Xo (Kathryn Dance 3)

Two.

Then two and two more.

Edwin, no! My God! ...

He wiped his hand on his slacks and took the pistol again.

Now!

But no shots sounded.

Another minute passed, silence except for the televised crowd and baseball game announcer on the TV.

What was going on? Sweat on Simesky's brow.

And then at last: gunfire from outside.

A half dozen shots. The snapping clatter of a firefight, small arms.

Shit, Simesky thought. What's this about? He considered his plan and how the rattle of weapons might fit into it. Had there been another deputy on the scene who'd gotten here earlier? Or had a local cop happened by and noticed a woman with a weapon or a hog-tied Edwin Sharp?

Now, all was silent.

Act your plan ...

Simesky, thinking: Sometimes you couldn't, though. Sometimes you needed to improvise. But to do that, you needed facts.

Only there were no facts.

He decided to go ahead anyway. The three in the room would be focused on what was happening outside the windows, staying down, staying silent.

Two, two and two ... Kill Raymond when he walked inside, if he was still alive. Then clean up as best he could. Too bad about Myra; he assumed she was gone.

But there were larger issues at stake.

Simesky gripped the gun firmly, slipped the safety lever forward and took a deep breath. He turned fast and stepped through the arched doorway into the living room, aiming at where Harutyun and Dance had been--the most immediate threats. He was adding poundage to the trigger, when he froze.

The room was empty.

The alarm pad was blinking green. Someone had disarmed the system so Davis, Dance and Harutyun could leave silently. What the hell was this? He walked further into the room. And then he saw the side window was up. That's how they'd escaped.

Simesky noticed too in the middle of the floor a pad of yellow paper. On it was scrawled a message: Plot against your life Simesky involved Myra too Maybe others We leave NOW Side window NOW

Oh, no ...

Who? he thought.

But then realized: Why even ask? Kathryn Dance, of course.

A fucking liberal soccer mom from a small town had outthought him and the Keyholders.

How she'd done this was beyond a mystery to him. But she had. She'd probably texted for backup and alerted Raymond, who'd fired on Myra when she got out of the car and presented a threat.

And could--

He heard a man's voice from behind him, Dennis Harutyun's. "Simesky, drop the weapon and raise your hands over your head."

The deputy would have snuck through the back door. Dance probably was covering the front.