“I know you’re in here!”Stevie cried.“All I had to do was follow the bodies!”
Well, Joey couldn’t be coming through that scraping deeper in the basement if he was making bodies up top.Who was coming in, then?Bad guy?If he was, Stevie didn’t know him.
Stevie never figured it out.
No, that had to be a friendly, but whoever it was, they were coming into a trap.Gideon swallowed—there was a lot of blood in that spit—and tried to think.Big pointy brain, Joey said.It felt pretty mushy now, but there had to be some pointiness left to help his team out.
“Maybe your buddy’s dead!”Stevie called, and in the echo of his voice, Gideon heard the rasp of the door.
His heart was thundering in his ears and his breath hurt… hurt… and he couldn’t hear….Where was he?
He forced himself to scan the floor.Stevie was coming down the stairs, which wrapped around one wall and then leveled out to land almost immediately under the yellow light.
That was the center.
The rasp of the door was against the wall in the dark; Gideon didn’t know how deep.
The shortest line between them skirted the pool of yellow light.Stevie was going to be in that center in a couple of seconds.
Gideon had to hobble faster.
“Maybe I’ll do the both of ya!”Stevie shouted.“Maybe I’ll fuck his corpse while you watch.Maybe I’ll shoot you in the head while he breathes his last—wanna see?You little pisser, I bet you’ve beenwaitingto watch me waste him so you can throw me in jail!Cold-blooded little shit—just like the old man!”He wasn’t making sense, and he wasn’t looking well.His eyes were rolling wildly, and he almost ate it on the stairs twice, his stride was so uneven.The gunfire above was slowing down, and Gideon wondered what was happening up there.
Whatever was going on, it had unhinged Stevie Carlyle to his last fucking gasp.
The voice in the dark scared Gideon so bad he almost fell.
“Is that what you think the problem is?”Joey jeered from the darkness.“That you and me are too much alike?My God, Stevie, get a fuckin’ grip.”
“Joey, duck,” Gideon mouthed, but nothing came out.No air.There was no air in his lungs.Damn, had he misjudged the punctured lung thing?The pressure in his chest, the swimming vision, all of it would seem to indicate that yes, yes he had.
But it didn’t matter.Stevie had landed in the center of the light and had aimed his weapon and opened fire, one, two, three times, the roar like an apocalypse in the little room.
Joey.
Gideon didn’t give him a chance to set up a fourth shot.
TRAINING—JOEYhad it.You kept moving, you knew where your partner was, and you didn’t open fire if you couldn’t see what was beyond your target.He and Gail had come through the door and seen the shattered chair immediately, but no Gideon.
But the minute Stevie opened his mouth about Joey’s little buddy, Joey knew Gideon was somewhere in this fucking pit.
So smart, Gid, getting out of his line of sight.Harding’s remark about Gideon not having a knife to his throat while Joey tried to negotiate had chilled Joey to the bone, but apparently Gideon’s pointy brain had saved them that.
So Joey had gestured Pearson to swing around to under the stairs while he called attention to himself and then sprinted, putting an old freezer between him and the psycho with the gun.
Gideon, where are you?
The three shots rang out, and Joey risked a glance over the obstacle hidden in the shadows.Stevie had been aiming for where Joey’s voicewas, so he hadn’t even hit the thing.
And that’s when Gideon leapt out of the shadows and onto Stevie Carlyle’s back, his left hand rising and falling like a serial killer’s while Stevie dropped his gun and screamed.
With a howl, Joey’s father stumbled back against the far wall while Joey scrambled toward him, knife drawn.He heard Gideon’s thud and groan as he connected to the wooden partition that was backed with brick, and then Joey was on top of Stevie, his own knife slicing the old man’s throat before they were both borne to the ground.
With a heave and a kick—and not a backward glance—he yanked his father’s body off Gideon’s and tried to assess the damage.
Oh God.OhGod—he looked like hell.
“Gail!”he cried, and she was right there at his shoulder.“Gail, God, we need a medic!We need… he’s coughing blood!”
