Tucker Kratz yanked the back door open and barged in, slamming it firmly behind him. The glass in the window rattled in its pane.
A growl rumbled low in my throat. I ran straight for the back door, evening out my stride for speed despite the knife of pain that threatened to flay me open from spine to hock. I flew over the patio ledge and skidded to a halt at the door on the slick surface. Something told me not to bark. If Tucker knew I was there, if he had found the shotgun from the barn, then all he had to do was point it at me and pull the trigger.
No, I had to stay quiet, get inside. But how?
Bernadette shrieked.
“God damn you, Aunt Bernie!” Tucker hollered. “You’s the one what told ‘em where I was, wasn’t you?” His words were slurred. There was a poutiness to his tone, like that of a little boy who hadn’t gotten his way and was about to burst into tears. “Why’d you do that?”
“Tucker, now, put that thing down,” she urged. Although she kept her voice low and even, there was a tremor to it. “Don’t make matters any worse than they already are.”
“Worse? Tell me how they can get worse. God Aw-mighty, woman! If’n they catch up with me, I’m already goin’ to the big house. Does it matter if I get fifteen years or thirty? Naw, I’m gonna settle some scores before that comes around — and you’re the first.”
Carefully, I raised myself up on my hind legs to peek through the window of the back door. Tucker cocked the shotgun and lurched toward Bernadette. She stumbled backward into the hallway. Her back hit the wall with a thud. She slid down, her legs splaying wide. Tucker guffawed at her, then grabbed his whiskey bottle off the counter with his free hand and chugged.
I could see Lise and Hunter standing at the threshold between the living room and hallway. Cammie was out of view, but I knew she was in there somewhere, too.
Gathering her legs beneath her, Bernadette tried to stand, but Tucker slammed the butt of the shotgun down on the table. Bernadette flinched.
“Don’t move!” Tucker sat, leaning back on two legs of the chair, his index finger stroking the trigger.
As he stared Bernadette down, Lise drew Hunter slowly to her and cast the slightest glance over her shoulder, toward the front door. I couldn’t see it from where I was, but I knew that’s where Cammie had to be.
“Now Tucker,” — Bernadette tilted her head as she tried to plead with him — “if —”
“Shuuuut! Up!” Tucker flung the bottle across the kitchen. It crashed against the cupboard next to the sink, close to the back door. I ducked. Slivers of glass exploded everywhere, a few of them clinking against the window pane I had just been watching through.
“Money. Is that what you want?” Bernadette said.
“What kind of money we talkin’ about, huh?”
“What do you need?”
While he was busy thinking — which, knowing him, could take awhile — I left the back porch and raced around to the front, stepping softly as I crept up the steps to stand before the door.
“— would be enough to get me to —” He snorted a laugh. “Aw shit, man, I can’t tell you that. Let’s jus’ say I need a lot of cash. Loads of it. But I can’t have you raisin’ suppish ... puspish ... Damn it! I mean sus-pi-cions at the bank. Maybe I ought to just stay here with these two while you go fetch me some moola? What d’ya say?”
Careful not to make a sound, I stood on my back feet to look through the picture window. My injured leg quivered with the strain. Lise and Hunter stood with their backs to me. Beyond them, I could see Bernadette’s legs sticking out in the hallway and past her Tucker’s gangly legs stretched out before him, his boots speckled with mud, a hole nearly worn through the sole of one. In his left hand, he gripped the shotgun loosely. His face was hidden from my view.
I still couldn’t see Cammie. My guess was that Tucker hadn’t seen her either.
“That’d be fine, Tucker,” Bernadette said. “I just need a little help getting up.”
He lowered the barrel at her and leaned forward. I shifted over to stay out of his line of sight.
“Not yet,” he said. “I need to think about this a minute. You were a little too quick there. Gotta be some catch.”
“There’s no catch,” Lise said. “She gets you the money. You go free.”
“And who the hell are you, again?” he said. “Naw, never mind. It don’t matter. But maybe ... maybe you got money, too. What if I kept the boy and sent each of you one at a time? Now that could be lucrative.”
Right and left I looked. Then I saw it — the closet door was cracked open. Two small, wide eyes gazed back at me. Cammie’s lip was trembling. Tears streaked down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound, not even a snivel.
Tucker pulled his feet back and stood. I lowered myself to the ground. If I didn’t stop him, this could end very badly. I tucked myself in the corner of the porch, so he wouldn’t see me. I had to think of something. Meanwhile, he rambled on about all the bad breaks he’d gotten in life and how he’d been set up every step of the way.
In quick succession, Tucker opened and slammed three cupboards. “Where do you keep the whiskey around here?”
I contemplated returning to the barn and barking up a storm to lure him outside. Maybe running to a neighbor’s house and trying to lead them back. Either way that meant leaving all the people I loved with Tucker Kratz. I couldn’t. Not now.
And then I heard a creak from the floorboards just inside the house. I cocked my head, stepped back, ready to leap behind the bushes and make a run for it if shells started to fly.
The front doorknob turned slowly. Someone tugged on the door from behind. A tiny hand slid around the edge.
Cammie popped her head into the opening. She motioned me inside.
As I brushed past her leg, Tucker started warbling a Keith Urban song. Murdering it, actually.
Slowly, Cammie closed the door, but the hinges were old and rusty. They let out a long groan. Cammie froze in terror. Tucker stopped singing.
“What the fuck!?” he roared.
The little girl glanced at me, then dashed into the closet, pulling the door shut as far as she could without clicking the latch into place.
I squeezed behind the sofa. There was barely enough room between it and the wall for me to breathe, but I pushed toward the other end. Halfway, a board in the framework of the sofa dug into my shoulder. As I slid further, the sharp edge of the wood caught against fresh stitches. Skin tore open. The wet warmth of blood seeped beneath my fur, oozed down my hindquarter.
“Tucker,” Bernadette said, flailing a hand at him from the place where she sat, “you can’t just —”
Just as I stretched my neck forward to get a better view, Tucker raised the butt end of the shotgun up above her head and slammed it down. Bernadette crashed sideways, her head hitting the floor first. The scent of iron filled my nose: blood. And not mine.
Leveling the shotgun, Tucker shoved Hunter aside. Lise caught her son, steadying them both against the doorway.
Jaw twitching, Tucker’s eyes zeroed in on the closet door as he lifted the barrel, took aim —
“Nooo!!!” Hunter shouted.
Tucker whipped around. Lise yanked Hunter back, trying to drag him into the hallway. But he had grown bigger. He was too strong. He ripped himself from her arms, hands thrust before him, even as the barrel of the shotgun swung toward him.
Now! Cam’s voice said from somewhere faraway. Do it now, Halo!
I launched myself from my hiding spot, mouth wide, my head turned sideways. My teeth sank into Tucker’s flesh, pinching the tendon low on his calf, just above his heel. His leg jerked forward, but I gripped tighter. Held on.
The shotgun blasted.
A crash. A scream.
Then ... silence.