Saint/Sinner

Chapter 21

The house looked different with all the lights turned on. Of course, she’d been running around in the dark for almost the entire night, so maybe that had a lot to do with how bright everything seemed. As she stepped back inside the house, Allie couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed and out of her depth. Most of all, though, was the reality of being so outgunned.

For a moment, she thought she’d gained the upper hand. She’d outsmarted Walter and Monroe when they thought they were hunting her, and all that was left was to come back here and gather up Lucy and leave in the SUV. Walter’s betrayal stung, but she had to admit, it’d been awhile since she had felt so alive.

And then Dan showed up.

You had no idea what he was capable of, did you, Walter?

Neither did I, as it turned out.

She stepped over a man in a suit and tie lying in the middle of the living room, careful not to get his blood on her shoes. He had two bullet holes in his chest and a third on his forehead. She recognized him as being Monroe’s man, who had been left behind with Lucy. She had been reasonably confident she could have dealt with him if she needed to when she got back to the house. Apparently, someone had beaten her to it.

Womack led her through the house, then up the stairs. They passed puddles of fresh and dried blood on the way. Jerry’s, Monroe’s man, and who else? Not that it mattered. She stepped around them and focused on her surroundings, on where everyone was, and her distance to all the exits.

Too many, and too far.

“How old is she?” Womack asked as they went up the stairs.

He walked in front of her, his rifle slung and his holstered handgun — a Colt 1911 model — with its handle facing her. She measured the distance between them and came up with three feet. Close enough, but she didn’t go for the gun because the problem wasn’t just Womack; it was also the five others, not counting Dan, surrounding the house.

Five against one was bad odds, even if she could somehow take Womack’s pistol and assault rifle off him. That was already an iffy prospect. The man had at least a foot and a solid hundred pounds of lean muscle on her, never mind his probable hand-to-hand combat training. She had some of that, too, but Allie wasn’t delusional enough to think she could take a man of Womack’s size in a stand-up fight.

“Fifteen,” Allie said as they passed framed photos of a large family along the wall to her left. She hadn’t seen them before because the whole place was dark when she was last here. The people in the portraits looked happy, but then, what family didn’t when the cameras were pointed at them?

“You have any ideas where she might be hiding?” Womack asked.

“I don’t know. It’s a big house.”

“Give me a hint.”

“I want to see the master bedroom first.”

“Why?”

“You said she didn’t go out the back window.”

“She didn’t.”

“It’s only a ten-foot drop. She could have jumped down and run into the woods.”

“No,” Womack said, with all the confidence in the world. “There were no tracks, nothing to indicate she’d reached the ground. And, like I said, I had men all around the house at the time.”

“She’s a smart girl.”

“She may be, but she didn’t leave through the window.”

“So you keep saying.”

He grunted, but didn’t press the issue.

They reached the second floor, where Allie caught her breath for a moment.

Jesus. How did I survive that?

It looked worse in the light — a long, jagged string of bullet holes along the wall and chunks of plaster of all sizes covering the floor. There was so much damage — there were a few bullet holes in the ceiling, too — including along the wooden railing on her right, that she wondered if this wasn’t all just a dream, that maybe she hadn’t actually survived Jerry’s barrage after all.

“What happened here?” Womack asked.

“Someone tried to shoot me.”

“You look in one piece to me.”

“I guess I was lucky.”

Womack chuckled. “You must have nine lives.”

Eight now, she thought, before correcting herself: Or seven. Beckard claimed one of them, remember?

The master bedroom where she had marched Jerry to earlier was open, and they stepped inside. The king-size bed was a mess, the blankets covered in blood, and Jerry himself was lying on the floor nearby. Coagulated blood pooled around his head, leaking out from the razor-thin cut that stretched across his neck where he had been garroted.

“Who killed him?” she asked.

“We’re thinking the guy downstairs,” Womack said. “Saved us the trouble.”

“And you took care of him in turn.”

“That’s the job.”

“How much is Dan paying you?”

Womack didn’t answer her, and instead crossed the room to the back window.

“A lot?” she pressed.

“Enough,” Womack said, and stood next to the open window, as if to say, “Well, you wanted to see it, so see it.”

She walked over, stepping around a fallen pillow smeared with blood.

The room, like downstairs, looked larger with the lights on. The closet and bathroom doors were open, and there were signs that the place had been thoroughly searched very recently.

So where was Lucy?

“She didn’t jump down,” Womack said as Allie leaned out the open window and peered down. He pointed at a pair of bushes directly below them. “They were undisturbed, no signs of anything — least of all a human being — having landed on top of them.”

