Then training kicked in.
"Move," I ordered, voice gone calm and predatory. "Ethan, cover the drive. Lucas, with me."
We fanned out, weapons up, eyes scanning the marsh for muzzle flash or movement or any sign of where the shots had come from. Ethan dropped back to a position that gave him a clear view of the road, his massive frame fading into shadow while Lucas and I moved toward the source of the gunfire.
The marsh was a black wall on either side of the drive, grass and reeds standing taller than a man in places, the ground underneath treacherous with mud and hidden channels. Perfect sniper country. Perfect ambush terrain.
Was this our savior? Someone who'd taken out Sam to save us from the blast?
Or was this the plan all along? Kill Sam, detonate the vest remotely, take us all out while we were scrambling?
I didn't know. Couldn't know. Could only move forward with my weapon raised and my eyes scanning and my finger ready to drop anything that moved.
"There," Lucas breathed beside me.
I saw it. A shadow detaching from the larger shadow of the marsh. Tall. Male. Moving slow and deliberate, hands raised.
No. Not raised. Holding something overhead.
A rifle.
"Come out!" I shouted. "Slowly! Keep your hands where I can see them!"
The figure kept walking, rifle held high above his head in the universal gesture of surrender. Not lowering it, not aiming it, just ... holding it. Presenting it like an offering.
Lucas shifted beside me, weapon steady. "Is there anyone else out there?" he called.
The figure spoke. Male voice, rough with age or smoke or something harder.
"Not anymore."
That voice.
Something about that voice crawled up my spine and wrapped cold fingers around my brain stem. Familiar. Dread seeped in.
"Slowly," I repeated, but my voice sounded strange in my own ears. Distant. Like I was hearing myself from underwater.
The figure stepped into the edge of the floodlight's reach.
Still in shadow, still more silhouette than man. But getting closer. One careful step at a time, rifle still overhead, moving with the kind of confidence that said he knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what he was walking into.
Not one of the Charleston Danes. Elias would have told me if any of them were coming. Would have warned me.
So, who?
Another step. Another. The light caught the edges of him—broad shoulders, tall frame, the rifle overhead casting strange shadows across features I couldn't quite see yet.
Then he stepped fully into the glow of the porch lights.
Time stopped again.
My brain stuttered, skipped, refused to process what my eyes were showing me.
Older. Grayer. More lines around the eyes and mouth. But the same. Unmistakably, impossibly the same.
The strong jaw. Movie star good looks. The way he held himself, even in surrender. The shape of his nose, his cheekbones, the set of his shoulders.
My father.
