The man’s photo was some years old, but there was no mistaking the face.
His name was now revealed to her: Edward Page. He had been a local
private detective for five years after spending ten years in New York
City as a police officer. He had worked solo, his firm bearing the name
Private Solutions, the story stated. Page had been the victim of a
fatal robbery at a National Airport parking lot. Divorced, he left
behind two teenage children, the paper reported.
The familiar eyes stared at her from the depths of the page, and a chill
went through her body. It was more obvious to her than to anyone else,
other than Page’s killer, that his death was not the result of a search
for cash and credit cards. A few minutes after talking to her, the man
was dead. She would have to be damn foolish to dismiss his death as a
coincidence. She jumped out of the truck and raced into the house.
She took out the gleaming silver metal Smith & Wesson Slim-Nine she had
kept locked in the metal box in the bedroom closet and quickly loaded
it. The Hydra-Shok hollowpoints would be highly effective against
anyone wishing to perpetrate a deadly attack.
She checked her wallet. Her concealed-weapon permit was still valid.
When she reached up to return the box to the top of the closet, the
pistol slipped out of her pocket and hit the nightstand before settling
on the carpeted floor. Thank God she’d had the safety on.
As she picked it up, she noted that a small corner of the hard plastic
grip had broken off from the impact, but everything else was intact.
Pistol in hand, she returned to the garage and climbed back into the
Ford.
She suddenly froze. A sound floated toward her from inside her house.
She flipped off the pistol’s safety, keeping one eye and the barrel of
the Smith & Wesson on the door leading back into the house. With her
free hand she struggled with her car keys. One of the keys slid across
her finger, gashing it. She hit the garage door opener clipped to the
truck’s sun visor. Her heart pounded while she waited for the damn door
to finish its agonizingly slow ascent. She kept her eyes glued to the
door to the house, expecting any moment for it to burst open.
Her mind darted back to the news story detailing Edward Page’s demise.
Two teenagers left behind. Her features grew deadly in their own right.
She was not leaving her little girl behind. Her grip tightened on the
butt of the pistol. She hit a button on the driver’s-side armrest and
the passenger window slid down. Now she would have an unobstructed
firing line at the door leading into the house. She had never used her
weapon on anything other than shooting range targets. But she was going
to do her best to kill whoever was about to come through that door.
She did not notice the man bending low to come through the garage door
as it was opening. He stepped quickly to the driver’s-side door, pistol
drawn. At that instant, the door from the house into the garage started
to open. Sidney’s grip tightened even more on her weapon until the
veins rode high on her hands. Her finger started to descend on the
trigger.
“Jesus Christ, lady! Put it down. Now!” The man next to the car
yelled, his pistol pointed right at the driver’s window and through it
to Sidney’s left temple.
Sidney whirled around in the car and found herself eye to eye with Agent
Ray Jackson. Suddenly the house door to the garage was thrown open and
crashed against the wall. Sidney jerked her head back in that direction
and watched the massive bulk of Lee Sawyer hurtle through the door, his
arm making wide arcs in the direction of the vehicles. Sidney slumped
back in her seat, sweat streaming off her forehead.
Ray Jackson, gun still in hand, threw open the door of the Explorer and
eyed both Sidney Archer and the gun that had almost taken a considerable
hole out of his partner. “Are you crazy?” He leaned across her lap and