Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (100 best novels of all time txt) 📗

“But it’ll be slow for both of you unless you give him up,” Gravel Voice says to Grant. “Tell us where to find Cropper and we’ll make it quick.” And the punching resumes.

Now that you know you’re going to die, you think of the white gallon jug. Bleach or accelerant? It doesn’t matter. Either one means these men plan to destroy evidence of murder. Even though you, a reader of crime fiction and crime fact, know they are leaving trace everywhere—hairs, fibers, shoe scrapings, paint flecks, garlic spit—they have tried to think ahead. If you have any chance of coming out of this alive, then, you must think ahead too. You must choose your next action carefully. You squeeze your eyes shut and will the tension to slip away. You listen, trying to envision what you cannot see, what you wish not to see but must if you are to survive.

Your mind begins to construct the scene in which you are caught. You, pinned to the couch. Your husband, tied to a chair and beaten by three men, is near the front door. You try to picture this tableau without passion so you can see beyond it. Beside the door is your security system keypad. A push of the panic button would set off the alarm siren and a call to police when you didn’t answer the security company phone call. But to reach the keypad, you will have to unseat the man holding you down and get past the three assaulting Grant. They will stop you, and with Grant in no position to help, you will fail. You must consider another possibility.

If you can make it to the fireplace just a few feet away, there is a poker on the tool stand. If you can get your hands on that, maybe…but what if they have a gun? So far all you’ve seen is bleach or accelerant and a small pocket knife. If they had a gun, wouldn’t they have shown it already? Even so, a poker against four men? Terrible odds.

Then you remember Grant’s desk, in the corner beyond your head. The phone is to the left of his desktop computer…but even if you manage to dial nine-one-one, these men will get to you before you can give details to the dispatcher. So you think of Grant’s handgun, a revolver. He has a concealed carry permit for Virginia but has taken the gun into DC when he’s had to cover news in dicey areas. When Miranda was at home, he kept it in one of two places—at night in the small lockbox upstairs on the bedside stand’s second shelf or when he was in and out of the house during the day in the top drawer of the desk. Gun or no gun, the drawer was always locked against the curiosity of your child. Now that she is grown, you wonder if he still locks it, if the gun, which you have not seen for so long, is even there. If it isn’t you’re both dead. If it is, at least you have a chance.

You close your fingers around the scissors you felt when Garlic Spit shifted his weight. The pointed blades are perhaps three inches long. Even as the beating continues, you open your eyes and look up into your captor’s face. You have relaxed a bit, so he has relaxed a bit. Now he is looking to his right, watching what the other three are doing to Grant—waiting, you imagine, for his own turn. You look at his throat, at his Adam’s apple, and hope your memory of biology class is accurate. Taking and holding a deep breath through your nostrils, you ease your arm past your side and as quickly as possible jam one blade of the scissors into the right side of his throat, pushing so hard you reach the pivot screw as warmth spills onto your hand.

The man grunts and clutches his throat, tumbling off you, leaving you still holding the scissors as spurting blood confirms you hit the jugular. So much blood! But you cannot waver. You roll to your right and scramble over his twitching body, losing your glasses. The beating stops as Grant’s assailants begin to process what has happened. You make it to the desk and, still on your knees, jerk open the top drawer—unlocked, thank God! Dropping the scissors, you reach inside for the gun—still there, thank God! The box of bullets beside it suggests the gun may be unloaded but you have no time to check, no time to load. Standing, you turn to face the men starting toward you. You raise the gun.

They stop.

For a moment there is dead silence. Hood lowered and blond hair unruly, the man you’ve thought of as Gravel Voice appears to smile, as if doubting your resolve, but in the flickering firelight, the only thing you are certain you see in his face is cruelty in pale eyes beneath blond eyebrows. So, calmly, you point the gun at him, the leader, right hand resting in the cup of your left and neither hand shaking. You do not know if the gun is loaded or you would pull the trigger until all these men lie dead at your feet. You do know it is too dark for them to see from where they are whether bullets are in the cylinder. You cannot afford to show any doubt in your expression. You thumb back the hammer, the click louder than you expected, and take a step forward. Gravel Voice must read the certainty in your face. He steps back, hands rising as if in surrender. The two men behind him backpedal to the door, ease it open, and disappear into the night. After a hesitant glance at his now motionless friend lying between your couch and coffee table, Gravel Voice spins around and darts out after them.

Gun still pointed in front of you, you hurry across the room to lock the