Having administered the drugs and wrapped Melissa in a black blanket, Schofield scanned the backyard and the path to his waiting vehicle. There were no signs of life, but his view was obstructed by a detached garage, a white fence with cracked and flaking paint, and a row of snow-encrusted lilac bushes. A pole light on a neighbor’s garage lit the alley, so he couldn’t hide within the darkness. He couldn’t be sure that his route was clear of complications.
It’s too early. Too many people still out and about.
But he had little choice. He had to take the risk, so he punched the button on his keychain to automatically open the trunk of the Camry. Taking a deep breath, he scooped Melissa up. Out the door, across the yard, hugging the wall of the garage, staying out of the light, dumping her into the trunk, closing the lid.
It was done. He had made it.
A little snarl and a yap sounded behind him.
He turned around slowly.
Twenty feet away at the edge of the alley, a middle-aged man in blue Adidas windbreaker pants and a thick brown winter coat stood holding the leash of a little orange Pomeranian. The man’s coat was entirely too small for his frame and looked like it was made for a woman, as if he had simply grabbed the first jacket he had seen before taking the dog out to the bathroom. The Pomeranian couldn’t seem to make up its mind on how to react to the newcomer. It snarled and showed its teeth, but its tail was wagging.
The two men just stared at each other.
Time seemed to stand still. Neither of them moved.
But then the man with the dog took a furtive step backward. Schofield tried to speak, but the words came out jumbled and his voice sounded an octave higher than normal.
“I, ummm, we, it’s … not what it …”
Schofield realized that he was dressed all in black, was wearing a black balaclava, and had just dropped a body-shaped bundle into his trunk. There would be no explaining it away. No reasoning with this man. No excuses could be made, and he lacked the capacity for such subterfuge anyway.
He raised the P22 Walther and fired three times into the man’s chest. The dog yapped out a string of high-pitched barks, and the man screamed for help. The smell of gunpowder filled the night air, and stuffing from the interior of the man’s coat floated in the breeze. The man rolled onto his front and tried to crawl away.
Moving purely on instinct now, Schofield rushed forward and kicked the man over and onto his back. Stains of blood streaked across the snow, and a trail of ruddy brown liquid flowed down the man’s chin. When he opened his mouth, his teeth were red. “Please,” the man forced out in a wheeze. One of the bullets must have punctured a lung.
“Look in my eyes!” Schofield said.
The man fixed him with a disbelieving stare as if he couldn’t comprehend that this was truly happening, that his life was truly over.
Schofield fired twice into the man’s forehead and once more into his chest.
The little dog still yapped and growled ferociously at his back. Its retractable leash trailed behind it as it ran back and forth from one side of the alley to the other, the plastic handle scraping and bumping over the rocks.
He aimed the pistol at the Pomeranian and said, “Be quiet!”
The little dog’s incessant yipping pierced his ears like needles. His finger tensed over the trigger. He willed himself to fire, to stop the noise. The neighbors would hear. The dog was drawing unwanted attention. It had to be silenced.
But he couldn’t kill the poor little animal. He groaned and chased it around the alley, eventually catching its leash beneath his foot. Scooping the dog up, he spoke to it in a calm and comforting voice while he stroked his fingers through its orange fur. Its tail wagged furiously from side to side, and it licked his face.
“Okay, okay,” Schofield said, with a laugh. “You have a new family now.”