Cait stood in the darkened hallway at the back of the house, holding her breath, gun clutched tightly in her hand. The lights from the living room illuminated two patches of the corridor ahead, but at the far end, the foyer was dark. The front door seemed to breathe with menace.
“Cai—” Miranda began, but Cait held up a hand and shot her a look that silenced her.
The dining room, which she used as a playroom for Leyla and a computer room for herself, was dark. From there, she could have gotten a look at whoever stood on her front stoop. But to get there she would have to walk the length of the corridor, and with the light from the living room spilling into the hall and the curtains open, anyone who might be watching from outside would see her.
Miranda came up close behind her and whispered low, “You’re scaring me.”
David entered his apartment from a set of stairs and a landing that had been built onto the outside of the house when it had been split into two apartments, but in Cait’s kitchen there was a narrow door—locked from the other side—that led to an old secondary stairwell. David wasn’t home, so it would be dark up there. If she could manage the lock, she would be able to get into his place and have a look outside.
The knock came again, more insistent this time.
“Come on. What the fuck?” Miranda whispered.
Cait glanced over her shoulder, looking past Miranda at Leyla’s crib. Through the bars she could see the baby, still asleep, and she exhaled. No way could she break into David’s apartment and leave Leyla down here.
“Dude!” Miranda said, a bit harsher now. “Overreacting much? What if it’s just someone checking on you? Or the cops?”
The possibility had occurred to Cait, which was the only reason she didn’t snap at Miranda to keep her voice down. But the police would have phoned first, or so she assumed. And she couldn’t think of anyone who would just drop by her place at ten o’clock to check on her. Maybe Nick would have done it, but he had just tried calling. It wouldn’t be him. Then, of course, there was the small fact of her phone service cutting out, right before that first knock on the door.
Her fingers opened and closed on the gun’s grip.
The third time, the knock was followed by a voice.
“Ms. McCandless?” a man said quietly on the other side of the door. “Federal agents. We know you’re at home and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Cait stiffened, thinking of untraceable license plates and tinted windows. Thinking of Sean dead on a sidewalk.
“Federal agents?” Miranda said. “Jesus, Cait.”
But Cait remained frozen on the spot, torn between her paranoia and her suspicions about Sean’s line of work. He had obviously been doing some kind of spy shit for the government. Maybe they had come to talk to her about their investigation into his death. The confusion made her want to scream, and then she remembered the dead phone line and that cleared her mind instantly.
She turned and grabbed Miranda’s arm, stepping with her into Leyla’s room. The shades were drawn so that the morning sun wouldn’t wake the baby early, but it also meant no one could look in and see them. Cait grabbed Leyla’s baby sling and slipped it on.
“Listen to me,” she whispered, face up close to Miranda’s.
Miranda wasn’t looking into her eyes. The other woman could not tear her gaze from the sight of Cait’s gun. Cait grabbed her friend’s face and forced her to look up.
“Miranda, listen! We don’t know who they really are, and they’ve cut the telephone line. Haven’t you ever seen a movie? Look, if I’m being crazy, then they’ll go away, maybe leave me a business card or something. But if I’m right, then they’re not going to just—”
Whatever struck the door then wasn’t a fist. Someone had kicked it, or slammed it with a shoulder.
Miranda’s eyes went wide with fear, but Cait had run out of time to reason with her or calm her down.
Whump!
She always kept the door fully locked, chained, dead-bolted … but none of that would last more than a couple more kicks.
A heartbreaking wail rose from the crib. All the noise had finally woken Leyla, and now the baby lay crying inconsolably.
“Pick her up, Miranda,” Cait snapped. “We’re leaving!”
Shaking, Miranda reached into the crib. Cait glanced again at the drawn shades in her daughter’s room, then stepped into the hall. With the gun pointed at the ceiling, she motioned for Miranda to hurry, watching the front door. To her left, her bedroom door stood open, as did the bathroom door on her right. Both rooms were dark, but a breeze blew in from her bedroom. She leveled her weapon and scanned the room, then glanced at the windows, which she had left open. It looked undisturbed.
She turned right, into the living room, swinging the gun in an arc, ready to fire. Behind her, Miranda whispered comforting words and cooed to Leyla, whose crying had diminished.
Cait spotted a face outside the front living room window.
“Miranda—”
The next word out of her mouth would have been Go.
