Petrie, Nick - Peter Ash 07 - The Runaway by Petrie Nick

Author:Petrie, Nick [Petrie, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 9780525535508
Google: wKRPEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B09286HH7Q
Goodreads: 57800387
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 2022-01-18T06:00:00+00:00

36

PETER

NOW

Peter made a quick silent circuit around the hulking barn with its boarded-up windows, reinforced doors, and shiny new locks. Then he circled the house, gauzy curtains over the bright first-floor windows, seeing no shadows or other signs of people. The second floor was dark. The basement windows were planked over like the barn’s, except for one, which was covered until recently. The cracked boards lay on the ground beside it, torn away by someone with few skills but a lot of enthusiasm. Or maybe desperation.

The hog-tied hatchback driver had been certain that the pregnant woman was here, and that Roy was coming for her. After seeing the bones in the trees, Peter knew that was right. Roy was tied to this place like an animal to its den. He was dug in. And the clock was ticking.

No vehicles were parked on the driveway or in the yard, but that didn’t mean anything. The gray truck could be in the barn, with the man named Pony Boy standing sentry out of sight, and the black truck getting closer by the minute. Or both trucks could have stopped a half mile away, where Peter wouldn’t hear them, with the other three men running toward him right now. He was acutely conscious of the night-vision headsets they had worn earlier. He wished he hadn’t broken the driver’s. It would have been useful.

At the base of the porch, Peter’s foot chimed against a big ring of keys. He picked them up and put them in his jacket pocket, then climbed the steps and stood silently beside the kitchen door, the chrome-plated carbine slung against his chest. Peeking through the thin curtains, he saw nobody in the kitchen, nobody visible through the open passage to the dining room. He heard no sound but the wind in the trees.

As his heart thumped in his chest, he tried not to think about Fallujah and Mosul and all the other cruel, dusty places where he’d gone house to house with a three-man fire team at his back. That work had nearly broken him, and here he was, back at it.

No fire team this time. No Lewis, either. None of it mattered. The wolf inside him was wide awake. The static rose, crackling up his brainstem. Hello, old friend. He took a deep breath, oxygenating his blood. Time to go to work.

He put his hand on the doorknob. It turned freely. He applied just enough pressure to part the door from the jamb. The deadbolt wasn’t locked, either. He pulled in another breath and felt the adrenaline surge through him. Nobody lives forever.

Then, in a single swift movement, he pushed open the door and slipped inside, rifle up and ready.

Still nobody visible in the antiquated kitchen or the dining room. A deadbolted metal door probably led to the basement. Peter’s wallet lay open on the wood table, beside his phone, which stood in a mason jar full of water. So much for calling June. A tactical flashlight was clipped into a wall charger, the same model Peter kept in his truck.

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