I decide to spend the night there, at the table, where I have a decent view of both the rear and front doors. If I’m going to get ambushed, I want to see him coming.

I enter the kitchen. Cool, wet air brushes against my legs. The hairs at my nape prickle. Lightning flashes, illuminating the silhouette of a man, standing just inside the door. Adrenaline blasts through me. I reach for the .38. Hand in my pocket, fingers closing around the wood stock. Gun coming up. Finger on the trigger.

I’ve got you, fucker.

“Police!” My voice comes out as a scream. “Put your hands up now!”

Lightning flickers like a strobe. I catch a split-second glimpse of wet hair plastered to a pale face. Water dripping onto the floor. Recognition kicks my brain. Jack Warner, I realize and shock reverberates in my head.

He doesn’t obey my command.

“Get them up!” I scream. “Now!”

I see something in his hand. Too dark to discern what it is. His hand rises. I fire twice in quick succession, center of mass. Thunder drowns out the sound of my gunfire. He stiffens, then drops to his knees.

Something clatters to the floor. Gun, I think. Keeping my weapon poised on the intruder, I kick it away. “Get facedown on the floor! Do it right fucking now!”

“You shot me.”

His voice is startlingly boyish. I’m shaking violently, but my gun hand is steady. If he moves I have no compunction about finishing the job. “Don’t move,” I say as I reach for my radio.

“Drop the gun, bitch. Or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

The voice comes from behind me. Shock is a knife slash across my back. Two of them, I think. For an instant, I consider spinning, taking a wild shot. But he’s got me dead to rights. Lowering my weapon, I slowly turn. I see the silhouette of a man. The black outline of a sawed-off shotgun.

Lightning flashes.

Recognition staggers me. Scott Barbereaux levels the shotgun at my chest. I see deadly intent in his eyes, and I know as surely as the rain pounds down outside that he’s going to kill me.

“Drop the gun, bitch.”

Knowing I have a backup weapon, I offer the .38. butt first.

Barbereaux makes no move to take it. “Drop it and kick it to me.”

Moving slowly, I do as he says, kicking it so that he has to come closer to retrieve it.

He directs his attention to his fallen comrade. “How bad are you hurt?”

“She got me twice,” Warner chokes out. “I’m bleeding. I think it’s bad.”

“You’re going to be okay. Hold tight.”