Page 75 of The Midnight Knock

Stanley pushed the man back with his left hand.

Ryan came right back, fists up now, looking like he was ready to coldcock a man fifty pounds heavier and a good four inches taller.

Stanley reached for the massive Desert Eagle on his hip.

Ryan didn’t have time to react.

Kyla did. She was already in motion. She knew what was about to happen.

And she knew she needed to stop it.

Kyla lunged across the office, landing against Stanley the momenthe got the gun free. Stanley might have been twice Kyla’s size, but she had the advantage of surprise. She hit him full force in the side, got a foot hooked around his knee. Together they went plummeting to the floor.

As he fell, Stanley squeezed off two shots, just like he had last night, but Kyla’s tackle had twisted him around. The shots missed their intended target. As she fell with Stanley, Kyla saw Ryan Phan take a step backward, startled but very much alive. Kyla saw Fernanda reaching for something near the fire. Saw the woman flinch as a bullet whizzed past her ear and buried itself in the wall with a poof of sawdust.

Kyla landed on top of Stanley. With a roar of anger, he heaved her into the air. Kyla was flying.

She landed, hard, against the office’s desk. Her head struck the wood with a force she felt in the root of her tongue. The world started to spin. To go dark. Considering how hard her head had hit the desk, she wondered if she’d ever get back up.

And as her vision faded, she saw Hunter staring down at his chest. Staring at a massive circle of blood that had bloomed on his shirt.

“No,” Ethan said, stumbling from his chair, rushing to Hunter’s side. “No.”

Hunter sank to his knees. Blood was pumping fast out of the wound Stanley’s second bullet had created. Hunter opened his mouth to speak. A red bubble swelled where words should be. He struggled to stand. Fell. Reached out a hand for the side of the nearby chair, slipped.

Hunter came to rest near Ethan’s feet. He didn’t move again.

Stanley Holiday, too, tried to rise. Fernanda struck him across the skull with a fire poker. Hard.

Ethan was on the floor, shaking Hunter, saying again and again, “No. No. No.”

Behind Kyla’s ear, that almost-familiar voice sounded shocked. “This has never happened before.”

And then Kyla’s world went dark.

UNCHARTED TERRITORYRYAN

8:45 p.m.

He could have carried the Black girl on his own, but her friend insisted on helping. “I will take her feet,” the tall chick said. “You take her shoulders.”

“Where to?” Ryan said.

“Our room. I want nothing to do with this.”

Ryan nodded, but not because he had any intention of letting this tall Latina idle away the night in her room. She’d just shown herself to be handy with a fire poker. He’d find a use for her.

Ryan could be persuasive when he needed to be. It was why Frank O’Shea had first hired him, all those years ago.

Before they got to work, however, Ryan said, “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Fernanda.”

“All right. Wait just a second, Fernanda.”

Thomas and Tabitha still stood behind the office’s desk, both of them looking shocked on some existential level. Stanley Holiday was blacked out. Considering the sound Fernanda’s fire poker had made when it connected with his skull, Ryan marveled the big man was even breathing at all.

Penelope was nowhere to be seen. Ryan needed to find her, on top of everything else that had just landed on his plate. He couldn’t let a teenage girl spend too much time alone in a place like this.