Page 37 of See How They Hide

“They camehere.Theyare the attackers. Why can’t you see the truth?”

Calliope saw indecision and weakness in her mother’s eyes.

“Mother,” she said firmly, “we must protect Havenwood today, or there is no tomorrow.”

Athena nodded.

The shotgun blasts had Todd and the others running back to the center of Havenwood. Todd was enraged. “What have you done?” he screamed and raised his gun.

Calliope laughed, partly hysterical, but feeling so very free. What hadshedone? What should have been done months ago when Todd and Sheila said they were leaving.

She shot at Todd, but he was too far for the buckshot to hit him.

Then she saw Anton run out of the barn with a rifle, Glen right behind him. Anton fired multiple times, hitting Todd, then one of the armed men started firing back at him. Glen fell down. Calliope didn’t register his collapse, not at first.

Todd’s men looked for cover, but Todd had brought them into the open. There was no cover. Sheila started to scream.

Garrett came out of his workshop, gun in hand. Calliope had never been so happy to see him. He was supposed to have gone on the hunting trip, but had broken his ankle at the beginning of the summer and couldn’t handle the long trek. He was also former military. Best, Todd and Sheila didn’t know about him. Garrett had joined Havenwood that summer after Robert and Athena met him at a craft fair.

Garrett looked at her across the clearing, his mouth open as if in shock. Then he fired his handgun at their attackers; one by one they dropped.

Todd’s men fired back but they went down fast now that a man who knew how to shoot had come to stop them.

Calliope fell in love with Garrett in that moment.

Athena screamed at them to stop.

Silence descended across the valley as the echoes of gunfire and screams subsided.

“What have you done?” Athena asked, shaking. “What are we going to do?”

Calliope looked at the fallen.

“Bury them,” Calliope whispered.

Suddenly, a cry from Annie’s house pierced the quiet.

Bobby came running out. He was ten, a happy, joyful child who now had tears running down his face. “My mommy—she’s bleeding.”

Calliope stared at him, not quite registering what that meant. Athena ran to the child, rushed inside to help. Calliope stood where she was, then began to sway.

Garrett rushed to her. “You’re bleeding. Where are you hit?”

She looked down, saw the blood pooling in the dirt at her feet. “My baby.”

There were three Havenwood casualties that day. Glen, Annie, and Calliope’s unborn child.

WEDNESDAY

13

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Sloane and Jim split up Wednesday morning—Jim headed to the Office of the Medical Investigator to review his findings and work through jurisdictional issues, and Sloane to Chris Crossman’s house to supervise the Evidence Response Team from Albuquerque as they processed the property.

The team knew what they were doing and she didn’t want to get in the way, so she stood outside and wrote up notes for her report. She was almost done when she heard a horse clomping up the driveway. A woman in her early sixties wearing jeans and a red flannel shirt with a black down vest sat atop a beautiful white-and-brown Appaloosa.

Sloane stepped off the porch and put her hand up, signaling for the rider to stop. She didn’t want to contaminate Crossman’s property any more than it already had been.

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