Free Cruel World by Joe Hart Page A

stairs and flew to the kitchen door, slamming against it and bouncing back when the knob refused to turn in his hand.
    Locked.
    He’d locked it on the way in earlier. He cursed and ran around the side of the building, the sound of the engine getting louder behind him. At the back door, he swung inside, shutting and locking it before hurrying to the kitchen. Standing to one side of the large windows, he waited, eyes welded to the closest bend in the drive, blood surging in his ears.
    The shining chrome of a truck’s grille appeared.
    Quinn ducked away from the window and bent low as he hurried out of the room and down the hall to the office. Without a glance outside, he knelt by his father’s desk and pulled the lowest drawer open. The gray lockbox was covered by three file folders, which he pulled out and set on the floor. The code, the code, the code . He’d forgotten the code. His fingers hovered over the numbers, the sound of the truck’s engine getting louder before shutting off. The numbers sprang into his head as if flung there from outside. 942304. The lid of the box popped upward and only as he reached inside did he realize that the code was his birth date backwards.
    The Springfield XDM was heavy as he drew it into the light. Its black polymer grip and forty-five-caliber bore gave it an intimidating look that had impressed him years before when targeting with his father. Now the handgun shook as he pulled back the slide, barely remembering how the weapon functioned. There was a round in the chamber and the safeties were on the trigger and grip. The small flashlight attached below the barrel came on, shining against the wall, and he flinched. He’d triggered it by toggling a small pad beneath his thumb. Hitting the little switch again, he turned the light off.
    Quinn snapped the lock box shut, storing it away in the drawer and moved to the office window. The entire room vibrated around him with each heartbeat. The truck was parked directly before the front door. It was a vibrant red with mud flung up its fenders in brown arcs. Its doors were open but there was no one in sight.
    “Oh God,” Quinn breathed, and walked into the hallway. At the doorway to the kitchen, he stopped and peered around the corner.
    There were two men holding shotguns moving up the walk to the kitchen door. They were both tall and broad-shouldered, wearing stained jeans and camouflage hunting jackets. One of them wore a black bandanna over his mouth and nose, his eyes flitting to the right and left above it.
    Quinn backed away from the corner and reached blindly behind him for the bannister leading upstairs. The first man came up the steps and stopped before the door. He looked over his shoulder and cocked his head to one side as if he were listening to something. Quinn’s hand found the railing and he began to sidle up the stairs as his eyes landed on the drinking glass he’d used that morning. It sat in the middle of the counter, the leftover milk still wet at its bottom.
    The man at the door reared back and threw a kick at the lock. The door shuddered in its frame.
    Quinn ran.
    He flew up the steps as the second kick hit the door and the sound of cracking wood filled the lower level. He turned in a stupid circle on the landing before opening his bedroom door. There was nowhere to hide. They would be sure to find him beneath the bed or in the closet. Another kick from the kitchen and then the sound of the door banging open against the wall.
    They were inside.
    Shaking, he shut his bedroom door and started for his father’s room, then turned to Teresa’s. Both of them were laid out the same as his own. Whispers came from the kitchen, floating up to him as if he were in a dream. The XDM almost slipped from his sweaty hand and his vision wavered. Footsteps came quietly into the hall and headed toward the office. Quinn retreated to the end of the landing and crouched, bringing up the handgun. The sights wobbled as he aimed at the head