She threw them into the sink, where they rattled like dice against the
backboard of a craps table. The siren song from the radio had stopped
before Toby acquiesced, so Heather had won that roll. Toby's mental
freedom had been on the come line, but she had thrown a seven, won the
bet. He was safe for the moment.
'Toby? Toby, look at me.'
He obeyed. He was no longer swaying, his eyes were clear, and he
seemed to be back in touch with reality.
Falstaff barked, and Heather thought he was agitated by all the noise,
perhaps by the stark fear he sensed in her, but then she saw that his
attention was on the window above the sink. He rapped out hard,
vicious, warning barks meant to scare off an adversary.
She spun around in time to see something on the porch slip away to the
left of the window. It was dark and tall. She glimpsed it out of the
corner of her eye, but it was too quick for her to see what it was.
The doorknob rattled.
The radio had been a diversion.
As Heather snatched the Micro Uzi off the counter, the retriever
charged past her and positioned himself in front of the pots and pans
and dishes stacked against the back door. He barked ferociously at the
brass knob, which turned back and forth, back and forth.
Heather grabbed Toby by the shoulder, pushed him toward the hall
door.
'Into the hall, but stay close behind me quick!'
The matches were already in her jacket pocket. She snared the nearest
of the five-gallon cans of gasoline by its handle. She could take only
one because she wasn't about to put down the Uzi.
Falstaff was like a mad dog, snarling so savagely that spittle flew
from his chops, hair standing up straight on the back of his neck, his
tail flat across his butt, crouched and tense, as if he might spring at
the door even before the thing outside could come through it.
The lock opened with a hard clack.
The intruder had a key. Or maybe it didn't need one. Heather
remembered how the radio had snapped on by itself.
She backed onto the threshold between the kitchen and ground-floor
hall.
Reflections of the overhead light trickled scintillantly along the
brass doorknob as it turned.
She put the can of gasoline on the floor and held the Uzi with both
hands.
'Falstaff, get away from there! Falstaff!'
As the door eased inward, the tower of housewares tottered.
The dog backed off as she continued to call to him.
The security assemblage teetered, tipped over, crashed. Pots, pans,
and dishes bounced-slid-spun across the kitchen floor, forks and knives
rang against one another like bells, and drinking glasses shattered.
The dog scrambled to Heather's side but kept barking fiercely, teeth
bared, eyes wild.
She had a sure grip on the Uzi, the safeties off, her finger curled
