No Ordinary Day , Tate, Harley [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

a deep breath, John eased around the corner. Remains of a sliding glass door littered the patio and curtains fluttered in the breeze.

Thanks to the early afternoon sun, the living room with its tan carpet and beige walls practically glowed. He crept inside. It didn’t take long to find the source of the blood.

A man in his fifties, with gray hair and a tortured expression, lay in a puddle of what used to pump through his veins. John toed the pool of blood with his boot. Congealed, but not tacky. He eased into a crouch and placed a finger on the man’s neck. Room temperature, give or take. He couldn’t have been dead long. Four hours at the most.

“Oh my gosh.”

John spun. “I told you to wait.”

Emma stood in the hall, backlit by the sun, red hair almost aflame. “Zach?” She hurried forward, tears streaming down her pink cheeks as she kneeled inches from the body. “I didn’t think anything like this would happen. We’re just researchers. We work in a lab. Why would anyone do this to us?”

It took all of John’s self-control not to end her right there, but he didn’t know Sanchez’s location and he hadn’t cleared the house. He stood and backed up, positioning himself with a clear view of the kitchen window and the living room.

“Did Zach have any other enemies? An ex-wife? Gambling debts?” He needed to keep Emma calm until he confirmed they were alone. “It’s not necessarily related.”

Her laugh came out bitter and hollow. “Zach is as boring as they come. He would never gamble, and his wife didn’t divorce him, she’s dead.”

A shotgun lay on the floor a few feet from Zach’s body. John bent to pick it up and smelled the end. Freshly fired. Not good. It meant at least one shot neighbors must have heard. John preferred his targets to never know what was coming. A sniper shot from a distance, not this up close and personal. Not this messy.

“Did you find Holly?”

John jerked his head up. “Who?”

“Zach’s daughter.”

What? He bit back a curse. No one told him about a daughter. “I’ll search the house. If you have any sense, this time you’ll stay put.” He hurried through the rooms, clearing the main floor in under a minute. “This floor is clear.”

Emma pointed. “Basement is down there.”

John crossed the kitchen with purpose, boots striking the linoleum with a heavy thud. He jerked the door open and used his phone as a flashlight, holding it in one hand and his Sig in the other. From what he could see, the basement was unfinished and barely used.

He eased down the stairs, pausing a few steps from the bottom. Swirls of dust collected at the base of the stairs. A fresh disturbance. John lifted the light and the gun simultaneously and scanned the room. HVAC, storage bins stacked against the wall, nowhere to hide.

“Holly? Holly, are you down here?” Emma’s footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him.

John spun and fought the urge to fire. “I. Told. You. To. Wait.”

“If she’s down here, she’s not going to come out for some stranger with a gun pointed at her.” Emma pushed past him. “Besides, if anyone else were down here, I’d have seen more than two sets of footprints on the stairs.”

John paused. She might be naïve, but she wasn’t stupid. He motioned around the corner. “Behind the stairs is the only option. Want to go first?”

Emma’s new-found bravado faltered and she hesitated, mouth hanging open for a beat too long. But she recovered quickly, stepping into the dark with her head high. “Holly? Holly, are you in here? It’s Emma Cross. I’m your dad’s friend from CropForward. Remember I met you at the barbecue on Memorial Day? You showed me your painting from art class—the one with the waterfall?”

 A pile of blankets rustled in the corner. John trained his light on the shape.

“You said it reminded you of a place you hiked when you were little.”

Tangled brown hair emerged and a dirty face followed. “Amicalola.”

John lowered his weapon and shifted the phone to aim at the ceiling.

“That’s right.” Emma stepped forward, one hand outstretched, and coaxed the girl out of hiding.

As the blanket fell to the floor, a spit of a girl emerged. No taller than Emma’s shoulder, she wiped at her stained cheeks with the back of her hand. “Did you find my dad?”

Emma nodded.

“What about the guy who killed him?” John tried to keep his voice gentle. It wasn’t his strong suit. “What did he look like?”

 Holly cast an uneasy glance in his direction, but didn’t shrink back in terror. “A video game.” She snuffed back a glob of snot. “All tactical gear and a fancy gun. It didn’t make a sound when he shot my dad.” Her voice broke on the last words and Emma wrapped her in a fierce hug.

A string of choice adjectives unfurled in John’s mind. This was why he preferred to keep things distant and clean. No collateral. No witnesses. It’s how everyone in his organization operated, except one. Willy. John’s jaw popped from tension.

Instead of hearing about her father’s death from the police or family, Holly witnessed it. She would never be the same. He holstered his weapon and took a step forward. He might be a heartless hired gun when it came to his targets, but innocent collateral stuck in his craw.

Until he knew the location of Gloria Sanchez, he was now stuck with Emma and a snot-nosed teenager. One he didn’t want to kill. He stuck out his hand. “Hi, Holly. I’m John. It’s nice to meet you.”

Chapter Eight

Emma

“I don’t know what to do.” Holly teetered on the edge of another round of tears.

Emma couldn’t imagine what the teenager was going through. Not even sixteen, no mom, now no dad. Did she have any other family? Emma ran a hand over the girl’s matted hair. “Do you have any family in town? An aunt? Uncle?”

Holly shook her head. “It was just