Page 164 of A Dirty Business
Silence.
... Bang, bang!
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
JESS
The sound of glass shattering woke me up.
My training took over, and I was on the floor before I could fully comprehend what I was hearing.
More glass shattering.
Jesus Christ. Someone was breaking in.
I was barefoot, but Mom. Where was Mom?
We were both upstairs. Her bedroom was down the hallway.
There was silence, so I didn’t know what that meant, but I grabbed for my phone, dialed 911, and put it in my back pocket. I grabbed for my gun—not my government-issued gun but my own. I had no badge. I had no vest to wear, but this was my house. That was my mom.
I moved across the hallway, and I could hear them in the house now. They were on the first floor. No voices. No talking, but they were moving swiftly.
Professionals, if I had to guess.
I went to my mom’s room, laid a hand over her mouth. When she woke, she gasped, but I held her down. She went still, her eyes bugging out. She grabbed for her blanket.
There was more shuffling.
Goddamn. They were going fast. They were on the stairs.
I laid a finger to my mouth, but she heard them. Her head twitched, and she started to jerk toward the door.
I eased it closed, thanking Trace for putting WD-40 on the hinges. I’d been complaining about everything that squeaked. It swung shut, and it did it quietly. I moved over, turning the lock.
My mom was scrambling off the bed.
I motioned for her to come toward me. Opening the closet door, I pointed for her to go in there. There was a hidden crawl space that ran the length of the house. It bypassed the stairs and connected to my room, going into my closet. If a person knew the house, they’d know that was there. If they didn’t, they’d have no idea.
I was hoping we had guys that didn’t have a clue about the house, but just in case—I eased over to the other side of the room, my gun drawn but pointing downward. I opened the window, then moved back and went into the closet behind where my mom was.
Glancing back, but I couldn’t see anything.
I heard her shuffling, moving something back there.
I was praying she was going for the crawl space.
A second later, as I heard them come up to the second floor, I felt her tapping on my foot, and I moved my foot back, exploring the area. She was in the crawl space. I moved over, feeling down there, finding her, and I pushed her a little back into the space. She went in, and I reached, finding the covering. I moved it in place.
“No,” she whispered when she realized what I was doing.
I shut the covering and moved in front of it. They’d stop at me. I wasn’t going to let them get through me, but I eased forward, back to the closet door.
It was one person, not two. I was hearing only one set of feet moving around.
This person wasn’t a burglar. If he or she was, they’d be stealing and leaving. This person was looking for my mom, but they’d gone into my room first. They knew about me, knew I was here.
Anyone friendly would’ve called out my name. I was assuming that meant this person was here to kill me, my mom, or both. Trace was heading into something, which I knew about. I’d let him go because that was his life. Not mine, but this was a fight being brought to my front door, literally. This time, I was wading in. I was all in, and whoever was coming through on the other side of that door—I took the safety off of my gun and lifted it.
