Free No Safe House by Linwood Barclay Page A

asshole?”
    Logan’s eyes shifted to the left, looking beyond his brother to Gordie, who had his arms raised and extended, a gun pointed at the back of Joseph’s head.
    Logan swallowed slowly, then said to his brother, “Apologize to the man.”
    Joseph turned around long enough to assess his situation, then looked at Vince and said, “I may have spoken out of turn. You have my sincerest apology.”
    “It’s gonna cost you another five to leave your stash with me,” Vince said.
    Logan nodded, caught his brother’s eye, and tipped his head toward the door. The two of them left the room.
    When the door closed behind them, Gordie lowered his weapon and said, “All you had to do was give me the nod.”
    Vince glanced down again at his pants. “I got a change of clothes in the car.”
    “I’ll go,” Gordie offered. He was used to this.
    Before he reached the door, Vince’s phone buzzed again. He looked to see who it was and frowned. Not with disappointment, but curiosity. It wasn’t one of his guys keeping watch outside.
    He put the phone to his ear.
    “Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “What’s up?”
    His face grew dark as he listened. “Tell me again which house.” He listened a few more seconds. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know. You done good.”
    Vince put the phone into his jacket and spoke to Gordie. “We need Bert. Tell Eldon to take care of the money. Then tell him to take the rest of the night off.”
    “Why? We’re not going back to your place for a drink or—”
    “Do it. Get rid of him.”
    “What’s going on?”
    Vince put a hand out to the dresser, steadying himself. “We may have been hit.”
    “Jesus,” Gordie said.
    “It’s worse than that,” Vince said.

TEN
TERRY
    I was thinking I must have heard Grace wrong. There was no way she could have said what I thought I’d heard.
    “You what?”
    “I think—I don’t exactly know for sure—but I think I might have shot somebody,” she said.
    So I’d heard right. But it didn’t make any sense. I felt as though I’d just been pushed off the top of a tall building and there was no one down there with a net. The sidewalk was coming up very, very fast.
    “Grace, I don’t understand. How could you think you shot somebody?”
    “He gave me the gun.”
    “Who gave you the gun?”
    “Stuart.”
    This was going to be bad
.
    “He wanted me to hold on to it. But then we thought we heard something, and it was dark, and I don’t know what exactlyhappened. But there was this loud noise, like a gun went off. Like, this huge bang. And I didn’t think it was me, that I was the one who made the gun go, but I was the one who was
holding
the gun, and Stuart didn’t have one, but I’m not sure because it was all so dark and crazy and I’ve never touched a gun before and I was so scared and then I thought I heard a scream but I don’t even know now if it was somebody else or me. I just ran. I was going to go out the front door, even if it set off the alarm, although the little light was green, but when I turned the knob, it was locked and I couldn’t figure out how to open it, so I went back through the basement and went out the window and I didn’t know what to do at first—I was kind of paralyzed or in shock or something, I don’t know, and I got my phone out and then I just ran and ran until I got to the gas station and I wasn’t sure what to do and finally I decided the person I had to call was you even though I knew you and Mom would be really mad but I didn’t know what else to do and it wasn’t my fault. I mean, maybe it was my fault, but I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.”
    And then she dissolved into tears. Not just tears, but huge, racking sobs.
    “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself and rocking against the wall. She raised her head, and even though her eyes were looking my way, it was as if she didn’t even see me.
    “My life’s over,” she said. “My life’s