Kill and Run (A Thorny Rose Mystery Book 1) (30 page)

On the stairs, Cameron waited for more assailants to attempt coming through the door. There were none.

The silence was more frightening than the gunshots.

Spencer’s barks broke through the silence. The blue sheltie shot out of the dining room and ran out the shattered front door.

Where’s Jessica?

Her heart racing, Cameron raced down the stairs and to the doorway. Pausing at the door, she peered outside to see a uniformed police officer opening the side door of a van while another, carrying an unconscious Jessica over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. They had used the downstairs entrance to snatch her.

“Halt!” Cameron screamed.

The hitman holding the door open turned to shoot, but Cameron was ready for him. She put a bullet through his knee before finishing him off as he fell with a shot to the neck and head.

Without pausing, the man carrying Jessica threw her into the van and jumped in himself while it sped off.

The roar of Murphy’s motorcycle came to Cameron’s ears. In her bare feet, she ran down the steps to meet him when he pulled up. Gesturing at the van, she screamed for him to hear her over the motorcycle’s engine. “After them! They took Jessica in a black van!”

Murphy gave chase.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Cameron only paused long enough to give the fallen assailant a quick check to ensure he was dead before replacing the magazine in her gun with the last one she had in her pocket and running back inside to check on Izzy.

Neighbors were waking up to the gunshots. Some called the police to report it. Others were outside with their cell phones recording everything they could to post on the Internet.

When Joshua rounded the corner in Murphy’s SUV with a van filled with Phantoms behind him, he cursed. This was more public than he needed. Hitting the button on his cell phone, he called back to Major Ford. “They were already here. Civilians are out and about.”

“No problem, Captain,” Ford responded. “We’ve got it covered. No one will ever know this was us.”

Upstairs, Izzy was cowering under the bed. Holding her breath for fear the shooters could hear her, she clutched Irving to her chest. She felt her heartbeat pounding against the cat’s large furry body.

A stream of light fell across the floor next to the bed. Peering out from under the edge of the comforter, she saw a pair of women’s feet make their way across the room to the bed.

Izzy sensed that the feet did not belong to Cameron or Jessica. Sucking in her breath, she curled up as tightly as she could to make herself as small as possible. Irving wriggled out of her grasp.

No, stay, Irving. It’s dangerous.

She saw the legs lower down for the knees to meet the floor. While the intruder prepared to peer under the bed, Izzy caught sight of the shiny blade of a butcher knife. Tears of fear welled up in her eyes.

The intruder grasped the bottom of the bed’s skirt and lifted—releasing twenty-five pounds of furry wrath.

With a screech, Irving shot out from under the bed with all claws extended. Most of them found their mark.

Grabbing her face with both hands, Paige Graham leapt to her feet. Screaming, she whirled around while trying to capture the enraged animal that continued to claw and scratch her with every ounce of rage he had inside him, before bouncing off the top of her head to the dresser, and then scurrying out the door.

Letting off a string of curses, she wiped the blood from her face. Seeing her own blood in the palm of her hand only infuriated her more.

She didn’t remember being this angry with anyone since Sebastian’s parents threatened to go to the army’s criminal investigation division with evidence that she had arranged the murder of that idiot commanding officer who threatened to ruin her husband’s career.

Snatching the butcher knife from the floor, Paige admired the shiny blade. A grin came to her lips while recalling the shocked looks on her in-laws’ faces when they realized their foolishness in thinking that she was not worthy, or worse, clever enough to be the wife of a distinguished military leader.

“It’s over, Paige.”

Paige Graham looked up from where she was staring at the knife to face Cameron who was aiming not one but two guns at her.

“Drop the knife.”

“My husband was General Sebastian Graham,” Paige said. “He was going to be the Chief of Staff for our United States Army. In no time, he would have been chairman of the Joint Chiefs. After that, it would have only been a short jog to President of the United States. You have no idea how brilliant Sebastian was. He was going to do great things for this country—all thanks to me.”

“Thanks to you for enabling his predatory behavior against women.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Paige said. “Every great man has had a weakness. Sebastian’s was women. So he’s raped some. But when you take into consideration those lives he saved in the Middle East, and the fabulous plans he had for our country when he got to the White House—the price these women paid is really quite insignificant.”

