KING AND MICHELLE CLIMBED out of the Lexus and looked around. They'd switched vehicles at King's houseboat because one of Michelle's truck headlights was out. King pulled out a flashlight, but its thin beam did little damage against the darkness.
'His truck's here,' said Michelle as she tapped the side of the battered pickup crammed with tools and construction supplies in the bed.
'Junior!' King cried out. 'It's Sean King. We want to talk to you.'
Michelle cupped her hands around her mouth. 'Junior! Junior Deaver!'
They looked at each other.
'Maybe he's in the house.'
'What, working in the pitch-dark?' said King.
'In the basement maybe and we can't see the light from here.'
'Okay, so I guess we go in.'
'Do you have another flashlight in your car?'
'No, but maybe Junior has one in his truck.'
They looked and found one on the floorboard. Now twin beams moved through the dark.
They entered the front door and looked around.
'Junior,' called out King again.
They swept the room with their lights. Over in one corner a big tarp was covering what looked to be a pile of drywall. All around were stacked wood and other building materials, tools, buckets, and bags of cement, a real mess.
'Hey, this looks just like your house,' said King.
'Boy, you're in fine form today. Look, the basement steps are over here.'
Michelle called down the stairs. There was no answer.
'Do you think he's hurt himself?' she said.
King looked around. 'This is beginning to look a little weird,' he said quietly. 'Why don't you…?'
Michelle already had her gun out. They went cautiously down the stairs.
In the far corner of the basement was a stack of cans. They looked behind this. Nothing. The HVAC system was in another corner of the basement. They shone their light on the mass of metal but again saw nothing.
Behind one of the large heating ducts in a space the light had missed, the man in the hood watched as they headed back upstairs. He slowly eased out of his hiding place.
Upstairs King and Michelle looked around more thoroughly. Michelle saw it first.
'Oh, no!' she hissed. She grabbed King's hand and pulled him toward her.
'Blood,' she whispered in his ear, and then pointed her light at the floor. The crimson spatters were clearly visible. Their lights followed the trail to its source: the tarp.
They crept forward, careful not to step in the spatters. King knelt, lifted up the tarp, and they saw it was Junior. King quickly felt for a pulse and found none.
'Damn it! He's dead.' He shone his light around. 'Oh, shit!'
'What!'
'He's got a noose tourniquet around his neck.'
'Don't tell me…'
King pulled back the tarp some more and shone his light down the dead man's arm. 'And his watch is set to five, and there's a black arrow drawn on the floor pointing right to it.'
Michelle directed her light to Junior's features. 'He hasn't been dead long, Sean.'
'I know; he's still warm.' King froze. 'What was that?'
Michelle looked behind her, her light making arcs through the darkness. 'What?'
'I thought I heard footsteps.'
'I didn't hear anything-' Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the red laser dot appear on King's head. Its meaning was crystal clear to the firearm-savvy Maxwell. 'Sean, don't move,' she said hoarsely. 'You're red- lighted.'
'I'm wha-' But then it dawned on him what she was saying. The laser aim tracker could be followed at any moment by a bullet that would hit precisely where the dot was: in this case his brain.
As she watched, the red dot slowly moved to Michelle's gun, flitting there like some deadly wasp ready to sting. This message was also clear. She hesitated, debating whether to chance it, turn and fire. She glanced at King. He'd obviously seen the dot's location too and, reading her thoughts about trying to get off a shot, shook his head in a definite no.
She reluctantly put down her gun on the floor, pushing it away with her foot. When the red dot appeared on her flashlight, she turned it off and placed it on the floor. King slowly followed suit. The red dot then appeared on her chest and moved up and down her body, seemingly in a teasing manner, as though the person aiming the laser were fondling her.
Michelle was growing more and more irritated and beginning to gauge how far she'd have to jump to grab her weapon. While she was calculating the odds of getting off a shot before the other guy did, she failed to notice that the red dot had disappeared.
Finally realizing it, she looked at King's image in the shadowy darkness.
'Is he gone?' she said softly.
'Don't know,' King whispered back. 'I don't hear anything.'
That changed moments later when they heard the gunshots. They both hit the floor, Michelle crawling desperately toward where she thought her gun was. One inch, one foot.
'Sean, are you okay?'
Seconds went by and there was nothing.
'Sean!' she whispered desperately, her hopes bottoming out when he didn't answer.
'I'm okay,' he finally said.
'Damn it, you almost gave me a heart attack. Why didn't you say anything?'
'Because I fell on top of Junior, that's why!'
'Oh.'
'Yeah, oh.'
They waited a few more minutes. When they heard a car start up in the distance, Michelle leaped to her feet, grabbed a light and raced out, King right on her heels.
They slid into the Lexus.
'Call 911,' said King. 'Tell them to get the roads around here shut down as fast as possible. And then get hold of Todd.'
Michelle was already on the phone.
King hit the gas and the car lumbered forward. The ride was so bumpy it knocked the phone out of Michelle's hand. He hit the brakes.
They looked at each other.
'Damn it, he shot out the tires,' said King in disbelief. 'That's what the gunshots were about. Let me see if I can still drive it.' After a hundred feet it was very clear that if they drove over five miles an hour, they'd soon break an axle.
Michelle jumped out of the car and shone the light at the flattened front and rear tires on her side. She ran back and examined Junior's truck. There were two tires shot out there as well. Michelle called 911, gave them the information, then called Todd while King slumped against his car.
When she was finished, she came over to him and said, 'Todd and his men are on their way.'
'That's good to know,' he said quietly.
'You never know; they might get lucky and nail the guy, Sean.'
'The good guys are rarely that lucky.' He crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at the half-built house.
Michelle slapped her hand against the car's hood. 'God, I feel like the biggest rookie in the world for letting that guy get the drop on us. I can't believe we were probably ten feet from this maniac. Ten feet! And he got
