I ducked down behind one of the counters and waited for the guy to come after me. The stomp of his massive legs against the ground gave him away. His outline appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, looking around wildly for me.
He didn’t see where I went, I realized. He didn’t know where I was.
Slowly, I crept upward from where I lay crouched behind the kitchen counter, sidling the barrel of my gun over the old tiles until it was pointed directly at him.
I didn’t shoot to kill. No, I wanted this guy alive just as much as he seemed to want me dead. He had to talk.
I waited for him to move a little closer so that I could get a better shot in the dark.
The silence was deafening, my ears still ringing from when I’d shot the two other goons. Finally, I got him right where I wanted him.
I shot him in the right shoulder twice, where I knew that it would really hurt but likely wouldn’t kill him. He crumpled to the ground, and I ran out to grab and unload his gun just in case he was still conscious. He wasn’t.
Just then, I heard a cry from the main room, a man’s voice. I ran back out to find Tessa standing there over one of the other goons. He had seemed to survive my first shot and then made a grab at her as she tried to escape the house with Miles.
Tessa had grabbed the dead guy’s gun and mangled the living one over the head with it. If he wasn’t dead before, he sure was now.
“And you thought I wouldn’t be able to handle myself,” she grinned at me.
27
Ethan
“You should consider a second career in law enforcement,” I told Tessa as I stepped over the first dead goon, the one I had killed, and made sure that the second one was really dead this time. He was.
“Ooh, sorry, no can do,” she said, making a show of wincing at the thought. “I’m a little too invested in my current career, and I feel like I wouldn’t be able to report on as much as I want to if I worked for the US government.”
“That’s probably true,” I chuckled, giving her an appraising look and an approving nod.
The little boy, who I had almost forgotten was there since he’d gone silent when shots started firing, whimpered and moved back over to Tessa, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her stomach.
“Oh, it’s okay,” she said soothingly, running her hands through his hair. “It’s okay now. We’ll get you back to your parents real soon.”
I knelt down, so that I was close to eye level with the eight-year-old.
“It’s Miles, right?” I asked, and he nodded weakly, peeking his eyes out from behind the folds of Tessa’s shirt to get a glance at me before burying his face in her stomach again as she continued to stroke his hair. “I’m Ethan. I was in your house before, talking to your parents.”
“You’re the agent,” he said quietly, taking another peek. “The one who’s after the bad guys.”
“That’s right,” I said with a small laugh. “Now, you did a very dangerous thing coming over here before. Do you understand that?”
“I was just trying to help,” he explained as he nodded.
“I know,” I said kindly. “But there’s a reason people like me have to be older to do this kind of job. You get that now, right?”
He nodded again, and I figured that sufficed, at least for now. I had a feeling that experience had been the best teacher in this particular situation. Additionally, I had a feeling that there would be hell to pay for him when he got home when the relief at having him back safe and sound washed away to reveal the anger that was lurking beneath his parents’ fear.
Just then, sirens and flashing lights began to blaze around us, and I stepped outside to find a police helicopter landing in the backyard of the Hawthorne house. It would be difficult to get a car around here, I imagined, and it would be quicker to get to us this way.
Sergeant Wallace came running out of the helicopter when it landed—or more, jogging. I didn’t get the sense that he was a big runner anymore. But he gave it his best shot, and Officer Bauer came running after him in short order, closely followed by Tyson and Alice. Their little girl must’ve been left behind at their home in the care of some more officers.
More police and a forensics team came piling out of the helicopter after the Carltons, weapons out until they saw Tessa, Miles, and I all standing in the empty doorway of the house in one piece. Medical professionals followed them.
“Agent Marston,” Wallace said when he reached me, out of breath from his jog across the vast yard as he held his hand out in greeting. “I see you’ve already taken care of things here.”
As I shook his hand, his eyes drifted to the two corpses lying behind us, and they widened as he gave a nervous laugh.
“Yes, I think so,” I said with a nod. “There’s a man in the back who’s still alive but seriously wounded. I’d like to interrogate him here at the house if you don’t mind. As long as that’s medically possible.”
Wallace raised his eyebrows at this request.
“Uh, I guess we can see about that,” he said, running a hand across the back of his head uncertainly and motioning for the medical team to come forward. “You heard the man, get to it.”
“Miles!” Alice cried, rushing for her son, taking him from Tessa, and clutching him to her. Tyson followed closely behind his
