Page 100 of Reckoning (FBI Thriller 26)

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Savich pulled the SUV to the side of the country road, a quarter mile from Williard House. The three men ran into the forest, came out again at the back of the house. Mason held up his hand, pointed his Beretta. They saw a man lying on the ground, his wrists zip-tied behind his back. He looked dead.

Savich fell to his knees, pressed his fingers to the pulse in his throat. “He’s alive.” He rose. “Shaker took his gun. He’s not going anywhere. We’ll go in through the kitchen.”

Ramsey said, “I’ll bet the last thing the guard was expecting was anyone to come here in the middle of the night.”

Ramsey and Mason ran bent over after Savich toward the house, their weapons at the ready. It looked like every light in the house was on to help the guard see the grounds. Savich crept up to the back of the house and looked through a window into the empty kitchen and felt his heart seize. Blood smeared the tile floor. A table was overturned, two chairs on their sides. Violence had happened here. He gently tried the door. It was unlocked.

The three of them walked as quietly as they could, alert to any sound, through the kitchen, past a dining room with two crystal chandeliers high above a long table, and into a huge entrance hall with a floor of massive black-and-white stone squares. A wide central staircase went upward.

They heard voices. Savich motioned them quietly up the stairs.

Where were the other guards?