“I’m okay.”
Allie unslung the rifle and gripped the weapon tightly in her hands as she turned around, looking back toward the two-story house. She was ready for the fight of her life, because there was no way Dan would let them go. Not now, not with millions within reach. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything that sounded remotely like a small army of men pouring into the woods after them.
In fact, it was amazingly quiet. Too quiet.
“Shouldn’t we be running?” Lucy asked anxiously.
“Yeah,” Allie said, turning back around. “We should definitely be running.”
They ran, with Lucy to her left and Apollo to her right. They hadn’t gone very far when she noticed there was something wrong with Apollo’s stride, and Allie began to slow down.
“Wait,” she said, stopping.
Lucy did too and looked back. “What’s wrong?” Unlike Allie, she didn’t seem to be breathing hard at all.
Of course not. I’m the only one out of shape here.
“Apollo,” Allie said.
She went down on one knee and held out her hands, and Apollo walked toward her. She could see it now — he had a noticeable limp and was moving gingerly on his right front leg. When he leaned against her, she didn’t have to search very far to find the fresh trail of blood among his white fur.
“Is he okay?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t know,” Allie said.
Apollo lay down on his stomach and presented both arms to her. She wished she had a flashlight, but there was just enough moonlight to see the cut along his right forearm. It was a lot deeper than the bullet graze in his shoulder earlier, and she knew this one hurt much more by the way he was moving on it. He closed his eyes, and, for the first time all night, actually looked tired and in need of rest.
“He’s been shot,” Allie said. “It wasn’t recently, maybe from when they captured me.” The same time they shot your father, she thought, but said, “He was smart. He waited for the right time to strike, even though he was hurt.” She smiled at Apollo, a part of her hurting at his obvious pain. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
Apollo opened his eyes and licked his nose.
“Of course you are. You’re a very good boy. A girl’s best friend.”
The dog suddenly lifted his head and peered past her, at the darkened woods behind them.
“We have to go,” Allie said, hurrying back to her feet.
“Where?” Lucy asked, clutching her arms. “We don’t know this place. We can’t even find a phone.”
“We know one place,” she said, even if the prospect of returning there, after everything that had happened tonight, made her physically ill.
It was probably inevitable that they would end back at Walter’s house. Where else was she going to go? There may have been more neighbors on the other side, but that was too big of a risk, not to mention a lot more running through the woods with a scared girl and a wounded dog to worry about. Besides, if Walter had another neighbor near enough for her to reach by foot, those same people would have called the cops by now after all the gunfire.
Nice place you got here, Walter…if you’re a serial killer.
Another reason I should have stayed the hell out of the woods.
Walter’s car was where she remembered it, in the front yard next to the white SUV. A quick search of both vehicles came up empty — no guns, no phones, and no car keys. Had Walter taken the keys with him? She didn’t know, she’d never bothered to search his pockets. What about the key for the SUV?
Even though she knew there would be no one left at the house when they arrived (at least, no one alive), she went in with the rifle first anyway, with Apollo limping at her side. The door was damaged, with plenty of signs that someone had battered their way in after she and Lucy fled the place. The dog eventually walked on ahead, bad leg and all, sniffing the corners before taking them. As long as Apollo remained quiet, she could breathe easy.
In the kitchen, she gagged slightly at the sight of four men lying on the floor in two separate small piles. More of Monroe’s men, if the suits were any indication. They’d been there awhile, most of them having been dragged over from the back door by the trail of blood they’d left behind. A fourth body (mine) had clearly come from the basement across the house. The smell of blood was nauseating, and she instantly regretted coming back here.
She called Lucy inside, then pushed the door closed as much as was possible. There was no point in taking the time to fortify it, not with the destroyed back door hanging by a few shreds of wooden frame.
“Don’t go into the kitchen,” she told the girl.
“Why?” Lucy asked.
“You have to trust me. Go look for a phone or any car keys in your dad’s room.”
Lucy nodded and hurried down the bedroom hallway, glancing in at the two guest bedrooms as she passed. She lingered a bit on the one with Jones’s body, then later, the one with Jack’s, where Walter had been taken.
The three J’s. The three dead J’s. And Walter.
We should have kept going, taken our chances in the woods. This is a house of death.
And it’s not even close to being done with me, yet…
While Lucy busied herself inside her father’s bedroom, Allie thought about going through the four bodies in the kitchen, but decided whatever they had in their pockets, she didn’t want badly enough to dig through them. The fact that their weapons were all missing was annoying; had Monroe taken them with him in the SUV, along with the keys to the other vehicle? Dammit, she should have taken the time to search both of them back in the woods when she had the chance…
She didn’t have as many qualms going through Jones’s pockets, but unfortunately the man didn’t have anything very useful to find. Jack’s body yielded the Ka-Bar knife, but that was overkill when she already had Womack’s handgun and rifle. She opened one of his pouches and pulled out a roll of gauze tape, then tried turning on the laptop, but it was smashed beyond repair.
She left the guest bedroom and met Lucy as she was coming out of the room at the end. Allie closed her door so Lucy wouldn’t have to see Jack’s body a second time.
Allie already knew the answer from the look on the teenager’s face, but she had to ask anyway. “Anything?”
Lucy shook her head. “What are we going to do now?”
She glanced at her watch. “It’ll be morning soon. This house”—And all the death inside it—“is still safer than running around out there in the open against all of Dan’s men. At least in here we have some protection.”
Besides, I’m tired of running, she thought. You want me, Dan? Come and get me, you bastard.
But she didn’t give voice to those rebellious thoughts, not with Lucy standing in front of her, looking cold even though everything was warming up around them.
Instead, she led the girl back to the living room, where Apollo had perched himself on one of the bullet-riddled couches, looking at nothing in particular. He had both floppy ears raised, so she knew he was on high alert.
“You, come here,” she said.
The dog gave her a confused look.
“Now.”
Apollo climbed off the sofa and limped over to her. She took out the roll of gauze she’d gotten from Jack’s body and wrapped it around the dog’s leg. She thought Apollo might resist or run off (or, worse-case scenario, bite her), but he simply lay down on his stomach, chin against the debris-strewn rug, and watched her cover up his injured leg.