She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,211

the note. He was still reading it when we both heard a loud rumble from the driveway. Through the large window in the foyer next to the front door, I saw a black Pontiac GTO slide to a halt in the driveway.

My father dropped the note, drew his gun, and started for the front door.

Jeffery Dalton, the man who I had only seen in photographs, had the driver-side door open and was climbing out the car, drawing his own gun before my father even got the front door open.

He charged us.

Not at a run, but a fast, determined walk, raising his own gun as he went.

I don’t know who fired first.

A bullet struck the doorframe less than an inch from my head, sending splintered wood off in all directions. I dropped down back inside the house.

I heard the report of my father’s gun—three, maybe four shots in quick succession. Between those reports were shots fired from outside, from the man racing toward us. Four shots. Half a dozen. More. My father’s body jerked, and the back of his shirt exploded in two spots, one up near his left shoulder, the other in his gut. The bullets tore through him and embedded in the wall behind the staircase. He shuffled backward, then collapsed onto the tile floor of the foyer, a puddle of blood spreading out under him.

I was screaming, not even sure when I started, but I was shrieking. I scrambled over to him on my hands and knees and pressed my palms down on the two wounds. Blood pooled out from between my fingers, soaking his shirt. His body spasmed, and he looked up at me with eyes filled with fright. When he coughed, red spittle filled the air.

Dalton stepped into the foyer and kicked the gun away from my father’s hand.

“You shot my dad, you fucking animal!”

He peered into the house, sweeping his gun from left to right. “That’s not your dad.”

The man on the floor coughed again, this one weaker than the last.

My mind raced, trying to comprehend what he said, what had just happened.

Stella.

At that moment, I didn’t care who this man was. He was dying, I was certain of that, and nothing could be done to stop it. I didn’t know how much time I had.

I got to my feet, grabbed the dying man under the arms, and started pulling him toward the living room. “Help me!”

Dalton turned, his gun still out, sweeping the yard.

“Help me, you fucking prick!”

Dalton holstered his gun and grabbed the man’s legs. Together we carried him into the living room, toward the couch where Stella slept. We set him down on the floor beside her and crouched beside them.

He had stopped coughing but was still breathing.

“Stella! Get up!”

I shouted her name, but she didn’t respond. Breathing, but out cold.

Using the tail of my shirt to protect my fingers, I peeled off the glove on her right hand and tossed it aside. I guided her hand to the man’s neck.

Stella woke, groggily realized what I was doing, and tried to pull away.

“He’s dying, Stella! He’s going to die. We don’t have much time, you need to—”

Her grip shot back out and tightened on the man’s neck, pinched at his skin.

The flesh beneath her fingers turned black, a darkness spreading from her touch at his neck to his face and chest. I saw it again at the exposed skin of his arms.

“Get back, Jack,” she said softly. “Please stay back.”

I couldn’t move, though. My limbs were frozen.

Through black, shriveled lips, the man gasped, a ragged mess of a breath, then went still.

Stella held him for at least another minute. Her fingers pulsing as the last bit of life left him for her, then she finally let go. Her arm dangling limply over the side of the sofa. “Not working,” she said softly, before drifting back off to a restless sleep. “Not enough.”

My heart sank.

6

Fogel glanced impatiently at her watch.

Two minutes to nine. She’d been sitting here for nearly an hour. She groaned as “Der Hölle Rache” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute looped for the umpteenth time.

She yawned, stood, and stretched her legs before returning to the reception desk.

The woman with the long blond hair and green eyes looked up at her and smiled. “May I help you?”

“I’ve been waiting an hour.”

The woman cocked her head. “Waiting for who? Do you have an appointment?”

Fogel frowned. “You said someone would be out to talk to me. That was an hour ago.”

“I did?”

Fogel pulled out