“So anywhere from three to eight.”
This bedroom was the little house’s primary, with a king-sized bed, white spread, blue walls and a bedside table that...
Whatthefuck...?
Jules was opening the slider so Sam took a few precious seconds to grab the photograph from Emily Johnson’s bedside table and yank it out of the frame. Yeah, Jules was gonna wanna see this, but maybe notrightthis second.
He was fumbling to get the screen door unlatched, so Sam took the express route—kicking right through the screen—as he pulled Jules out with him into a small backyard. He immediately did a fast but full three-sixty, weapon still drawn and ready to fire, but there was no welcoming squad waiting for them out back—another clear sign that the shooters in the SUV were amateurs. Or at least not former military. Thank God for small favors.
Jules was already running toward the far side of the yard, knowing that Sam would follow, because yes, the small area was completely surrounded by a tall wooden fence. But there in the back corner was a stone statue that Jules used, parkour-style, to propel himself up toward the top of that towering fence, even as Sam reached out to give him a boost.
“Thorns!” Jules announced as Sam, too, stepped atop the stone Buddha’s head to launch himself up and over the fence.
“Fuck!” But thorns were way better than bullets.
“Gate on the left, just beyond the garage,” Jules announced.
Sam was already heading for it. “Wait!” he ordered as Jules reached for the gate’s latch, dropping down to look through a crack in the fence at... “Fuck!”
“Black SUV?” Jules correctly guessed. “Lemme see.”
As Sam surrendered the peephole, Jules took one glance and pulled out his phone.
“Now is not the time to call your mother, Squidward.” Sam yanked Jules with him around the back of this house toward the ramshackle fence on the far side of the yard.
“I’m texting Robin the lockdown code.”
Because that SUV had been a black Ford Expedition same as the vehicle from yesterday’s clusterfuck. And even though the common sense part of Sam’s brain was shouting “Fuckingseriously!?” it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Good idea.” Sam pushed Jules up to the top of that fence. “He still home?”
“Studio. Splinters!”
Fuck. But splinters, like thorns, weren’t bullets. Sam humped himself up and over that fence too and...Shit.
“Don’t scream, please don’t scream,” Jules implored the woman who was sunning herself by her pool, but to no one’s surprise, she pulled out her earbuds and screamed.
“Go inside and lock your door,” Jules shouted—always the boy scout—as Sam pulled him across her yard to damn near throw him over the fence on the other side.
“Dogs!” Jules shouted a warning, and as Sam landed he was expecting big bared teeth—he’d thrown down with attack dogs before and it had not been fun. But this time he saw a pair of toy poodles who seemed to think he and Juleshad come into the yard to play. They barked and jumped happily at Sam’s feet as he veered over to the back fence.
They’d been running through yards, parallel to Columbus Avenue—Emily Johnson’s street—where the rental car was parked. But now it was time to head back in that direction, see if the SUV full of shooters had gone back around the block to linger or if they’d fled. Hard to believe they’d linger, but so far everything about this case fell headfirst into thehard to believecategory.
The fence at the back of the happy little dogs’ yard was stone and even higher than all of the others they’d scrambled over. Sam gave Jules an extra emphatic boost, and as soon as the former FBI agent got himself anchored to the top, he reached down to help Sam up in a true, coulda-been-a-SEAL display of thoughtful teamwork.
“Watch your landing,” Sam grunted because shit this fence was high and neither of their knees and ankles were as young as they used to be.
But Jules dropped lightly to the ground beside him like the pro that he was, and headed to the gate that spanned this narrow driveway. They each took a breather and a look through various cracks and knotholes and yup, there was the rental car, parked where they’d left it.
Sam looked up at the house that they were crouching beside. It was similar to Emily’s in size, but like most of the little houses in this neighborhood, it had been re-imagined and renovated and added on to in an array of both good and bad architectural ideas.
The positioning of the window and the downspout from the gutter and the overhang of the single story roof was a pretty neatly engraved invitation.
“Sneak and peek.” Sam handed Jules his sidearm. “B-R-B.”
He moved swiftly and got himself up and onto the roof, careful to duck down and stay below the ridgeline, in case the shooters were watching from some hiding place nearby.
Peeking up and looking east he saw... The SUV had left the immediate area at least.
