Sadie woke up on the loveseat with a slight chill that raised goose bumps on her arms. She shivered.
“I tried to find a blanket, but the only one here is on the bed, and Graham was pretty tightly curled in it last I checked.”
Sadie blinked the sleep out of her eyes. Ethan sat on the wicker chair right where she remembered last seeing him before she fell asleep.
“You get any sleep?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not for lack of trying.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Plenty of time to sleep later. I'll sleep fine once I know Graham is safe.”
She wanted to say something, but her head was still too gauzed with sleep to come up with the right words. She hoped the look in her eyes said enough.
He gave her a small smile. “I owe you big time.”
“For what? All my nagging?”
He glanced around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time. “For taking us in. For trusting me enough to bring me here even though I get the feeling that was really hard for you.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I know I should probably explain . . .”
“Forget it. Tell me when you're ready.”
“Nice of you to let me off the hook when I wouldn't give you the same courtesy.”
“I put you in a hard position, leaving you to explain to Staver why I was running out the back door.”
“You know there's more to it than that, right?”
“I know.” He folded his hands in his lap and dropped his gaze. “I should have told you more about where I'd come from. I just never thought I'd have to. I figured forgetting about it was enough, only forgetting turned out harder than I expected.”
“Fair enough. I know how that goes.” She threw her hands out to indicate the apartment. “Obviously.”
After a quiet moment, Ethan stood and stretched. “I should get going.”
Sadie stood herself and moved close to him. “Are you going to take Graham with you?”
“I'm hoping once they check out Josh, they won't need to bother Graham anymore. So there's no point letting them get near him until they've heard me out.”
“They're not going to like that.”
“They'll have to deal.”
“Do what you have to do,” she said. “I'll take care of Graham while you're gone.”
He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Thank you.”
She kissed him gently on the lips before he left and stood in the hall watching after him until he walked out of sight. Then she closed the door and went to the window facing the parking lot. She watched him get in her car and pull away.
The police would give Ethan a hard time at first, but they would have to listen to him, have to check out this Josh person. She just hoped it would end soon. Then she could finally tell Ethan about Michael, explain to him why she had been so reluctant to help when she learned about the kind of life Ethan used to lead. And then explain how foolish she felt when she realized a man who cared so much for his children could never be anything like Michael.
When Ethan pulled out of sight, Sadie started to turn from the window, but something caught her eye, a glimpse of movement through the windshield of a car parked on the other side of the lot. Then the car's driver-side door swung open and Sadie gasped at the sight of the man who climbed out.
Lazaro slammed the car door shut and strode toward the building, a gun held down at his side.
Ethan turned on the radio as he pulled out of the parking lot. He set the dial set to a modern rock station and cranked the volume. The speakers snapped at the sudden explosion of music hurling out of them. Ethan's ear drums throbbed in time to the song's bass line.
He rolled the window down as he pulled into traffic and headed toward the police station. The morning air carried a bite that didn't really warrant driving with the windows down, but Ethan wanted to feel the wind against his face. The air smelled fresh and blew through the growing haze that had collected around him since the night Randy had shown up at his door.
He drove for a while before he noticed the tears evaporating off his cheeks in the breeze. He wiped at his face and clamped down on his emotions. Time for breaking apart would come later. He had to hold himself together a little longer, get Graham out of trouble, and set things right. Maybe then they could mourn properly. Whatever that meant.
He checked his eyes in the rearview mirror to make sure he'd cleared up any evidence of his crying. When he went in to talk to the detectives he wanted to come across level-headed and in control. It might take some doing to encourage them to check out Josh, let alone to keep them from throwing Ethan in a cell in the process. Showing any sign of weakness was not an option.
While checking his reflection he caught sight of a familiar car behind him. For a second he couldn't place the vehicle as if his memory were in a state of denial. Then he remembered where he'd seen that Taurus before. Lazaro's car—or the one he had last stolen.
He squinted at the mirror, trying to see through the reflected sky on the Taurus's windshield. The driver's silhouette was too small to belong to Lazaro. Maybe it was another car of the same make. A coincidence?
Yeah, right.
Suspecting who sat behind the wheel, Ethan slowed down. At first the trailing car slowed to match his speed, but she must have realized he had spotted her. The Taurus accelerated, pulled around to the right, and came even with Ethan's car.
Rain looked through her passenger side window at him and wagged a finger indicating for him to pull over.
