BooksBarbecue
Back We Were Killers Once
Chapters (65)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty–one
  25. Twenty–two
  26. Twenty–three
  27. Twenty–four
  28. Twenty–five
  29. Twenty–six
  30. Twenty–seven
  31. Twenty–eight
  32. Twenty–nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty–one
  35. Thirty–two
  36. Thirty–three
  37. Thirty–four
  38. Thirty–five
  39. Thirty–six
  40. Thirty–seven
  41. Thirty–eight
  42. Thirty–nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty–one
  45. Forty–two
  46. Forty–three
  47. Forty–four
  48. Forty–five
  49. Forty–six
  50. Forty–seven
  51. Forty–eight
  52. Forty–nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty–one
  55. Fifty–two
  56. Fifty–three
  57. Fifty–four
  58. Fifty–five
  59. Fifty–six
  60. Fifty–seven
  61. Author’s Note
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Also by Becky Masterman
  64. About the Author
  65. Newsletter Sign-up

Weapon at the ready I moved to the front of the house, to the laundry room on the right, quietly throwing the bolt on the door to the garage so if he was hiding in the garage he couldn’t get in now. Then the TV room, then my office, noting that the fourth file drawer down had been pulled out. Some of the files had been taken out and thrown on the floor, but without any apparent reason. It looked random, like something vandals would do.

Then I went into the other room, which was the best place for someone to hide, with Carlo’s four shelves of books running through the middle of the room. The person had been in here as well. One of the sliding closet doors had been ripped off its track and thrown against the shelves, upsetting some books but not with enough force to turn over the shelves themselves. The closet in that room was crammed to the gills with more books and storage bins filled with Carlo’s dissertation notes, articles he had written for various academic journals, and several drafts of Asterisks and Idols. It would not have room to hide a small goat, so I didn’t draw aside the other sliding door to look inside for a person.

Finally the guest bath. Oh, that shower curtain. How much more contented our lives would have been without Psycho. I stepped forward in my bare feet without a sound, without turning on the light, and ripped the curtain aside as I fell to my knees in the opposite direction from which an attacker would instinctively aim a blow.

But no, the tub was clear.

It was only on my way back from the front of the house that I spied a plastic grocery bag on the floor by the window in the library. Carlo’s? I moved toward it cautiously and could easily see through the thin plastic that it contained my own things, including my other weapon. One that wasn’t registered. No matter what the cops found, they should not find this. I gingerly opened the top of the bag with the back of my hand and drew out the gun.

I started breathing again, and went to the bedroom door and knocked. Then I called out. Then I remembered GK couldn’t hear me because she was locked in the bathroom, which was a bit of a remove from the door of the bedroom. I pounded harder, and yelled, and was interrupted by the doorbell playing Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Funny how Jane could come to mind even at a time like this.