He tucked the phone into his pocket, slid down to the floor, and sat with his back against the wall, the assault rifle leaning over his bent knees.
Almost home. He was almost home. When he’d first gotten the job, he didn’t think five days was enough to plan the ambush, and that doubt had only grown in the days leading up to tonight. Then they showed up, and he got Walter working on the laptop.
So what happened?
The dog happened.
How the hell did that fucking thing get inside the house, anyway?
The question still nagged at him, even now that he couldn’t do anything about it. It was probably Jones’s fault. Or Jerry’s. They probably missed a door or lock somewhere. Again, the lack of prep time…
It was too bad Jones was dead, though. And Jerry, too, probably. Jones KIA was easier to accept because Jack knew what had happened to him. But Jerry just going dark…that was troublesome. How did the woman, the girl, and the dog get the best of him? Jerry was a professional. They all were.
And yet, and yet…
The girlfriend and her dog. It all came down to the girlfriend and her mutt. Goddammit. He should have shot them both when he had the—
Bang!
A gunshot. It was very close to him, but not outside the hallway.
It was followed by another one, then almost a full second later, a third shot.
Jack clutched the rifle and slid back up the length of the wall as follow-up gunfire began exploding throughout the house and he heard the very clear distinct sound of a dog barking.
Speak of the devil…
Chapter 13
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
She smiled to herself. That was something people usually say in the movies, just before something bad — and really loud — happened. Like a guy in a mask, holding a knife, jumping out from behind a tree. There were plenty of trees and a whole lot of shadows for something dramatic like that.
Except nothing happened as she peered out at the front yard of Walter’s house.
It looked the same as when she had last seen it — but now instead of just Walter’s car, there were two SUVs sitting under the bright lights. Whoever had arrived in the new vehicles was either already inside the house or they were doing a very good job of hiding among the dark woods. She had been very careful on approach, using Apollo’s keen senses as a guide, and was fully prepared to retreat back to Lucy at the first sign of trouble. Fortunately (unfortunately?) there was no one between the two-story house and Walter’s.
This is such a bad, bad idea.
Good idea or not, she couldn’t just abandon Walter. Five months of dating might not have caused her to fall madly in love with the man, but she couldn’t deny that she liked him, enough that she couldn’t just turn and walk away when she knew he was in trouble.
You better be worth all this, Walter.
The shooting had stopped a while ago, and now there was just her own breathing and the sound of animals around her. Apollo’s eyes darted left and right whenever a squirrel (or something equally furry) came too close to them, but the dog seemed to understand that stealth was important and never made more than a curious noise when something caught his attention.
“You belong out here, boy,” she whispered to him. “You know that, don’t you?”
He looked over with his big brown eyes and stuck out his tongue to lick his nose.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She ran her free hand down his head to his withers, then spent a few seconds scratching his back. Apollo leaned against her leg to show his approval when he suddenly lifted his head and snapped a look toward the house.
A man in a black suit had emerged from the other side of Walter’s house and jogged over to one of the SUVs, where he leaned against it. He turned to face one of the guest bedroom windows. It wasn’t the one she, Lucy, and Walter had been kept in earlier, but the one next to it, with the main bedroom further to the right. It was the same one they had taken Walter to, and probably where he was right now.
If Walter was still alive.
The man in the suit was holding some kind of weapon (probably a submachine gun), though it was too dark for her to get a good look at it. What she wouldn’t give for something stronger than a handgun.
She waited silently next to Apollo, but nothing seemed to be happening either inside or outside the house. The man in the suit was watching the guest bedroom window like a hawk, though he hadn’t made any attempts to approach it. The window was framed by lights but the curtains were drawn in, blocking what was happening (if anything) on the other side.
Walter had to be inside that room. She was sure of it now.
A part of her wanted to think she could wait this out, that maybe everything would resolve itself in a few minutes, or a few hours. The problem with that was she couldn’t accept on faith that Walter would be alive when morning finally came. How long would it take Jack to force Walter to do what they needed?
Then there were these new players. Their motives were even murkier than Jack’s. The fact that she had heard shooting earlier convinced her they weren’t supposed to be here, that they had clashed with Jack. If they were Jack’s backup, there wouldn’t have been shooting.
So what the hell was going on in the house right now?
To get the answer, she needed to get closer.
No, that wasn’t completely true. She needed to get inside.
Allie looked over at Apollo. “So how did you get into the house earlier, boy? Can you show me?”
Apollo fixed her with large brown eyes and didn’t move.
“We need to get inside the house,” she said, and pointed at the building. He followed her finger, but then returned his gaze to her. “Understand?”
Did he even understand? It had been two years since Beckard and the cabin, but sometimes she wondered if Apollo wouldn’t be happier with someone else, someone who actually knew how to raise a hunting dog—
He stood up suddenly and began walking off.
She looked after him for a moment, but didn’t follow.
Apollo, realizing she hadn’t moved, stopped and glanced back at her.
“What?” she said.
He turned back around and began walking again.
“Okay, but you better not be leading me to some buried bone somewhere, Apollo,” she said, and followed him.
Apollo led her through the woods, and at first she thought he was taking her back to Lucy, but then he made a turn, then another one. It didn’t take long to see that he was leading her around the clearing, going from the side where they had been earlier and all the way around to the back of the house.
She clutched the Sig Sauer in one hand, the other pushing branches out of her path, always mindful of every footstep and looking for twigs on the ground, anything that would make too much noise. Apollo didn’t seem to have that problem. The dog just knew where to go even though she couldn’t tell if he was even looking down.
They were almost at the back when she put a hand on Apollo’s head to stop him. The dog wagged his tail impatiently as she listened and looked for signs of someone guarding this side of the residence. If they had one watching the front, why wouldn’t they have another one out back, too?
It was hard to miss the destroyed back door, splintered fragments hanging from the four frames. She had little difficulty making out the blood splashed across the deck, along with shards of glass. A thick swath of light flooded out of the house but was contained almost completely around the patio, far from her position.