The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(67)

Tires rumbled over fresh asphalt. I ran out the back door and into the dark, standing in the oncoming headlights and waving my arms.

The headlights died along with the engine. I had to squint for a second, getting my night vision back, as Roth clambered out of a compact rental car. I ran over and grabbed his arm, pulling him toward the back door.

“Are you crazy?” I said, moving my hand from his arm to his back, giving him a little push. “Are you trying to get killed? Listen to me—”

He tried to pull away, and I turned him around, grabbing his other arm, my hand slipping and brushing his waist. The light from the open kitchen door spilled out onto the cold grass. I put my hands on his shoulders, holding him in place.

“Listen to me,” I said. “Did you come alone?”

His eyes bulged, not sure what to make of the crazy man pawing at him. “Yes! I said I would!”

“Well, that’s a big f*cking problem,” I said, pulling him inside and slamming the door shut behind us.

I wasn’t just trying to make him uncomfortable. The groping had been an impromptu pat down, feeling for suspicious bulges or the seam of a shoulder holster. The last thing I wanted was another gun in the house, one I didn’t control.

“Wait,” he said, “it’s a problem that I came alone? Why?”

I led him into the living room. A walkie-talkie sat on the sill of a picture window, leaning against the drawn blinds. I snatched it up.

“Roth’s here with me,” I snapped into the handset. “You’re sure you saw what you saw?”

Caitlin’s voice echoed over the static. “Positive. I shadowed him for the last fifty miles. He had a second tail.”

“You hear that?” I said, turning on Roth. “You damn amateur! You had two tails, and you didn’t spot either one of them. My operative and hers.”

I thought Roth was going to have a heart attack. Good. That was the entire point. Pour on the pressure, don’t give him a moment to think. The most important key to any short con is that you never give a mark time to think.

“Hers?” he said.

“Lauren! Which means she sent Meadow Brand. Which means she’s coming here to kill both of us right now!”

“W-we have to go!” Roth stammered. “We have to run—”

“There’s a van blocking the development exit,” Caitlin said over the walkie-talkie. “Looks…yes, looks empty. The occupants are already on the move.”

I shook my head. “We can’t go outside. Out there in the dark, on foot? It’s a shooting gallery. No, we stay here. We hunker down. We wait it out until sunrise. Come here, get away from the window.”

I got him into the middle of the empty living room, right where I needed him. Guaranteeing him a front-row ticket to the show.

“I can get us through this,” I said, “but you have to trust me. You do trust me, yes?”

“Yes,” he parroted, instinctively echoing the cues in my voice. He took a Blackberry from his pocket, working the tiny buttons with shaking fingers.

“I’ll—I’ll call for help,” he said. “Caine can send his men—”

I yanked the phone from his hands, hung up, and shoved it back at him.

“And they’ll get here just in time to scoop our dead bodies off the carpet. Forget it. Stick with me, stay close, do exactly what I tell you, and you can call for a ride once we’re free and clear.”

Right on cue, glass exploded in the back bedroom. Another clatter rang up from the basement as a casement window smashed open. I pulled my gun.

“Relax,” I told Roth. “This is what I do.”

Bentley jumped out from the side bedroom, spinning, raising his .45 to fire. I shot him twice. His chest erupted in billows of scarlet blood, and he staggered back, his arm jerking up and a return bullet going wide, screaming over our heads and punching into the freshly painted wall. Bentley fell back, clutching his chest, and staggered into the bedroom.

Behind us, the door to the basement slammed open. Corman emerged from the darkness and fired, his shot winging close enough to ruffle my sleeve. I fired three shots and gunned the old man down, sending him reeling toward the open doorway. We heard the grisly thumping as his corpse rolled down the steep staircase all the way to the concrete floor.

All was silent. The air smelled like blood and gun smoke. Roth’s mouth hung open, his jaw trembling. I held up a finger for silence and led him up the hall, over to the guest bedroom.

A wooden mannequin lay on the ground, broken and lifeless, its chest splintered exactly where I’d shot Bentley. It was frozen in a crawl, one arm stretched toward the broken window, as if it had succumbed to its wounds while trying to escape.

“Meadow Brand,” I snarled. “She uses illusions to disguise her puppets as humans. That’s how she gets them close to her targets.”

“I-I know,” Roth whispered. “I’ve seen her do it.”

We jogged to the basement door. Down at the bottom of the stairs, silhouetted in the light of a slowly swaying bulb, a second mannequin lay shot and dead.

“Come on,” I said. “She has to be close to control these things, but she won’t stick around for long.”

He froze as we approached the kitchen door. “Wait, how do you know that’s all of them?”