Twin Targets. Marta Perry

louder, mounted to a wail. He managed a breath. That had to be the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

      The gunmen reacted even faster than he did. Thuds marked their progress down the stairs, across the lower level, out the door. The car roared down the lane.

      Jade moved, squirming around him as if to open the door. He caught her, holding her still until he heard the cop cars pull up below. Then he got out of the closet first, holstering his weapon, holding both hands in the air, his badge opened in one.

      “Up here,” he shouted when he heard them enter the house, having no desire to start downstairs until he was sure he wouldn’t be met by a trigger-happy inexperienced kid. “Deputy U.S. Marshal Micah McGraw.”

      Two uniformed officers burst into the room, weapons focused on him. He stood perfectly still.

      “Who’d you say you were?” The older man barked the question, gesturing to the younger, a tow-headed kid who didn’t look old enough to be a cop. The kid edged up on him carefully and took the ID from his hand.

      “Deputy U.S. Marshal Micah McGraw,” he repeated patiently. “Two armed men broke in. Their car—”

      “We saw it.” The older man checked his identity card thoroughly, then nodded to him to put his hands down. “Already put out an APB.” He tossed the ID back. “Sorry, Marshal.”

      “No sweat—I’d do the same in your place.”

      “What about Ms. Summers? She here when this went down?”

      “She’s here.” He held the door open, and Jade crawled out of the closet.

      “You okay, Ms. Summers?” The officer holstered his weapon.

      “I’m fine.” She stood, straightening her shoulders.

      “All right, then.” He shot a glance at Micah, as if waiting for an explanation.

      There wasn’t one he could give, not now. He’d have to call in, get his people here…

      First, he had to make sure Jade Summers really was all right.

      As if aware of his gaze on her, she raked her fingers through her shoulder-length red curls in an attempt to restore order. She dusted off her pant legs and looked up at him. Eyes green as glass in a pale, heart-shaped face seemed to measure him.

      “Is it over?”

      Was there an honest answer to that? He wasn’t sure. Her likeness to Ruby shook him, and he tried to ignore the image of Ruby’s lifeless body.

      “For the moment,” he said.

      TWO

      “Why don’t you just come home with me?” Ellen Trask asked the question for the fourth or fifth time since she’d sat down in the kitchen with Jade. “I’ll convince them it’s okay.”

      Jade didn’t doubt that. Ellen might look like a elderly kewpie doll with her gray curls and cheeks as round and shiny as apples, but she didn’t take anything from anyone.

      She’d already gone one round with a patrolman who’d tried to get her to leave. She had come out victorious. That seemed to have her geared up to take on anyone to protect the tenant she tended to mother.

      “Thanks, but I’d better stay.” She tried to manage a smile, but was sure it failed. “I’d rather be here, in case they want to talk to me again.”

      Ellen didn’t argue. She just got up, her boot crunching on a bit of broken plate on the floor, and poured hot water from the steaming kettle into their tea mugs.

      “I still don’t see why they wouldn’t let me sweep this floor.” Ellen hadn’t liked it when the patrolman had taken the broom from her hand with a warning not to disturb a crime scene. “What’s a bit of shattered china going to tell them, I’d like to know?”

      She didn’t know, either, so she just shook her head, wrapping her fingers around the mug. But even its warmth couldn’t penetrate the cold place inside her. Ruby, the twin sister who’d once felt like the other half of her, was dead. She didn’t think she’d really absorbed it yet.

      It didn’t help that her cozy home no longer felt like her own. The living room, the upstairs, even the front yard thronged with various people in uniform, doing goodness knew what. Strangers had taken over her house, beginning the moment Micah McGraw came to her door, bringing with him that aura of menace and danger. If he’d never come near her…

      Well, that was a stupid thought. They’d had to tell her that Ruby was dead. They’d had to admit they’d failed to protect her.

      And now they’d brought Ruby’s killers to her door. Another shiver went through her.

      Ellen, probably seeing the involuntary movement, patted her hand. “It’s an awful thing, those men breaking in, just awful. I never heard of the like in the whole time I’ve lived in this county. Things like that don’t happen here.”

      That was what she’d thought, too. Apparently they’d both been wrong.

      “What do you suppose they wanted?” Ellen fixed an inquiring gaze on Jade’s face.

      She didn’t know what to say. Anything but the truth, she supposed. “I don’t know.”

      She had to struggle to get the words out. Probably someone like Micah lied easily in his job, constantly dealing with people who weren’t who they said they were. Falsehood didn’t come so readily to her.

      Ruby had lied all the time when they were younger. The unpleasant memory seemed disloyal, but it was true. Ruby had always said you might as well tell people what they wanted to hear. She hadn’t seemed to realize that people had eventually come to distrust her.

      Maybe because of that, Jade had tried always to tell the exact truth, no matter how much it hurt. But she couldn’t tell Ellen, or anyone else, about Ruby.

      Fortunately Ellen was off on a string of speculations of her own, coming up with one reason after another for the peculiar happenings. Jade could stop paying attention as long as she nodded once in a while. She could let her thoughts worry at the events of the past hour, trying to make sense of it all.

      “Lucky for you that marshal happened to come along when he did.”

      “Yes, it was.” Jerked back to attention, she tried to sound noncommittal. McGraw had saved her life. She couldn’t deny that. On the other hand, he might have been the one to lead those men right to her.

      The back door rattled. She jumped, tea sloshing onto the tabletop. Herb came in, with Micah McGraw looming behind him.

      “We better get along home, Ellen.” Herb always looked somewhat like an elderly bloodhound, and at the moment, the lines of his face had deepened. “The marshal here needs to talk to Jade.”

      Ellen’s feathers ruffled instantly. “Not if Jade wants me to stay, marshal or no marshal.”

      Ellen’s friendship warmed her. But she couldn’t tell Ellen the truth, and obviously neither she nor McGraw wanted to talk in front of her.

      “That’s kind of you, but I’m fine. I can’t thank you enough for coming.” Her voice wobbled a little on the last word.

      Ellen rose and swept her into a hug. “You call us anytime, day or night. Better yet, come stay with us tonight. Or at least come over for supper.”

      “I’ll…I’ll let you know.”

      She must be more shattered than she’d thought when such simple kindness brought her close to tears. She tried to stiffen her spine. Right now she needed time to collect herself, to mourn her sister, to restore order to her life. And to get rid of the authorities, in the form of the man who stood like a rock in her kitchen.

      When the door closed behind Ellen and Herb, she slumped back into the chair. McGraw still stood, hands braced on the back of the chair