But just then the front door crashed open with a splintering of wood. She spun to see Miranda standing in the hall, brown eyes staring toward the front of the house in fear.
Miranda turned back toward Leyla’s room, instinctively shielding the baby with her body. The first bullet struck her in the right shoulder and she went down on her knees and spun halfway around, but still somehow managed to hold on to Leyla.
The second bullet took her in the back of the head, kicking her forward in a spray of blood. She landed on top of Leyla, sprawled on the carpet.
All Cait could hear was her daughter screaming. Or maybe it was her own voice she heard.
A window shattered in her living room and a shot rang out, but she was already in motion. Whoever had shot at her from the window missed. She spun into the corridor, already taking aim, but she didn’t stop. Instead, she let herself slam into the wall and pulled the trigger. Two dark-suited white men had come through the door. She shot the first one through the throat. Blood fountained from the wound as the bald man staggered, dropping his gun and reaching up to try to staunch the bleeding.
He fell backward into his partner, costing the other man two seconds and his life. As he tried to shove the bald man aside and get a clear shot, Cait put two bullets dead center in his chest.
Numb. Cold. They killed Miranda. They’d reaped what they’d sown. Still, it made her sick—and it wasn’t over.
A third man appeared just beyond the front door, a tall black man who looked strong enough to break her into pieces. Cait took a shot at him, but he spotted her in time to jump aside.
That was all right. She wanted him outside the apartment.
Heart hammering in her chest, heat flushing her face even though the rest of her still felt cold, she flipped over Miranda’s corpse without looking at her. Grief and tears would come later, when there was time. War had taught her that, and more.
Leyla’s cries became shrieks. Red-faced and wide-eyed, the baby kicked her feet on the floor. Her pajamas looked wet, and the smell told Cait that her diaper had leaked. She only vaguely registered this as she scooped Leyla up and darted through the open bathroom door. If they became trapped in here, they were dead.
She poked her head out and saw the man in her doorway again. He took a shot at her and missed. The bullet pinged off the bathroom door hinge even as Cait fired back, blowing out his knee. Her aim had been for shit—she had intended to kill him—but at least it took him down for a second.
It was long enough for her to slip Leyla into the sling around her neck. Then she was up and good to go. Baby urine soaked through the sling and into her shirt, damp against her skin, and Leyla kept screaming, but neither of those things bothered Cait. Her baby was alive, and nothing else mattered.
She poked her head out again and spotted a skinny young blond weasel coming through the door. The guy dropped to the floor behind the huge bastard with the ruined knee, using him for cover. His human shield had regained his wits enough to start reaching for the pistol he’d dropped, despite the agony of his knee. Staring at her, fury in his eyes, he grabbed the gun and started to aim. She shot him.
The weasel darted into the darkness of the dining room. Cait didn’t wait to see what he would do, or who would come through the door next. She had a moment’s respite and she used it.
Left arm holding her screaming daughter against her chest, she ran back into the living room, head ducked low. A shot boomed, shattering a framed photo of her father on the wall as she ran past, and then she was in the kitchen and heading for the back door. Nobody had tried breaking that one down yet, but she wasn’t fool enough to think that meant it was unguarded. They’d have to be total idiots not to have covered the rear of the house, but she had no choice. She had no idea how many guns were out there, and if the police didn’t show up fast, she was a sitting duck inside the house. If she could get through the backyard alive and push through the opening in the neighbors’ fence that bumped up against the property there, she would find someone home, someone who would let her in, hide her and Leyla, help keep them safe until the police arrived.
All she knew was that she had to get her baby away from the bullets.
Cait hauled the door open and kicked the screened storm door wide. Its springs creaked loudly, but no one shot at her. She hurled herself out into the night, gun hand sweeping the yard for targets, and nearly stumbled when she spotted two dark-suited men—they’d obviously been guarding her back door—sprawled in the yard with their throats cut, blood glistening black in the moonlight.
Beyond them were three others, olive-skinned men in street clothes who trained their guns on her. Cait aimed back, breathing hard, chest tight with fear for her baby, but nobody fired.
One of the men—clean-shaven and darkly handsome—put a finger to his lips to keep her from crying out.
“Give us the child and live, or die and we’ll take her from your cold hands,” the man whispered. They were the most hideous words she had ever heard, yet his voice was melodious, almost pleasant, and he spoke in an accent that was all too familiar.
He was Iraqi.