I considered shooting him. Nothing fatal. Maybe a bullet through the right shoulder. Whoops, you can’t fire a gun with a wounded shoulder? Guess we’d better get you out of here. Next time you’re in a house with an armed stranger waiting for a serial killer? Don’t come creeping down the hallway.

“Get back in position,” I said through my teeth.

“It’s been an hour. He’s not showing up.”

“No? Well, maybe that’s because you’re in here, and he needs to plan a little. If you’d left, he would have made damned sure he got in here before you returned.”

“So this is my fault?”

I didn’t dare answer that.

“Stand guard,” I said. “I’ll call my partners, and see whether anything’s changed from their end.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

FIFTY

“You gotta get him out of there,” Jack said.

“You think I haven’t tried? If you can do better, then I’ll hand the radio over, because I want him gone even more than you do, but he won’t go without a fight…and a fight will give Wilkes the perfect opportunity to strike.”

“Or run,” Jack muttered. “He hears arguing? He’ll suspect a trap. Fuck.”

“So I should…?”

“Stick to the plan. Holding pattern.”

I lowered the radio and turned to Dubois. “Agent Dubois? Nothing’s changed on their end. There’s no sign of him outside, so they want us to stay the course.”

Dubois’s eyes narrowed. When he reached for the radio, I pretended not to notice, turning my attention back to it, tightening my grip. He paused, then stalked to the dining room.

“Back on track,” I said to Jack. “For now…though I’m not sure how much longer he’ll take orders from me.”

“Dee? Quinn here.”

“Hey.”

“I was just going to say you’re doing fine. Dubois won’t like you running the show, but don’t forget, he’s on his own. Outgunned and outnumbered, and if we don’t pull this off—out of a job. He’s taken a big risk and broken a shitload of rules. He can’t go back without Wilkes’s head on a stick. As long as he knows that’s what you want, too, and you don’t get in his face too much, he’ll toe the line.”

“Good. Thanks.”

I signed off and resumed my position.

Another hour passed. The light on my radio flickered. I turned it on and said hello.

“Me,” came the response.

The reception in the bathroom wasn’t clear enough to recognize the voice, but the terse greeting gave it away.

“He’s waiting for night,” Jack said.

“I was starting to suspect that.”

“If Dubois left? He’d have taken a shot. Now? Too late. Damage done.”