Just in, just out.
He ran for the house.
Karen reached the phone by the fourth ring. It was Brogan, and he sounded drunk. Karen couldn’t make out what he was saying. She reached for Neal and was surprised that he wasn’t there. He was probably in the kitchen getting his usual postcoital snack.
She found her sweatshirt and jeans on the floor, crawled into them, and hurried for the kitchen.
Neal put a headlock on his man and found himself flying through the air a second later.
He pulled himself to his knees and peered through the darkness at the tall man who likewise knelt in front of him sucking air.
“You wanna discuss a truce?” Neal asked.
Overtime raced up the steps to the deck, ducked under the kitchen window, and slid along the wall to the sliding glass door.
He found it unlocked, so he pushed it open and stepped into the living room. The two women on the couch looked up.
Which one? Overtime asked himself. Which one?
“Oh my Gawd,” Polly said.
Then he knew which one was Polly.
A professional makes his own luck, Overtime decided.
He raised the pistol.
Neal heard the glass door slide open. He got up and sprinted toward the house.
Chuck Whiting raced after him.
They both heard the scream.
A lot of purists complain about the cheap ping an aluminum bat makes when it hits the ball. They miss the solid thunk of wood on leather. But Karen really leaned into her swing and her aluminum bat made a very traditional crack when it ripped into Overtime’s lower back. There were some bonus sounds, too, because softballs don’t generally scream after they’ve been hit or whimper after they drop to the ground.
Overtime held on to the pistol, though. He pointed it up at Karen even as pushed himself along the floor back toward the door. He was half-tempted to put one in her stomach as she stood there with the bat raised over her head, poised to bash his brains in.
Let’s see how tough you are with your guts hanging out and your life pouring onto the floor, he thought.
Then he glanced outside to check his escape route and saw a pair of yellow eyes flashing in the night, and he popped the shot off at the eyes instead.
And missed.
That’s what Overtime couldn’t believe as the dog bit into the tendon above his collarbone. He had never missed a shot before and it was that bitch’s fault.
He tried to squeeze another shot off but couldn’t feel anything in his right hand.
He was remotely aware of the front door bursting open as he reached his left arm out the deck railing and pulled himself to the edge. Squeezing under the bottom rail, he levered the dog against the railing until the hell beast let go. Then he pushed himself under and dropped to the ground.
He remembered to roll, somehow got to his feet, and kept one thought in mind: Get to the car. Get to the car. The chaos in the house should let you get to the car.
As he ran, he could hear footsteps behind him.
And the panting of the dog.
“Are you all right?” Neal asked as Karen stood shaking in his arms.
She nodded her head in his shoulder and tried to stifle her crying. She looked up, embarrassed at her red eyes and tears, and said, “I’m sorry. I was terrified.”
“You were great,” Neal said. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Sorry I ever put you in this situation. Sorry I took this job so lightly, that I misunderstood Withers-not once, but twice-sorry I was out in the yard rolling around with the wrong guy while I left you to deal with a killer in our home. Sorry I got out there in time to see Withers’s car roaring away. I’m one sorry son of a bitch.
“The dog’s going to be all right,” Candy said. She daubed Brezhnev’s neck with antiseptic. The dog lay panting on the floor, with what looked like a satisfied smile on its face.
Karen bent over, stroked the dog’s neck, and said, “You have a lifetime’s supply of biscuits coming from me, kid.”
I put her in a position where an old dog saved her life, Neal thought. Just saved her life.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked again.
“I’m okay. I’m shaken… I think we all are… but I’m okay.”
Neal kissed the top of her head, then walked over to Polly, who stood in the middle of the floor with that stupid expression on her face. It made him even angrier. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward the bedroom.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
But he noticed that she didn’t resist.
“We’re going to have a talk,” he said.
He didn’t wait for an answer or an argument, but hauled Polly into the bedroom and sat her down on the bed.
“I want the truth from you now,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like who is Gloria?” Neal snapped.
“She’s my best friend,” Polly said, “and my supervisor at work.”
“Well, your best friend gave you up,” Neal said.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“How’d she know where you are?”
She chewed her lip.
I have to control my temper, Neal thought, because my temper isn’t getting anywhere. She’s perfectly capable of just dummying up if I keep getting angry.
He sat down next to her.
“You have to help me now, Polly,” he said. “Someone wants to kill you, and someone came very close to killing Karen, so you have to help us.”
“I called her.”
Neal felt his face turn hot with anger. He fought to keep the bite out of his voice as he asked, “Why?”
“She’s my best friend,” Polly repeated. “We talk.”
Not anymore, you don’t.
“Does she have a man friend named Walter?”
“She has lots of man friends,” Polly answered. “I don’t know one named Walter.”
“Do you know a guy named Walter Withers?”
“No.”
The phone rang and Neal picked it up.
Polly took the chance to run out of the room.
“You were supposed to call me back,” Graham said. “There may be some complications.”
“Like a hit man coming to my house?” Neal asked.
“Hell no, nothing like that,” Graham said. “Don’t be paranoid.”
“Okay, a button man just hit our place, but I’m sure it was nothing personal.”
“What happened?” Graham asked.
“Someone just took a run at our honored guest.”
“Is everyone all right?!”
“No thanks to me,” Neal said. “Karen did a Mickey Mantle on his lumbar vertebrae. You told me this wasn’t a mob thing, Dad. Can you still tell me that?”
Graham sounded ashamed. “No.”
He briefed Neal on everything he’d learned. Neal, in turn, told him about Chuck Whiting, Mrs. Landis, Gloria,
