The fog started to fade.
Lila was about fifty feet in front of her and off to the left. Izzy had been going almost in the right direction, but not quite.
The cloak of invisibility vanishing, Izzy dropped to the ground as Lila broke right, sprinting like she was running for the tape. In seconds she was at the right side of the small house that Manny Wayne had dubbed as “the barracks.” If Tucker Wayne had been in there, he’d’ve seen her, but he hadn’t shot her.
How come?
And in the flick of an instant Izzy answered herself.
He wasn’t in there.
How come Lila couldn’t see that?
If Tucker wasn’t in the small house, where was he? Izzy looked over to the main house. It faced to the southwest, the barracks was off to its right and about a half a football field in front of it, affording Manny Wayne plenty of privacy while having his security guards not that far away. Could they have missed Tucker when they’d swept through the main house? Could he have been upstairs?
Izzy didn’t see any signs of life over there, so she didn’t think so, because if he’d been there with one of those machine pistols, he’d’ve cut Lila down.
She turned her attention back to the small house. It looked almost like the house she’d grown up in with her parents. It faced to the northeast, had a large bay window dead center in the front of the house, a window to it’s right, which in the house she’d grown up in would have been her bedroom, who knew what use it was put to here. And also like the house she’d loved, there was a front porch on the left, no porch swing here. Izzy imagined a living room on the other side of the front door, but that’s as far as her imagination would take here. This wasn’t the cozy little house she’d loved. There wasn’t any love here. This was a cold place.
Looking at the two houses, Izzy wondered why neither was built facing the northwest, where they’d’ve had a view of downtown Reno and it’s colorful lights. She couldn’t imagine a better view than that. Instead the main house faced the massive front yard which, other than a couple large trees, had nothing spectacular about it, except for the ugly fence that surrounded the property. The view from the barracks took in those trees as well as the main house. It was almost as if Manny Wayne didn’t want to acknowledge the world outside his domain and almost as if he didn’t care about beauty. It was all so desolate and with the exception of those two trees, barren.
Attention back on the small house, Izzy saw that Lila was in motion. Like herself, Lila dropped to the ground. Then she belly crawled along the front of the house. She was snake fast as she slithered under the window on the right, then under the bay window. Once past the windows she pushed herself to her feet, a pistol still in each hand with the one in her left pointed at the front door, like she’d expected Tucker to come bursting out of it.
But Tucker wasn’t in there. How come she couldn’t she see that?
Lila stood to the side of the door, aimed at the doorknob. She was going to blast it apart, but before she could fire, a man stepped out from behind the tree closest to the house.
Izzy shot him through the back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
With the girls free it was all Mouledoux could do to keep them from charging out of the relative, but temporary, safety of the bedroom.
“ We don’t know what’s going on down there,” he said.
“ But we know we don’t want to stay here,” Amy Eisenhower said.
“ Yeah, we know that,” her friend Alicia seconded.
A rolling sound, almost like distant thunder, filled the room. Earthquake was Mouledoux’s first thought. However, as the sound continued, he knew it was something else.
But before he got a chance to wonder about it a burst of automatic fire cut through the resonating sound. For a minute or so he’d thought it might be all over and when the rumbling ceased and a single shot rang out, he knew it was.
Eisenhower and Booth had killed them all and he was next on the list. He pulled his weapon. “I’ll go and see what’s what. You two stay till I get back.”
“ No way,” Alicia said.
“ Yeah, no way,” Amy echoed.
“ I can’t go out there with the two of you,” Mouledoux said, but if he wanted to survive this night, that was exactly what he should do. However, in the oft chance he was wrong, that Manny Wayne and his men had prevailed, then going down there with them would be suicide.
It was a tough decision. If he went down without the girls and encountered Eisenhower or Booth, they’d shoot first and ask no questions. If he went down with them and Wayne and his men were the victors, same thing. He bet on the women.
“ Okay, we’re going down, but I want you two to stay behind me and do exactly as I say.”
“ Yes, sir?” Amy said.
Mansfield Wayne groaned as he came to. And though he was in kind of a sleep fog, he was racked in pain. His back felt like the skin had been ripped off. The back of his head hurt like there was no tomorrow. His heart was racing out of control. He couldn’t breathe out of his nose, which was radiating pain.
He felt like he was going to die.
But then again, he was dying, so with an effort most couldn’t muster, he blocked out the pain and tried to focus, which became a lot easier when he’d heard the gunfire from outside. That brought him instantly alert. Still on the carpet, he looked for his pistol, spied the magnum under his desk, crawled to it, grasped it and forced himself into a sitting position, when he’d heard a single gunshot.
Then silence.
“ I thought I told you to go to the main house to find the girls.” Lila stepped off the porch, came toward Izzy with a block wide grin as she holstered her weapons. Izzy thought she looked like an angel.
“ You’re not the boss of me.”
“ Apparently not.”
The fog was gone now and it was quiet, not even a breeze. It was as if the fog and the noise had come of their own accord and had come as allies. Job done and no longer needed, they’d gone.
“ Let’s go find your girls,” Lila said.
“ That’s got my vote.”
Mouledoux was at the bedroom door, about to step out into the hallway, when he got an idea. He turned to the girls.
“ Instead of going down there and maybe getting killed, I think we should move to the bedroom down the hall.”
“ Why?” Amy said.
“ We can wait there till we see who comes up after you. If it’s your grandmother, then all is good. If it’s the Waynes, I’ll be behind them, with this.” He held up his thirty-eight, waggled it. “I’ll have the drop on them.”
“ I don’t like that idea,” Alicia said.
“ Me neither,” Amy said. “I’d rather we just went on down there and if it’s the bad guys, you just shoot ’em.”
“ What?”
“ That way, if Nana is still out there and still alive, you can help.”
“ Yeah,” Alicia said. “She might need our help. So let’s go.”
“ Alright.” And with his weapon in front of him, Mouledoux stepped out into the hallway. He turned back to
