exposed. He paused by the back door.
'Okay,' he whispered. 'Standard SWAT kick-down. I'm going right on three. One… two…'
Then he stepped back, kicked the door, and dove inside to the right, sideways and low. He hit the floor and was unable to see the room as he rolled, but he heard Alexa dive in behind him, going left and yelling, 'Freeze, asshole!'
Then two shots blasted from the opposite side of the room. Shane finished his roll and came up behind a couch. The bullets thunked into the wall over his head. Alexa rolled to the left, then fired twice. Her first shot took Calvin Sheets high in the chest. He flew backward and hit the far wall, leaving a streak of blood on the white plaster as he slid down.
Shane came up in time to see Don Drucker move into the room, pulling his gun. Sandy was darting right just as Drucker fired. She passed through his sight and was hit in the back, screaming in pain. Shane watched in horror as the bullet went directly through her abdomen, exploding out the front, leaving an exit wound the size of a Softball. Sandy looked down in abject terror as blood and stomach contents streamed out of her, staining her light- green cocktail dress. Then she slumped to the floor, groaning.
Drucker turned his gun on Shane, who dove right just as the rookie cop fired. Shane felt the 9mm whiz by, inches from his head. He heard Alexa's gun discharge twice more, then Drucker flew out of Shane's field of vision and hit the floor. It was quiet for a second, but as Shane came up, he could see Drucker lying on his back, his mouth gaping open, dead. Alexa had hit him in the center of his forehead.
She was still low against the wall on the left side of the door, grim-faced and sweaty. Suddenly they heard footsteps on the path.
'Bolt the door,' he ordered.
Alexa slammed it shut and threw the latch while Shane checked Drucker and Sheets. 'These two are history,' he said.
Shane snatched up Calvin Sheets's Smith amp; Wesson and tucked it away in his belt, then moved to Sandy, who was lying in an expanding pool of her own blood. It was widening beneath her, staining her dress a dark crimson, soaking the sides around her waist. He knew instantly that she probably wouldn't make it. The wound was fatal; she was already shivering, turning cold as her blood left her.
'Sandy… Sandy… it's me. Can you hear me?' he said, kneeling beside her.
When Sandy looked up, her face had lost its shape; her eyes were dimming as blood pumped out of her onto the tile floor. 'I know… where… Chooch… is… Calvin told me… after we… we had sex and… and… he told…' She was shaking badly, struggling for breath. 'Then… Clark Crispin came… seen my file… knew I was… Black Widow…' She started to choke, blood flowing from her mouth now, running down her chin.
'Shit,' Shane said. 'Let's get you outta here, to a hospital.'
'No… ' she said as he tried to lift her. 'No… Please… listen. In Arrowhead… Sheets said… they're holding him there…'
Sandy's strained words were overwhelmed by a heavy pounding on the front door.
'Open the fucking door, Cal! Open up!' Coy Love shouted.
'Give that asshole something to think about,' Shane barked. Alexa turned and fired her fifth shot through the bolted wood door.
'Shit,' they heard Coy say angrily from the porch outside.
'Shane… you've gotta listen…' Sandy whispered.
When he looked back down at her, she seemed smaller than she had just a moment before, as if she were losing volume, a pint at a time.
'Shane… you get him back… you take… take care of Chooch…' she rasped.
'I'll get him.'
'He's yours… Shane… yours and mine.' She was almost whispering now, her voice so small that he had to bend down to hear her.
'I was wrong…' She reached up and clutched his collar, pulling him down closer. 'I didn't think you'd want him… I wanted him but couldn't raise him… You gotta do better.' Her voice was so weak now, he placed his ear almost on her lips to hear. 'He needed… his father… It's why… I made you take him… It's why… it's why… I…' And then she was looking at him, but her gaze had turned empty. Her heart had stopped beating. Those flashing black eyes went dead and stared up at him, damp and blank as licked stones.
Shane slowly lowered her to the floor. When he looked up, he saw Alexa staring at him from the door.
'Shane, we've gotta get outta here,' she said.
Suddenly, Coy Love's face appeared at the window. Then his gun came up, aiming at Shane, who snatched Calvin's.38 out of his belt and fired twice just as Alexa peeled her last two rounds at the ex-cop. The window shattered as four bullets hit Coy Love, blowing him backward into the brush outside the chauffeur's cabin.
'Let's go!' Alexa screamed, and Shane got to his feet.
They could hear more voices screaming outside. They found the back door and threw it open. It led into the six-car garage. A black Lincoln Town Car was parked inside. Shane grabbed the keys off the pegboard, then he and Alexa jumped into the car; he started the engine, pulled the garage-door opener off the visor, and pushed the button. The door opened while Alexa was digging into her purse for a spare clip. She jammed it into the grip of her Beretta just as he floored the Lincoln, hurtling out of the garage and onto the driveway.
Armed men in black suits blocked their path but scattered as he plowed through them.
Out the front window, he could see security men running at them from several directions, all digging under their coats for weapons. Shane yanked the wheel and bounced the car up over the curb and onto the newly sodded front lawn. They shot across it, taking the direct route to the front gate, tearing up chunks of grass before finally bounding back over the curb onto the main driveway.
With four men chasing them on foot, they sped out the front gate, Alexa holding her gun at port arms. The Town Car skidded onto Casuarina Concourse, then a mile and a half later rounded the corner onto Cutter Road. Soon they were speeding under the leafy banyan trees, heading toward the airport.
'Get Bob at the flight center. Tell him we gotta get moving.'
While Alexa turned on her cell phone and dialed, Shane got a Miami all-news radio station. It had been only five or six minutes, but the story was already breaking.
'Our field news team covering the plush NFL party Logan Hunter is throwing at Elton John's Coral Gables mansion has reported a shooting,' the announcer said. 'We're still awaiting more details, but as we have it so far, several people have been gunned down. A man and a woman are identified as the shooters and have fled the scene in one of Elton John's personal vehicles. Stand by as we get more information.'
Shane let Alexa off at Million-Air Charters, then parked the car around the corner and up the street in a dense growth of oleander bushes, out of sight of the road. He wiped their prints quickly, using his old shirt, not forgetting to do the back of the rearview mirror, the place most car thieves miss. Then he walked around the corner and met Alexa. They entered the office and found Bob in the pilot's lounge, filing his FAA flight plan.
'Ready to go?' Bob said. 'That was quick.'
'Can't afford the hangar time.' Shane smiled, but the grin felt wide and shiny and about as genuine as an Amway salesman.
'Be right out,' Bob said.
They quickly boarded the plane, this time without waiting for the red carpet. Shane and Alexa sat in tense silence as the two pilots finally got aboard, shut the door, and smiled warmly. 'We've got a slight tailwind for a change,' Bob said happily. 'Should get us back in four and a half hours or so.' He settled into the right seat and wound up the engines.
Moments later they were rolling down the runway, taking off, leaving Miami and four dead bodies behind.
Shane sat stoically in the cabin, unable to deal with his thoughts. Alexa reached over and took his hand. 'You okay?' she asked. 'What did Sandy say to you?'
'Nothing,' he answered. He couldn't tell her yet, couldn't quite admit it to himself.
His mind went back almost sixteen years, recapturing a memory long forgotten: it was his second summer on the job, right after the first arrest Sandy had arranged on the Valley bond trading case. They'd gone to dinner several nights later, to celebrate. Sandy had made her pitch to him, offering to work for the police as an informant. They'd had too much to drink, and in the car outside her apartment, he had shucked her out of her dress, then in