Something moved in the backyard, in the darkness, and she thought, Apollo!, but when she looked over, she saw that it was just one of Dan’s mercenaries standing guard between the house and the surrounding woods. The man was wearing night-vision goggles, the device like an elongated third eye jutting from his forehead.

She pulled back from the window and saw Womack eyeing her carefully. “Where else could she be hiding?”

“You checked every room?”

“My men did.”

“Maybe they missed something.”

“Anything’s possible,” he said, shrugging. He obviously didn’t believe it. “Try calling her.”

“I don’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know exactly where she is.”

He cocked his head slightly to one side, not quite understanding. “You know where she is exactly? Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“Because you won’t like the answer.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Come again?”

“Now.”

She was afraid of a loud pinging! sound as the baseball bat connected with the back of Womack’s head, but that would have happened only if the bat clutched in Lucy’s hands was aluminum. But it was solid oak, and there was just a dull thump as it made contact against flesh and the skull underneath it.

The strike dropped Womack like a sack of meat. The girl stood over him, shaking, both hands still choking up on the bat that was now stained with blood and patches of hair.

“Oh God, did I kill him?” Lucy whispered.

Allie didn’t answer her. Instead, she glanced out the back window again, at the mercenary. He was facing the woods, oblivious to what had just happened in the master bedroom behind him.

“Allie?” Lucy said, her voice still barely rising above a whisper.

“You did good,” she said, and pulled the curtains closed.

She crouched next to Womack and drew his 1911 from its holster and slipped the Kalashnikov off him. The man was heavier than he looked, and a part of the strap was trapped under his body. Allie had to grunt to get it free. She opened the pouches around his waist and grabbed two spare magazines, shoving them into one back pocket each. She took a moment to feel Womack’s pulse. He was alive, if just barely, the bloody patch on the back of his head staring at her.

She glanced up at Lucy, the bat looking heavy as it hung from her hand. She’d seen the girl sliding out from under the large king-size bed while she was at the window and Womack was talking. His back was turned to the teenager, and she had been amazingly quiet as she crept up on him, even if Allie could see her trembling with every step. It had been all Allie could do to keep Womack’s attention, to keep those eyes of his focused entirely on her.

Allie put both hands on the girl’s shoulders now and smiled. “You did really good.”

Lucy smiled back. Or tried to. She was shaking too badly to fully commit. “Where’s Dad? He went to find you.”

“I don’t know; I didn’t see him on my way back,” Allie said, hoping there wasn’t still blood on her face to give away the lie.

She hurried past the teenager before Lucy could ask something else, maybe more questions about Walter. Right now, the less the girl knew, the better. Allie drew the 1911 from her waistband and looked through the open bedroom door at the devastated second-floor hallway beyond.

Lucy followed her, almost stepping into Jerry’s blood, then onto Jerry himself, before leaning against the wall next to Allie. Every so often, the girl’s eyes would find their way back to the blood and hair clinging to the end of the baseball bat still clutched in her hand.

“How did you hide from them?” Allie asked.

“I was already on the second floor in one of the other bedrooms when they shot Barnes, so I ran into this one.” She glanced over at Jerry’s body on the floor. “I don’t know when that happened to him, or who did it…”

Barnes did that, she thought, but asked, “Where were you hiding?”

“There’s a small hidden compartment inside the closet, behind the safe. I found it while I was looking around waiting for you earlier. It’s small, and I had to squeeze in like a pretzel. I hid when they were searching the house, then I snuck out to see what was happening when you and…the other one showed up. I couldn’t get back to the closet in time, so I slid under the bed.”

“And the bat?”

“It was in the closet. Some golf clubs, too, but the bat was heavier.”

“Good choice.”

The teenager gave Allie another failed attempt at a smile. “Thanks.” Then she looked back at Womack’s body on the other side of the bed. “Did I kill him?”

“No, he’s still alive.” Just barely, she thought, but decided the girl didn’t need to know that part.

“Oh,” Lucy said, and Allie detected more than just a little bit of relief in that one simple word. Then, “How are we going to get out of here, Allie? They’re everywhere.”

“We’ll improvise.” She looked around the room before settling on the back window. It was the most obvious route of escape. “Ten feet,” she said, mostly to herself.

“Ten feet?” Lucy repeated.

“From the second floor to the ground below.”

“Oh.”

Allie smiled at her. “You can do it.”

Lucy didn’t look convinced, but she walked over to the window, hiding against the wall on the other side from Allie so the lone dark figure walking out there couldn’t spot them. But the man hadn’t looked in their direction once; he seemed preoccupied with something in the woods, and she wondered what he was seeing that she couldn’t from the window with the naked eye.

