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Carolyn’s bottom lip quivered and she shook her head.
“Please, Carolyn.”
There were footsteps running down the stairs, from the second floor to the first. Carolyn whimpered and crawled back to her corner.
Lucy braced for Miller to burst through the door and hurt her again. But he didn’t.
Then there was silence. That scared Lucy even more.
I stand by the front door. How long I am here, I do not know, but I stand and wait. A sentry. Protecting my women from predators. I wait. I listen. My eyes are closed because they will deceive me.
Listen.
CREAK.
Someone is on the porch.
I open my eyes. The sky is gray, the mist settling into my valley, so I can see only the faint outline of the barn. The snow covers the ground so evenly, so perfectly, that I see every imperfection.
The deep trail left from when I brought the disobedient female back to her cage. My earlier footprints to and from the barn.
I carefully walk around to the back of the house. I look out through the crack where the drapes meet. A set of footprints across the fresh snow, from the woods to my house. There’s a second trail farther out. I see no one.
But I hear a footfall.
CREAK.
I aim toward the sound and fire through the window.
FORTY-FOUR
Kate fell and crawled to the far end of the porch. Sean swore silently as he dove into the snow. Kate gave him a hand signal that she was all right, but Sean knew she’d been hit.
Sean moved as fast as he could through the snow, around the edge of the house, the porch blocking his body from view, but he didn’t go up the front steps. Instead, he pulled himself over the railing at the corner and flattened his body against the side of the house. He peered through a crack in the blinds and saw Miller standing by the back door, looking out through the drapes, toward where Kate had gone.
Sean bent low and walked silently to the front door. He carefully tried the knob. Locked.
In his earpiece, Hans said, “SWAT five minutes.”
Sean wasn’t going to risk responding and having Miller hear him. If he could get inside and to Lucy before SWAT set up, he could protect her and surprise Miller if he came down to the basement. He needed to get in.
Sean put his gun in his left hand, and with his right he quietly picked the lock. He prayed there was no interior dead bolt. He heard a faint click when the lock was sprung.
He waited, gun back in his right hand, and listened. He didn’t hear any movement. He pictured the interior of the house from where he’d observed it through the window. The entry area couldn’t be seen from the back door. If Miller was still there, Sean could get in. If not…
He whispered into his mic, “I need a distraction in the back.”
Hans responded. “Ten-four.”
A moment later a single gunshot went off from the trees where Hans and Dillon were. There was movement in the house—Miller ran past the front door and up the stairs.
Sean quickly opened the door and heard Miller running down the upstairs hall. A half-minute later he fired from an upstairs window.
Sean closed the door. “I’m in,” he whispered. “I’m going for Miller.”
“Negative,” Kate said.
Sean ignored her. Lucy was downstairs, Miller was upstairs. Sean was between them. Miller was the obvious target.
