MIDNIGHT’S GROWL WOKE me from a restless sleep. I bolted upright and quietly shushed him. I grabbed the gun. The room was pitch black. My improving vision still needed light to see anything. I guided myself around the edge of the bed to Midnight in the crate. I brought my index finger to my lips and gave a quiet sshh, then silently opened the crate and let him into the bathroom six steps away with the soundproof comforter on the floor and the bucket full of three days’ worth of water. More than enough if something went wrong.
I bent over and kissed Midnight on the forehead then left the bathroom and quietly shut the door behind me.
Midnight was my alarm and would fight to the death to save my life, but I wouldn’t put him in that situation. I’d prepared. I was ready.
Ten steps to the bedroom door. The house, still a black cave. I squinted down my eyes and listened to the night. Silence.
Fifteen silent steps to the staircase. Both hands holding the gun in front of me in a perfect shooting platform. I took one hand from the gun and grabbed the railing at the top of the stairs to situate myself. Slowly, I knelt down to the floor, then proned myself out on my stomach, arms out in front. The pain from my stomach wound heightened my senses.
I waited.
A blurred narrow beam of light in the kitchen. He’d picked the lock on the back door. The light moved around the kitchen, the living room, and shot over my head to the second floor. I kept the gun pointed at the source of the light. Still too far away to zero in on.
The light moved across the living room toward the staircase. Each step silent. I had just enough time to bolt back into my bedroom, lock the door, and call 911. The killer would probably flee and I’d be safe. For tonight. But what about tomorrow or the next time I left my house. The home alarm wouldn’t do me any good out in the world.
The source of the light reached the bottom of the staircase. The beam rose six inches with each silent step. Closer and closer to my face and outstretched arms at the top of the stairs. Step six. Two more and the target light would find me.
I aimed just below the light and whispered, “Rory.”
The light shot up. I squeezed the trigger. Yellow light flashed the stairway as three explosions rocked the house.
Two from my gun, a silenced one from his.
“Umph.” A thump, then tumble down the staircase. The beam of light bounced down the stairs and came to rest at the bottom. Pointed at the human mass next to it.
I sprang to my feet and scrambled down the stairs. My gun pointed at the body below me as I counted off each step in my head above the ringing in my ears. I knelt down and picked up the gun the light was attached to and pointed it at the man gasping below me. The gun had a long, thin suppressor screwed into the barrel. The man was dressed in dark hospital scrubs and something was covering his shoes, probably plastic booties. His hands, dark, encased in latex gloves. The uniform and weapon of a professional killer.
I pointed the light-mounted gun at his head. He was bald now. No more brown hair that the woman who screamed saw the night he stabbed me. But I could smell the Dove deodorant mixed in with his musk even with the metallic stink of smoke and the coppery scent of blood in the air.
The Invisible Man had already changed his look and, no doubt, his identity. For the final time. In the light I could just make out his face. His mouth was gaping like a fish out of water.
With my gun still aimed at him, I used my left hand to find his wounds. Two in the upper chest. I put pressure on them as best I could with one hand. The man’s breathing grew more ragged.
“Did Benson tell you to kill me or is this on your own?”
“I … I …” A death rattle and he was gone.
Another square white room. I’d been in too many of them the last fifteen years. This one belonged to the San Diego Police Department. My second time in it in the last three days. Fluorescent lights overhead. Bright enough for me to almost make out the features of Detective Skupin sitting across from me. We had a history. Not as bad as I had with most cops.
“I’m trying to help you out here, Rick, but you got to meet me halfway.”
“Whatever you need, Detective.”
“What I need is an explanation that doesn’t come off as you lying in wait for Doug Breslin and cold-bloodedly shooting him.”
“Kind of hard to lie in wait in my own home. The guy broke in, shot at me, and I shot him.”
“I’ll tell you what you did and didn’t do, Rick.” He thrust out a hand. I could barely make out his fingers as he unwound them. “You didn’t call 911 when you heard an intruder in your house. You didn’t arm your home alarm, which was in working order. By the way, I checked with the alarm company and they said you hadn’t had the alarm on for four days. How do you explain that?”
“I’ve been forgetful since someone stabbed me in the stomach and tried to slit my throat. A lot of painkillers.”
“The facts of the crime scene don’t correlate with your story. I’ll give you a chance to change it right now. No harm done.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You could not have been standing up when you shot Breslin. The angle would have been more downward. Plus, the bullet from his gun went into the ceiling right above the staircase, like he’d already been shot and was falling backward when he fired his gun.”
“I might have gotten where he was standing wrong when he raised his gun to shoot me and who shot first. It all happened pretty fast.”
“That’s another thing. You’re legally blind. How could you tell he had a gun and not just a flashlight?”
“A reasonable assumption considering that he did have a gun.”
“And you were willing to bet his life on an assumption?”
“No. I wasn’t willing to bet mine.”