Page 2 of See How They Hide

Heart thudding in his chest, he racked his shotgun. It took him two tries because his hands were shaking. It was nearly one in the morning, below thirty degrees, and two people were walking around his house.

Destroy your computer.

The thought came to him suddenly. There was only one reason someone might be here with ill intent: information.

He ran to his computer and hesitated. If he destroyed it now, all his work for the last two months would be gone. Thalia depended on him—and he would fail her. But more people would be in danger if he didn’t destroy the data, so he really had no other choice.

As he was about to fire at his computer, he heard a gunshot. Then another. And another.

He aimed his shotgun for the doorway, taking a quick glance to his right to make sure that Banjo wasn’t in the line of fire.

Banjo hadn’t budged. But his chest moved up and down as he slumbered. Was he drugged?

Jesse remembered when Banjo came in he’d been licking his lips. He wasn’t a guard dog; if he’d encountered a person outside, he wouldn’t bark. He rarely even barked at wild animals.

Someone had drugged his dog.

There was no time—he couldn’t let anyone access his computer. He turned his shotgun to the hard drive and pressed the trigger. Plastic and metal exploded; a piece of shrapnel—a twisted metal chunk from the inside of his computer—flew out and cut his face. He barely registered the stinging pain as he turned the shotgun back toward the door in self-defense.

A man and a woman stood there. Before he could rack it again, the man fired a pistol, hitting him in his shoulder. His shotgun sagged in his limp arm. As he struggled to straighten it, the man shot him again, hitting his biceps, and Jesse’s weapon fell to the floor.

The woman stared at the computer. “That is unfortunate,” she said, “but you know what we want.”

“It’s all gone,” Jesse said, gritting his teeth against the pain. He put his right hand over the shoulder wound, trying to press down to stop the bleeding.

“The information is in your head. You will tell us everything we want to know.”

“Never.”

She smiled, but there was no pleasure in her expression. It was a smile of evil.

“Yes, Jesse, you will sing like a bird. Evan, how long do you think it’ll take?”

Evan, a tall, skinny man wearing a knit cap and parka, said in a deep voice, “Twenty minutes, give or take.”

The woman said, “Set the timer. I don’t think it’ll take twenty minutes.”

Evan looked at his watch, pressed a button.

Then the woman turned her attention to his dog.

He couldn’t stop the cry that escaped. He wanted to be brave. For Thalia, for Rina, for all the others.

But he wasn’t.

“Don’t touch him,” Jesse said, his voice quaking in fear and anger.

“No,” she said, stepping toward him, “it won’t take me more than ten. And then we wait. Thalia will be here soon.”

MONDAY

1

Ashland, Oregon

Kara Quinn savored the hot coffee as Ashland detective Ken Kinder drove them to the apartment where the victim, Jane Merrifield, had lived.

“You are my savior,” she said. She needed the caffeine jolt after the early morning flight from DC; it was a bonus that it tasted rich and delicious. “I like your sheriff, but his coffee is disgusting.”

---