Alone together.
She watched as one of Dante’s chest hairs wrapped itself around her index finger. “Did you dream last night?”
“No.”
“Do you usually dream?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you remember your dreams?”
He exhaled. “What?”
His voice sounded sleepy. Exhausted.
The corner of her mouth curved up. She ought to let him rest. He had, after all, put in a full day.
But she didn’t. “At night when you dream, do you remember?”
She felt him shift as he canted his head to look down at her. “Only the awful ones.”
She tilted her own face to look up at him. “Awful ones? Like nightmares?”
He laid his head back down with a thump. “No, mostly bad memories. Ones that replay themselves in my mind over and over.”
She tapped her finger against his chest. “Sounds like nightmares to me.”
“Well, they don’t involve purple monsters.”
She watched her fingers trace his right nipple. “Do you dream about being shot?”
He stilled.
She didn’t look up at him. “That’s the scar from where you were shot, isn’t it? The round one on your back.”
He sighed. “Yeah, it is. But I don’t usually dream about that.”
“You don’t?”
“It wasn’t such a big deal.”
Zoey thought about that for a moment. Getting shot sure sounded like a big deal to her. She didn’t like to think about him hurt. Bleeding and wounded. In the hospital. Who had come to visit him during that time? Who had cared for him?
She pushed the thought aside and asked, “How long ago did it happen?”
“Six months.”
She drew in her breath and raised herself onto an elbow. “You were shot only six months ago?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“You could’ve died!”
“It wasn’t—”
“If you had died six months ago I would’ve never have known you, Dante. We would never have met.”
He stared at her, a little puzzled.
“Don’t you get it? We would never have met!” And she punched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Ow.” He pulled her down to his shoulder again. “But I didn’t die, and we did meet. There’s nothing to get upset about.”
This was such a guy statement that Zoey had no words for a moment. “It would’ve been terrible if we’d never met.”
He kissed her, slowly and thoroughly. “But we did.”
She sighed. It had been a nice kiss. “What bad memories?”
“Huh?”
“You said you dreamed about bad memories sometimes.”
“Oh. Cases that didn’t go well. Bad guys that got away.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought any bad guy could get away from you.”
He snorted. “You’d be surprised. Sometimes we know who did the crime but we have no evidence. Or sometimes we think we have a case locked up and the witness refuses to testify.”
She let that comment lie. “I dream of flying.”
She felt him look at her. “Like Superman? Or do you have wings?”
“No wings, but I’m not Superman.” She thought a moment. “I just think really hard about flying, and then I do.”
“Huh.” He was silent a moment. “I always figured it would be harder than that.”
“Really?” She twisted to look up at him. He was frowning like flying in your dreams was a deep problem. “How would you fly?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think it would involve a lot of work and probably wings. Even Superman has a cape.”
“Superman doesn’t need his cape to fly.”
“Yes, he does.”
“No! Duh! His cape doesn’t give him magical powers.”
“Then why does he wear it?”
“Because it looks cool.”
“Huh. So, you’re saying that blue tights, a red Speedo, and a red cape are cool.”
Zoey squinted. “I didn’t say that—”
“You said the cape was cool.”
“Ye-es, but I didn’t mention the rest.”
They were silent a moment, maybe contemplating red Speedos. Pete grunted and rolled over.
Dante cleared his throat. “So, you’re saying if I wore a red cape and nothing else—?”
“Oh, yeah.” No question there. Zoey closed her eyes, happily drawing the picture in her mind. In her picture, he was wearing the red boots, too, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Good to know,” he murmured and yawned.
She yawned, too, in reaction. “And in my dreams, when I’m flying without a cape or wings?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I may be invisible, too.”
His lips brushed her forehead. “Go to sleep.”
Sunday, 6:54 a.m.
T
he smell of vanilla-scented warmth was the first thing Dante was aware of when he came slowly awake the next morning. The fire had died to glowing embers and the room was mostly dark, the winter sun not yet up. He buried his nose into the delicate curve where Zoey’s shoulder flowed into her neck, content just to lie still. Sometime during the night, Pete had woken and Zoey had taken the baby into their pallet. Now she lay with her arm curled around the baby, both breathing in soft unison. Dante watched them. His chest tightened almost painfully as he looked at Zoey’s strawberries and cream skin. Pete’s dark curls, lying against her arm, were in stark contrast. He realized all at once that if they had a child together she might have the same coloring as Pete. His dark skin and hair against—
Thud.
