Saint/Sinner (15 page)

It was harder
to climb out of the basement than it had been to climb in, but if some squatters had already done it multiple times, she told herself, there was no reason she couldn’t, too. Of course, those squatters didn’t have to keep looking over their shoulder to make sure armed gunmen didn’t storm inside and murder them.

She used the sofa as a stepping stone and stretched up enough to grab the sides of the window and pull herself up. She deposited herself back on slightly damp earth at the same time Apollo was pushing his way back through the two bushes that had hidden the window. The dog sat down on his haunches in front of her.

“Anything?” she whispered to him.

In lieu of a response, Apollo turned around and continued to stand at attention.

She pulled the gun out of from behind her back and glanced into the basement to make sure it was still empty, that no one had rushed inside while she wasn’t looking. It bothered her there was no one outside the window waiting for her. She’d expected to be shot regardless of which direction she went—back into the house or out the window. Except there was nothing waiting for her besides Apollo.

This can’t be right.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out how she had gotten into the basement. She should have had to shoot her way out, but as she looked around at the darkened back of the house, there were no signs of men in suits, not even the one she’d seen at the front of the house.

Maybe they’re out of fresh bodies. Or maybe I just don’t rate as important to them.

That thought led her to the obvious:

Walter. They’re here for Walter. Why waste more men chasing a woman with a gun outside the house, when their prize is
inside?

Dammit, Walter, what does everyone want with you?

Apollo’s head snapped left at the same time she heard voices coming from the back patio. The speaker was too far in the house for her to make out words, but there was, like last time, just one person talking.

The tall guy. Maybe he was even on the phone again.

“What’s he saying, boy?” she whispered.

Apollo must not have found the man interesting or dangerous, because he turned back to her, looking almost bored. She reached over and scratched his head, and was running her hand through his fur when she felt something sticky. Blood. She leaned in closer, saw the fresh red splashes among Apollo’s white coat.

“You’re hurt…”

Apollo leaned over and brushed his head against her leg.

“Where’d he get you, boy?”

She checked him for wounds, pushing at the strands of fur until she found a sharp cut on his left shoulder. It was a bullet graze, enough to draw blood, but not enough to keep Apollo down for the count. If the dog was hurting, he didn’t show it. She wondered if he even knew he was bleeding. Maybe, like her, he was still pumped full of adrenaline.

“Gotta get you to a vet. They’ll fix you right up.”

She put the gun down and scratched him under the chin while simultaneously rubbing his head. He leaned in closer and let out a soft whine to let her know he approved of the extra attention.

“I’d send you back to Lucy, but you’re probably too stubborn to go.”

He blinked at her, brown eyes glinting in the moonlight.

“Like owner, like dog,” she smiled.

*

She circled the
back of the house the same way she had approached it earlier: with Apollo next to her, and sticking to the shadows. Her instincts were to run into the woods and make her way back to Lucy, but she couldn’t leave.

Not yet, not with Walter still inside the house.

She rounded the building until she was along the side. She stopped, pressing her back against the brick exterior, and leaned around the corner to scan the front yard. The two SUVs and Walter’s Mercedes were where she’d last seen them, and the extra man in the suit she’d seen earlier was nowhere to be found.

She looked down at Apollo, standing calmly next to her. “Anything?”

He glanced up at her in silence, before returning his gaze to the front yard.

“You’d tell me if you sensed something, right?”

He snapped at a mosquito that flew too close for comfort.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She turned the corner and, bent low at the waist, moved along the front of the house with the Sig Sauer clutched at the ready. The first security bars she passed were the ones over the master bedroom. No one had bothered to turn on the lights inside, and when she stopped to listen, couldn’t hear anything from within.

The next window was the second guest bedroom, where Jack had taken Walter. If her boyfriend was still alive, he’d be in there right now doing whatever it was Jack wanted from him in the first place. Jack, and now these men in suits.

What do they want from you, Walter?

There was only one way to find out…

She moved under the windowsill, spending another few seconds making sure there wasn’t anyone hiding behind the SUVs or coming out of the front door before raising up and looking past the metal bars through a small sliver in the curtains, then into the guest bedroom. There wasn’t a whole lot of space to see inside—barely half an inch—but it was just enough.

Jack, on the floor. His face was covered in blood and his eyes looked puffy, as if he’d gotten himself involved in a fistfight and lost badly. Jack was looking across the room at something, and she had to adjust her position to see what he was staring at—

Walter?

He was leaning against the wall, with white gauze wrapped around his head. Blood was seeping through the material around his left ear where he had been injured, but Allie couldn’t tell how grievous the wound was underneath the bandage. If the trail of blood (still drying along his cheek) that had dripped over the collars and parts of his shirt were any indication, the injury was bad enough that Walter had bled for a while afterward.

Jesus, Walter, what did they do to you?

There was something else about Walter that wasn’t right.
He was armed.
He didn’t just have a rifle
(That looks familiar…)
slung over his shoulder; there was also a gun in his hand, and he was pointing it at—

Jack raised his hand, shouted, “Wait! Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Walter said.

“You don’t want to do this,” Jack was saying, even as he started to get up, using the wall as a brace, because his feet looked wobbly. “Once you pull that trigger, there’s no turning back, Walter. That’s it; it’s permanently etched into your brain. Trust me, I know what it’s like. You think you can just forget about tonight after this? You’re lying to yourself. It’s going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Walter said something in reply, but she was too busy focusing on his hand as he tightened his finger on the trigger.
Walter was going to shoot Jack.

