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Hailey squealed out of the lot behind the shelter and made good time, despite the traffic. She hoped Ayala wasn’t there. She wouldn’t know what to say to her. How did you confront someone you thought was your friend but who was capable of such evil?
As she pulled into the driveway, Joe put a hand on her arm. “Let’s take it easy.”
“You said she wouldn’t be here.” She clenched the steering wheel, her white knuckles practically glowing in the dark. “I don’t want to see her...ever again.”
“I do. I want to finish what I started when I first laid eyes on her, but she’s not gonna be sitting in that chair with a cup of tea waiting for us.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Hailey yanked on the door handle.
“Hailey, we don’t know what kind of surprise she might’ve left us. Her henchman at the shelter wasn’t successful, and these people don’t give up.”
Hailey ducked her head. “Don’t tell me there’s going to be another sniper waiting for me in the tree across the street.”
“I don’t know what might be waiting for us. That’s why we’re going to be careful and take it slow and easy.” He swung open his door. “Wait for me.”
In the rearview mirror, Hailey watched Joe shrug out of his jacket. When he reached the driver’s-side door, she cracked it open for him.
“Okay, come on out, slowly.”
She grabbed her purse from the center console and hugged it to her chest as she slid out of the car.
Joe stepped around her immediately, placed his body between her and the sidewalk, and draped his jacket over her head. With one arm firmly around her shoulders, he walked her up the steps.
She stumbled once or twice, but Joe steadied her.
“No red laser beams on the back of my head?”
“Nope. We’re almost at the door. Keys.”
As she handed him her key chain, she tossed off the jacket and looked over her shoulder. “Safe here?”
“Yeah.” He stretched up and felt along the top of the doorjamb, his fingers trailing over the wood. Then he knelt down and inspected the base of the door and curled up one corner of the mat.
Hailey held her breath through the search when a thought hit her square in the chest. “The food. She could’ve even poisoned my food.”
“Good point.” Joe slid the key into the lock and turned it slowly. He released a breath when it clicked. “Get behind me when I open the door, Hailey.”
She licked her lips. “Do you think she set up an automatic firing squad when the door opens?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past her. Would you?”
“Now that I know she’s responsible for the carnage at the refugee camp? No.” She took a sideways step to huddle behind Joe’s solid frame, putting one hand on his back.
He eased open the door, every muscle in his back tensed and ready for...something.
“No firing squad.” Still feeling exposed on the porch, Hailey started forward, her purse swinging from her hand.
Joe shouted, “Hailey, stop!”
A funny smell assaulted her nostrils, but before she had time to analyze it, Joe grabbed her around the waist and pushed her over the back of the porch into the garden below.
And then the world exploded around her.
Chapter Thirteen
The ringing in his ears drowned out Hailey’s screaming, or maybe no sound was actually coming from her mouth, wide-open and showing off all her pearly whites.
Joe rolled onto his back, the branches of some bush gouging his bare skin. Black smoke billowed from the porch, the acrid wisps swirling around him, causing his eyes to water.
Voices came from somewhere. He shook his head and spit what looked like dissolved charcoal out of his mouth.
Hailey. His head fell to the side and some leaves scratched his face, but he got a good look at Hailey next to him—in one piece. Maybe.
“Are you hurt?”
She choked in response, and black spittle formed at the corners of her mouth.
The voices he’d heard before seemed to be closer now, and with great effort, he turned his head away from Hailey.
A clutch of people had gathered on the steps up to the house and were leaning over the railing into the garden where he and Hailey had landed like a dazed Adam and Eve.
