Slash stood and shook hands. “Pleasure to meet you. Lexi has spoken often of you.”
Sasha narrowed his eyes. “Lexi says you know computers and math. Is that true?”
“More or less. I understand you were a nuclear physicist in Russia.”
“It was the Soviet Union back then,” I interjected. “Sasha studied the quark-gluon plasma of nuclear matter.”
My mother pressed her napkin to her lips. “Really? Can we speak English, please?”
Slash grinned. “Ah, quark soup—the immediate phase of quantum chromodynamics or the state the universe is believed to be in shortly after the Big Bang. It’s a pretty exciting field.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow. “So, you do know physics.”
“A bit.”
“Good enough. Well, you be careful with our girl, okay?”
“Okay.”
Sasha leaned over close to me and whispered, “He’s smart and manly. Nice catch.”
I rolled my eyes as he disappeared back into the kitchen. “You passed the test,” I told Slash. “Be prepared to listen to the latest developments in quantum theory while watching him make his specialty, Chicken Kiev.”
“I look forward to it.”
Sasha returned with bowls for Slash and my dad. We all started to eat in silence, then my mom asked her first question.
“So, Slash, what do you do for a living? Lexi said something about computers at the NSA, but she wasn’t very specific.”
Slash set his spoon down. “It’s pretty routine stuff. Networks, firewalls, software. The usual.”
What Slash did was so far from routine I almost laughed. Instead, I watched my mother’s expression. Not being a tech head, she wasn’t sure how to probe for more information after that. But I could tell she was still curious.
Fortunately for her, my dad picked up the slack. “You make a decent living at that computer stuff?”
Slash nodded. “I do, but it doesn’t mean I’m not on the lookout for new investments.”
“Investments?” My dad lifted his napkin and wiped a corner of his mouth. “Do you gamble?”
“Dad!”
Slash put a hand on my arm. “No, sir. No gambling. Not my style.”
My dad leaned over his soup. “So what is your style?”
“Honest, hard work. Smart investments.”
“What kind of investments?”
“Mostly technological ones. I feel the most comfortable with them.”
“Because you’re into computers.”
“That’s part of it.”
Whether it was the weird exchange of testosterone or my extreme nervousness, I’d started to sweat. I held up the basket of bread. “Bread, anyone?”
Slash declined, but my dad took a piece of bread and tore it apart in his hands, chewing slowly. “So, I take it that Slash is a nickname?”
“It is. For reasons connected to my current position, I’m unable to provide my birth name at this time. I could give you a false one, but I’d rather not. Most people who know me well call me Slash.”
My father studied him. “You do realize that not knowing your real name doesn’t sit well with me, young man.”
“I agree it’s out of the ordinary, sir. Unfortunately, I’m bound by the rules of my employer.”
I shifted nervously in my chair. “Forget it, Dad. He works at the NSA. You know how that goes.”
“You worked at the NSA and you could tell people your real name.”
“I didn’t work in the same position as Slash. It’s only because I worked there that he even feels comfortable telling you it’s his place of employment. The secrecy thing is all in the name of national security. Can we stop the interrogation?”
“It’s not an interrogation. I’m just getting to know him better.”
“It’s okay,” Slash said. “I don’t mind.”
I really wished he wouldn’t have said that. My dad—now feeling he was completely within his rights—pressed on after another spoonful of chowder.
“Where did you go to school, Slash?”
“Undergraduate or graduate?”
I interrupted. “Slash is from Italy.”
“You’re a foreigner?” my mom asked, looking up from her soup in surprise. “I mean, you don’t have an accent.”
“I was born in Italy and attended the Sapienza University of Rome for both of my degrees. I’m an American citizen now.”
Wow. I hadn’t known that Slash had two degrees. I didn’t even know what the degrees were in. Jeez. Serious girlfriend fail.
“I guess that means you speak Italian.” My mom seemed delighted with the prospect.
“Si.” He took a sip of his wine.
“He can cook, too,” I offered. “I think all Italians must be born with the cooking gene.”
My father’s eyebrows shot up. Uh oh. I’d definitely said something wrong.
“He cooks for you? Does that mean you’re already living together?”
“Dad!”
“Winston!”
My dad pushed his bowl aside. “It’s a legitimate question, so we might as well get it off the table. I admit I’m being a bit overprotective, but Lexi has never brought anyone home before. She’s one of the smartest people I know, but she’s inexperienced. I don’t want you to take advantage of that. Therefore, I’d like to know upfront—man-to-man—what are your intentions toward my daughter?”
“Wait—what?” I leaped to my feet, nearly spilling my wine. “Oh my God. Did you really just ask that?”
He didn’t have time to answer, because two things happened almost simultaneously: something flew past my ear and thudded into the wall behind my dad, just as the lights in the house went out.
Before I could even register what had happened, Slash shouted, “Get down!” and tackled me with the force of a football lineman.
