bounced into the living room where it disappeared. A second later, Milo heard a muffled thud as it came to rest against something hard.
The fucking bitch was going to shoot me! Milo tried to wrap his brain around the thought that this old bat could have come so close to putting a bullet in his head. He would never have seen it coming.