Page 89 of Buried Too Deep

But her father wasn’t alive today, because someone had killed him.

And Joy Thomas might have died yesterday because some asshole had barged into Burke’s offices in broad daylight.

Looking for me. For information about me.

The same asshole had broken into her home. Five times.

She was no longer safe in her own home.

And I’m so angry.

She had to draw another deep breath because the first one hadn’t worked. She was still tense. Still worked up. Still—

A loud thump from above had her sitting bolt upright in bed. She gasped and jumped out of bed, grabbing her bathrobe and her phone. The whole room had shaken.

Molly is a badass. Molly has a gun. Let Molly handle this.

But her feet weren’t listening to her brain. Her home security system hadn’t started blaring, so the doors and windows were still closed and locked. Right?

She charged up the stairs to the attic in her bare feet. And gasped again when she pushed through the door.

The moon was out and the attic glowed with a silver, ethereal light, illuminating four people in the room. It was…surreal.

Molly stood with her gun drawn, pointing it at the head of a…woman? Man? A figure lying on the floor.

The figure wasn’t actually lying there, though. They were bucking and fighting the hands of the two men who held them down.

Phin and his friend Stone wore grim expressions as they struggled to contain the intruder, who was dressed all in black with a ski mask.

The window was wide open, letting in the cold night air. Cora shivered and considered closing the window, but that would mean walking around the four people in the surreal tableau.

The intruder was kicking now and Stone was cursing.

“Stop,” Molly commanded, lowering the gun so that it was in the intruder’s face. “I do not want to shoot you, but I will if you do not stop.”

“Fuck you,” the man muttered, and Cora had had enough.

She ran forward and dropped her full weight onto the man’s legs, surprising him enough that he stopped fighting for a moment. Long enough for Phin to punch him in the jaw, subduing him.

The intruder yelped, then groaned. “Fuck all y’all.”

Molly tossed Phin a pair of zip ties. “Cuff him.”

“You can move now, Cora,” Phin said, sounding amused. He wasn’t even out of breath. Neither was Stone.

Cora, on the other hand, was panting like a dog. She rolled off the intruder’s legs, coming to rest on her butt. Right next to SodaPop, who was not panting like a dog. On the contrary, she looked unruffled and calm.

Phin twisted the man so that he could get both hands behind his back and pulled the zip ties tight.

“Motherfucker,” the man grunted.

“Fuck around and find out,” Stone said, taking the other zip tie and restraining the man’s feet.

Phin regarded Cora with a worried expression. “First, are you all right?”

Cora considered the question. “No, but I will be.”

How many times would she say those words before this was finally over?

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