Somewhere at the back of the house something fell. Dante raised his head. It might be snow falling from the roof, or it might be—
A muffled crunch.
He rolled naked from the sleeping bag in one swift, adrenaline-induced surge. His holstered gun was on the mantelpiece, and he strode over to get it.
“Dante?” Zoey blinked sleepily from the pallet.
He drew the gun from the holster, its weight bringing a fierce calm. He looked at Zoey. “Take the baby upstairs and find a place to barricade yourself in. Don’t come out until I tell you to.”
She didn’t argue, didn’t say a word, merely scooped up Pete and ran to the stairs.
Zoey was three-fourths of the way up the stairs when the gunman rounded the corner from the pantry. The bastard was all in black, wearing night-vision goggles and carrying a fucking automatic. Dante squeezed off two rounds in the guy’s direction before diving behind the sofa. The automatic weapon chattered to life, spraying the back of the couch. Dante cowered, flinching involuntarily from the stuttering shots, feeling a sting at his side.
If he stayed here it was only a matter of time before the shooter got lucky or his backup arrived or both. Dante didn’t have much choice. He belly-crawled swiftly to the end of the sofa and made himself roll into the open. He’d gambled, but it paid off. The gunman was still focused on the other end of the couch, and in the split second it took him to adjust his sight, Dante popped him twice in the head. The gunman fell backward, his weapon inscribing an arc of bullet holes into the ceiling. Then it fell silent.
Dante lay still a second, waiting to see if another gunman would reveal himself. His breath was harsh in his ears, and his side burned.
No one appeared.
He levered himself from the floor and ran to the guy he’d hit. The gunman had been a blond man, his hair shaved militarily short. There was a bullet hole below one eye and a chunk of forehead missing. Definitely down. The dead man had an earpiece in one ear with an attached receiver. Dante knelt and took it out, holding it to his own ear. He heard the hiss of dead air, but nothing else. He tapped the receiver. Immediately, a single tap came back, confirming that there was at least one other attacker out there.
Dante glided to the window over the kitchen sink, the Glock held in both fists pointed at the floor. It was still dark, but the window was big and looked out over a field in back of the cabin. He waited, breathing in and out softly, straining to hear anything.
Nothing moved.
After a few minutes, he checked in the pantry and saw the broken pane in the single window, high on the wall. He shut the door to the pantry and shoved a chair beneath the doorknob. It wouldn’t stop an intruder, but the sound of the chair falling would alert him if anyone else came in that way.
Next he went to the windows in the breakfast nook and paused, checking there. It wasn’t until he went to the windows by the front door that he hit pay dirt. He could just make out a SUV parked near the road. The truck was big, but it didn’t have the sharp corners of the Mercedes-Benz from yesterday.
They hadn’t been able to get in the drive because of the snow. The drive was maybe fifty feet long, with a handful of tall evergreens lining one side, their branches and shadows merging into one black mass in the still-dark morning. The SUV was almost completely concealed beneath the branches of an evergreen near the end of the drive. Dante stared, his eyes straining to pierce the dark. A single shadow was moving toward the house rapidly, ducking from tree to tree. Dante inhaled and flattened himself to the side of the window, watching. To his right was the window, to his left the front door.
The second gunman made the front of the house and kept coming straight for the door. Dante dropped his gaze to the locked doorknob. It was a pretty brass thing but hardly effective. He watched, fascinated as the doorknob jiggled and something snapped. The door opened. The second gunman stepped inside. He wore camouflage and a bulletproof combat vest.
Dante laid his Glock against the side of the man’s head. “Don’t move.”
The man whirled. Dante fired, but the guy didn’t drop.
Shit.
Dante grabbed the barrel of the automatic the guy held and shoved it to the side, just as the intruder started squeezing off rounds. Gunshots blasted across the room.
