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The man in front of him stepped back.
“Who the hell are you?” Gus demanded, straightening painfully. He moved away from the intruders. If Mac was forced to shoot, he was keen to be well clear.
A blast of sound. Unexpected, undefinable. Just noise.
Mac was jolted only briefly, but the break was enough. The surfboard was flung from behind him, collecting him on the shoulder and momentarily deflecting his aim. He recovered quickly but not quickly enough. Mac might have been able to shoot the second man as both assailants bolted through the open door, but he didn’t. He went after them as far as the door, but a screech of tires ended any thought of a chase.
Mac closed the door and locked it, then turned off the television, which had been turned on at maximum volume. When he could be heard, his voice was hoarse. “Are you all right, Gus?”
Gus nodded as he pulled back his sleeve to inspect the gash on his forearm. “Yeah…though my surfboard may no longer float…and I think the bastards took my remote control. We should call the police.”
“Maybe.” Mac rummaged in Gus’s tiny, disheveled kitchen for some kind of first aid kit.
“Under the sink,” Gus said. “Why maybe?”
Mac told him about the call.
Gus sat down. “She’s alive? Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes. But she sounded frightened, Gus.” He took gauze and bandages from the kit. “Do you have any alcohol?”
“There’s some Copperhead in the fridge.”
Mac grimaced. “You can’t clean a wound with pale ale…you can barely drink it. Hold your arm under the tap.”
“Where is she?” Gus asked as he rinsed off the blood.
“I don’t know.” Mac packed the cut with gauze and bound it tightly. “It probably needs to be stitched.”
Gus flexed his hand. “This is good enough… Theo said I should stop—are you sure?”
“She seemed scared.” Mac looked around the apartment, the pool of blood on the floor in which Horse was showing a mildly revolting interest. “I guess this is why.”
Gus swore. “We have to find her, Mac.”
Mac rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s turned off the phone she used to call me. Bernie is watching for the moment it’s turned on again. Gus…the guy with the gun was Robbie Shaw.”
“Who’s Robbie Shaw?”
“He was a writer—ex-army, wrote military adventure novels. Sam would read vast tracts of his books to me, which is why I remember the picture on the back cover. Shaw was identified as one of the idiots involved in the attack on the Capitol building back in 2021—it ended his career. Publishers and agents couldn’t drop him fast enough.”
“And so he became a burglar?” Gus asked, confused.
Mac shook his head slowly. “He died. Drowned.”
Gus tensed. “Like Theo died?”
“Yes.” Mac frowned. “Is your computer okay?”
“Yes—it’s on the bed in the bedroom.”
Mac fetched the laptop, and Gus opened it and logged in.
“Search for writers who have died or disappeared in the past fifteen years.”
Several sites came up.
Mac looked over Gus’s shoulder. “Let’s just see the images.”
