Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

I shot a man.

That was horrible.

Then I looked at my broken window and realized I was going to have to pay to get that fixed, and Max and I had been having a moment there that could have turned into an orgasmic continuation of Selfish Day except that that creep was breaking my door, and more than that, he was going to shoot us . I should have aimed higher?—

Max had shoved past me, his gun out and raised high as he took in the scene in the dark, the only light the moonlight filtering in.

"Get down!" he snapped at me.

I dropped to the floor with the shotgun. So much for being a badass.

Max went to the back door. But not directly to it, off to the side, pointing the gun out and edging around.

"Call Pike," Max called out to me.

"On it." I was glad he said Pike, not the police. I did not call the real law. Ever. Even now because I did not completely trust this Herc to get rid of that warrant. Or to do anything good.

Max stepped out of the back door, the gun at the ready, and I didn't like that, but he was back inside a few seconds later. "He ran away and I couldn't get a clean shot. He was limping. You got him in the legs."

"Can I get up?"

Max backed away from the door. "Yeah. You can get up, but leave the lights off, please."

He picked up the shotgun and broke it open and peered at it in the moonlight from the bay window.

"I shot him," I said. "I've never shot anybody before."

"Rose, you couldn't have killed him; you'd loaded it with birdshot." He pulled the two empty cases out and when I told him about the rest of the shells behind the canned chickpeas, he reloaded it.

I went to call Pike on the landline.

When I came back, Max had the glass on the floor cleaned up. I'd half expected him to chase after the intruder but was glad he hadn't.

"I'll call a glass place tomorrow," I said. "There's one in Bearton."

Max nodded, but he was focused on me. "Are you okay?" He gestured and Maggs went over and sat by the door, ears up, on alert.

That's when I realized I was shaking. "He scared me."

"He scared me, too," Max said. "But he's gone now." He glanced toward the stairs. "What about Poppy?"

"I think she has her earphones on. She probably fell asleep in them or she'd have been down here to find out what was going on." I walked over to the cupboard and got the Glenlivet out. I was really going to need it to sleep tonight. I put two glasses on the table and poured a healthy slug in each one. Then I sat down in the dark and said, "How long is this going to go on?"

Max shook his head. "As long as Serena is out there."

"He had a gun," I said. "A big one."

"Assault rifle with suppressor and laser sight," Max said, as if it were something a person encountered every day and not a big deal.

"Why would someone bring an assault rifle to break into my kitchen? The shop I get, kind of, but my kitchen? He thought Ozzie had stashed the film behind the chickpeas?" I shook my head and picked up my glass .

"More discreet to come in through the back," Max said. "He didn't expect us to be here in the dark."

I gestured to the other glass, and he sat down at the table across from me, half facing the door, the gun on the table. Maggs sat there just inside the door, sphinxlike, eyes glittering in the moonlight, and even with the cone, she looked fierce, not the same dog Poppy had been combing in her lap. As fierce as Max dressed in black across from me, gun close at hand. And yet, for the first time since Ozzie died, I suddenly felt safe, even with Serena's threats and the break-in. Safe enough to take a step back and look at where I was.

"The hell with who that was," I said. "I don't know who I am. I was Ozzie's counter clerk and cook and housekeeper, but he's dead. I'm Poppy's mom, but she's going to college next summer. They defined me for nineteen years and now . . . without them, I don't even know who I am. Except somebody who is up to her ass in strangers trying to steal everything she doesn't have. Or kill her. Or something."

"Okay," Max said cautiously. I noticed he hadn't picked up his glass.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, drink your booze." I hit my glass again, and the liquor began to warm me all over.

"I don't drink," Max said. "Well, not anymore. I had a bad year with it before I started walking the Trail."

"Oh hell." I reached across and pulled the glass to me. "I'm sorry, I forgot."

"No problem," he said.

But it was. If he was in recovery . . .

I picked up the bottle and glasses, went to the sink and emptied them.

"You didn't have to do that," Max began, and I said, "We have problems that booze isn't going to solve for either of us. This is better."

I made tea so we'd have something to do with our hands, and we sat there in silence for a couple of minutes with cups in front of us until Maggs stood and let out a low growl.

Max had the pistol in hand and was up and leaning against the wall to the side of the door, peering out, in a second. He gestured and Maggs sat back down and I waited for him to tell me to get down with the dog, but then he opened the door and Pike came in.

He looked at Max for a moment, then Maggs, then took in the kitchen in the moonlight, and finally turned to me. "Rose, there's blood here."

"Yeah, I shot somebody. But he ran away, so it's not murder. And anyway, he broke in, so I was defending my home. Standing my ground, whatever it's called. Well, not my home exactly, but Ozzie's?—"

"It's your home," Max said in a low voice, and I realized he was right; it was so strange to think of it that way.

"Right," I said. "Right. Right."

Pike looked at Max. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Max said.

"I'm right here," I said, but it was weak because I knew I was anything but fine.

"Don't worry about the law," Pike said, "or any of that ‘stand your ground' bullshit. This is Rocky Start."

"Right." I nodded. "What happens if he comes back? I don't think I could shoot him again."

"Tall guy with a rifle, all in black, face mask, wearing a body vest?" Pike asked.

"Yeah," Max said cautiously.

I'd missed the vest part, being distracted by the gun part.

"He's not coming back," Pike said. "He's dead at the end of the alley."