“They think you’re dead.”
“What?”
“Whoever these guys are, they are linked to the hitter who shot Elizabeth Brewer in your living room thinking it was you. The assassin obviously reported to his employer the job was done.”
Calliope spoke in a frantic stage whisper. “But there’s nothing they could want! The FBI has the files I downloaded from the computer. The lab has the artwork.”
“We’re either missing something or someone else has been grossly misinformed. Either way, this ends now.”
Tox rose to his full height, checked the street, then pulled Calliope to him by her shoulders.
“Sweetheart, I know this is hard for you, but I’m asking you to wait right here. Judging by their weapons, these guys aren’t fucking around. Somebody’s gonna get dead, and if I’m worrying about you, that person could be me.”
He squatted down to eye level. “I love you. Please stay put.”
She nodded, mute.
He winked. “Be right back.”
Calliope stage whispered to his broad back as he moved away. “Did you just use an I love you to manipulate me?”
Tox did an about-face and was back in front of her in three strides. He held her by the upper arms and said one word, “No.”
Then he was off.
With her back to the street, Calliope watched Tox jog down the narrow path that separated the brownstones and disappear behind a six-foot stockade fence. He was the size of a bulldozer with the grace of a quarter horse. I love you. Where had that come from? She was the impulsive one. She was the spontaneous one. She was the one with no filter. Tox was deliberate, restrained, orderly. She really thought she’d be the one to say it first. Tox had hit her like a bolt out of the blue. She could have blurted it out sitting next to him on the tree branch, or lying on the quilt in her backyard, or snuggling on the yoga mat in her living room.
From the first time she saw him she knew Tox was a man who could make her feel like the only person in the room, like she was the one. She had certainly felt it; the words simmered inside her nearly every time Miller Buchanan walked through the door. It was a formless thought at first, a sensation, like a gravitational pull—a need to be in his orbit. She loved him. Yes, she affirmed. For the first time. For the only time. The momentous thought had her steadying herself on the wrought iron banister, the metal cold and hard in her hand.
Not unlike the cold and hard metal of the gun barrel she suddenly felt jabbing into the small of her back.
Tox moved quickly and quietly through the back alley and slipped through the open gate into Calliope’s postage stamp yard. The guy guarding the back door was smoking and peeking through the glass at his buddies in the kitchen, his sidearm holstered. Tox focused on his prey.
The bear was out.
With silent speed, Tox bolted up the concrete steps and snapped the guard’s neck. Smoke from the man’s last drag wafted out of his mouth like the dying wisps from an extinguished campfire. Tox peered through the glass as two men rifled through drawers and cabinets, one with his back to Tox, one out of sight. Tox squatted and removed the K-bar knife from the sheath at the dead man’s waist and eased the door open. He had the knife in the first man’s kidney before he was even aware of an intruder. The suppressed bullet lodging in the cabinet behind him signaled the end of his surprise attack. He threw the knife then dropped to the floor. He grabbed the first man’s Glock and then crab-walked behind the island to the second dead man, pulling the knife from where it had lodged in his throat.
Tox had survived worse odds with fewer weapons. He heard heavy footsteps above him and Coco’s frantic muffled barking. Two men were searching upstairs and apparently hadn’t heard the silenced weapon. He heard movement in the dining room and stepped over a body to peer around the half-open pocket door.
His gut clenched so powerfully, he wondered for a second if that first bullet had hit him after all. Calliope was on her knees in the dining room. A man Tox had never seen stood next to her with his gun to her head. The man was casually dressed but polished. He didn’t have a military bearing, but he seemed to know enough to know he didn’t need Calliope to shield him. A hair-trigger on the Browning semiautomatic could blow Calliope’s head off after Tox had shot the guy. Tox couldn’t risk it. On the positive side, the man couldn’t take the gun off of Calliope to shoot Tox; Tox would win that gunfight, and the man knew it. Heavy footsteps on the stairs told Tox he had maybe seven seconds to resolve the situation.
He did it in three.
In a calm voice, careful not to alert his target, Tox spoke two words: “Child’s Pose.”
Calliope executed the yoga position, dropping her forehead to the floor as Tox fired. The bullet found its mark. The man tumbled on top of Calliope sending an errant shot as the first reinforcement appeared in the doorway. Calliope grabbed the dead man’s hand, still holding the Lugar, and fired once, twice. Both shots went wide, but they served their purpose. The first man tumbled back into his partner. Calliope held the gun steady. Both men spent a microsecond taking in the scene and quickly decided there were better job opportunities elsewhere. As quickly as they had appeared in the doorway, they were gone; the black rubber from the screech of their tires marking their departure.
She wriggled out from under the dead man, careful not to look too closely at the carnage, and turned to Tox. He was leaning against the wall, face white as a sheet, pulling his belt around his upper arm with his teeth. The blood streaming down his arm and running off the ends of his fingers to the floor like an open faucet was … troubling.
“Oh, God.” She ran to him and took over pulling the makeshift tourniquet.
“Nicked the brachial artery. Gotta get this stopped.”
“I’m calling 911.”
“Let Coco out of whatever room they locked her in. She’s about to break down the door.”
Calliope raced to free her dog as she placed the call.