BooksBarbecue
Back The Neighborhood
Chapters (59)
  1. Part I Reconnaissance
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Part II Incursion
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Part III Under Siege
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Part IV Course Correction
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Part V Balance of Power
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Part VI Spy versus Spy
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Part VII Winds of War and Flame
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Part VIII Strong to the Finish
  50. Chapter Forty-Two
  51. Chapter Forty-Three
  52. Part IX Spy Games
  53. Chapter Forty-Four
  54. Chapter Forty-Five
  55. Chapter Forty-Six
  56. Part X What Goes Around
  57. Chapter Forty-Seven
  58. Chapter Forty-Eight
  59. About the Author

He crept toward the back door, when the thunderous roar of a shotgun reverberated from inside.

* * *

Even with the electronic earbuds, the explosion of the Benelli inside the home was tremendous. The 12-gauge buckshot caught the man in the chest and face, and Sam was selfishly relieved that the lights were off. A wash of black appeared on the wall of the staircase, and the intruder collapsed to the stairs, his rifle tumbling to the carpet. His body leaned against the wall and then slid before toppling forward in a head-first dive down the carpeted steps.

Sam stared in horror and awe at what she’d done to another human being. A bad one, Sam. One who came into our home to do you harm. It’s not your fault. He did this, not you, her father’s voice said calmly inside her head. You need to move, princess. There are more of them.

A second crash of glass came from the back door downstairs, and a fresh sense of panic shook her from her reverie. She needed to move and find a new hiding place.

She stood up from the floor, the shotgun held in front of her just in case the new intruder appeared below.

“Don’t move—or teenage girl or not, you’re dead. I don’t want to kill a kid, but after what you just did, I will,” a menacing voice said from behind her, from the short hallway off the main branch that led to her room.

Sam realized her fatal mistake. The window. Should’ve closed it. Her mother would be furious, as she’d reminded her dozens if not hundreds of times over the years to shut the window when she left her room. Somehow, she always forgot, and she was about to pay a very steep price for it. The additional noises she’d heard had been the second man climbing up to the roof over the front porch and to her window.

Sam froze, truly terrified for the first time that night that she was about to die. I’m sorry, Daddy. I did my best.

* * *

Even as the shotgun shattered the silence of the night from inside the Hawkinses’ house, Zack knew he had one chance to save Sam. It was based on one simple assumption—that the man upstairs holding his babysitter at gunpoint thought Zack was one of the two shooters coming from the back to support him.

Zack hurled an outdoor tabletop speaker like a baseball at the left half of the sliding doors. The metallic cube struck the door with a crash that punched a hole in the glass and created a jigsaw puzzle of tiny pieces that held together for an instant before large chunks of it began to fall to the patio and inside the house.