Smoke and Mirrors

125

In the living room with the glocks in his hands, Paulus Styer sat in a wing chair with a view of the front stairs. He had heard a creaking as Winter opened the door to the boy’s bedroom and smiled. Three minutes or less to wait. Winter would free Alexa and the brats and stay behind to cover their escape. Styer imagined Alexa and the children straggling across the porch roof, climbing down the lattice, and he figured that Leigh Gardner was probably outside in the Jeep-a frightened sow who would not wander far from her trapped piglets. He didn’t care about her. Massey would soon come to keep Styer busy while they got away. But since Alexa knew about the bomb, he would start to look for him immediately, he would have to kill her before he escaped. Without her to tell the authorities about it, the bomb would take up his pursuers’ time and a nice slice of their budget.

Now his entire focus was on Massey-as he had intended from the start. All the rest had just been window dressing. Divine providence, in the form of Kurt Klein, had made it possible.

Styer stifled a yawn with his sleeve, then rested both guns flat against the tops of his legs, ready as a man could be for the next few minutes.