Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

He entered the rear hall, leading Tupelo, their sneakers treading soundlessly on the bare wooden floor.

Abby glanced at Andrea and saw the woman’s eyes widen in fear.

“What’s back there?” Abby whispered.

“Door to the backyard. There’s a glass pane in the door.”

Down the rear hallway came a long screeee of hinges. The door, opening.

A bad time to be unarmed. Abby’s purse, with the gun in it, was in the living room.

But there was another gun-Andrea’s. Abby pulled open the kitchen drawer and grabbed the revolver inside.

“This thing still loaded?” she whispered.

Andrea nodded.

The gun in her hand made Abby feel a little better, but not much. Getting into a shootout at close quarters wasn’t her idea of a good time. Too many things could go wrong. And as long as she and Andrea were stuck in the kitchen, the intruder had the advantage. He could corner them and finish them off from the doorway.

Andrea had frozen. But there was no time for fear. In a tactical situation, the first thirty seconds were the most critical.

Abby grabbed Andrea by the shoulder and hustled her into the living room. The front door beckoned, but it was too far away, and besides, there might be someone else waiting outside, hoping to pick them off if they tried to flee.

And her purse-it, too, was out of reach.

She pivoted toward a side hallway and took it at a run, Andrea following. There were two doors in the hall. One was shut. Before Abby could try it, Andrea gasped, “Closet.”

The other door was ajar. Abby pushed it open and led Andrea into what was obviously the master bedroom, lit by a lamp on the night table, with a closet, a bathroom, and two curtained windows that must face the backyard.

She pulled Andrea behind the bed, kneeling with her, then yanked the lamp’s power cord out of the wall socket. Now the only illumination was the trickle of daylight through the curtains and the glow of a nightlight in the bathroom.

There was a phone on the night table. Abby grabbed it. No dial tone. The phone line had been cut. That meant whoever had entered the house wasn’t just some junkie or random thrill seeker. Not your standard home invader, either. If it had been, the intruder would be shouting orders and stomping through the house, hoping to establish control through intimidation.

This enemy was craftier, stealthier. No teenager, but someone older, more experienced, better organized. A professional assassin with notches in his gun.

Still, the odds had improved. The bed provided concealment, and her angle of view through the doorway provided decent coverage of the hall. She could fire from her improvised sniper’s blind, take out the intruder while he approached.

“Who is it?” Andrea whispered. Abby shushed her.

Through the open door, she saw a shadow pass over the wall of the hallway as the intruder crept into the living room. Then more bad news-a second shadow.

Two enemies. Maybe the odds hadn’t improved so much, after all.

For a few seconds at least, they would be busy in the living room. Abby thought there might be a chance to get Andrea out through the bedroom window. She risked getting to her feet to pull aside the curtains but quickly shut them again. A third man was outside, in the backyard, toting a handgun with an unnaturally extended barrel that could be a silencer.

Not good.

She resumed kneeling behind the bed. There was no way around it-she was going to have to do some shooting. She flipped open the revolver’s cylinder. Fully loaded, six rounds. That wasn’t much against three armed men. She would have to be opportunistic about taking her shots. Her best bet was to take out the first man who came down the hall. If she did, the other two might run.

Sudden darkness in the living room. The intruders had turned off the lights. The most logical reason was that they intended to make a move into the hall and didn’t want to be backlit. Abby had expected as much. It made her job a little harder, but she could see well enough. And she knew where to look. She had the edge.

Footsteps in the hall. They were coming.

Dylan worked his way down the hall, Tupelo behind him. He was pretty sure the bitch had taken cover in the room at the far end. A sweep of the other side of the house had turned up nothing, and she hadn’t had time to get out through either the front door or the door to the carport.

It ought to be easy to bag her. But something was funny. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she wasn’t behaving the way a frightened woman should. She wasn’t screaming or trying to climb out the window or barricading the door. It was like she was waiting for him, luring him in.

There was a chance she was armed. Maybe she kept a gun in that room. She might be hoping to get the drop on him. If so, she’d worked out a pretty good plan. She was hidden, and he was exposed. The darkness helped him, but not a lot. Even if he hugged the wall, she would probably see his silhouette when he got close to the open door.

He would have to go in quick. When inside, he could take cover, and if she fired, he would identify her position by the muzzle flash. His own shots would be harder to pinpoint; the suppressor module eliminated the muzzle flare.

Once in the room, he would have the edge.

Abby peered into the dimness and saw a hint of movement. The man was creeping up to the bedroom’s open door. Though he had pressed himself tight against the wall, he was partially exposed to her angle of view. He appeared to be in a low combat crouch, his gun held across his chest.

This was the one moment in the encounter when she had an unequivocal advantage. She could see him. He didn’t know where she was. As the mobile party, he was more vulnerable to begin with, and the hall was a free-fire zone-no cover, no concealment.

She pinned him behind the revolver’s front sight. A fancy shooter would try for a head shot, but the smart money was on a hit to the body. She aimed for his torso.

He was at the door frame. In a second he would pivot inside. He would do it fast, because that was the way the pros did it. She would have only a second to fire. If she missed, he would empty his magazine in the direction of her muzzle flare. The bed might absorb some of the shots, but she wouldn’t wager her life on it.

Her heart, beating fast, counted off three seconds, four.

He made his move, spinning into the doorway.

Abby fired.

She took only one shot. Either she hit the target or she didn’t. If she hit him, one shot should be enough. If she didn’t, she would need the other five rounds to repel his attack.

The gunshot set her ears ringing and drowned out any sound of impact. The muzzle flash, close to her face, erased her night vision. For a moment she was deaf and blind. But she knew she’d hit him because he wasn’t shooting back.

“You got him,” Andrea breathed into Abby’s ear.

“Did you see him go down?”

“I didn’t see him at all, but I heard him cry out. You got him. I know you did.”

“There are two others.” Abby drew a breath and smelled gunpowder. “Don’t celebrate yet.”

Bitch had fired before he could enter, the shot forcing him back. For a bad moment Dylan thought she’d nailed him in the chest, and all he could think of was he should’ve worn Kevlar.

Then Tupelo was pulling him back, away from the open door, whispering, “You hit, man? You hit?”

“Dunno.” His gloved hands searched the front of his shirt for blood, finding none. “Maybe not.”

He’d felt the impact, but there was no blood and no pain. Sometimes a bullet wound didn’t hurt, though. It just went numb. Shock or something.

“Sounded like you was hit,” Tupes said.