container in which were nestled twenty bullets, and hurried back to the bed.
Hands trembling, she fumbled bullets out of the container and dropped three on the carpet. She told herself to get a grip, shape up. She thought, Woody, nothing can happen to Woody, please God. Her hands steadied, though inserting the rounds in the magazine wasn’t as easy under these circumstances as on a shooting range. Come on, Megan, load the damn thing, all ten rounds, might need every one.
When it was done, she glanced at the phone on the nightstand. The numbers for fire and police and ambulance were printed on a community-supplied card adhered to the cradle, between the handset and the keypad. No. Woody first. Sheriff’s deputy would take five minutes, maybe ten, to get here. No time to pull on the jeans she’d laid out, either. Straight to Woody, bring him back here, lock the door, brace it with a chair, call the police, then slip into the jeans and the crewneck.
She went to the hallway door, grabbed the knob with her left hand, holding the pistol with her right. She couldn’t do this and keep a preferred two-hand grip on the gun.
Doors were the worst. No way to know what waited beyond one. If an intruder stood ready on the other side, if he rushed her as she pulled open the door, he could unbalance her, strike her, tear the gun out of her hand. Except he thought the gun was unloaded, not a threat, so even if he knocked her off her feet, she still had her own advantage of surprise.
Maybe it shouldn’t have taken her this long to understand, but she only now realized that he hadn’t come in her room and somehow opened the gun safe and unloaded the Heckler if his intention was to burglarize the house without risk to himself. He had disarmed her and bided his time, hiding somewhere in the residence, waiting for her to go to sleep, so that he could easily overwhelm her and rape her.
Her heart knocked violently against its caging ribs as she opened the door to the hall.
54
Kipp erupted from a dream about riding in a car with Dorothy and Rosa. The boy was screaming on the Wire.
He was a boy, no doubt about that now, not another dog but a special boy who could use the Wire, whether he knew it or not, a boy like no other, and he was in peril.
Springing to his feet on the bed, Kipp barked twice.
Startled, Ben Hawkins switched on a nightstand lamp and sat up, blinking away a residue of sleep. “Hey, what?”
Kipp jumped down from the bed and padded to the motel room door and reared up on his hind legs and pawed at the deadbolt.
But that wasn’t good enough. He seemed to be saying that he needed to potty. He didn’t need to potty.
He dashed to the nightstand, where Ben had left his wallet and the electronic key for the Range Rover.
He stood on his hind legs again, bit the key chain, and hurried back to the door with the key dangling from his mouth.
Getting out of bed, Ben said, “What’s gotten into you?”
Not having an alphabet wall and a laser pointer made life a lot more difficult.
Kipp dropped the key at the door.
He hurried to the small table by the window, stood again, and got his mouth on the hardcover book Ben had been reading.
He took the book to the door. He dropped it beside the key.
He turned to look at his new companion.
“You don’t like the motel? You want one with more amenities? Listen, Scooby-Doo, I’ve only gotten like an hour of sleep.”
On the Wire, the boy was screaming in abject terror.
Ben had brought a shaving kit in from the Range Rover. It was in the bathroom. He would have to pack that himself.
He had also brought in a suitcase, but he had not yet opened it. The suitcase stood near the mirrored closet door.
Panting with frustration, Kipp went to the bag and knocked it over. He looked at his companion.
Ben had hung his jeans in the closet. As he took them out and pulled them on, he said, “All right, you’re trying to tell me what? That you need to pee?”
He had been a Navy SEAL. He couldn’t be stupid. Maybe he just woke up slowly.
Kipp took the handle of the overturned suitcase in his mouth and, backing up, dragged the Samsonite across the room to