Page 66 of Cross Down
She gets out of bed, pulls on a robe, and slides her iPhone into one of the robe’s pockets. She opens the upper drawer to the nightstand and a little light comes on, illuminating the interior, which holds a small gun case with a pressure switch in the center. She pushes her thumb down and the scanner recognizes her thumbprint; the lid swings up to reveal a Ruger .357 revolver. She picks up the loaded weapon and goes to Damon. Quietly, she says, “What’s going on?”
He motions for her to follow him into the dark living room. When her eyes adjust, she sees that her stepson is wearing a T-shirt and shorts. His hands are still firmly holding the shotgun.
“I was hungry, came down to the kitchen, and I was going to open the refrigerator door, but I stopped. I don’t know why, but I got this feeling I didn’t want to open the door and light everything up.”
“I see,” she says as she slowly walks into the kitchen. “What then?”
“I went to the porch door. Kept the lights off. Saw someone across the street, just standing there, looking at the house. Then he walked off. A couple of minutes later, he came back to the sidewalk. Then he ducked into the Sanchezes’ backyard and headed this way.”
Bree looks out into the street. There’s the familiar sight of streetlights and sounds of traffic and a siren wailing out there somewhere.
“The car is gone,” she says. Two operatives from her security firm had been parked in a dark blue GMC sedan up the street.
“Yeah, Bree, I saw that too. Didn’t like it. That’s when I got the shotgun and went to wake you up.”
She waits, thinks, revolver heavy in her hand.
“Should we call the cops?” her stepson asks.
A slight noise comes from the kitchen.
She touches Damon’s shoulder, and the two of them go through the dining room into the kitchen.
Another bit of noise.
Damon touches Bree and points to the door that opens onto their backyard. In the dim glow of a light above the stove, Bree sees the knob rotate left, stop, then rotate right.
“Bree?” Damon whispers.
She points to the doorway to the dining room, puts her mouth up to his ear, and whispers, “Get over there, take cover. Aim at the center of the door. I shoot first, you shoot second, then you go upstairs and call the cops.”
He nods, steps back. Bree moves forward, kneels down behind the small round kitchen table, and pulls two chairs over to give her some cover.
The doorknob turns one more time.
Then nothing.
She’s holding the revolver in the approved two-handed grip, and she takes a deep breath, lets it out, waits. Whoever’s on the other side of that door looking to break intoherhome and causeherfamily harm, well, he’s in for one big friggin’ surprise.
The sound of her phone ringing in her robe pocket makes her jump and nearly drop the Ruger. It rings again and she digs it out and decides to answer it so at least there’ll be an earwitness to whatever happens next. She whispers, “Yes?”
A strong and familiar voice on the other end of the call nearly makes her sob in relief.
“Hey, Bree, it’s John,” he says. “You and Alex change the locks again?”
Chapter
76
I’m sitting atthe small table in Bree’s kitchen drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs and toast. “I hope I didn’t wake up anyone besides you and Damon,” I say.
Bree pours more coffee into my cup. “Well, Nana Mama and Jannie are at the hospital, keeping a vigil in the waiting room.”
I glance at my watch. “Nana Mama? For real? I mean…”
Bree smiles, shakes her head. “I lost that fight a couple of days ago, John.”
“How’s Alex?”
