Fatal Justice (Jack Lamburt #1)(8)

The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that he’d follow Mary Sue to her house and kill her. And anyone else who happened to be there.

Armed or not, before the average American homeowner could put down his beer and escape from his recliner, the intruder already has his gun pointed at him, or worse yet, at a loved one. I’ve never met a man who could emotionally detach himself from that scenario and negotiate out of it. Most of them dropped their weapons when ordered, and of course it’s game over at that point.

My iPhone vibrated. I grabbed it, swiped, and read the text.

Debbie: Where are you?

I speed-dialed her number and hit speaker. She answered on the first ring.

“Well?” she asked. Her voice had an acidic quality to it. Damn. She was pissed off at me.

“Sorry, babe, work called.”

“What’s going on?”

“Can’t say. Not sure how long I’ll be, either.”

“Great.” A pause followed and I heard her sigh. “Fine. Be safe.”

“Will do,” I said. “Sorry, but I’ll…”

She’d hung up before I could finish telling her that I was going to make it up to her. Sheesh, women. My work was one of the obstacles that we had in our on-again, off-again relationship. Most women would be okay with their man disappearing for hours, days, and on rare occasion, weeks at a time while he took care of business, knowing that one of the driving forces in his psyche was coming home and wrapping his arms around her.

Debbie wasn’t one of them.

I frowned. It wasn’t like I was out getting drunk and chasing woman. She knew that my investigative and undercover work was important to me. Didn’t matter. She was one fiery woman. Not the stereotypical Asian woman in that regard.

“Douchebag!” I cursed Ostrich Boy for ruining our night and smacked the steering wheel. Now he was really going to pay for this.

Up ahead I saw his brake lights flash and he started to slow down. He turned onto Clapper Hollow Road, where Mary Sue lived. He turned his lights out and crawled along the gravel road after her.

I flew by the intersection to avoid being made, rounded a curve on Route 10, jammed on the brakes, and slid into a speeding U-turn that would have made Evel Knievel white-knuckle the armrest. I dimmed my interior dash lights and turned on to the sparsely traveled Clapper Hollow Road.

Since Mary Sue’s parents were away on their annual fishing trip to Key West I planned on her being home alone. Probably for the best. If things went south inside the home, the fewer people I had to deal with, the better. And in all honesty, Stuart was a great surgeon and a fine gentleman, but he wouldn’t be my first choice to back me up in a barroom brawl. I would probably select Frances before I picked him. No, I take that back. No probably about it.

I was getting close to Mary Sue’s house when I saw the SUV pulled over on the side of the road. He must have seen her signal and pull into her driveway. I used my emergency brake to stop so that my brake lights wouldn’t give me away, and killed the engine. I’d be hoofing it from here.

I took out my Glock, screwed on my Osprey silencer, and stepped out into the cold night.





8





I used the tree line along the side of the road as cover, and within thirty seconds I arrived along the side of his SUV.

It was empty.

I’d expected as much. He hadn’t driven out here to sit around in his car. I hadn’t quite figured out what I was going to do if I found him in the SUV, but I knew that it would be bad for him. And bad for me if I got caught, but I’d been in this game a long time, and if there was one thing I was really good at, and I mean Super Bowl Champion good, it was getting away with murder.

Mary Sue’s house was set back about a hundred and fifty feet from Clapper Hollow Road. The long, winding stone driveway ended at a two-car garage in a modern colonial. They had already decorated for Christmas, with a well-lit outdoor manger scene that included three full-size kings bearing gifts. Along with the soft glow of the outdoor lights, it looked like a Hallmark holiday card.

No sign of Ostrich Boy, but I’d figured as much. If I were in his shoes, I’d be at the back of the house by now, searching for a weak entry point.

With tingling nerves and my Glock leading the way, I snuck up the side of the driveway furthest from the house. There was a light smattering of snow on the driveway, and I could make out what appeared to be two sets of fresh tire tracks in the snow. Damn, that wasn’t good. That meant that someone had either just arrived, or just left. God, I hoped they’d just left. But who would it be? Her parents were away and she didn’t have any siblings. Boyfriend? Girlfriend? I’d find out soon enough.

I was in the zone, every cell in my body in tune with the sights and sounds of the night. It was too cold for the cricket serenade, so the only sound I heard was my own hiking boots compacting the snow with each step.

The closer I got to the house, the brighter it became, and I could easily see that there were two sets of tire tracks in the snow. I rounded the last curve in the driveway. Bad news.

Two cars were parked in front of the garage. One was Mary Sue’s, and the other was a late-model Ford Mustang, its windows clear of snow and the hood still warm. Her boyfriend’s car? A friend? Didn’t matter. It was still another innocent person that had to be dealt with.

I went to the front of the house and looked through the windows to see if Ostrich Boy was already inside. There was some risk in that, if he was hiding in the woods, maybe having second-guessed his adventure, or more likely still trying to plan out his attack with his pea-sized brain, he would see me and have the upper hand. But I didn’t figure a guy like him for well-thought-out actions, so I went ahead.