Free In Her Sights by Keri Ford, Charley Colins Page A

owned
and destroy her home in the process.
    Just a few precautions, and everything would be set.
Starting with her employees. The staff rooms were along the South corner. It
wasn’t exactly a weak end of the house, but it was a dead end. If anyone broke in
and headed that way, Julia, Mike, and Alex would be trapped. For the night, she
moved her employees upstairs to a set of rooms down from hers. Close enough
that if they needed to get out, they could escape through her hidden office to
the guest house next door.
    Going from hunter to hunt ed was a pleasant change of
pace. A little bit exciting. Enough to put some added bounce in her step.
    Only problem: she couldn’t have her fun toys. Her
collapsible staff would be perfect for this. Lightweight. Compact until she
needed its full six-foot length, but she’d used that as Artemis too many times
and didn’t want the bruise pattern associated with her. The black compression
pants and shirt that resisted sweat were flexible, but not ideal if caught in
her home. She pulled out black yoga pants and a black, long-sleeved shirt
instead. Even though it was the middle of spring, it did get cool at night with
the air conditioner running. She went ahead and slipped on black house slippers.
If this night went to hell in a hand basket, at least she had a cover.
    Her full mask was not an option. Too difficult to explain. A
dark navy ball cap would look strange, but it would hold her hair up and
conceal the bright blonde color. If all else failed, she could try and ditch
the hat. That left her with her gloves. She couldn’t go without them. Not for
fingerprints this time, but to protect her hands. If she got into a
hand-to-hand fight with someone, she couldn’t have broken skin on her knuckles
before the mayor’s party. If caught, she could slip the gloves off and stash
them in the waistband of her pants. Her shirt was loose enough around her waist
to conceal them.
    With the house cloaked in darkness under the cloudy sky, she
moved into position in her office. She tucked in next to the opened office door where she would be completely hidden. No doubt her safe would be the target, same as for Clayton. The dagger
was more than small enough to fit in there. On the off chance that whoever was
coming didn’t go for the safe and managed to disarm her security as Clayton
had, she had her phone clipped to her pants and could easily call the police.
All she had to do was stop them from leaving in the meantime.
    The hum of the air conditioner whined in the otherwise
silent night. Two hours passed and that’s when the low-volume beeping of her
old security panel mounted on the wall dinged.
    Her breath caught and relaxed as she blew it out on a slow
exhale. Being stuck in the dark and waiting for someone to come to her was strange and her heart pounded.
    Whoever just stepped inside her home had sixty seconds to
pad in the code before the cops would be alerted. It would make her life easier
if they would all run for her office and be in one contained room. When it came
to police sirens and thieves, the thieves tended to scatter like roaches.
    She checked her watch. One twenty-eight a.m. A touch too
early for her taste when doing such work. Nice, though, because if she happened
to kill one of them, there was enough time to dump the body and clean up.
    Footsteps ran with the beeping of her security. She rolled
her wrists around and stretched her neck. Energy threaded through her legs.
This waiting was killer. She was so used to being the one sneaking in and
moving around. Doing a hit, she studied behavior patterns and movements. There
was none of this guessing and hoping. She knew what would happen and had back
up plans for other options.
    She huddled back in the corner. Not right behind the door in
case they shoved it open further as they came in, but to the side. Behind a
long raincoat hanging from a coat rack.
    Something shattered outside her office. She stilled and listened over the pound of