* * *
ROBIN FROZE, HANDS outstretched but not yet touching Jacob. Could she have imagined what she thought she saw?
No.
Mouth dry, she whispered, “Michael.”
He swiveled toward her, going to alert just from what he’d heard in her voice.
“Someone’s outside.”
He rose soundlessly, pulled his gun and held it in a two-handed grip with the barrel pointing down. He reached her in a couple of strides. “You two upstairs.”
She picked up her son and made sure he was looking at her when she touched her finger to her lips. “Shh.”
He let out a kind of squeak and burrowed into her.
“Come with us,” she whispered.
Michael nodded.
Robin placed each foot as carefully as she could. The hall felt like a refuge until she saw the raw holes in the wallboard they hadn’t yet repaired.
She looked back to see Michael with his back to her, his gaze sweeping the house. She crept up the stairs rather than racing the way she wanted to. Get Jacob in the bathtub. Call Seth and then 9-1-1.
Or the other way around?
He might not have gotten all the way to town. Robin’s thoughts had fragmented, leaving her with no idea how long it had been since he left.
She was shaking by the time she bent over to lay Jacob down in the cast-iron tub.
“No!” he cried. “Don’t go, Mommy! Stay!”
She clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shh, shh, shh.”
His teeth chattered under her palm. Freckles stood out on his face like dots made by a permanent marker. The terrible fear in his eyes undid her.
Hearing the squeak of a floorboard, she spun, almost falling over. It was Michael, right outside the bathroom.
“Got your phone?” he asked quietly.
Her head bobbed as she slid it from her pocket. “I’ll call. But...what if there’s nobody here?”
“Better safe.”
Than sorry. Of course he was right.
Seth answered after one ring, his voice tense. “Robin?”
“We think... I think I saw someone right outside. We...we’re upstairs.”
“Dad with you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way back. I’ll be there in about two minutes.”
From town?
“Hammond called. Winstead took off in his plane hours ago.”
Oh.
Glass shattered downstairs. Jacob let out a cry and Robin jumped.
“He just broke a window.”
“Lock yourself in the bathroom again,” Seth demanded.
“But I can’t leave your dad—”
“Do it.” That implacable note in his voice demanded obedience. “I’m almost there.”
She knew the call had been dropped, but said, “Seth?” anyway.
Silence.
* * *
SETH GOT ON the radio to demand backup. He’d have asked for SWAT except the team wouldn’t make it out here in time to do any good. If he was lucky, another unit might be nearby.
That piece of scum had already been on the property watching the house, waiting until the inhabitants gave him an opening. This time, by God, he wouldn’t be driving away so he could take the podium in front of a bunch of businessmen to impress them with his ideas, passion for the underdogs, sharp sense of humor and make it seem impossible he was a predator with blood on his hands.
Seth’s truck crested the hill on the two-lane country road at an unsafe speed, but he didn’t so much as tap the brakes.
* * *
“CLOSE THE DOOR,” Michael snapped. Bending slowly as if his joints hurt, he lowered himself to the floor. As Robin watched, he stretched out on his belly in the hall. That put him in a good position to see anyone coming up those stairs before they saw him. Only then he groaned and his face twisted as he tried to stretch his arms out in front of him with the gun pointed straight ahead.
Robin’s stomach cramped painfully. He’d been wounded in his right shoulder. She’d known his mobility was hampered. Could he squeeze the trigger?
She crawled out. “Let me—”
He shot her an angry glance. “Get back in there. I can do this.”
“Do you have another gun?” she whispered.
He stared fixedly at the empty space above the staircase. “Gun safe in my closet. There’s a backup.” He reeled off a combination.