Saint/Sinner

Chapter 22

“Apollo, stop!”

The dog had clamped down on the mercenary’s left arm, which the man had lifted in a futile attempt to defend himself against the charging animal. The two of them were on the ground with Apollo perched on top when she screamed her command, and the dog stopped what he was doing and looked up at her.

She pointed frantically toward the trees. “Follow Lucy! Go!”

The dog let go of his victim, whirled around on a dime, and bounded in the direction he had come. He was already nipping at Lucy’s heels before Allie had the chance to take four more steps forward.

She didn’t know why she did it — ordered Apollo to stop attacking the mercenary. The man was clearly still dangerous, and he proved it when he wasted no time scrambling to his knees while simultaneously searching the ground for his fallen rifle. Maybe seeing Apollo attacking (killing) Jones had more of a profound effect on her than she wanted to admit, but there was a very real part of her that didn’t want Apollo to kill again.

She picked up her speed when she saw the mercenary going for his rifle. The man had wrapped his fingers around the barrel of the AK-47 when Allie lunged forward and kicked him in the side of the face and heard something break. The man rolled away from his weapon and Allie kicked it, watching it skid into the shadows.

Apollo and Lucy were almost at the tree line when the girl threw a look over her shoulder and opened her mouth to say something, but Allie cut her off first: “Keep going! Stick to Apollo!”

A second later, the girl vanished into the woods with Apollo next to her. Allie knew very well that the dog could have outrun the teenager, but he was sticking close.

Ever the protector, she thought, her lungs burning from the short sprint. God, she was out of shape. Two years of city life and eight-hour work days had made her soft. It was a miracle she had managed to survive this long tonight.

You’re lucky, girl. You’re so, so lucky.

She pushed through the pain as the wall of dark trees rushed toward her — ten, then nine, then eight yards from salvation — when the first gunshot cracked and she felt the bullet zip! past her right ear and saw it smash into one of the trees dead ahead.

She couldn’t help herself and glanced over her shoulder.

Two men in black clothes were coming around the right side of the house while a third was rounding from the left. Two more burst out of the back kitchen door, and one of them was wearing a suit. Dan. A sixth man was leaning out the second-floor master bedroom window with a rifle—

She dived just as the man fired—crack! — and something small and fast sped past the left side of her head, vanishing into a bush directly in front of her.

Jesus, that was close!

She managed to stick her arms out at the very last second, just in time to stop herself from slamming face-first into the ground. That would have hurt. That would have really hurt.

Even so, the breath rushed out of both lungs as she crashed back to earth, and she began rolling away from the spot in case the shooter sent more rounds after her. Pain shot through her body as Womack’s slung rifle dug into her back.

Seconds later she was pushing up onto one knee, then was back on her feet, all the while waiting for more cracks of gunshots from behind her. But for whatever reason, there were none, and she wasted exactly half a second wondering why before launching into a full spring, dodging trees and ducking branches, and gasping for breath with every step.

I’m out of shape. God, I’m so out of shape!

“Lucy!” she shouted. “Apollo! Where are you?”

She hadn’t finished shouting when Apollo burst out of the bushes in front of her, and Allie finally (finally!) slid to a stop. She doubled over, hands on her hips, to catch her breath as Lucy stepped out from behind a tree next to the dog.

“Are you shot?” Lucy asked.

Allie shook her head, smiled, and struggled to respond. She managed to gasp out, “I’m fine. You?”

“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.

When she was done, she scratched him on the head and smiled. “Okay.”

He got up and walked, this time with less of a noticeable limp, back to the couch and hopped onto it, floppy ears immediately going back up on full alert.

“Thank God for Apollo,” Lucy said.

“Come on,” Allie said, and led her to the adjoining back hallway, the one with the basement at the end.

“Oh wow,” Lucy said when she saw the destruction in the passageway, the result of two thirty-round magazines unleashing into the wall and floor and ceiling at close range. It made her harrowing escape back at the two-story house seem almost quaint by comparison.

“Yeah,” Allie said.

“What happened here?”

“An Uzi.”

She took Lucy into the bathroom, where the big man she had shot earlier still lay on the floor, staring up at the bright lights. While Lucy watched, strangely expressionless, Allie dragged the body by the legs over to a corner.

“You’ll be safe in here,” she told the teenager. “Lock the door, and if there’s shooting, go into the bathtub and lie down.”

“The bathtub?” Lucy said doubtfully.

“Trust me.”

“I do.”

“Good.”

Allie kissed her on the forehead. It was, she realized, the first time they’d actually shared such an intimate moment. Lucy hugged her back and didn’t let go, until Allie had to pry her off.

“Be careful,” Lucy said.

“I will,” she said, and smiled at the girl.

Lucy returned it, and this time there was nothing forced about her response.

Well, Walter, you said you wanted me to bond with your daughter. I guess this means mission accomplished.

Lucy stepped back, careful to avoid the puddles of blood, and closed the door between them. A few seconds later, the sound of the lock sliding into place on the other side.

She turned to Apollo. “You hear anything yet?”

The dog seemed to consider the question for a moment before looking away.

“Keep your ears open, because they’re definitely coming.”

She unslung the rifle and pulled out the Kalashnikov’s banana-shaped magazine. She hadn’t fired a shot yet, and it was still full. She patted the spares in her back pockets, hoping she wouldn’t need them, but knowing she probably would. She had no delusions that Dan was going to take off and leave them be. He had every reason to come after them — after Lucy. Forty million reasons.

She should have been scared, and the fear should have forced her to abandon the house for the wide-open woods outside, but she wasn’t, and it didn’t.

Damn you, Dan. Damn you and Walter.

She was angry. She didn’t fully understand what she was feeling until now.

She was mad. No, more than that, she was pissed.

Come on then. You want Lucy? You want me? Come and get us, you bastard.

She looked around her, at the living room on one side, then at the door that led into the basement behind her. There was a reason she’d chosen this hallway and not the bigger one to her left. That one had three bedrooms and three possible points of entry. She couldn’t hope to cover all of them at once, and the idea of the burglar bars stopping Dan’s people if they wanted to come in that way was laughable.

Besides, walking back and forth across the debris-strewn floor of the house had given her an idea of how to even the odds…