Free Sacrifice of Buntings by Christine Goff Page A

Birds of Prey display.
    “Guy?” Dorothy called out using a stage whisper.
    Rachel thought she heard a rustle. Was it was Saxby or one of Beau and Reggie’s birds? She braced for a scare.
    “Guy?” Dorothy called out again.
    There was another rustle, followed this time by what sounded like a struggle. Two angry voices conferred, but Rachel couldn’t make out the words.
    Dorothy stopped dead in her tracks.
    “Don’t stop now,” Rachel said. She was curious about the commotion. It sounded like two people wrestling in the next aisle.
    Dorothy may as well have been paralyzed. She stood stock-still, her hands clenched at her sides, her face a ghostly shade of white. Was she afraid she’d find Saxby in some sort of tryst? Not likely, based on the tone of the voices.
    Rachel gripped her shoulders. “Here, I’ll take a look,” she whispered. “It’s probably Beau and Reggie working with the birds. I’ll bet Guy’s not even here yet.”
    Moving past Dorothy, Rachel tiptoed forward. She wished she could make out the words. She only caught snatches. She heard the word swamp , the word trade , and then put that away . Someone cursed, then her shoulder brushed against a rack of clothes at the end of the aisle, and all she could hear was the clanging of hangers banging against each other.
    She froze.
    The clanging subsided, but the room had grown deathly still.
    “No!”
    Guy Saxby?
    A sharp report shattered the silence, followed by a splintering of glass.
    She heard another sharp report and dropped to her knees. It sounded like gunfire.

CHAPTER 6
    Rachel pulled Dorothy down beside her. A third shot rang out, then a fourth. Who the hell is shooting?
    Pressing her face against the cold linoleum, Rachel searched the floor for a pair of feet, a flash of pant leg, anything that might signal where the shooter was standing.
    Her heart pounded. Her breath came in quick, short gasps.
    Calm down, Wilder. It isn’t going to help to panic .
    She held her fingers to her lips, as much to quell her own hard breathing as to keep Dorothy quiet. Shock had done a good job up until now, but the older woman’s face looked pinched, with tears imminent.
    Think, Wilder!
    What about the security guard? He had been standing outside the main doors not ten minutes ago. He had to have heard the shots. That meant someone would be in here soon to investigate, and they’d be discovered.
    Holding Dorothy’s hands in a viselike grip, Rachel listened for the sounds of a rescue.
    Nothing . But then, she hadn’t heard any sound for at least a minute, except for the pounding of her heart.
    Rachel released Dorothy’s hands and eased herself onto her elbows. She listened hard. There was a creak behind her. It came from the opposite side of the room. Was someone sneaking out the same way she and Dorothy had come in?
    Climbing onto her hands and knees, Rachel glanced behind her, gesturing for Dorothy to stay on the floor. While she might be able to go slinking around on all fours, she figured that would be too much for Dorothy.
    Instead of staying put, Dorothy crawled forward and lifted the table skirt, wearing an expression of shock. “It’s him!” she whispered, her voice rising in panic.
    “Who? Saxby?”
    “He… he’s on the floor. I can see his feet.”
    Rachel crouched down and looked under the table. In the gap between the cloth coverings and the floor poked a sneaker-shod foot, flat on the ground but pointing right toward them from the next aisle.
    “Stay here,” Rachel whispered.
    She moved slowly to the end of the row, staying low and listening. A squeak behind her made her start.
    “You’re not leaving me behind,” Dorothy said. She, too, was crouched low.
    Rachel rounded the table at the end of the aisle and stopped abruptly. In the dim light she could see a man stretched out on the floor. Aside from the sneakers, he wore standard birding attire—shorts and a vented shirt. His upper torso and face were hidden under a gray cloth,