She was about to reel from the closet in the bedroom when a floorboard creaked.
Still here.
He’d pretended to leave out the back to see if she’d pop from her hiding place.
It had almost worked.
Hopefully, that meant he didn’t know about Charlotte.
Footsteps moved toward the bedroom until she could feel his presence in the room. She heard him take another cautious step forward.
Holding the tile cleaner high, she reached around the corner and sprayed where she thought his eyes would be.
He roared.
Shee cracked the toilet brush across the hand holding what she could now see was a pistol. He’d come prepared for close quarters.
The gun went off as it fell from his hand, the bullet embedding in the floor boards not far from Shee’s feet. He smacked the spray bottle from her hand. She kicked him hard against the side of his knee.
Another yelp. He grabbed at her shirt as he started to topple, his leg collapsing under his weight.
Shee jerked forward and fell on top of him. He grappled to hold her there.
“Shee!”
A voice called her name from somewhere in the house.
Mick.
The assassin heard, too. Shee grabbed for the gun now lying on the floor by the nightstand as he scrambled to get out from under her and flee the bedroom. Springing to his feet, he bolted for the hall. She fired as he turned the corner toward the back door. Blood splattered against the white wall. The bullet continued into the dining room to strike a lamp. She heard Mick swear.
“Shit, Shee, you almost shot me.”
“Sorry.” She raised a hand of apology and leapt to her feet to give chase.
Wherever she’d hit her foe, her bullet didn’t slow him down. Shee pursued as far as the back porch, choosing not to fire as she watched the man limping and gripping his upper arm and running in the opposite direction to the children playing down the street.
She’d be lucky if the neighbors hadn’t already called the police.
Mick appeared behind her.
“He got away?”
She nodded. “I think I caught him through the arm.”
“Yeah, I know. You almost caught me through the head.”
“Sorry about that.” She looked back in the house. “Grace is—”
“Dead.”
She nodded, finding it hard to look him in the eye.
Mick moved into the bedroom to yank a pile of blankets from the top of Grace’s closet.
“Help me get her to the car.”
“Charlotte?”
“No, Grace. I can’t leave her here.”
Shee gaped. “You can’t just drive off with her.”
“If they find her with a bullet in her head there are going to be questions.”
“The kind of questions that might find her killer?”
“No, the kind of questions that don’t end well for Charlotte. Grace’s death will be in the paper. The people after you will find out about her.”
“The people...?” Shee’s head felt as if it might spin off her neck. “Who’s after me? How could they know Charlotte is mine?”
“I don’t know. But normal people don’t have snipers shooting at them. Someone wants you. We have to assume they know everything.”
Shee glanced toward the back door.
“What about Charlotte? She can’t come with us if it’s as dangerous as you say. What are we going to tell her about Grace?”
Mick spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t know yet. Come on. Help me get Grace wrapped up.”
Mick pulled Grace inside the house and together they wrapped her in the blankets. He hoisted her to his shoulder and when he felt comfortable with the weight, he nodded down the hall.
“Clean the blood off there and the front porch.”
She shook her head. None of this felt right. “The neighbors must have heard the gunshots.”
“We’d have heard sirens by now. It’s a nice neighborhood. They don’t think gunshots are gunshots.”
“What about Charlotte?”
“I’ll put a call in to her grandmother. She’ll come get her.”
“Luke’s mom?”
“Grace’s mom.” He shifted the body on his shoulder. “Estelle’s never going to forgive me for this.” He moved to leave and then paused. “I saw him this morning.”
It took Shee a moment to register the shift in topic. “Who?”
“I saw a maroon minivan this morning at the hotel with a man sitting inside. I saw the same van parked down the street on my way here.”
“Then we should go—”
“It’s long gone by now.”
Shee huffed. “If he followed me from there it means he probably hasn’t been watching Grace. He probably doesn’t know about Charlotte.”
“That’s why we have to get her out of here now.”
Mick headed outside as Shee held open the door. Her mind raced.
Who wants me dead?
Down the street, a boy yelled for his friend. The call snapped Shee from her trance.
“Are you okay?” asked Mick, returning empty-handed. “I’m going to grab Charlotte and go. Are you good with the cleanup?”
She looked down at the blood pooled on the porch. Grace’s body was gone, tucked away in Mick’s trunk.
She nodded. “I’ll get the hose.”
&&&
Chapter Thirty-Six
“If it makes you feel any better, Charlotte thinks my sister died of cancer,” said Shee as the plane circled Palm Beach International Airport.
Mason tilted his head and stared at the ceiling. “Wow. Yeah. That makes me feel a lot better.”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to—”
“Wait. How’d you pull that off?” Mason stared at her. “Charlotte believed her mother went from fine to dead in an hour? From cancer?”
Shee shrugged. “She was eleven. I guess Mick and her grandmother sold the story.” She stretched her back. It felt as though her butt had fallen asleep. “Please understand the whole arrangement was supposed to be temporary, but then Mick found out there was a bounty on my head and—”
“And you hit the road.”
“Yes. For what I