Something shattered.
Then Dante yanked hard and pulled the automatic from the other man’s grasp, throwing it across the room. The intruder spun, kicking him in his injured thigh. Shards of pain spun against Dante’s vision. He fired the Glock again, but the shot went wide. The intruder slammed a fist against Dante’s wrist and he dropped the gun. Then the other guy was on him, pummeling with gloved hands. Dante fell back, spinning against the wall near the door. If he went down, if the other guy won, there would be nothing between the assassin and Zoey. Zoey would be killed.
He couldn’t lose.
He caught a swinging arm and drew the other guy toward him. Then they were both tumbling out the door and into the frosty early morning air. Dante hit the ground, his shoulders instantly numbed by the snow, and rolled. A fist slammed into the snow where he’d lain. Dante drew back his own fist and hit the guy hard in the neck. He was at an extreme disadvantage here, naked and weaponless against an armored assailant. Dante bunched his fist and hit again, but his blow glanced off the other man’s shoulder as the gunman rolled.
The attacker elbowed him in the belly, and the air whooshed from Dante’s lungs. All at once the attacker was on him, an arm under Dante’s chin, pressing his whole weight down on Dante’s windpipe. Dante gasped, grappling for the guy’s face, his eyes, his nostrils, anything. But the man arched his head away and Dante’s fingers slipped off. His back was ice-cold, burning from the snow. His ass was numb. He saw stars that weren’t there.
He could not lose.
Dante reached for the guy’s face with his left hand, at the same time punching him under the arm. The attacker grunted, but his hold didn’t loosen. Dante’s lungs were aching, dry and icy cold. His vision was going black around the edges. Dante slid his right hand along the other man’s side, feeling, searching. He could hear himself making odd grunting noises. If it wasn’t there, if he couldn’t find it, he was screwed.
Zoey was screwed.
Then his fingers felt what he needed. Dante wrapped his hand around the other man’s knife and withdrew it from the vest’s sheath. He brought it down hard into that vulnerable area just above the vest, put the strength of his arm into the blow, and drove the hunting knife into the other man’s neck.
The attacker slumped against Dante, his body heavy and lifeless. Hot blood splattered against Dante’s chest. He gasped, his throat aching as he inhaled. Then he pushed the other man off him and staggered upright.
Dante looked down. The snow was trampled where they’d fought, and droplets of scarlet blood, crystallized against the white, stood out clearly. His opponent was still, his eyes wide open and staring into nothing. Dante swallowed. The other man’s eyes had been blue and he looked young. Maybe he had been young, but not anymore. Now he wasn’t anything but dead.
Dante was suddenly conscious that his bare feet were burning. He limped to the house, his arm held against his aching side.
To the east, dawn was just beginning to light the sky.
Sunday, 7:40 a.m.
T
here hadn’t been any gunshots for about fifteen minutes. At least she thought it was about fifteen minutes. Zoey glanced around the posh bathroom. No clocks.
She and Pete sat in an enormous Jacuzzi bathtub in the corner of the bathroom, the highest point of the cabin, as far as she could make out. The bathroom walls were redwood, the sink, toilet, and floor tiles a mottled stone color that probably cost a fortune. Behind her and Pete, the windows over the Jacuzzi soared into a vaulted ceiling. The windows faced east and were just brightening with day. It was probably the fanciest bathroom she’d ever been in, and she didn’t want to die here.
Pete squirmed in her arms. The baby had waked with the first gunshot and had whimpered for a bit before quieting. Thank God. Zoey strained to listen in the silence. She hoped, she really hoped, that the gunmen didn’t get past Dante. Because if they did, all she had for defense was a toilet plunger. Probably the red rubber wouldn’t stop bullets.
Pete scrunched up her face and whimpered.
“Shhh, sweetie,” Zoey whispered. “Let’s stay still. Maybe we can take a nap here together.”
But Pete wasn’t going for that silly idea. She arched her back and cried.
“Shhh! Shhh!” Zoey hissed desperately.
The baby squirmed, pushing her hands against Zoey’s chest, hitting her painfully in the breast.
“Petey—”