“Walter!”

His name burst out of her before she even knew what she was doing. Maybe it was the shock of seeing Walter with a gun, or seeing him
about to shoot someone
that made her stand up and shout out his name, at the same time exposing herself.

But Walter was already squeezing the trigger, and he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to.

Bang!
as his gun discharged, and the round hit the wall above Jack’s head—barely two inches from its intended target. Jack flinched and threw himself to the floor face-first.

Walter spun around and his eyes went wide at the sight of her.

Then Jack was on his feet and running toward the window—toward her. She didn’t understand what he was doing. How did he think he was going to get past the burglar bars? Or maybe he just didn’t have any choice, because on the other side was Walter—

Bang!

Jack stumbled and collapsed, revealing Walter across the room, the gun still gripped tightly in his hand.

How did it
go so wrong?

The thought raced through Walter’s brain as he looked at Allie, standing on the other side of the window with shock all over her face as she stared back at him through the small break in the curtains.

Then Jack was on his feet and diving toward the window, as if he could make his escape that way. How exactly was he going to get through the bars, Walter wanted to ask him. Jack bled the entire time, blood splattering the carpet as he ran for all he was worth.

It wasn’t quite fast enough, as it turned out, and Walter shot the gunman in the back without thinking, which was for the best, because trying to shoot him the first time (and missing) had involved too much doubt and second-guessing. Walter hadn’t come here to kill someone; he hadn’t wanted
anyone
to get hurt, but there had been no choice with Jack. Even as he took aim and squeezed the trigger, he thought he was going to vomit.

After Jack collapsed in front of the window, Walter quickly lowered his gun hand and took a step toward Allie, saying, “Allie, wait—” when the door behind him crashed open. A man in a suit ran inside and tackled him, and they went sprawling to the floor.

No, no, Allie! Let me explain! Allie!

Walter lost his grip on the gun and grunted with pain, slamming into the carpet, the rifle slung over his back digging into his flesh. The man was bigger, stronger, and he scrambled up first, straddling Walter’s chest and pinning him to the floor with his weight. Walter struggled, but it was like trying to push off a boulder.

The guy produced a gun and shoved it against Walter’s forehead. “Move and I blow your brains out,” the man said, his face contorted, ugly, and flushed red.

Walter didn’t think the man would actually blow his brains out, but the guy might not know who he was. For all he knew, the man might think he was Jack, and to go through all this only to get shot by accident wasn’t something he was willing to risk, so Walter lowered his hands and sighed.

“Smart,” the guy said. He removed Walter’s gun and stood up.

A second figure—taller than the first, and thinner—appeared in the open doorframe and walked over. Walter lay still, too tired to get up. He spent the next few seconds processing how to proceed.

The tall man crouched next to him. “Walter, I’m Monroe. We talked on the phone? The handsome guy over there is Barnes.”

“That’s Walter?” the man named Barnes said.

Monroe produced his cell phone and showed it to Walter. His employee picture was on the screen. “Yup.”

“Shit, I almost blew his head off,” Barnes said.

Monroe chuckled. “Good thing you didn’t.”

“Close call…”

“Good help is hard to find,” Monroe said, smiling down at Walter. Then he stood up and extended his hand. Walter grabbed it and let the man pull him up. “We heard two shots, thought you were in trouble,” Monroe said. “Sorry about the door.”

Walter looked over at the window, but Allie was gone.

Of course she was gone. She’d seen him murder Jack right before her eyes. He’d run too if the woman he was dating did that. There was no telling how long she’d been standing out there before he noticed her. How much had she heard?

“What happened to your head?” Monroe was saying.

Walter nodded at Jack’s body.

“What’d he do, tune you up?” Monroe asked.

“He sliced off half of my left ear.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

Just mentioning the ear made it tingle, and he touched the bandage over it, grimacing from the contact. It had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt—even more so when he paid attention to it. There had been surprisingly little blood after Walter first cut off the piece, but the pain had been unbelievable. He had screamed and, at one point, cried like a child. He would have been ashamed of it if Lucy and Allie had seen or heard him, but thank God they weren’t at the house when Jack decided to “incentivize” him into working.

Walter focused back on the window. “She was outside…”

“Who?” Monroe asked.

“Allie.”

“Your girlfriend,” Monroe said. He flicked at his cell phone’s screen with his forefinger and showed Allie’s employee picture to Walter. “She was inside the house, too.”

Walter stared disbelieving at him.

Allie?
Inside
the house earlier? But wasn’t that when it sounded like all hell was breaking loose?

“Inside?” Walter said. “When was Allie inside?”

“The shooting earlier. That was her. She and the dog popped out of the basement. Killed two of my guys before they ran off.”

“
Allie
killed two of your guys?”

Monroe nodded and narrowed his eyes at him. “You didn’t know she was capable of something like that?”

“Allie’s a secretary…”

“Maybe, but the woman I saw back there knew how to handle a gun. Shot one of my guys point-blank while he was trying to zip up his pants, if you can believe it, then shot another one when he chased her into the basement.”

“You let her go?”

Monroe jerked a thumb at Barnes. “I’m all out of fresh bodies, except for that guy. She could stay down in the basement the entire night, for all I care. You were always the priority, even more so now after our little chat. But it looked like she climbed out, snuck around the house.” He looked almost impressed when he added, “That’s a hell of a woman you got there, Walt.”