Greyson (The K9 Files) - Dale Mayer Page 0,69

off to the back of the house, and coming up to the glass doors, he slipped inside and froze. He could hear sounds of footsteps, but the stairs were between him and them.

The footsteps went up the stairs. He immediately headed up after him. As if realizing he was being pursued, the intruder raced ahead. He darted directly for the master bedroom, already knowing where it was, having been in the house earlier. But what he didn’t know was what was waiting for him. The door was open, but even Greyson couldn’t see where Jessica and Danny were. Just as the intruder bolted into the doorway of the master bedroom, Greyson called out a command.

“Attack!”

From a standstill at the edge of the doorway, Kona jumped. She didn’t go for the hand this time; she went for the shoulder and locked down hard, pulling the man off his feet and onto his back, screaming all the way.

Immediately he turned with a knife in his hand and tried to stab the dog. Greyson heard a shout from Jessica, but he was already on Jensen, grabbing for the knife. Just as it was about to plunge into the dog, Greyson shifted the angle and the knife went into the man’s wrist. Blood shot out everywhere, and Jessica turned on the light and stared at the mess in horror. But the intruder wasn’t giving up. He was screaming in pain but still kicking and fighting.

Greyson reached up, pulled the balaclava mask off his face, and commanded, “Jensen, stop it!”

Immediately the man stopped and glared up at him. “How the hell do you know who I am?” he asked.

“I told him,” Jessica said, standing behind Greyson. “How dare you come into my home like that and steal my son’s clothing, not to mention my underwear. You make me sick.” She stared at him like he was some kind of a bug.

He glared at her. “You don’t know anything,” he said.

“I know that George is dead,” she snapped, “and I know that you’ve been trying to take his place. You need to leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said. “You were never supposed to marry him. I told him that he shouldn’t marry you, that you’d be no good for him. I told him way back when that I was supposed to marry you. He laughed at me and told me to go off into the military, that he would take care of business.”

“Interesting,” she said. “I always wondered why he wanted to get married.”

“To spite me,” he said. “I hated him for that. I hated him for everything.”

“Did you do anything to kill him?” she asked.

He shook his head and laughed. “I didn’t have to,” he said. “That aneurysm was just too damn perfect.”

“But then you couldn’t resist meddling, could you?”

“With him gone and the divorce papers right there, it was pretty easy to make sure that it was all clean-cut and that everything came to me, instead of you. I needed you to see me as your answer, your savior,” he said. “That’s why I had Frank stalking you, leaving your front door open, breaking the lock on your French doors, shutting off the electricity to your house. See? You need me. All I had to do was collect the last bit of my winnings, and that was you.”

At the word winnings, Greyson winced. “Do you really think of her as winnings?”

“Of course,” he said. “And there was money in there for the kid,” he said, looking at the little boy. “As his guardian, of course I’ll make sure he’s well taken care of.”

Just enough of an odd glow was in his eyes to show that some serious madness had set in.

“You must have had a rough time of it in the military,” she said slowly. “Where were you? Iraq or Afghanistan?”

“Both,” he said, and his voice turned to a weird singsong. “So much killing,” he said. “So much death. When I came back, I couldn’t even sleep,” he said. “I already knew that George was in a coma. They had called me to tell me. I’d argued with him a couple weeks earlier. But coming back and finding him like that, it was almost like seeing a sign that it was finally my turn. My place. He should have gotten out of your life a long time ago,” he snapped.

“He did,” she said. “We haven’t been together for over two years,” she exclaimed.

He stared at her. “No. No, not two years.”

“Yes.