“What can we do?” she whispered.
Michael shook his head. “Nothing.”
So she crouched in the doorway to the bathroom, sweaty hands gripping the gun. And waited.
* * *
SETH FLATTENED HIMSELF on the ground beside the front fender of the truck. He’d see legs and feet if that piece of scum appeared around the corner of the house. Winstead might be a crack shot, but he hadn’t served in the military or had police training and experience. From the way Seth had barreled up to the house, Winstead must know other cops would be on the way. His window of opportunity was closing. He’d want to be sure Seth was dead before he resumed the attack indoors. Even if he was capable of patience, he couldn’t afford it.
Unless he assumed Seth was down.
Or unless he really did already have Jacob and was even now fleeing through the woods to wherever he’d left his car. That ugly possibility and the complete silence felt like an itch Seth couldn’t scratch.
His gut said he was doing the right thing. But a single glance told him he was bleeding like a stuck pig.
Another burst of gunfire came from inside the house. Seth jumped to his feet and ran.
* * *
MICHAEL ROLLED, GROANING. Blood. New blood.
“If you want the kid to survive,” Richard called up the stairs, arrogance in his voice, “you won’t shoot. You’ll let me come up and take my son. Too late for yours. He’s dead, and you’re outgunned.”
No!
In horror, Robin saw that during the fusillade, Michael had dropped his pistol. He fumbled to pick it up, but he couldn’t seem to close his fingers. In desperation, he reached for it with his left hand.
The devastation of knowing that Seth was dead felt like hearing the bone-rattling crack of thunder right above her when she was utterly exposed in the open, waiting for the lightning bolt. What Richard couldn’t know was that her unacknowledged grief served as fuel to make her hate burn even hotter.
Robin rose to her feet slowly, still unable to see Richard. She braced her feet the way he had taught her. Gripped the gun with both hands, finger resting on the trigger. Aim low, she told herself, almost coldly, assume there’ll be some kick.
There was the top of a blue baseball cap.
One more step, she begged him silently.
He took it, their eyes met...and from the foot of the stairs came a harsh command.
“Drop the gun! Now!”
Richard whirled, rifle still held in firing position.
She pulled the trigger, heard the crack of other shots, and saw Richard fall forward and disappear. Three loud thuds had to be his body bouncing down the stairs.
“Robin?” Seth called, sounding frantic. “Dad? I’m coming up.”
Her arms lost all strength and sagged so that the gun pointed at the floor. “We’re here,” she managed to say. “We’re okay.” And she crouched to set the handgun down.
Just as Seth appeared, his face hard and expressing the terror he had felt, she heard a siren in the distance.
* * *
ABOUT READY TO abandon Michael’s old pickup in the middle of one of the rows of parked cars at the hospital, and who cared if it got towed, Robin finally spotted an open slot. She pulled in, jumped out and ran for the emergency room entrance.
They hadn’t let her go to the hospital with Seth and Michael. “They” being responding law enforcement that included a couple of different uniforms and ranks from chief to deputy. She wasn’t injured, so they expected her to walk them all through what happened. Anyway, they told her she wouldn’t be allowed to take a child Jacob’s age into a recovery room or to visit either man if they were put in intensive care or even moved to a room to spend the night.
Hanging on to her sanity by a fragile thread, she had told the whole story from beginning to end twice, and today’s events half a dozen times. Interviewed in the living room, she’d still been aware of the flashes going off as a crime scene investigator photographed her ex-husband’s body, sprawled over the bottom steps, booted feet up, head down.
She would never forget the sight of the man she’d once married dead from multiple bullet holes. Although thank goodness for Seth, who had carried Jacob downstairs, making sure he didn’t see even a blood splatter. Except, maybe, the blood dripping from Seth himself.