Chapter Four
I went down hard, my arm tangling in the tablecloth. As I fell, the contents of the table came with me—china, crystal, flowers and food. I hit the floor with a jarring thud. Mom screamed and my dad shouted something I couldn’t understand.
“Stay down,” Slash ordered. “Someone is shooting at us from outside.” He rolled off me and came to a crouch. “Everyone keep still.”
I shook off my daze and pushed up on my elbow. I could see Slash illuminated by the glow of the streetlight outside. He was making his way toward the front door in a low crouch, a gun in his hand. He must have had his shoulder holster on under his jacket.
There was a noise at the kitchen door and Sasha walked into the dining room. “What’s happening? Who turned off the lights?”
“Get down,” we all shouted at the same time.
Without a word of protest, Sasha dropped. Good reflexes born from the old Soviet era, I guess.
“What’s going on?” my dad hissed at me.
My mom’s favorite glass vase exploded in one corner of the room. “I don’t know. Someone is shooting at us. Just stay down, okay, Dad?”
“What? Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“What’s Slash doing?”
“Saving us, I hope.”
Slash murmured something into a cell phone. He was by the front door in a protective crouch. Where the heck were the FBI agents who were supposed to be watching him? I hoped they weren’t on a bathroom break or something.
I could hear my mom’s sobs, so I got up on my knees and began crawling. As I moved toward her, I glanced at the kitchen and saw the door move slightly.
“Slash!” I screamed, just as a man dressed in black opened the door and fired, strangely, at the chandelier.
I rolled under the table. Crystal shards rained down on me, but I barely felt them because I was already covered
in all the food and crap from the table. Slash must have returned fire because I heard a thud and the intruder ducked back into the kitchen. My mom started shrieking. Slash dashed across the room.
“Get them out of here,” Slash shouted at me as he kicked open the kitchen door and went in low, disappearing from sight.
I scrambled out from under the table, shaking something wet and gooey from my cheek. I’d lost a shoe and my heart was pounding so hard I thought I might pass out. My eyes had adjusted to the dim light and I saw the shape of my mom huddled against the wall. My dad was sitting in front of her protectively. Sasha still lay motionless on the floor.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing my mom’s hand. “Sasha, get up. Now. Everyone follow me.”
Sasha crawled forward and stood in a crouch, bracing himself against the wall.
“Stay low,” I warned them.
To their credit, my mom and dad came to their feet without a protest. I debated taking them into the living room where I could retrieve Dad’s gun, but I wasn’t sure it was actually loaded and the area was way too open and dangerous with multiple hiding places. Instead I led them down the opposing hallway toward Dad’s study.
The house remained ominously quiet and dark. I couldn’t hear the intruder or Slash. I carefully opened the study door. After a quick peek into the room, I ushered them in, hoping no one was in there. I couldn’t see a darn thing.
“Get in the closet,” I whispered, closing the study door behind me. No lock, so I couldn’t secure it.
Everyone crowded in the closet except me. I started to close the closet door without getting in.
“What are you doing?” my dad said, grabbing my hand.
“I’m staying out here. I’ll hide behind the chair. If the intruder goes for the closet first, I can take him from behind.”
My dad’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“Just get in and be quiet. I’ll be okay.” I pushed him in, still protesting, and clicked the door shut. Snatching the heavy crystal paperweight off his desk, I crouched behind one of the stuffed chairs perpendicular to his desk with a full view of both the study and closet doors.
I heard sirens in the distance and nearly cried in relief. It was about freaking time.
I hoped I was doing the right thing. My initial instinct was to go look for Slash to see if I could help, but intellectually I knew that was a dumb thing to do. First, I had no idea if Slash and the intruder were even still in the house. I hadn’t heard a door open or slam, but that didn’t mean anything certain. They could still be out there stalking each other. I didn’t need to get in the middle of that.
Second, if they were still in the house somewhere, the odds were high of me getting shot by either the intruder or Slash if I went creeping around the house trying to find them.
Third, there wasn’t much I could do to help Slash anyway without a weapon. I could retrieve my dad’s gun, but if my dad saw me with it, he’d try to wrestle it away from me. All I needed was for my dad to shoot himself trying to protect me.
No, I had to use the paperweight as a weapon. If the intruder entered and went for the closet—a statistically high probability given that I could hear my mom sniffling from out here—I could draw attention away from my folks.
The sirens became louder and I figured we were minutes, if not seconds, from rescue.
Suddenly, the door to the study opened. Quietly, silently. My breath froze in my throat. I could see the silhouette of a man creeping through the doorway. He had a gun at the ready. It definitely wasn’t Slash. He was thicker and his shape was different. I pushed my fear aside. I had to focus.
The man paused and then, hearing the soft noises from the closet, headed toward it.
I clenched my fist around the paperweight. It seemed pathetically small now in comparison to a gun, but I wasn’t going to stand by and watch him shoot my family. The man stood to the side of the closet door, reached forward and put his hand on the door handle.
