Stephanie Doyle - Calculated Risk

She didn’t have to wonder if Quinlan would be there. His goal was the same as hers. Trading fire would get him nothing. Racing down the stairs, she stopped at the archway opening to the kitchen. Quiet. Reloading? Or maybe they were repositioning themselves.

“Sabrina.”

She immediately spotted him in the darkened room situated behind the open refrigerator door. He’d taken out the overhead light in the room with a single shot rather than try to find the switch. He’d even broken the light inside the refrigerator. Thorough, she thought. That was something she’d never forgotten about him.

Diving, she rolled her body on the ground in a somersault. By the time she was on her feet again, she was behind him, the cool air of the refrigerator hitting her back. She positioned her gun over his shoulder, aiming it at the half-glass storm door that led to the back deck.

He turned his head and noted the gun. “Still love American guns.”

“They really are the best bang for the buck. No pun intended.” A few seconds passed as they assessed their next move. Sabrina wondered at the sudden quiet.

“They know where the car is,” Quinlan stated. “They know there is only one exit.”

“There is always more than one exit,” she corrected him as a better idea came to her. “You taught me that.”

He glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Where?”

“Upstairs. Follow me.”

She led him back up the secondary staircase through the abandoned laundry room and toward one of the rooms that overlooked the deck. The room was empty except for some paint cans. The window was unadorned-no curtains or blinds to use as a shield. Looking out, which they would need to do in order to determine where the shooters were, would be a risk.

Quinlan moved forward, but Sabrina held him back with a hand on his arm. “No, let me.”

She crawled to the window and raised her head slowly, giving her eyes just enough space to see. The moonlight sufficiently illuminated what was her backyard. She could see the black Cadillac patiently waiting on top of what used to be her hydrangea bushes.

She also spotted two shooters. One pressed against the side of the house, about seven feet from the porch. The tip of his rifle was raised skyward. The other had moved around a tree at the edge of the yard, directly facing the back door. His weapon, also, was raised and resting against his shoulder. Awfully relaxed, she thought for two guys waiting to pick off whoever walked out the back door.

Sabrina lowered herself and turned so that her back was against the wall, her head safely beneath the windowpane. “Two shooters repositioned around back with clear shots at the car.”

“That means there is definitely a third,” Quinlan concluded.

“Watching the front,” Sabrina concurred.

“Any chance we can pick them off from here?”

She shook her head. “All I can see are the tips of the guns. There is no clear shot.”

“Maybe the neighbors heard and called…”

“Too far away,” she interrupted, knowing what he was thinking. “I’m pretty isolated from the residential part of town. The closest buildings are businesses and they’re closed. I doubt anyone heard the shots. And no way is the sheriff capable of handling whoever is outside. I don’t want him involved. What about you? How fast can you get backup?”

“Not fast enough. They’ll never wait that long. We’ve got minutes before they figure out we’re not stupid enough to try for the car and they move inside.”

“So we wait them out. Try to take them out once they are inside the house.”

He nodded. “It’s our best chance, but not a great one considering what they’re carrying and that they outnumber us.”

Sabrina turned and once more slowly lifted her head checking to see that she was right before she suggested an alternative. She was.

“The roof outside this window slopes down over the deck at least five feet. From there it wouldn’t be too far to jump to hit the roof of the car.”

“Too much opportunity to hear us. The window opening, us on the roof,” he said dismissively.

“Listen to me, those guys aren’t waiting for us to come out the back door. They don’t even have their rifles trained on the house. Did you see the front door?”

“Everything high.”

Sabrina nodded. “Usually when shots get fired people have a tendency to duck. I’m telling you they’re not here to take me out. Something else is going on. We get the window open, slide down the roof, maybe end up in a position to take out the guy behind the tree. I’m guessing they won’t risk firing at us when we’re so exposed.”

“You guess?” he repeated, evidently not pleased with the idea of risking his life on a hunch.

“I know.”

His eyes, like laser beams pinned her to her spot, searching, she knew, for the girl she once was. Searching for the truth. He must have found what he was looking for.

“Okay. You win. We’ll do it your way.”

He slid across the floor to her position, and together they pushed the window up as gently and as slowly as possible. The sound of the wood scraping against the pane was unmistakable, but it was hard to know how far it would carry. The window raised enough for them to slide through the opening, they shrank down and waited to see if they had signaled their position.

Silence.

“Let’s move,” Sabrina said. “Me first.”

If the shooters did spot movement, and she was right about them not wanting to actually kill her-a really big if-then they would have to hold their fire until they verified the identity of the person on the roof. That should give her and Quinlan more than enough time to get to the car. If she was wrong, then Quinlan would still have a chance.

“Horner. Get ready. Unlock the back doors.”

Sabrina contemplated what it meant for him to trust her like this. Especially, since she knew part of the reason he was here was because he didn’t. But the time for thinking was over.

Like a snake, she slipped out over the edge of the window. With her Colt in her right hand, she used her left hand to control her landing as she pressed her body flat against the slate roof. She knew from her contractor’s assessment that several of the slates were loose, contributing to her leaking problem. This would only add to the challenge of trying to descend silently. Using hands and knees, she carefully positioned herself on each slate checking for movement. When it remained stationary, she moved to the next one. Then the next.

Behind her, she knew Quinlan was following her onto the roof. He was quiet, but the sound of his gun clicking against the slate gave him up. Lifting her head slightly, she checked the position of the shooter behind the tree. The gun was no longer pointed in the air, but his sight was focused on the back door, not at her. And his shoulder was exposed.

Sabrina glanced back at Quinlan, whose head was now level with her waist. With hand signals, she pointed out the position of the shooters. Then tapped her shoulder and pointed again to let him know she had a shot.

She could feel the intensity of his gaze on her, wondering, worrying, she knew, if she was still as skilled with a gun. He had no choice but to trust her. Taking out one of the gunmen meant that by the time the other one reacted to the sound of the blast, she and Quinlan would be on the car roof and might have a clean shot at the guy.

She tapped her shoulder again and nodded. After a brief second, Quinlan returned her nod.

Learning how to fight hand-to-hand combat all those years ago had been hell. It had been painful, gut-wrenching work struggling to teach her muscles how to react to her mind’s command. She’d been beaten, bruised and sore for almost a year.