I can promise you a bloodbath, Don. If you come after me, I will put all of the men outside my house, plus ten, or twenty, or thirty more, in the ground. Thats a lot of widows and orphans. Test me on this.

Dons voice was quiet. Luke, I want you to listen to me very carefully. This is the most important thing Ive ever had to tell you. Are you listening? Can you hear me?

Im listening, Luke said.

Theyve taken your wife and son.

What?

None of this concerns you, Luke. It never did. You were window dressing, a bit player in a much larger drama. If you had gone home when I suspended you this morning, none of what followed would have happened. But you didnt go home, and as a result youve put Rebecca and Gunner at terrible risk. Theyre fine and they havent been harmed, but you have to listen to me. If you quit now, just stop what youre doing, and walk out of the house with your hands in the air, it will all be fine. If you insist on continuing with this… foolishness… He paused. I dont know what will happen.

Don, what are you saying?

Its not your fight, Luke, or mine. This is bigger than we are.

Don, if you hurt my family

It isnt me. You know I would never hurt your family. I love them as though they were my own. Im just the messenger. Please remember that.

Don

Its your choice, Luke.

Don!

The line went dead.

Chapter 41

11:15 p.m.

Queen Annes County, Maryland - Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay

Rebecca lay upright in bed, staring into the darkness. On the end table next to her, the telephone started to ring. She looked at it. She could see the readout from here. It was Luke calling. But she could not move. It would give her away. Someone, she knew, was inside her house.

She lay there, frozen in place, her heart thumping in her chest. She had awakened to their footsteps downstairs, heavy bodies stepping carefully. This was an old, old house, and the floorboards creaked. There was almost nowhere to walk that wouldnt creak at least a little.

There it was again. A heavy step downstairs, trying to be quiet, trying to be stealthy. Another one came, across the living room from the first. At least two people were down there. Outside her bedroom window, she heard more footsteps padding on the grass below. People were moving around outside the house.

A realization came to her. It took a moment because she had been asleep when the sounds started. Gunner was here in the house with her.

Oh God. She had to get him out.

What could she do? Luke kept his weapons locked away. She had made him do that so Gunner could never find them one day when he was alone.