“I know you’re worried about him,” he said, “but he will tell us what he can.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Do we know for sure nobody else is here?”
“No, I think Garret was expecting two men to be posted out here.”
“And we don’t know how many came in with them in the vehicle?” Astra asked him.
“Yes, we do,” Kano answered patiently. “Listen. Just because you keep asking the same questions, it doesn’t mean different answers will show up.”
She groaned. “Sorry, it’s an old habit.”
“I get it,” he said. “Most of the time, it wouldn’t be an issue, but, right now, it’s pissing me off, so would you mind?”
She grinned in the darkness. “No,” she said. “I’m good.”
“Why can’t we just go home?” Amy said.
“What home is that?” Kano snapped. “The one you walked away from, where you were secure? We would all be doing much better right now, instead of sitting out here in the dark, after having to come after you.” That shut up her sister, which surprised Astra, but maybe Amy finally understood some of what she’d brought on.
“But, if Garret’s in there,” Astra said, “he’ll need help. You need to go help him.”
“I need to make sure you two are safe,” he said. “If you weren’t here with us, or if we hadn’t found Amy at the same time, I would be in there, but we can’t afford that. So our resources are a little thin.”
“So then let me go,” Astra said quietly.
He snorted.
She looked at him balefully. “I was a help last time.”
“Beginner’s luck,” he snapped back, and then he held up a finger.
She shushed immediately and turned to look. Indeed, somebody was walking around. He held a rifle over his shoulder, completely unsuspecting of anybody being out here. She wondered if he was really that stupid or if he just really thought nothing was going on. As she watched, Kano looked at her, motioned for her to stay with her sister, then disappeared into the shadows. She sank back into the darkness. “There is just no end to these bad guys,” she murmured.
Amy wrapped her arms around Astra and held on.
Touched, and for the first time maybe understanding where her sister was coming from, she hugged her back.
Amy whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She nodded against her sister’s hair. “I know,” she said.
“I sure wish I had stayed where I was supposed to. I’m also sorry about Garret,” she said. “I knew it was all wrong, right from the beginning.”
“So why did you stay with him?” Astra asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He was a force to be dealt with. I just didn’t know how.”
“And is Gregg any easier?”
“Very, and he treats me differently.”
“No, he treats you more like a porcelain doll,” she said. “Whereas, Garret treated you as a partner.”
“Yet he knew I wasn’t a partner. I was always inferior in his eyes.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“Oh, I do,” she snapped. “He had that look that said I just wasn’t quite what he wanted me to be, like he was always disappointed in me.”
Astra didn’t have anything to say about that because she could possibly understand it. Her sister was always one of those who looked after herself instead of the good of both. “Hopefully your relationship with Gregg is a little easier.”
“Easier, maybe,” she said. “But sure as hell not better in that sense of them treating me like I’m stupid at times.”
“These are very capable men,” Astra said. “You have to give them some leeway.” She held her sister in her arms, and the two of them just rocked back and forth in the darkness. She listened for any kind of sound, but there was only silence, with an occasional twig crackling here and there, or a leaf would fall and catch her eye. A bird would call somewhere in the darkness, and it all just grated on her nerves, as the tension wound up tighter and tighter. She squeezed her arms, until Amy protested.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I wish Kano was back.”
Suddenly he was there, carrying another man. He slowly lowered him to the ground, next to the other unconscious man that he’d taken out earlier. He pulled something from his back pocket and quickly tied up the second man as well. He looked at the two women and asked, “Are you guys okay?”
“We are,” Astra said. “We just want all this over with.”
“Got it,” he said. “I heard from Garret. Gregg is in the house. Three men as well, and they just took out one of their own.”
“Oh, shit,” Astra said, staring at him. “What does that mean?”
“It’s quite possible that there’ll be another argument coming up, so he’s warning me to stay here, on the chance that the numbers may drop by one more, and then he’ll only have the one in there to deal with.”
“That’s not very smart of them, is it?”
“That depends. If it’s one paycheck to be split—”
She winced at that. “And, if there’s greed among those two gunmen, they’ll probably try to take each other out.”
“What about these two?” Amy stared at the two guards on the ground.
“That’s another issue,” he said. “These two men might have gotten killed, once they went back up to the house, completely unsuspecting of what’s really going on.”
“Wow, nice world,” Amy whispered.
“Not much of it,” Kano said. “It definitely has good parts to it, but also a lot of parts are pretty shitty.” He held up his phone and said, “I’m just waiting for Garret to tell us which way he wants us to go. I’ve told him that we have both of the guards.”
Just then a shot came from inside the house.
Astra stared at Kano. “Oh, God,” she said. “Please tell me that’s not Garret.”
He looked at the phone grimly and shrugged. “I won’t know,” he said, “until somebody contacts me.”
“We have to go in,” Astra said, bolting to her feet.
He reached out and grabbed her arm, his hand firm. “No, we’re not doing that,” he said. “Because, if Garret’s still hidden, barging in there will only let them know he’s there. We’re waiting. That’s the only thing we can do right now.”
*
The shot came out of nowhere.
Garret froze and realized the killer had taken a bullet. From Garret’s new hiding spot in the pantry, he barely caught sight of anything but the two guys’ hands, and he saw a handgun falling. He whistled silently. So it was just as he’d thought. The killer had used the pizza as a ruse to go to the kitchen to grab a moment, so he could turn the tables on the big guy. Why split the money at all, if he could keep it all for himself?
The big man stood over the other one and fired a second shot, right into his head.
“Fucking double-crossing fucking bastard.” And that just started his rant. He kept on, until his temper wore down. Finally he looked up and groaned. “Now I got two bodies to deal with.” Then he pulled out his phone and sent a message. When no response came within a few minutes, he sent another one. “Where the fuck are they now? What’s the fucking point of having sentries, if they don’t fucking answer when you need them? They’re probably sleeping in the goddamn underbrush,” he snapped. He picked up the dead guy and hauled him out the front door.