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“No.” James lifted both hands and took a step back.

They stood in silence for a long moment, the rain catching the streetlights in a glittering curtain as it blew over them, and suddenly a gust of wind wrenched the umbrella in Gabriella’s hand and flipped it inside out.

She pretended to struggle with it, using it to get a look through the doorway.

Teddy Roe was lying inside, and Gabriella saw him lift his head a little and look at her.

He needed an ambulance, and all they were doing was standing around.

“Was the plan for your friend to sneak down the stairs quietly carrying a big bag?” Gabriella asked.

“What?” Pete took a step closer to the door.

“I just saw him coming down the stairs but he didn’t come to the front door. Is he sneaking out the back?” She tilted her neck, as if trying to get a better view of the inside of the house with the door only partly open.

“Eh?” Pete pushed on the door and stepped into the front hall, gun still extended in their direction, but his focus was inside.

James moved.

Ruby must have already worked out what he planned to do because she pulled Gabriella with her out of the way as he ran, fast and silent, baton raised, up the steps.

Pete sensed someone right behind him, and he turned his head, but he was too late.

James brought the baton down hard on Pete’s forearm, and Gabriella heard the bone crack from where she was standing.

He screamed as the gun flew from his hand, skittered out of the front door, over the side of the porch, and into the flower bed.

James had him lying face down on the ground, groaning, in moments.

As soon as James had acted, Hartridge ran to the flowerbed, scooped up the gun, and then ran around the side of the house. Gabriella was too late to call out to him that she’d made the whole sneaking down the stairs and out the back door thing up.

“The other one is still upstairs,” she called to James instead, and she and Ruby ran up under the porch.

James snapped on handcuffs, and Pete gave an almost soundless scream as his broken arm was pulled backward and secured, and he seemed to pass out.

“I’ll watch him,” Ruby said, and James glanced at her for a second before he skirted Teddy Roe and ran up the stairs.

“Check Teddy Roe,” Ruby ordered, and Gabriella jumped over Pete and crouched beside the old man.

There was a small pool of blood under him and it looked like the shot had got him in the shoulder.

She pulled her scarf off and pressed it to his wound. “Can you hold it while I call an ambulance?” she asked.

He gave a nod and tried to apply pressure.

She went to the phone, which was placed right there in the hallway, and made the call, her attention on the stairs, and the sound of movement overhead.

At least Pete’s friend didn’t have a gun.

She hoped.

chapter

thirty-four

Gabriella was safe downstairs. It was the only reason James was able to go after the second man.

James raced up, and came face to face with the thief, hauling a massive bag that looked so heavy, James wondered if there weren’t solid gold bars inside it.