No Good Deed - Marie Sexton Page 0,81

steps. Warren tried the door and cursed. “It’s locked. Two dead bolts, right?”

Charlie nodded.

“Okay. Back up. I might be able to break it down.”

Charlie held out the key. “Or you could unlock them.”

“Wow. That’s so crazy, it just might work.”

Charlie wasn’t sure if the front door was locked or not, but Gray had a key. Whether or not he remembered to use it or resorted to brute force remained to be seen.

Charlie followed Warren into the kitchen, which looked completely normal. No evidence of a fight or a struggle of any kind. But raised voices reached him from the bedroom.

“Hurry up!” a voice he didn’t recognize said.

“I told you, I don’t know the combination.” Jonas sounded scared, but at least he was talking. That meant he was alive. “I’ve tried everything I can think of.”

“Try again.”

Charlie followed Warren into the hallway, creeping along as silently as possible. Gray appeared at the opposite end of the hallway, River behind him.

“I’m not kidding around,” whoever was with Jonas said. “I’ll pull this fucking trigger if you don’t open that safe right now!”

“I don’t know the combination!” Jonas sounded like he was near tears, and Charlie couldn’t blame him.

Gray made a series of hand signals at Warren, and Warren nodded—clearly something from their days in Afghanistan. Charlie had no idea what they meant and didn’t care. He pushed past Warren. Gray waved frantically at him. He didn’t need military training to know this signal meant “Get back, you idiot.”

Charlie ignored him.

“Jonas?” He stepped into the bedroom.

Jeremy spun around from the door of the master bath, his gun on Charlie. But Warren, River, and Gray were still in the hallway, out of Jeremy’s line of sight. Behind Jeremy, Jonas put his hands over his face, sagging in relief. Maybe Charlie wasn’t quite rushing to his rescue, but at least he wasn’t alone anymore. A nasty bruise had begun to bloom on his right cheekbone, but he seemed unharmed other than that.

“He doesn’t know the combination,” Charlie said. “I’m the only one who knows it. Let me open it for you, then you can leave.” Jeremy swung back and forth, trying to keep his gun on both of them at once, his eyes wild.

“Let Jonas out of the bathroom,” Charlie said. “I’ll go in. I’ll open the safe for you.”

Jeremy swung the gun, using it as a pointer. “Get in here with him. Go on!”

Charlie edged toward the bathroom. “Are you okay?” he asked Jonas.

Jonas nodded, his eyes wide.

“Come on out of the shower,” Charlie told him. “We won’t both fit in there.”

That wasn’t exactly true. They’d proven that. But these were rather different circumstances.

They carefully traded places. Charlie entered the combination and opened the safe. He took out the small stash of oxycodone and held it out to Jeremy. “This is all I have.”

“Bullshit!”

“Look for yourself if you want. There’s nothing else in here worth stealing.”

“Just give me everything.”

“Fine.”

The rest had very little street value, but that wasn’t Charlie’s problem. He handed Jeremy the rest of the pill bottles and packets one handful at a time. Jeremy shoved them into his pockets with one hand, the gun in the other hand still pointed at Jonas. Charlie wished he’d point the gun at him instead, but he seemed to realize Jonas provided better leverage.

“That’s everything,” Charlie said, closing the safe and putting the plastic wall lining back in place. “You can go now.”

He said it as loudly as he could, hoping Warren, River, and Gray would take the hint and simply move out of the way in order to let Jeremy leave. Let the cops deal with him later. For now, Charlie was perfectly happy to let him escape with the pills, although he wondered about the police. Were they outside already? He felt like they’d been in this standoff forever, but in reality, it’d probably been less than three minutes since he’d walked into his bedroom.

Jeremy backed toward the bedroom door, the gun still pointing at them. “You.” He gestured to Jonas. Charlie wished like hell he’d quit waving the gun around like it was some kind of harmless baton. “You’re coming with me.”

“No, he isn’t.” Charlie moved to stand in between Jeremy and Jonas. “You have what you came for.”

“I’ll let him go once I’ve gotten away.”

“Listen to me,” Charlie said, holding up his hands. “My friends are in that hallway.”

Jeremy ducked his head out of the room, swearing as he saw that he was trapped.

“If you leave right now, with only the