“Jared?” she whispered. “Jared?”
His eyes stayed closed. Blood bubbled from his lips. His fingers quivered against the floor. She could see the tan line where he’d been wearing his wedding ring even though he promised her he wouldn’t.
Lena reached for his hand, then pulled back.
Footsteps.
The shooter was walking down the hallway. Slowly. Methodically. He was wearing boots. She could hear the echo of the wooden heel hitting the bare floorboards, then the softer scrape of the toe.
One step.
Another.
Silence.
The shooter raked back the shower curtain in the hall bathroom.
Lena’s eyes scanned the bedroom: The guns were locked in the safe. Her cell phone was on the other side of the room. They didn’t have a landline. The window was too out in the open. The bathroom was a deathtrap.
Jared’s cell phone.
She ran her hand up his leg, checked his pockets. Empty. Empty. They were all empty.
The footsteps resumed, echoing down the hallway, the sound like twigs snapping.
And then—nothing.
He’d stopped outside the first bedroom. Two desks. Boxes of old case files. Jared always left the closet door open. The shooter could see it from the hallway.
He cleared his throat and spat on the floor.
He wanted Lena to know that he was coming.
She pressed her back against the wall, forced herself to stand up. She wasn’t going to be sitting down when she died. She was going to be on her feet, fighting for her life, her husband’s life.
The footsteps stopped again. The shooter was checking the next bedroom. Bright yellow walls. Closet door laid across a pair of sawhorses so Jared could paint balloons on it. From the hallway, you could see the thin pencil lines where he’d sketched them freehand. You could also see straight back inside the empty closet.
The shooter continued down the hall.
Lena’s hand shook as she reached down to Jared. The hammer on his belt was already halfway out of its metal loop. She used her fingers to push it the rest of the way. Her hand wrapped around the grip. It felt warm, almost hot, against her skin.
Jared’s eyelids fluttered open. He watched Lena as she stood up, pressed her back against the wall again. There was a glassy look to his gaze. Pain. Intense pain. It cut right through her. His mouth moved. Lena put her finger to her lips, willing him to be quiet, to play dead so that he wouldn’t get shot again.
The footsteps stopped just shy of the bedroom door, maybe five feet away. The man’s shadow preceded him into the room, casting half of Jared’s body into darkness.
Lena turned the hammer around so that the claw was facing out. She heard the pump of a shotgun. The sound had its intended effect. She had to lock her knees so she didn’t fall to the floor.
The shooter paused. His shadow wavered slightly, but didn’t encroach farther into the room.
Lena tensed, counting off the seconds. One, two, three. The man did not enter. He was just standing there.
She tried to put herself in the shooter’s head, figure out what he was thinking. Two cops. Both with guns they hadn’t used. One was on the floor. The other hadn’t moved, hadn’t shot back, hadn’t screamed or jumped out the window or charged him.
Lena’s ears strained in the silence as they both waited.
Finally, the shooter took another step forward—short, tentative. Then another. The tip of the shotgun’s barrel was the first thing Lena saw. Sawed off. The metal was rough-cut, freshly hewn. There was a pause, a slight adjustment as the shooter pivoted to the side. Lena saw that the hand supporting the barrel was tattooed. A black skull and crossbones filled the webbing between the thumb and forefinger.
One last, careful step.
Lena two-handed the hammer and swung it into the man’s face.
The claw sank into his eye socket. She heard the crunch of bone as the sharpened steel splintered a path into his skull. The shotgun went off, blasting a hole in the wall. Lena tried to pull out the hammer for another blow, but the claw was caught in his head. The man staggered, tried to brace himself against the door. His fingers wrapped around her wrist. Blood poured from his eye, ran into his mouth, down his neck.
That was when Lena saw the second man. He was running down the hallway, a Smith & Wesson five-shot in his hand. Lena yanked on the hammer, using it like a handle to jerk the shooter in front of her, to use him as a shield. Three shots popped off in rapid succession; the shooter’s body absorbed each hit. Lena gave him a hard shove backward into the second assailant. Both men stumbled. The S&W skittered across the floor.
Lena scooped up the shotgun. She pulled the trigger, but the shell was jammed. She tried the pump, worked to clear the chamber as the second guy climbed his way up to standing. He lunged for her, fingers grazing the muzzle of the gun before he fell to one knee.
Jared had grabbed his ankle. He held on tight, his arm shaking from the effort. The man reared back, started to bring down his fist on Jared’s temple.
Lena flipped the shotgun around, grabbed it by the barrel and swung it like a bat at the man’s head. Blood and teeth sprayed as his jaw snapped loose. He crashed to the floor.
“Jared!” Lena screamed, dropping down beside him. “Jared!”
He moaned. Blood dribbled from his mouth. His stare was blank, unseeing.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s okay.”
He coughed. His body shuddered, then a violent seizure took hold.
“Jared!” she screamed. “Jared!” Lena’s vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. She put her hands on each side of his face. “Look at me,” she begged. “Just look at me.”
Movement. She saw it out of the corner of her eye. The second man was inching toward the bed, trying to reach the gun. Half his body was paralyzed. He dragged himself with one arm, a wounded cockroach leaving a trail of blood.
Lena felt her heart stop. Something had changed. The air had shifted. The world had stopped spinning.
She looked down at her husband.
Jared’s body had gone completely slack. His eyelids were closed to a slit. She touched his face, his mouth. Her hand shook so hard that her fingertips tapped against his skin.
Sibyl. Jeffrey. The baby.
Their baby.
Lena stood up.
She moved like a machine. The hammer was still embedded in the first man’s face. Lena braced her foot on his forehead, wrapped her hands around the handle, and wrenched the claw loose.
The cockroach was still crawling toward the bed. His progress was incremental. Lena took her time, waiting until he was inches away from the gun to drop her knee into his back. She felt his ribs snap under her full weight. Broken teeth spewed from his mouth like chunks of wet sand.
Lena raised the hammer above her head. It came down on the man’s spine with a splintering crack. He screamed, his arms shooting out, his body bucking underneath her. Lena held on, her mind focused, her body rigid with rage. She raised the hammer high above her head and aimed for the back of his skull, but then—suddenly—everything stopped.
The hammer wouldn’t move. It was stuck in the air.
Lena looked behind her. There was a third man. He was tall, with a lanky build and strong hands that kept Lena from delivering the deathblow.
She was too shocked to respond. She knew this man. Knew exactly who he was.
He was dressed like a biker—bandanna around his head, chain hanging from his leather belt. He put a finger to his lips, the same as she had done to Jared moments before. There was a warning in his eyes, and underneath the warning, she saw genuine fear.