“No thanks,” Davis said absently. “Myra’s here.”

“Good.”

“Kathryn, Dennis? Coffee?”

They both declined.

Simesky slipped closer to the doorway to the living room, pressing his back against the adjoining wall, staying well out of sight, waiting for Myra’s gunshots, killing Raymond.

Harutyun said, “We had a real president stay here once. He’d come for a conference with the governor. Had to sign something so I wouldn’t tell who it was.”

“Can we play Twenty Questions to find out?” Dance asked.

The detective laughed.

Davis said, “I was at Camp David last week. It’s not as fancy as you’d think.”

Would those be his last words?

And what was Edwin Sharp thinking as he was enduring, though probably not enjoying, his final moments on earth?

“Hey, look, the game,” Davis said. “Triple play!” The volume on the TV went up. Spectators roared.

A glance at the Rolex. Right about now Myra would shoot.

Simesky would step into the doorway and do the same.

Two.

Then two and two more.

Edwin, no! My God! …

He wiped his hand on his slacks and took the pistol again.

Now!

But no shots sounded.

Another minute passed, silence except for the televised crowd and baseball game announcer on the TV.

What was going on? Sweat on Simesky’s brow.

And then at last: gunfire from outside.

A half dozen shots. The snapping clatter of a firefight, small arms.

Shit, Simesky thought. What’s this about? He considered his plan and how the rattle of weapons might fit into it. Had there been another deputy on the scene who’d gotten here earlier? Or had a local cop happened by and noticed a woman with a weapon or a hog-tied Edwin Sharp?

Now, all was silent.

Act your plan …

Simesky, thinking: Sometimes you couldn’t, though. Sometimes you needed to improvise. But to do that, you needed facts.

Only there were no facts.

He decided to go ahead anyway. The three in the room would be focused on what was happening outside the windows, staying down, staying silent.

Two, two and two … Kill Raymond when he walked inside, if he was still alive. Then clean up as best he could. Too bad about Myra; he assumed she was gone.

But there were larger issues at stake.

Simesky gripped the gun firmly, slipped the safety lever forward and took a deep breath. He turned fast and stepped through the arched doorway into the living room, aiming at where Harutyun and Dance had been—the most immediate threats. He was adding poundage to the trigger, when he froze.

The room was empty.

The alarm pad was blinking green. Someone had disarmed the system so Davis, Dance and Harutyun could leave silently. What the hell was this? He walked further into the room. And then he saw the side window was up. That’s how they’d escaped.

Simesky noticed too in the middle of the floor a pad of yellow paper. On it was scrawled a message: Plot against your life Simesky involved Myra too Maybe others We leave NOW Side window NOW