Page 126 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
Kateri shouted, “Lacey!” and sprinted into the street and around the van, unsnapping her holster and removing her service pistol. She came around in time to see Phoebe’s son, Evan Glass, point his pistol at Lacey—who had her teeth sunk into his leg.
“Lacey, go!” Kateri shouted.
Lacey released him and ran under the van.
And the dumbshit shot himself right in the foot. He screamed in pain, dropped the pistol and grabbed for the wound.
Furious and afraid for her dog’s life, Kateri kicked her knee against his hip.
Off balance, he fell sideways onto the pavement, rolled and scrambled toward his firearm.
She slammed her knee into his back, smashed him onto the pavement, cuffed him and shouted, “What the hell were you doing?”
“Your dog bit me!”
“You were hiding behind that van with a firearm and you shot… at me!” Maybe not, but it would play in court. “At the sheriff!”
“I didn’t shoot atyou. I shot ather.” He pointed toward Merida.
As Benedict helped Merida to her feet, he said, “I told you my aunt and uncle were too thrifty to pay the price for a good assassin.”
“I feel so cheap,” Merida signed, and humor leaped from her hands.
Kateri couldn’t believe there had beenanotherattempt on Merida’s life. Really angry now, she improvised. “These good people seem to believe you’re an international assassin and worthy of Interpol’s attention.”
He whined like a mosquito. “No, I’m not! I got this job from my mother. Today! She said I’d be paid for this and I could move on.” There was a world of loathing in his tone. “I want to leave, not be here working forher!”
Phoebe Glass had a lot to answer for.
Kateri heard sirens; someone nearby had heard the gunshots and called 911. As the first police cruiser pulled up, she called, “Lacey, come on, sweetheart.”
Lacey pranced out, proud of her heroics.
Kateri captured her in her arms and hugged her, so happy to hold that warm, wiggling body and know they would be going home together.
She heard the click/roll of two suitcases and looked up in time to see Benedict and Merida vanish into the fog.
She suspected she would never see her friends again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Kateri had promised Rainbow and she had promised Margaret. No more delays. She had to open the damned box.
But for this, she needed to be alone and undistracted. So she took Lacey to Mrs. Golobovitch, who was delighted to dog-sit. Kateri drove her police cruiser to her apartment, parked, tucked the black box under her arm and carried it into the living room. She placed her staff against the wall and the box on the coffee table. Stepping back, she stared at the box, unwilling to again face the contents and knowing they would somehow change her life.
At last she worked up the nerve and lifted the lid.
Edgar Allen Poe’s raven looked back, his shiny eyes alive and knowing. Would it tell its secrets?
Nevermore.
Putting the box top aside, she grasped him in both hands, lifted him free, carried him to the bookcase and placed him on the top shelf among her best beloved books. At eighteen inches tall and twenty pounds, the nineteenth-century black cast-iron bird carried the weight of Baltimore literature, art and history on his feathers. More important to Kateri, he exuded the intelligent, devious spirit that Native Americans worshiped. For all that, he deserved a tall perch.
Returning to the couch, she seated herself and pulled the box toward her. She lifted the faded album, wondering how she could be so brave in the face of danger and so terrified by a bunch of old photographs of her father and her mother together. She smoothed the leather cover, picked it up and smelled in the scent of old paper and dust… and was transported back to that moment when she had first seen it, first held it, first opened it and thrilled to the contents.
Stupid, stupid child that she had been. She had danced downstairs to her father’s study, knocked as she’d been taught, anticipated his summons. She walked sedately across the hardwood floor, over the luxurious Aubusson rug to his desk and waited for him to acknowledge her—which he did after an appropriately lengthy wait.
But this time, she didn’t care, because she knew a secret.
