When she was done, she scratched him on the head and smiled. “Okay.”
He got up and walked, this time with less of a noticeable limp, back to the couch and hopped onto it, floppy ears immediately going back up on full alert.
“Thank God for Apollo,” Lucy said.
“Come on,” Allie said, and led her to the adjoining back hallway, the one with the basement at the end.
“Oh wow,” Lucy said when she saw the destruction in the passageway, the result of two thirty-round magazines unleashing into the wall and floor and ceiling at close range. It made her harrowing escape back at the two-story house seem almost quaint by comparison.
“Yeah,” Allie said.
“What happened here?”
“An Uzi.”
She took Lucy into the bathroom, where the big man she had shot earlier still lay on the floor, staring up at the bright lights. While Lucy watched, strangely expressionless, Allie dragged the body by the legs over to a corner.
“You’ll be safe in here,” she told the teenager. “Lock the door, and if there’s shooting, go into the bathtub and lie down.”
“The bathtub?” Lucy said doubtfully.
“Trust me.”
“I do.”
“Good.”
Allie kissed her on the forehead. It was, she realized, the first time they’d actually shared such an intimate moment. Lucy hugged her back and didn’t let go, until Allie had to pry her off.
“Be careful,” Lucy said.
“I will,” she said, and smiled at the girl.
Lucy returned it, and this time there was nothing forced about her response.
Well, Walter, you said you wanted me to bond with your daughter. I guess this means mission accomplished.
Lucy stepped back, careful to avoid the puddles of blood, and closed the door between them. A few seconds later, the sound of the lock sliding into place on the other side.
She turned to Apollo. “You hear anything yet?”
The dog seemed to consider the question for a moment before looking away.
“Keep your ears open, because they’re definitely coming.”
She unslung the rifle and pulled out the Kalashnikov’s banana-shaped magazine. She hadn’t fired a shot yet, and it was still full. She patted the spares in her back pockets, hoping she wouldn’t need them, but knowing she probably would. She had no delusions that Dan was going to take off and leave them be. He had every reason to come after them — after Lucy. Forty million reasons.
She should have been scared, and the fear should have forced her to abandon the house for the wide-open woods outside, but she wasn’t, and it didn’t.
Damn you, Dan. Damn you and Walter.
She was angry. She didn’t fully understand what she was feeling until now.
She was mad. No, more than that, she was pissed.
Come on then. You want Lucy? You want me? Come and get us, you bastard.
She looked around her, at the living room on one side, then at the door that led into the basement behind her. There was a reason she’d chosen this hallway and not the bigger one to her left. That one had three bedrooms and three possible points of entry. She couldn’t hope to cover all of them at once, and the idea of the burglar bars stopping Dan’s people if they wanted to come in that way was laughable.
Besides, walking back and forth across the debris-strewn floor of the house had given her an idea of how to even the odds…
Chapter 23
“Allie!”
Even when she could only hear his voice, Allie felt the smugness coming through. It was hard to reconcile this Dan with the one she had worked with for so long. Was this really the same man? Dan had never been the caring type, but not in her wildest dreams did she think he was capable of this.
Maybe he’s saying the exact same thing about me right now.
“We can still make a deal!” Dan shouted. “Give me the girl!” Then, when she didn’t respond, “Can you hear me in there? Didn’t fall asleep while waiting for me to show up, did you?”
She didn’t bite, because it was a trick. Dan’s voice was coming from somewhere in the front of the house, but that wasn’t what she was focused on. It didn’t take a genius to know Dan’s mercenaries weren’t going to take the obvious approach. No, they wouldn’t come through the front door, even if it wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. The back door, facing the kitchen, on the other hand…
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or disappointed you came back here!” Dan shouted. “I’m leaning toward the former! If I’d known you were this impressive, well, who knows what might have happened!”
Like hell, she thought, the very idea of being another one of his conquests making her want to vomit in her mouth. And that was even before she knew this side of him. Dan had an ideal type, but he rarely discriminated when it came to the opposite sex.
“Allie! Come on! Let’s talk!”
She had the AK-47 aimed at the back door, her body leaning slightly out from the back hallway, just enough to see the entire living room. Beams of sunlight poured through slots in the destroyed door that the long sofa she had pushed up against it couldn’t entirely block, and the curtains kept most of the windows covered.
In front of her, Apollo hadn’t left the couch; he had found it to his liking ever since they arrived at the house. Both ears were raised, and he seemed to be trying to track Dan’s voice through the walls. Every now and then he would look over at her, as if asking for permission. She would shake her head back at him, and he would stay put.
“It doesn’t have to end this way!” Dan was shouting.
No? she wanted to ask him, but didn’t, because it was pointless. She knew exactly how it was going to end, and it didn’t involve either her or Lucy giving up.
“I just want the girl! What’s she to you, anyway? You don’t even like her!”
Allie glanced over at the closed bathroom door to her left, wondering if Lucy had heard that last part. Dan had a booming voice, so it was possible.
“Hand her over, and you can walk out of here! Don’t be stupid! Remember what Walter did. You don’t owe him anything!”
No, but I owe the girl, and there’s no way in hell I’m running from the likes of you.
“Allie! I know you can hear me in there! Let’s make a deal!”
Had he gotten closer to the house? Maybe. It wasn’t like she could tell, because she had no view of the front yard. She only had eyes for the back — where all the most obvious points of entry were — and ears for everything else.
“I’m willing to give you half of Walter’s share!” A brief pause (for dramatic effect, she guessed), then, “Consider it your retirement package, courtesy of Gorman and Smith. What do you say?”
Then, when she still didn’t answer:
“We can work this out! But you have to come outside and talk to me! Let’s do this the civilized way! After all, we used to be friends, right?”
Bullshit, she thought, when Apollo suddenly whirled back toward her at almost the exact time she heard the tell-tale crack! she had been waiting for. The sound came from one of many lightbulb fragments she had spread across the darkened top landing of the basement stairs behind her, crushing underneath a heavy boot.
She dropped to the floor and rolled over onto her back, debris crunching under her, a half-second before the basement doorknob started turning and the door flew open—
She saw only darkness on the other side, but she didn’t wait to see what came out before she put half a dozen rounds into the door, aiming high, exactly where an adult-size man’s chest would be.