Page 25 of Lone Wolf

“Drop the gun over,” he said.

Robotically, she moved the revolver over the railing, careful to hold it sideways so as not to draw fire. She stared down, gauging him, and he stared back.

He jerked his muzzle once: Go.

She let the gun fall.

It tumbled through the core of the town house, plopping onto the sectional across from Loco. The tiny dog bolted upright and snarled at the gun. Evan let his eyes dip, confirmed that the revolver was a .22. A low-end choice of weapon for an operator of her composure unless she was staging a crime scene: home invasion gone wrong.

Evan said, “If you move, I’ll put a round through your face. Understand?”

The ninja-like mask dipped in a nod.

ARES steady, keeping her in his sights, he moved forward cautiously, foot over foot. Up the first flight of stairs, his boots peeling off the glass tread with a faint suctioning noise, his body rotating to hold target acquisition. The crisp modern space desecrated with death and damage, the streams of sunlight, and the abattoir smell turned everything to a dream.

She didn’t move. Didn’t seem to breathe. Just a band of face staring down at the bore of his pistol as he drew himself carefully to the landing of the second floor. To one side, an open door into a bedroom; to the other, a modern kitchen with a butcher-block island.

Now only one floor separated him from the intruder. “What’s your business here?” she asked.

His breathing steady, his hands steadier, he started up the second flight of stairs on the left, the town house seeming to spin as his twisting rise shifted the perspective between them. Again he felt that dizzying sensation, the world spiraling around the fixed point of his muzzle, the frozen woman above rotating with painstaking cinematic slowness, everything controlled, a surface tension that refused to pop.

She took a step back toward the sliding glass door, and he said, “No.”

She halted. To her left: the elevator doors, a bedroom with lavender walls, and the facing flight of stairs. To her right: him, rising.

He was halfway to the third floor, aiming up at her across the atrium, each step bringing them closer to level. If she blinked he did not notice.

Another step. Now he could note the rise and fall of her chest. She was compact, strong, her posture aligned.

“What are you going to do when you get to me?” Her tone was calm, even slightly bored. “Citizen’s arrest?”

“We’ll figure that out,” he said.

Her eyes swept the open space below her, and he sensed her calculating a leap onto the opposing stairs, a swing onto the second-floor catwalk, a plummet to the couch below.

None were great options, and he had a clear enough sight line to hit her no matter which way she broke.

She floated back a step so smoothly he barely registered it, easing herself toward the elevator, the raked-aside black curtains.

His boot set down on the next glass step, everything so still he heard the rubber sole crinkle as it bent. “Lace your hands behind your head. Now.”

She obeyed.

Eight more steps would bring him to the third floor, across the landing from her.

“Looks like you got your prize,” she said. “Now come unwrap me.”

Steady hands cupping the 1911, no wobble, no shake. He lifted his boot, prepared for the next step.

A mechanical click shuddered the building, and then came the deep vibration of the elevator. Her backup, rising to the rescue?

The black fabric over the woman’s mouth shifted into what he guessed was a smile. “Uh-oh.”

His eyes flicked to the floor indicators. G for garage was lit up. Then 1.

The rumbling kept on. The woman was close enough to the elevator doors that she could have reached out and knocked on them.

Now 2 was illuminated. The glow faded, the car in the space between floors.