The Kill Shot
Page 29
“Tomorrow,” Barrett said, “is a long way away.”
And he was so right.
Barrett’s deft fingers found the first pearl button on my blouse. It yielded to him in a heartbeat. And then and there, I knew I was going to do the same. Because having Barrett spend these weeks in my guestroom had felt like foreplay. And I was ready for what came next.
Silk gave way to the satin I wore against my skin and Barrett’s palms cruised along my curves. I sighed with the sensation of his touch, slipped hungry hands beneath his sweatshirt, felt the flexing of his muscled back—until a muffled thump in another part of the house broke my concentration.
Barrett turned his head to look toward the hall. Past his strong shoulder, I saw the shadows shift. Mrs. Montgomery’s form darkened the doorway.
But Mrs. Montgomery had company.
A man I’d never seen before dragged her into the bedroom by her silver-laced hair. He forced her to kneel in front of him. And he shoved the long barrel of a shiny .357 Magnum into the soft tissue at her temple.
At that caliber, the gun was overkill. One pull of the trigger wouldn’t just murder Mrs. Montgomery. It would blast the contents of her cranium to the ceiling.
Barrett moved faster than I would’ve believed possible, rolling off of me and onto the edge of the bed. He could hardly stand, though. And without his crutches, he couldn’t walk. I jumped to my feet, automatically grabbed for the Beretta 9000-S usually holstered at my side. But I’d left the weapon in my bedroom, in my gun safe, when I’d gone to meet Marc at the airport that morning.
As if I were armed and dangerous anyway, the intruder screamed at Barrett. “Tell your girlfriend not to come any closer! I’ll shoot this woman in the head! I’ll shoot her!”
“No!” The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I pointed an authoritative finger at the stranger in my home. “This is my house. You put the gun down.”
He didn’t obey me.
And Mrs. Montgomery whimpered like a lost little girl.
“We’re staying right here,” Barrett assured the man. “Let the lady go and we’ll talk.”
“No talking!” the stranger yelled. “Just doing!”
His face was as filthy as a coal miner’s after the night shift and his tattered desert-tan jacket had belonged to a soldier. It was as dirty as the rest of him, but I could make out the name tapes sewn above the chest pockets. One read U.S. Army. The other read McCabe. Whether the jacket was his and his name was McCabe, I couldn’t say. But his wide and wild eyes and the shaking of the hand that gripped his gun told me he was hepped up on illegal drugs. And I was certain that alone could make him deadly.
“What do you want us to do?” Barrett asked him.
In answer, the intruder did the most extraordinary thing.
He called Barrett by his first name.
“I want you to come with me, Adam.”
I blinked in disbelief. “Barrett, do you know this guy?”
Barrett didn’t reply.
“You’ve got to come home with me,” the gunman told him.
“He’s not going anywhere,” I snapped. “He has a broken leg.”
But the stranger kept talking like I wasn’t even in the room. “Don’t do it for me, Adam. Do it for Eric.”
“Eric?” Barrett whispered.
The intruder nodded. His arms dropped to his sides. The gun fell from his fingertips, clonked on the hardwood. I darted after it and snatched it up. Mrs. Montgomery collapsed like her bones had turned to jelly. And her assailant sagged against the door jamb as if accosting us had taken all his strength.
“Barrett,” I said, “what’s going on here?”
“It’s all right,” he assured me. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
But I could see that was a lie.
And Barrett had never lied to me before.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until he lied to me again.
I left Barrett to tuck a weepy Mrs. Montgomery into a cab while she was still on this side of hysterical and made a mental note to cut her the largest check my swollen bank account could afford. Luckily, she hadn’t been injured or worse. But luck only goes so far.
And her assailant was still inside my house.
When the cab pulled away from the curb, I raced upstairs to find that Barrett had banished the man to the adjoining bathroom. I heard water running in the shower and wondered if I’d recognize the guy underneath all the dirt.
“Mrs. Montgomery’s on her way home,” I told Barrett. “I say we call the police while—”
But that’s when I noticed Barrett’s duffle bag yawning on the foot of the bed. He hobbled to the dresser with a single crutch under his arm. He extracted a wine-colored waffle-knit shirt from a drawer, rolled it into a long log, and returned to shove it in the bag.
Because Barrett was packing.
He said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Jamie.”
“Barrett, that sounds an awful lot like goodbye.” And in that moment, I felt as cold as if winter had taken up residence in my soul. “Can you at least tell me you know this guy?”
“His name is Vance McCabe. We were friends in high school.”
“And do you know your friend is pretty strung-out right now?”
Barrett didn’t respond. He just stuffed a sweater in his duffle bag. In the bathroom, the shower went silent.
“Well, you can’t leave tonight,” I said, trying to be reasonable. “You’ve got an appointment tomorrow so your cast can some off.”
“It’s been six weeks. The cast can come off, with or without an appointment.”
Barrett made another round trip to and from the dresser drawers.
“Yes, but we had plans. For the weekend.” For lovely days. And romantic nights.
Barrett zipped up the top of his duffle. “I’m sorry, Jamie. Vance!”
At Barrett’s shout, his so-called friend appeared in the en suite doorway. Barrett tossed his duffel at the guy. With quicker reflexes than I’d have thought he possessed, Vance McCabe caught the bag against his gut like a varsity athlete catches a football.
And while I stood there sputtering like a tea kettle that had been pushed too far from the heat, Barrett gathered up his second crutch. Without another word, he lurched toward the door. And just like that, he was gone.
Every great mystery needs an Alibi
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