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When this was over, the two of us needed to sit down and discuss this. I had to make Maggie realize that I wasn’t good enough for her and that she deserved better. She needed a husband who could cater to her every whim, fill her house with children.
She sure as hell didn’t need a guy who was going to be gone half the time and who had no interest in having children—zilch, zero, none! It wasn’t that I didn’t like kids, I did. I just couldn’t imagine bringing a kid into this fucked-up world. Besides, I was a selfish son of a bitch and wanted to do what I wanted when I wanted it.
That’s one of the reasons I hadn’t been in a meaningful relationship since I was nineteen. A few dates with a woman and they were already talking about the future. They would start talking about how fun it would be to take vacations and spend all kinds of time together. Didn’t they know that I just wanted to have a few laughs, screw them, and then go? I didn’t want to think about vacations or when I needed to meet parents. And bullshit chatter with friends—um, no!
My idea of a vacation was to sleep for days, maybe sit on my buddy’s boat and fish for hours while I drank one beer after the next and then slept some more. Maybe having a hot chick with me who liked to get on her knees would be okay for a few days, but no longer than that. I sure didn’t want domestic bliss and responsibility. I was almost forty, and I didn’t see that changing any time soon. Call me a crass asshole, I didn’t care. I was who I was.
I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and went around to double-check the windows and doors again, turning a few lights off on my way. I dropped my backpack on the floor next to the couch and toed off my shoes. Before I sat down, I removed the gun from my inner waistband holster and set it on the table.
I stared at the stairs, wondering if I should go up and apologize to Maggie.Yeah, right!My inner demon snickered.You only want to go up there so you can jump in bed with her. Come on, let’s go! I’m up for it, and so are you.
I tore my eyes from the stairs. The last thing I was going to do was listen to that dark, twisted part of myself. Nope. Maggie deserved better. Instead, I messed around with my phone, answered an email, and drank the beer. About an hour later, I was dozing off when a soft noise had my eyes flashing open. Every part of my body remained still, except for my hand. That tightened around the gun under the pillow behind my head.
I tried to search the shadows as I heard another sound—a shuffle, maybe? Was that Maggie? Her mother? A mouse? Or was someone else in the house? Another noise outside the window had me springing upright, the hair on the back of my neck rising as I listened.
There was a scuffing noise down the hall. Had someone gotten past me? Did I check the windows in the kitchen? I was on my feet, moving a second later. I peered around the corner toward the kitchen. The hallway was empty, the light from outside casting a long shadow from the front door toward the kitchen. Another sound came from the kitchen and I rounded the corner, my gun out in front of me as I walked silently on my bare feet.
I paused at the entrance to the kitchen and listened. It was quiet for a moment, and then the sound of something touching down on the counter. I peeked around the corner. Maggie stood on the other side of the room, bathed in light from the water dispenser on the front of the fridge. I released the tense breath I’d been holding and let the gun fall to my side as I stepped around the corner.
I took two steps before I froze again, and Maggie almost knocked her glass over. A loud sound right outside the window had her spinning toward it and stepping backward. If I didn’t do something quick, she was going to walk right into me.
I stepped behind her, put my hand over her mouth to stifle the scream that I had no doubt was going to erupt from her mouth, and whispered, “Mags!” into her ear to let her know it was me as I aimed the gun toward the window.
She had sucked in a breath to let loose a scream but didn’t when she realized it was me. Instead, she latched on to my arm and pulled it from her mouth as we took another step back in unison.
A cat shrieked outside the window, and then another one, and the hair rose on both our arms, but a moment later, the sounds moved away. It was only animals.
I stepped around Maggie and went to the back window, peeling back the shade carefully and checking the night. One of the cats sat in the middle of her back porch, cleaning itself. Maggie made a squeaking noise behind me that I attributed to the stress.
“It was just a couple of cats,” I said, and I turned around and froze.
On the other side of the kitchen, a man held a knife to Maggie’s neck. The whites of her eyes glowed as she went up on tiptoe to avoid the blade at her throat. She grasped his wrist as she tried to pull his hand away, panic on her features.
How had that fucker gotten behind me? “Let her go,” I said as I pointed the gun at him, and he shifted a little further behind her. “Let. Her. Go.”
“You think you can hit me before I slice her throat?” he said, his voice slightly accented, which made sense if he was a hitman for a cartel.
“I have no doubt I can hit you before you do that.” Maggie shifted her body. I gave her the merest of glances and a slight nod that I hoped she could see in the dark.
That position that she was in was one that we had just trained her for. Maggie closed her eyes as soon as I shifted my head, and then a split second later, she jerked to the side, leaving his head wide open. I fired one shot, and he went down, taking Maggie with him.
She screamed as she went back and squirmed out of the dead man’s grip. I pulled her to her feet. “Go, call 9-1-1,” I said as I pushed her behind me and then reached over to turn the lights on.
Maggie looked around my shoulder. “That’s the guy that brought me the box!”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, and I told her again to call the police. I kept the gun on him as I kicked the knife out of his hand and then bent down to check for a pulse. I had little doubt that he would have one; his brains were all over the wall behind him.
Maggie was talking quickly behind me, and then I heard another voice, and I looked up to find Mrs. Valor standing at the foot of the steps, her hand holding the lapels of her robe to her chest. She was staring at the man on the floor, then lifted her eyes to mine. “Life sure has gotten more interesting since you came back to town, Greg.”
* * *
Three hours later, the police were closing the door behind them, and Maggie and her mother were upstairs packing. Det. Highmore was called in. He told us that Len’s body was recovered earlier tonight and that the dead guy in the kitchen could directly tie this whole thing to the cartel. He had been on their radar for a while. It could have also put a higher price on our heads, and now we were being moved.
“I don’t know,” I told Jake. “Or how long.”
“Damn it, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
