“Word,” said the second man reluctantly.
“Exactly,” said the first man. “The longer we’re out here, the more I start wondering if someone isn’t trying to get rid of the three of us.”
Shocked silence greeted the words.
After a minute or so, Man Two asked, “Why would they want to do that?”
“Damned if I know. This whole op is so fishy I’m wondering how I ever got talked into it. Well, money, I guess. Retirement ain’t so easy. But apart from that, it didn’t sound so damn difficult. It wasn’t difficult until Larry Duke said we’d never find the info. That’s when it all blew up.”
“True,” the third man agreed. “I thought it would be simple, too.”
“In and out,” said the second man. “It should have been.”
Instead...
Man Two stirred again. “But they have no reason to get rid of us.”
“Now they do,” the first man said grimly. “From the minute we interrogated Duke, we screwed up. Made a mess. Even if we get out of here, we’re in trouble. Somebody might worry that we’ll be found out and can spill the beans.”
“What beans?” demanded the third man. “We don’t have any beans!”
“I do,” said the first man. “I talk to the boss. Why would anyone think I haven’t told you who that is?”
“Aw, hell.”
“Exactly,” said the first man. “We’re in it now. Whichever way we go. So tonight we go into that house, search it, then get the hell out of this state.”
“But what if there’s another man in there?”
“Then I hope it’s Daniel Duke,” said the first man.
“You got a grudge?”
“Now I do.”
The other two had no idea what that meant, but they weren’t going to ask. They were stuck and figured the first guy would shoot them both in the back if they refused to follow him.
Things sure changed when you were up to no good.
THE THREE INSIDE the house had agreed to spell each other on lookout duty, allowing the others to take naps. They’d opened the curtains at one window on each side of the house. The idea was to give themselves a full view of outside approaches without allowing anyone to scope the entire indoors from out there. The night seemed to devour the inside of the house, little light to break up the darkness. The only glimmer they had at all was reflected by the falling snow through the uncovered windows.
Each of them took turns walking window to window to keep an eye on the land surrounding the house. The night-vision goggles that Cat had brought helped. Reasonably clear, green-tinged images made the house safely passable indoors and gave a clear view of the world outside the windows.
And it was boring, Cat thought as she wandered window to window, riot gun in hand, peering out into the night. Those guys probably had goggles, too, if they were what Duke suspected.
Well, if they showed up, at least they wouldn’t have an advantage.
There’d been little time for it yet, but her mind kept trying to wander back to her lovemaking with Duke. She wanted to replay every detail repeatedly on an infinite loop. Except she couldn’t remember a lot of it.
She almost giggled at herself. She’d been so swept away at the time, she’d hardly been aware of anything besides the stormy sea of emotions.
Now this. Life had been rushing by. Too many things to think about, to worry about. No time for wandering through dreams.
Nor could she afford to indulge now. The lives of others depended on her being alert, not dopey.
She heard a creak on the stairs in the hallway behind her and turned to see Duke descending. “Cat,” he said quietly.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“I rarely sleep well on a night op. Doesn’t matter. Morning will come, and I’ll feel like a fool for putting everyone through this.”
She pushed her goggles up, then realized that could be a mistake. Without their light amplification, total darkness surrounded her. “You’re not a fool. And you know they might not come tonight. What matters is that we’re here to look after Ben if he needs us.”
“And tomorrow night?”
She shook her head. “I already told you. I’m going to insist he come into town and stay at my place. Out here he’s hanging in the wind.”
He caught her chin with his fingers. “You’re a great person, Cat.”
“Right now I’m not being a very good sentry.”
He laughed quietly. “I can see over your shoulder, Deputy. But you go cadge some sleep. I’ll take over.”
“No.” She turned from him reluctantly and looked out the window. “We’re getting to the witching hour. Two sets of eyes would be better.”
“Witching hour?” he asked. “I thought that was midnight.”
“For this, I’d bet it’s more like 2:00 a.m. As the world falls into its deepest sleep.”
“Those were the hours we preferred for operations,” he agreed. “I just thought ‘the witching hour’ referred to something else.”
“It might. I don’t know.” She pulled her goggles down, treating herself to a few seconds of looking at him, then started her patrol again.
“Stay back from the windows,” he reminded her.
Yeah. Stay back because the guys out there might have night vision, too, and could catch sight of movement in here. And why had she started to grow so tense? A tightening through her muscles, the back of her neck prickling. Well, she was edgy.
A level playing field? She didn’t think so. Those guys could move freely out there. Here inside, she and the two men were practically caged.
“I’ll do the far side of the house,” Duke said quietly. “More eyes on. We can start switching off every half hour.”
“Yeah.” She paused. “When you did your recon, did you find any features that concerned you?”
“Actually, yeah. From the kitchen side of the house. There’s