He thought about ignoring her. Whatever she had to say didn't matter right now. He had more important things to deal with.
A question convinced him to follow her directions.
How did she find me?
Sadie shook Graham a second time, a little harder than the first. His eyes fluttered open and he blinked at her with brow furled as if he weren't sure she was part of a dream or not.
Sadie pressed a finger to her lips. “We have to get out of here.”
“Again? Seriously?” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second and rattled his head. “Where's Dad?”
“He left to talk to the police.” She tugged gently on his arm to encourage him to sit up. “You're uncle's on his way up, though.”
He sat up, jaw slack, still not awake enough to understand what she was telling him. She crouched beside the bed until their eyes were level.
“He has a gun.”
Before Graham could react to this news a solid thump accompanied by the rattle of the front door's chain echoed down the hall to the bedroom. A second strike quickly followed. Then a third, this one bringing with it the crack of wood. Lazaro was trying to kick the door in. And he blocked the only exit, unless they wanted to jump out the window from the second story.
Sadie glanced around the bedroom for something she could use as a weapon. Stupid. What could she possibly have to use against a man with a gun?
Then what?
If they couldn't leap out the window and she couldn’t fight back, what option did they have? Could they hide?
“Come on.”
She pulled Graham to his feet and led him out of the bedroom by the hand. She guided him into the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain, and gently pushed him in the direction of the tub.
“Get in there.”
“He's going to find us in here.”
“Not my plan. You get in there and stay quiet. I'll talk to him, convince him you're not here.”
Another sharp kick to the door thundered through the apartment and it sounded like more of the doorframe splintered.
Graham's face scrunched up. “Then what? You let him shoot you?”
“I don't think he's here to shoot anyone.”
“That's why he has a gun.”
She took him by the shoulders and gave him a stern stare. “We don't have a lot of options, and I'm not going to let him get to you no matter what he does to me.”
Graham shook his head. His eyes watered. “You can't tell me what to do.”
Boom. Wood cracking. The chain rattling.
“I'm not. I'm asking you, please. Do as I say.”
His jaw clenched, but he stepped into the tub and yanked the shower curtain closed.
“Thank you, Graham,” Sadie whispered, then hurried toward the living room. She hesitated a second in the hall. Should she close the bathroom door? No. That would draw attention, look suspicious. As much as the instinct to barricade Graham from harm tugged at her, she had to let the feeling go. Hurry. Before that lunatic broke open the door.
She rushed into the kitchenette and yanked open drawers, hoping to find a left over knife though she knew she had packed up all the plates and silverware long ago.
“I'm calling the police,” she shouted and spun in a circle looking for anything to use as a weapon. Of course if she found something it wouldn't do her much good against a gun, but she would feel a lot better holding anything threatening between her and that animal.
“I just want to talk,” Lazaro shouted back and gave the door another kick. The cheap deadbolt ripped free and the door swung in, stopped from flying all the way open by the chain. He poked his face in between the door and jamb.
Sadie expected him to give her a Jack Nicholson impersonation from The Shining. Instead, he pouted.
“Can't we talk, Sadie? We never got a chance to get to know each other.”
She rushed the door and rammed against it, crunching his face between the doorjamb and the door.
He growled and staggered out of sight.
Sadie tried to shut the door, but the damage to the frame made the gesture useless. She leaned against it to hold it in place. Her chest heaved. She tried to calm her breathing so she could listen for him.
A second or two passed and she only heard her own huffing.
Had she hurt him that badly? She had put all her weight behind the thrust against the door. With his face in there she could have caused a serious enough injury to knock him down. At this point, if she held the starring role in a horror film, she would turn and slowly open the door to peek out and check on the dangerous villain. Luckily, Dad had made her watch enough of those movies as a teen to know that checking to see if you had defeated the evil beast was a bad idea.
But she couldn't stand here against the door waiting for him to shake off the pain and renew his attack.
Now that she had bought herself some time, calling the police sounded like the best option, only she had spent so much time worrying about finding a weapon she had left her cell phone on the end table by the loveseat at the other side of the room. Going for the phone meant leaving the door which would slowly swing back open without her back pressed against it.
If Lazaro tried getting in, though, her little body wouldn't do a damn thing to keep the door closed against his superior weight and strength.
Looked like the decision was pretty much made for her.