Cameron squinted her eyes. She couldn’t stop the laughter that worked its way up her throat. “You’re looney.” She scoffed. “You really believe that these women your husband forced himself on should have felt
honored
that he selected them to rape?”

“Why would they not?”

Steadying her aim on Paige, Cameron ordered, “Drop the knife or I will shoot.”

With a shrug of her shoulders, Paige tossed the knife to the bed.

“Now put your hands on top of your head and turn around.”

Paige did as she was directed.

After tucking Jessica’s Beretta into her robe’s pocket and her smaller semi-automatic into the waistband of her pajamas, Cameron removed the belt from her bathrobe and stepped forward to grab Paige’s wrist. She had just gotten in reach of her when Paige whirled around and slapped Cameron against the side of her head with her fist. She followed up the blow with a kick to the knee that dropped Cameron down onto the bed. She felt her gun break loose to drop down into her pajamas pants.

By the time Cameron sat up, Paige was pointing the Beretta she had snatched from Cameron’s pocket at her.

“You all make the same mistake,” she said. “You all underestimate the power of the woman behind the man.”

Paige held out the gun to aim her shot between Cameron’s eyes. Her arm tingled with the feel of something itchy working its way up her forearm. In the dim light of the room, she could only make out something several inches in diameter and made up of black fur scurrying up to her elbow. Her jaw dropped open upon realizing that the enormous furry thing was not only the size of a luncheon plate, but had eight legs.

With a scream, Paige dropped the gun and swiped at Monique, who hopped up her arm until the spider landed on her shoulder.

Hysterical, Paige twisted, whirled and jumped while slapping and hitting herself in an attempt to kill the oversized bug. Panting with madness, she ended her dance at the top of the stairs where she collapsed over the bannister.

“Paige Graham, you’re under arrest!”

When her presence of mind returned, Paige found herself staring down at the muzzle of Joshua Thornton’s gun.

Looking down at her hand by her side, she saw that she was still clutching Cameron’s weapon.

Regaining consciousness, Jessica was aware of the van speeding down the road. Staring out the back window, Sidewalls was sitting next to her with a gun pressed against her side.

“You haven’t lost him yet?” Sidewalls growled up at the driver.

“He’s been sticking to us like glue. The guy’s on a motorcycle and he knows how to weave his way around traffic.”

No rules.

Keeping her eyes shut, Jessica pretended to be unconscious while waiting for her opportunity.

“Run the red lights,” Sidewalls ordered. “Let’s see him weave around a semi without getting squashed like a bug.”

Can’t lose sight of them.

The capital’s rush hour traffic started with the sun rise. As the sun crested the horizon, vehicles took to the streets. Murphy had managed to catch up to the speeding van when it hit the four lane road heading away from Washington on Oxen Hill Road. Luckily, most of the heavy traffic was heading in the opposite direction—toward the city.

Weaving around vehicles driven by sleepy commuters, Murphy tried to form a plan for attack once he caught the van. It was unlikely that he could force it off the road with only his motorcycle—unless he shot the driver. But with Jessica inside, he considered the risk too great.

The best bet was to run them down to the ground and take them all out when they stopped.

Keeping on the van’s tail, Murphy revved the bike’s engine to race through a red light of a busy intersection. The long blast of a loud horn announced that a semi-truck and trailer with the right of way was coming through.

Going too fast to stop and not wanting to risk losing sight of the van, Murphy leaned to the side and plowed right on through the intersection—clearing the space underneath the moving trailer.

Without missing a beat, on the other side, he righted the bike and revved the engine to catch up with the van racing away with his wife.

In the van, Sidewalls cursed when he saw that Murphy was still on their tail. “I don’t believe it!” Leaning up toward the back of the driver’s seat, he said, “We’ll make it a two-fer. Lead him someplace nice and secluded. We’ll let him watch us play fun and games with his wife before killing her in front of him. Then, we’ll kill him nice and slow for being so much trouble.”

The driver’s laughter was cut off by the blast of Sidewall’s gun through the back of his seat.

Focused on trying to shake Murphy, Sidewalls had forgotten about Jessica—until she jumped up to grab the gun he was clutching while talking to the driver, pointed it to the back of the seat, and pulled the trigger.

Jessica’s sense of success was cut short when the driver collapsed over the steering wheel and his foot hit the gas pedal.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The television was blaring.

