same plan in the Shore. In his younger days he’d been in several.
He passed the bathroom on the left, checked the bedroom on the right. Empty. Sterile. A guest bedroom most likely. Back in the hall, he started for the bedroom at the end, stopped a few feet from the door. The house seemed more alive now. He had to piss. A look over his shoulder at the bathroom door. It was ajar. If there was anybody home, they’d be asleep in the master bedroom. He’d check it out, piss after.
Maggie sat on the rim of the tub, elbows on her knees, bracing her arms, two hands wrapped around the butt of the Sigma. She sucked air as if she were taking it through a straw, slow and silent. He was just outside the door. She heard the rustle of the thick pile on the carpet as he started toward the back bedroom. He was quiet, but she was quieter. However, she wasn’t moving and he was.
Horace stepped into the room gun hand first, Beretta ready to fire. The bed was empty, but he smelled the sex. That must have been what made him think the place was occupied. He wrinkled his nose. What kind of guy fucked around right after his wife died?
Then he saw it. An eight by ten color glossy, surrounded by a silver picture frame on the nightstand next to the bed. He picked a miniature flashlight out of his jacket pocket and lit up the photo. It was a wedding picture, groom in tux, bride in white. And the bride was her, spitting image.
How?
Twins, had to be. No other explanation. And he’d killed the wrong one. Wait! Not possible. He and Virge grabbed her from the parking lot in Huntington Beach where Margo Kenyon lived. And the red Porsche, that was Margo Kenyon’s car. The woman he did was Margo Kenyon, no doubt about it.
Something strange was going on.
A bead of sweat ran from behind Maggie’s left ear, down her neck. It tickled and itched at the same time. Her senses were all aware. She was running on overdrive. Her lips were dry. She licked them, but there was no moisture on her tongue. Sweat trickled under her arms. She shifted her weight. Her right heel rubbed against the tub. It squeaked.
Horace froze. There was someone in the house. His first instinct had been right. Oh shit! He hadn’t checked the living room. Someone could be asleep on the sofa.
He went cat-quick through the hallway, gun ready. In the living room, he pointed it at the sofa, a perfect place for falling asleep while watching television. But like the bedroom, there was nobody there.
Maggie heard the intruder rush down the hall. She tightened her finger on the trigger, expecting him to come crashing through the bathroom door, but he ran past instead.
Her nerves were lit, the fuse was short, but her hands were steady on the gun. Thank God for Nick and that endless practice on the range. She’d learned how to conquer her fear of the weapon, to hold it still and sure no matter how much her stomach was churning. And it was churning now.
Gordon heard the ceiling creak as footsteps moved fast through the hallway above. They stopped in the living room. He looked up. The intruder was right on top of him. He aimed the thirty-eight toward the ceiling, almost as if he were going to fire through it, like those action heroes do in the movies. He was breathing fast, panting like a tired dog, and he hadn’t strained a muscle. He was in shape, swam a hundred laps at the Olympic pool every morning, but he was ringing with sweat now. Not so cool, he thought, but then he was thirteen years out of the FBI. He was a sixty year old man, who’d been living a quiet life in the Shore for the last ten years.
He’d dealt with death during two tours of duty in Vietnam and during his twenty year tour with the Bureau, but now he was what he was. A quiet man, a reader, a chess player. He’d gotten lazy over the years. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fired the gun, but he still remembered how.
Horace shook his head. He felt like an idiot. A stupid high school jerk. He was as jumpy as he was on his first date at a drive-in movie. He sighed. Steamy windows, long blonde hair swirling around pink tipped breasts. He smiled at the memory. High school was the best time of his life. It had all been downhill after that. Then he met Striker and things started to pick up.
He was somebody now. He drove a new van, had an airplane, a zillion channels on the TV. He dressed well, ate at good restaurants. He felt good when he left the house.
He slipped the Beretta into the shoulder holster, looked down, saw the condolence cards on the coffee table. He picked up a couple, dropped them. He still had to piss like a race horse. He started for the bathroom.
Maggie heard him coming. She steadied herself, licked her dry lips again.
She’d expected him to pass by the bathroom as he had twice before, but all of a sudden the door was pushed in and the light came on.
“What?” he said when he saw her. It was Ferret Face.
She pulled the trigger, again and again and again.
Horace knew he’d done a stupid thing the second he turned the light on, then he caught a quick glimpse of a dark haired woman with Margo Kenyon’s face. Another one, he thought, registering the gun. Then something hit him in the side, spun him around. He was slammed out of the bathroom as if he’d been hit by a train, picked up and smashed into the wall. He slumped to the floor amid a hail of gunfire, rapid explosions that took away his hearing as bullets tore through the plaster above.
He curled up like a baby as everything turned to black.
Chapter Fifteen
Maggie ran out the front door, grip over her shoulder, gun in her left hand. She crossed the porch, leapt down the steps to the sidewalk.
“Freeze!” Gordon’s voice rang out through the night.
Maggie turned, Gordon was on the porch, in the shooter’s position, feet spread, arms extended, both hands on a pistol.
“Gordon, it’s me!”
“Maggie?”
“Yeah.” She put her right index finger to her lips, the sign for silence. Sirens in the distance broke the quiet of the night. “I need a ride outta here!” she said.
“I’ll get my keys.”
“Hurry!” Maggie said.
Seconds later Gordon slammed the door after himself, leapt from the porch. “It’s not locked.”
Maggie jumped in the passenger seat of his old Ford as Gordon slid behind the wheel. “Drive!”
“Whatever you say!” Gordon keyed the ignition, stepped on the gas. The tires screeched, the car shot forward. The Ford was more than it looked. Close as Maggie was to Gordon, she’d never ridden in his car. The Shore was a beach community, they walked everywhere.
He slid the car around a corner, drove like a man possessed. The Shore had stop signs on every other street. He ran them all. Suddenly, he hung a right, slowed down, drove normally, turned on Ocean and headed toward downtown Long Beach.
“So, you’re alive.”
“Yeah.” Maggie pulled the flight bag off her shoulder, stuffed the gun into it, then tossed it in the back. “The guy from the other night, the one with the ferret face. I just shot him.”
“Annie Oakley,” Gordon said.
“I guess,” Maggie said. Then, “We have to go to Huntington Beach.”
