Page 97 of To the Grave

I flung open the doors. The wardrobe was huge, plenty big enough for both of us if we angled our bodies just right.

“Told you,” I said. “Get in.”

Ruth hesitated, then climbed in, scooting her back against one side of the cabinet. “We won’t both fit.”

“It’ll be tight.” The fact that it was an armoire worked in our favor. A closet would definitely be searched, but an antique cupboard that didn’t look big enough to hold two people?

Maybe not, if we were lucky.

More gunfire erupted from downstairs and I climbed in after her and hurried to settle myself inside the cupboard. It was tough to do while holding the gun. The safety was still on but I’dnever handled a gun before and part of me expected it to go off anyway.

I faced forward instead of to the side — the gun wouldn’t be any good to us if someone found us and I was facing Ruth — and pulled my knees to my chest.

“I can’t reach the door,” I said.

Ruth reached down and pulled it shut from the bottom and then we were enclosed in a darkness even more total than in the house.

For a few seconds neither of us spoke.

“Daisy?” Ruth’s voice was tentative and small.

“Yeah?” I whispered.

“I’m sorry.”

I fumbled in the dark with my free hand until I found hers. “Shhh… it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We have to be quiet now.”

I thought about Otis, prayed he was okay, told myself that the gunfire meant he was still alive, that Wolf and Jace would be home any minute, anything to stop the fear thudding in my chest, the feeling that our time together was finally up and it would all end here, right where it had begun.

Chapter 72

Otis

Ileaned against the wall in the room Daisy called the butler’s pantry, trying to ignore the throbbing in my thigh. I’d been hit in the second round of gunfire and had retreated to the small room off the kitchen where all the fancy dishes and extra party supplies had been stored when servants had worked at the house.

Now it was just a pitch-black room, no way out.

This was bad.

I was outnumbered, trying to hold off what I estimated were three shooters trying to enter the house through the kitchen while others broke through the front door. Those ones were in the house, their footsteps heavy on the old floorboards.

I heard a creak in the kitchen, the careful steps of someone scoping out the place. The darkness was an advantage. Whoever had broken into the house didn’t know the house like I did — like Daisy did. They had to move more carefully, look more closely.

It gave me more time, and I looked around the pantry, willing my eyes to adjust to the total darkness as I scanned the room for something else I could use to defend myself and Daisy becauseone gun really didn’t seem like it was going to cut it, and other than the gun I’d taped to the mantel clock, I hadn’t had time to grab any of the others we’d hidden in the house.

I saw the layout of the room in my head and reached carefully for the top drawer on my left. The footsteps were heavier in the kitchen, moving close to the pantry. They helped mask the quiet slide of the drawer as I opened it, and I laid my hand over the contents, trying to choose a knife that would be up to the job if my gun failed.

I closed my fist around what I hoped was the silver carving knife Daisy had brought out for Thanksgiving. Wolf hadn’t used it — he always preferred his knife — and I’d put it away for Daisy while Wolf had cut the turkey.

I moved slowly, carefully, all too aware that the knife might clink against the other silver, and lifted it out of the drawer.

The footsteps stopped right outside the pantry door. My mind was wiped clean while I waited, a kind of sensory deprivation tank with nothing but my breathing, the knife in one hand, my gun in the other.

I raised the gun as the door knob turned and the doors were flung open.

I fired at the man facing me down on the other side.

Chapter 73

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