“Give it up, Paige!” Joshua yelled over
The Power Rangers
opening song. At the bottom of the stairs, he was braced against the wall with his weapon aimed at her. “My people have the place surrounded. There is no way you can get out of here alive unless you give yourself up.”

Paige Graham slowly raised the hand clutching the gun and eased it up over the banister. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“I do.” Cameron pressed the muzzle of her gun against the base of Paige’s neck. With her other hand, she snatched her gun from Paige’s hand. “It’s over, Ms. Fruit Loop.”

Standing up tall, Paige said, “It’s over when I say it’s over.” She whirled around and grabbed the gun Cameron had pressed against the back of her neck. Afraid Paige would once more get her gun, Cameron backed up.

In a surprise move, instead of wresting the gun out of Cameron’s hand, Paige shoved her body against the muzzle, up under her ribs, and, with Cameron’s hand still on the weapon, pulled the trigger.

By the time Joshua reached the top of the stairs, Paige was down on the floor.

“She grabbed my gun … and pulled the trigger,” Cameron sputtered out. Gasping, she realized, “She said it was over when she said it was over.”

Joshua was checking Paige’s pulse.

Her eyes glassy, Paige’s usually tough expression softened. With blood filling her mouth, she murmured, “My darling Sebastian, we almost made it. … Top … of the … world.”

The general’s wife died.

“How’s that for commitment?” Joshua said. “He was a rapist and she still loved him.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Cameron quoted Paige with sarcasm.

Joshua rose to his feet. “Where’s Izzy?”

“Hiding under the bed.”

“We need to get out of here.” Tucking his gun into its holster, Joshua ran into bedroom. “Now!” Racing into the bedroom, he dropped down to the floor. “Izzy, it’s me, Josh. Come on, sweetie, we need to get out of here. We’ll take you someplace safe.”

“We can’t forget Monique.”

Carefully holding the huge black spider, Izzy thrust out both hands. Upon seeing the fur covered, eight legged creature, Joshua uttered a gasp and fell back to land on his rump.

“Grow some guts.” Cameron scooped up Monique and deposited her in a makeshift well in the front of her nightshirt. “That giant bug saved my life.”

“I’ll remember this next time you find a spider in the bath tub.” As soon as Izzy was out from under the bed, Joshua lifted her up into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders.

“What about Irving?” Izzy asked.

“We’ll get Irving and all the critters,” Joshua assured her.

With Cameron leading the way, they ran down the stairs to find the broken out front door blocked by a man dressed in a tailored suit and tie. He welded an M249 machine gun in his hands.

Cameron stepped in front of Joshua and Izzy.

“You can’t crush a man’s investment without paying a certain price,” the newest intruder said in a well-cultured voice.

Unable to hear his threat over the battle the Power Rangers were fighting on the television, Cameron could only conclude that this well-dressed man was not happy about the death of Paige Graham and or her assassins.

“Adrian Kalashov I presume,” Joshua yelled to be heard over the television that Newman had jacked up to maximum volume to hear over the gun fights.

“My company has invested a lot of time and money in making General—” Gritting his teeth with anger over his grand moment being drowned out by a children’s television show, the Russian mobster turned to the dog in the living room. “Turn that thing down!”

Newman sat up in his seat and growled at the mobster.

“No mutt growls at me.”

While Cameron and Izzy screamed, Adrian leveled his machine gun at the dog.

They felt the whizz of the blade through the air before it made contact with Adrian Kalashov’s back. The force of the throw and size of the knife made the blade go through the mobster’s back to slice through the center of his heart.

Adrian Kalashov was dead before he hit the floor.

Feeling Izzy tremble in his arms, Joshua turned around so that she could not see the dead man.

“Is he on our side?” Izzy asked.

Turning his head to see who she was pointing at, Joshua saw Tawkeel Said step out of the dining room. He wore a ballistics vest with “FBI” emblazoned across the front and back. “Yes, he is. He is a very good man.”

“We must go, Billy,” Tawkeel said. “We have a van outside to take everyone to a safe house.”

“We can’t forget Irving, Newman, and Blue,” Izzy said.

“We leave no American left behind, even the fur covered ones.” Tawkeel ushered them toward the door.

“Where’s Murphy?” Joshua asked.

“We don’t know, sir.”