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Some things couldn’t be fixed.
At nine thirty she finished with her overnight bag, showered, and slid into bed before ten, her hair still damp. She set her alarm for three thirty, would be on the road by four. It would be Saturday, so she shouldn’t have too much traffic—most people heading up to the mountains for the weekend would have left today, but she might encounter a few slow spots. Still, she hoped to reach the Catskills in less than six hours.
And prayed Grant was exactly where she thought he was.
A noise woke her. For a split second Regan thought it was her wake-up alarm, then she realized the sound had been farther away, downstairs.
The room was completely dark. There was no light from the clock on the nightstand. The power was out.
She reached for her gun under her pillow.
She normally kept her firearm holstered in her dresser, but after all the events of late, it had seemed prudent to keep it closer. She was glad she had it in hand now.
She listened. Why hadn’t the alarm gone off?
She slid out of bed in sweatpants and a tank top—her version of pajamas. Lightplonksof rain on the windows and roof accented the silence.
She focused on downstairs. Heard movement. At least two sets of footsteps.
The intruders moved slowly, steadily, methodically. She heard no voices, but Tommy’s old floorboards creaked. No matter how quiet they were, they couldn’t be completely silent.
Upstairs, the floors were carpeted, so Regan could walk silently—at least quieter than the intruders. She crept barefoot to the bedroom door, which she’d left ajar. Listened. No voices. Through the crack in the door she saw a dull beam of light—then another. Two people...
No, three, she realized as she heard a footstep on the stairs. Then another. Another.
She hit the panic button on the security panel in the bedroom. The alarm should scare the living shit out of the intruders.
Nothing. It was dead.
That wasn’t supposed to happen; if the power went out, it would alert the security company. Unless, as she now suspected, the power was out in the whole neighborhood. Had these intruders blown a transformer or interrupted the power supply another way? That would take considerable planning and skill. Maybe it was simpler than that—maybe they’d found a flaw in Tommy’s security system and then disconnected it.
Even if the police had been dispatched, response time could be up to fifteen minutes, depending on where the units were in the town.
She couldn’t worry about any of that.
Assess the threat, stop the threat.
Regan walked back to her cell phone that she’d left charging on the nightstand; it wasn’t charging—the power was definitely out—but there were bars. She took it into the closet, wincing at the idea of being trapped in here. But she could see the door open from this angle, and she needed backup ASAP. She could take on any one man. She could take on two.
Three? In the dark? That was stretching even her skills.
Though she had the element of surprise. They thought she was sleeping.
She hit 911 and waited as it rang, clicked, rang, clicked, then the dispatcher picked up.
Regan interrupted the dispatcher’s spiel, immediately whispering, “This is former deputy US Marshal Regan Merritt at 1616 Nance Road—three, possibly more, home invaders in house, likely armed. I am also armed, currently in the master bedroom. Need immediate response. I’m leaving the line open, mute.”
She muted the phone because she didn’t want the intruders to hear the dispatcher speaking but left the phone on a shelf in case they needed to trace the call. She’d given the address, but law enforcement could also track an open phone line.
Regan stepped out of the closet and walked to the door, standing behind it. If the door opened fully, they’d see her.
She listened. One of the men was on the landing right outside the door. She heard a whisper, but not what was said. Though no lights were on, just enough outside light came through the windows to cast shadows and give her marginal visibility.
Her eyes locked on the door as it slowly opened, a slight creak to the hinges.
She couldn’t see the intruder, but his arm came up. He wore gloves and held a gun. The gun was aimed at the bed where she had been lying just minutes ago.
He stepped in, lowered the gun slightly when he didn’t see her in the bed.