“I opened the window so they’d think I jumped out,” Lucy said.

“Smart.”

“I heard what the man said. I guess they didn’t buy it.”

“No, but it was still a smart thing to do.”

She took a moment to peek out at the back of the mercenary about fifty (sixty?) yards from them. The problem wasn’t taking the man out; she could do it, if she had to. The problem was how long before the others responded to the gunshots. The thought of shooting it out with the rest of Dan’s men, with Lucy in the middle, made her queasy. She didn’t just worry for the girl’s safety, but her own, too. Allie had training — a lot of it — but none of it covered how to survive a firefight with a half dozen mercenaries.

“It’s really far down,” Lucy was saying while peering through the curtains at the ground below. “Are you sure it’s only ten feet?”

More like twelve, or thirteen, Allie thought, but said, “About ten feet.”

“It looks higher…”

“See those bushes?” she asked, pointing at the shrubbery below them.

Lucy nodded hesitantly.

“They’ll cushion your fall,” Allie said. “Trust me.”

The girl’s face paled.

“Trust me, Lucy,” Allie said.

Lucy flashed her another forced smile. This one, like the others, had no chance of being even semi-believable. “What about you?”

“Once I’m sure you’re safe, I’ll be right behind you.”

“Allie, where’s Dad?”

“We’ll find him together, later.” She gave the girl another reassuring smile. “But we have to get out of here first in order to do that, right?”

The teenager nodded, and Allie looked out the window again to make sure the dark figure still had his back to them. He did. What the hell was he looking at, anyway? Whatever it was, she hoped it would keep his attention for the next few minutes, or else this was going to be a very short escape attempt.

She turned back to Lucy. “Remember, I’ll be right behind you.”

Lucy leaned her bat against the wall and, swallowing hard, climbed up onto the windowsill with all the care of a woman preparing to do a high-wire walk with no safety nets.

“Just let yourself drop down, feet first, right into the bushes,” Allie said.

Lucy nodded nervously, her legs dangling out of the house now. She gave Allie a slightly terrified look, then rocked slightly forward and disappeared out of view.

Allie quickly raised the rifle to her chest and aimed it across the yard at the mercenary. The world looked different in fluorescent green — it was brighter and clearer, and she thought she could see patterns on the back of the man’s black sweater through the night-vision scope mounted on Womack’s AK-47. Her forefinger tested the trigger and she kept waiting for the man to turn, to discover Lucy somewhere in the bushes below. It was the last thing she wanted, but what were the chances he hadn’t heard Lucy falling, or the (too) loud whump! as the girl landed?

But the man didn’t turn around, and if anything he seemed to be leaning slightly forward, as if he was trying to get a better look at something in the woods.

What the hell is he looking at?

“Allie,” a voice whispered from below her.

She lowered the rifle and leaned out, looking down at Lucy as the girl stumbled awkwardly out of the bushes. She was brushing at her clothes and glancing worriedly back at the guard the entire time, her legs becoming tangled with branches. Allie swore she could hear every crunch and snap as Lucy struggled her way forward.

Allie slung the assault rifle and climbed onto the windowsill—

“Come in,” a voice said loudly.

She almost jumped at the sound but managed to grab the window frame first. She didn’t have to go very far to find the source of the voice: It was coming from the radio clipped to the back of Womack’s belt, inside the master bedroom behind her.

“Womack,” the voice said. It was Dan. “Report. Did you find the girl yet?”

Now or never, Allie thought, and dropped down from the window.

Despite all the assurances she’d given Lucy, Allie was shocked her legs didn’t snap as soon as they vanished into the bushes below her. Instead, branches poked at her ribs and arms, and something long and green rushed up at her face, but she raised both hands to protect herself just in time.

She found her footing and scrambled out of the thicket, Lucy giving her a helping hand while snapping terrified looks back at the lone figure across the backyard from them. The man still hadn’t turned around, and Allie thought, Just keep looking and don’t turn around. Whatever you do, don’t turn—

She hadn’t finished thinking the word “turn” when the man did exactly just that — he started to turn around. He was holding something (a radio) up to his face as he did so, and she knew without even having to think about it that Dan had just sounded the alarm.

Allie stumbled out of the bushes, brushing past Lucy, and was unslinging her rifle at the same time the man lowered his radio and reached for his own slung weapon.

Neither one of them got a chance to fire, because something burst out of the woods behind the man first. The mercenary whirled around, sensing the incoming, and had his rifle halfway up when Apollo knocked him to the ground and sank his teeth into the man’s neck.

“Run!” Allie shouted.