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But for once, I think I’ll be hoping for the phone to ring.
* * * *
GLANCING BEHIND HIM to make sure Katie was still safely up on the porch, Zach reloaded and switched the Sig Sauer semiautomatic 9mm to his left hand, then emptied another fourteen rounds into the target he’d set up next to the barn.
Backed by a half-dozen moldy bales of hay he’d found in the loft and a high swell of earth another fifty yards beyond, the setup wasn’t bad.
But he’d started the session with his Smith & Wesson .38, switching to use both hands, and the weight of the revolver plus the individual trigger pulls for each round had wreaked havoc with both his wrist and left shoulder.
He glared at the cardboard target he’d set up. Barely seventy percent had hit the kill zone on the male silhouette he’d drawn with a marker. His accuracy had decreased with every reload.
Hardly good enough to qualify for duty.
Not high enough to feel confident of his aim. Most agents shot above ninety percent when they qualified twice a year, and he’d usually topped ninety-five.
And now the pain in his shoulder nearly took his breath away.
Muttering under his breath, he holstered the weapons and strode back to the house, remembering only at the last minute to fix a smile on his face for Katie.
His lessened accuracy and endurance was bad enough. The fact that he still couldn’t remember the day of the bombing at his condo made it all the worse. The entire day was still a blurred haze marked only by the images from the hospital hours afterward.
If he could remember the make of a suspicious car or the face of anyone hanging around the area, it might help him figure out El Cazador’s identity. His ongoing search through old cases hadn’t yielded anything yet, either, and that failure placed both Katie and him in danger. He still had no idea of whom to watch for.
She sat on the porch swing, her sleepy new puppy cuddled in her lap. Her eyes were big and round at his approach.
“That was noisy, wasn’t it,” he said, pausing to stroke the pup’s mottled gray and black fur. “But now I’m going to put my guns away and we’re going over to Dana’s house. Won’t that be fun?”
She held the puppy tighter. “Can Buffy come, too?”
“Do you think she’d like to visit her brothers and sisters?”
Katie nodded. “She’d be scared here without me.”
“Then you hold on to her, and I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
Zach stowed the guns back in the gun safes and set them back on the high closet shelf, well out of reach of curious fingers, then he quickly showered and dressed. When he stepped out onto the porch a short time later, the puppy had wriggled out of Katie’s arms and was romping the length of the porch, wrestling with one of his loafers.
The black spot encircling her one blue eye like a pirate’s patch and her fierce puppy growl might have been amusing if not for the gnawed edges of his shoe—one that until today had been in perfect shape. “Uh, Katie? We need to watch out for what she chews on. No shoes, got it?” He looked around for the other one.
He found it at the far end of the porch, the insole chewed to shreds.
“She didn’t mean to be bad,” Katie whispered. “She doesn’t have to go away, does she? Like my mommy?”
He pivoted, intending to reassure her. Her pale face and trembling lower lip made his heart turn over. Katie had said so little to him these past weeks. What went on in the mind of a three-year-old who’d faced such loss?
He opened his arms and swept her into a bear hug, then kissed the top of her head. “Honey, there’s nothing your puppy could do that would make me take her away. Ever. I promise.”
“W-will my mommy come back?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll keep her in our prayers, okay?”
Katie hadn’t asked since they’d left Dallas, and he’d wondered if she was afraid to even give voice to her fears. He just wished he could give her the answer she wanted.
Because after all this time, a feeling in his gut told him that she would never see her mother again.
* * * *
THE STUPID WOMAN HAD been tougher than he’d expected. He’d thought Janet would grovel at his feet and sell her soul for the hit she so desperately craved.
