Page 48 of Wait For Me

“Hear what?” Robin set her beer on the table and looked to Tessa with frightened eyes.

The faint of a whisper. Someone speaking in hushed tones. The crunch of gravel under a foot. Sounds normally unnoticeable unless there was no background noise anymore. Moose started barking inside the house as he ran toward the door.

“Someone’s coming.” Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she ran to the house. Robin sat motionless, frozen in her chair. Tessa paused for half a second at the back door to scream, “Get inside now.”

She fled up the stairs while Moose continued his low warning bark in the living room, vowing that this would be the last time her gun was ever out of reach.

“What are we going to do?” Robin pressed herself against the wall in the hallway, scared to enter Tessa’s personal space.

“Do you know how to shoot?” She pulled Landon’s .30-30 from the gun safe.

“No. I can’t,” Robin stuttered as Tessa pressed the rifle into her hands.

“Don’t worry then. I don’t know how to load it.” Tessa slid the magazine into the pistol and racked it to chamber a round. “Just hold it like you know what you’re doing while I figure this out.”

Moose’s barks were growing more intense as Tessa slipped through the darkness of her house but no one was near the door. She motioned for him to lay down and prayed his barks didn’t wake the kids. Robin stayed on her heels, shaking with the rifle in her hands.

“What do I do if they figure out this thing isn’t loaded?” Her voice was a frantic whisper in the night.

“Let’s hope this is nothing.” Tessa opened the front door and stepped outside. “But if it’s something, use it like a baseball bat, okay?”

Robin followed Tessa as they crept along the side of the house staying as close as possible to the wall. She heard it again. A man’s voice, louder this time, urgent as he gave directions.

“She parks the truck in the garage.”

“Can I help you?” Tessa stepped onto her driveway with the pistol pointed in the direction of the voice. A woman gasped, clinging to the arm of the man with broad shoulders who raised the barrel of a Glock at Tessa. There were two more men with them. One had a crowbar at his side.

And the other had his hands in the air. “We don’t want any problems,” he said.

Tessa held her arms steady as she shifted her aim to the man with the gun. Landon’s words were a dark memory in her ear. If anything ever happens, shoot to kill. Don’t engage. The woman with the group started to cry, begging them to leave.

“If you don’t want any problems, why are you on my property with a gun in my face?”

“Why don’t you put your gun away and then I’ll put down mine.” The man took a step forward, pushing away the woman who tried to grab at the hem of his shirt.

“No thanks.” Tessa shook her head, anxiety pulsing through her in waves. “And it’s time for you to leave now. Go back to wherever you’re from or keep moving down the freeway to somewhere else.”

“You know, I’ve been here since long before they put this house up for rent. What’s it been? Three times over the last ten years now.” The man with the crowbar glanced over his shoulder to his friends as he stepped closer to Tessa. The sharp scent of hard liquor radiated from his skin. “Your husband is military, right? Where’s he been? I haven’t seen that truck in a while until you started driving it this past week.”

Tessa tightened her grip on the pistol. Blood pounded in her ears and her stomach knotted as if she’d been punched. “I’m done talking. Turn around and get away from my house.”

“Or what?” The man with the Glock stepped forward, a crooked grin spread across his face.

“Please stop, Jed. We’ll take my car,” the woman cried as she reached for him again.

“Or we’ll blast your brains all over the street,” Robin screamed as she stepped out from the shadows with the rifle aimed at Jed’s chest. Her voice had just enough crazy to make him stagger back, tripping over his own feet and dropping the Glock to the ground.

“There’s no need for all of this.” The unarmed man took a step forward with his hands still in the air. “We have a proposition for you. My wife Charlie said she spoke with you the other day and you were a reasonable person. I have family up north in the Sierra mountains and you have a working truck. If you can get a group of us there, then I promise you’ll have a place to stay. You have kids, right? I think mine go to the same school. We’re just down the hill on Turner Street. The house with the yellow trim.”

Rage clouded Tessa’s vision and her finger brushed against the trigger as she turned the weapon toward him. “So you were the one sneaking around my house earlier today?”

“Don’t touch it,” Robin growled as Jed picked up his gun.

Tessa aimed at Jed’s chest. “This is your last warning. Get away from my property, now.”

“Please, babe.” Tears streamed down the woman’s face and she turned to the side, exposing the wide belly that stretched out her thin t-shirt. He pushed her back when she reached for him. I can’t shoot a pregnant woman. Tessa’s hands started to shake under the weight of the pistol.

The man with the crowbar took advantage of the situation, lunging forward to grab Tessa’s arm. She turned and fired at him point blank. Blood splattered her face as he fell.

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