Once she had her phone in sight, she took a shallow breath—the best she could do at the moment—and counted down from three. Then she bolted across the room.
It felt like a dream, that moment where you realize that whatever chases you has every intention of eating you whole, so you try to run, but the air has turned to clear grease, and every step and pump of your arms takes three-and-a-half ages, but that hungry monster on your tail learned long ago how to swim through dream grease and gains a mile for every foot you flee.
Sometimes real life does come at you in slow motion.
Her back felt like a naked target facing the door. As she pushed herself across the living room, she kept expecting to hear a gunshot and feel a bullet's impact carry her off her feet. When she reached the end table with her phone, she doubted the moment's reality. She shook the feeling off and grabbed the phone. Her trembling hands worked against her. Pulling the phone open became a test of her will to control her own fingers. Once she flipped the phone open she took a second to breath—just breathe—and steady her fingers to keep from misdialing.
A second too long.
“Don't.”
Sadie cringed at the sound of his voice coming from across the room. Her body locked, the phone cradled in her clawed hands, useless.
He took a step forward, leading with his gun.
“Close it and drop it.”
But she couldn't move. Her mind scampered in fourteen directions at once, like a pack of dogs set loose to track fourteen different scents, a trail to some solution that could get her out of this without getting hurt.
“You better do it.”
“You won't shoot me.”
“See that,” he said, “I told you we never got a chance to really know each other.”
Sadie turned, putting the phone between them as if it were the weapon she had desperately searched for before. She willed her hand to stop trembling and poised the thumb over the number nine on the keypad, ready to dial the three numbers that she hoped would scare this lunatic away.
“What good would killing me do? Graham and Ethan are gone.”
Lazaro inched forward, rolled his eyes. “He left alone. Probably on his way to the cops, right?”
“He wasn't alone.”
“I saw him. I'm not stupid.”
“You saw wrong.”
“Graham hiding under the bed?”
Sadie pressed the nine and moved her thumb to the one. “What do you want?”
“You hit another button on that fucking phone and I'll break your little fingers.”
She lifted her chin and pressed the one. “One more digit and they're on their way.”
He scrunched up his face. “Hello? Do you not see the gun here?” He waved it like a flag then retrained his aim on her. “Even if you hit that last number, cops'll only be here in time to find your body.”
Her hand started shaking again. Sweat oozed between her thumb and the phone's keypad. She tried to tear her eyes off of the gun, but the barrel held her gaze. Before meeting this thug, Sadie had rarely seen a gun up close, and now he had one trained on her for the second time.
“Fine.” She dropped the phone. It bounced once on the carpet at her feet. “But I already told you, I'm here alone. Ethan and Graham are on their way to the police station. They've decided to do the right thing. There's no point to this. Why get yourself in trouble?”
“I'm here to keep myself out of trouble, lady. Shut up and get Graham. We're leaving.”
“I told you—”
He rushed at her, shoving the gun ahead of him with the barrel pointed in her face. “Quit lying and get him.”
She raised her hands, palms out. “Okay, okay. Take it easy.”
Movement at the mouth of the hallway drew Sadie's attention. Graham charged into the living room, arms raised, hands clawing the air before him.
“Leave her alone,” he shouted and pounced on Lazaro's back.
Lazaro whirled, easily throwing Graham to the floor. He pointed the gun down at Graham, and Sadie felt as if gravity had given up on planet Earth.
“Don't you dare,” she shrieked and flung herself forward.
Lazaro turned, fast for such a big man. Fast yet so slow. Slow like a dream again. Only now the monster stood in front of her and she rushed toward him instead of away. And just like in the nightmares, she couldn't move quickly enough.
His gun swung around with him. At least three feet between them. Three miles to Sadie. All of it probably taking only three seconds before the enormous explosion of the gunshot, the bloom of fire from the barrel, and the punch to Sadie's belly.
She found herself on her back on the floor. Her ears rang. Outside of films, she'd never heard a real gunshot. She had never imagined it could be so loud.
Cold wetness soaked through her shirt. She expected pain, but only felt cold. That seemed worse than pain. The cold and the wet tickle along the back of her throat. Horrible.
She tried to call out for Graham and glimpsed a red spray from her lips, but couldn't hear her voice over the ringing in her ears.
You have to protect him. You promised Ethan.
Her body ignored every command from her mind to move. All she could do was lay on her back while the cold filled her body and blood filled her throat.