I spent a precious two seconds calculating the weight of the paperweight, the speed at which I would throw it, and the distance before leaping up and hurling it directly at his head.
I missed. By a mile. So much for two-second calculations under extreme duress.
The paperweight crashed into the closet door and fell harmlessly to the floor. I was so not going to be hired by the National Baseball League any time soon.
The intruder turned to shoot at me. Thankfully, two things happened to disturb his aim: first, I was already in mid-jump over the chair toward the desk, and second, my dad flung open the closet door at that exact moment, hitting the arm holding the gun. The bullet hit the ceiling as I landed hard on the other side of the chair, rolling quickly to my feet. My dad and Sasha were already struggling with the intruder. Grunts filled the room as I jumped into the fray, fists swinging. I had no idea where the gun had gone or whether the intruder still had it.
“Hey, hey. Stop. Stop it.”
The voice was familiar. We all froze. My dad and Sasha immediately slid off him. My mom took a step out of the closet.
The intruder sat up, rubbing his jaw. “What the hell is going on here?”
I sat back on my heels, staring at him in disbelief.
It was my brother Beau.
Chapter Five
“Beau?” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Beau is the middle child, sandwiched between our brother Rock and me. I stared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I was on my way over to visit Mom and Dad when I heard a call on my car scanner that shots were fired at this address. I hightailed my ass those last two blocks with my heart in my throat. I came in through the side door with my key. I heard voices in the study, so that’s where I started.”
Before I could say anything, two shadowy figures appeared in the doorway. “Police. Everyone on the floor with your hands locked behind your heads. Now.”
We all complied instantly. The policeman had pulled out a flashlight was pointing it at us. My dad started talking.
“My name is Winston Carmichael. I’m an attorney. This is my home. The individuals in this room are my wife, children and house staff. Someone was shooting at us.”
More police entered the room, waving flashlights around and making me dizzy. “The house is clear.”
My brother lifted his head from the floor. “I’m Detective Beau Carmichael with the city-wide robbery unit at the BPD. My service weapon is on the floor next to the chair. It’s been discharged. My badge is in my pocket.”
A policeman discovered Beau’s gun in front of one of the bookshelves. He slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and bagged the weapon.
“I understand, Detective. But you know I have to cuff you until we can get this sorted this out. Is everyone okay?”
“I think so,” Beau answered. “Lexi, are you good?”
“Good is a relative term. But thankfully I’m uninjured.”
My mom, dad and Sasha confirmed they were all fine.
“Okay, everyone be calm and cooperate,” Beau instructed. “This will be over shortly.”
I felt cool plastic slide around my wrists and then one of the policemen helped me stand up. Another policeman assisted Beau to his feet and then wrestled his detective badge out of his pocket. He handed it to the first officer who had entered the room.
“It’s legit.”
I was scared to ask, but I had to.
“Did you find anyone else in the house?” My voice wavered.
“Not yet. Why? Is there someone missing?”
“Yes, my boyfriend. He was here with us, but he went after the intruder. The last time I saw him, he was headed into the kitchen.”
“Whoa. Wait. You have a boyfriend?” Beau interrupted.
My dad harrumphed. “His name is Slash.”
“What? Slash is your boyfriend?” Beau and Slash sort of knew each other from a case I had recently wrapped up.
Before I could reply, another figure stepped into the room. “There’s no one else here. But the back door leading out from the kitchen is open and there’s blood in the kitchen.”
My heart skipped a beat. Blood? Where was Slash? Was he okay?
The policeman in the doorway shined the flashlight at Beau. “So, Detective Carmichael, can you tell us what’s going on here?”
“I have no idea. I came late to the party. I was on my way here to visit my parents when I heard on the scanner there were shots fired at this address. Came in a side door and found my family hiding here. My sister, Lexi, wasn’t in the closet with the others and jumped out at me, hurling something at me and startling me. I discharged my weapon, but missed her. You’ll have to ask her for an accounting of what happened before that.”
The policeman shined his flashlight at me. “You’re Lexi?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“What’s that in your hair?”
I shook my head and something plopped to the floor. “Chowder, I think.”
“So, what happened?”
“Someone shot at us through the dining room window while we were having dinner. The first shot...it almost hit me. About the same time, we lost electricity. Slash called the police from his cell, I think. A minute or two later someone entered the house through the kitchen—I don’t know if it was the same person who shot at us or someone else—and starting shooting again. My boyfriend returned fire and chased the intruder. While he did that, we ran back here to hide in the study. Then Beau, my brother, came in. I thought he was the intruder, so I attacked him. In turn, he shot at me, thinking I was the intruder, but missed. We all jumped on him until we realized who it was.”
My brother narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m damn lucky you’ve got bad aim. You almost brained me with that paperweight.”
“Well, you almost shot me.”
My mother wailed and collapsed into the chair I’d been hiding behind.
The officer let out a loud sigh. “So, Lexi, is your boyfriend in law enforcement?”
No Woman Left Behind: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Six Page 3