The Littlest Target. Maggie K. Black

nose was crooked and Jones had an ugly scar on his throat. Considering Gerry’s creeping paranoia, Daisy had always guessed they were some form of security. Now Smith was knocking over shelves and tossing glass and ceramics to the floor, while Jones took a knife to the furniture.

      Then she saw Anna, lying still on the floor of the grand foyer, her long fair hair and dress stained from the dark pool of blood spreading out from what looked like a gunshot wound deep in her chest. For a moment, panic curled like smoke inside Daisy’s throat, choking out her ability to think or even move.

      Then Smith grunted and said, “I’ll finish down here. You go do the baby’s room.”

      Jones turned toward the stairs, knife in hand. Daisy ducked back into the nursery, closed the door and locked it. Then shifting Fitz to her hip, she wedged a chair under the door. She doubted it would hold long. Her eyes scanned the nursery, piled high with stuffed animals, model trucks, electronic gizmos and plastic toys, all meant for a child much older than Fitz. Gerry seemed to think that every weekend he came home required giving his son a gift.

      She slid on the chest carrier and buckled Fitz in, then zipped her raincoat over them both, so that his head poked out the top. His cries faded to whimpers. She dashed into the walk-in closet that served as her room, grabbed the rucksack she’d brought from England and tossed in a change of clothes for herself, more clothes for Fitz, his blanket, diapers and bottles.

      Unfortunately, her cracked cell phone hadn’t worked in days; not since it had died at the hands of Fitz’s obsession with pushing buttons and grabbing anything shiny and electronic he could get his hands on.

      Footsteps sounded on the landing. Jones was on his way. Daisy yanked the nursery window open, swung her leg over the ledge, reached for the trellis and climbed down, praying with each step that it would hold their weight. She heard the crash of the nursery door burst open, then the sound of Jones cursing.

      She hit the ground. Her feet pounded around the side of the house. A pair of headlights raced toward her. Her hands rose to block the glare. Then she heard an engine stop and Gerry’s befuddled voice. “Daisy? What are you doing out here?”

      She stumbled toward the sound. “We need to call 911. Anna’s been shot.”

      “What? Who?” He grabbed her arm.

      She prayed his reaction was from shock. His memory gaps had been getting more frequent, even though she’d always assumed a man in his fifties was too young for dementia.

      “Your new wife, Anna.” She blinked and her vision cleared. His gray hair and beard were an odd, sickly yellow in the glare of his sports car headlights. “Anna was shot, in your house, just now. Smith and Jones shot her. We need to call an ambulance and the police.”

      “No, not Smith and Jones. They wouldn’t hurt Anna. They’re loyal to me.” His hand tightened its grip until she could almost feel bruises forming, then he dropped her arm as suddenly as he’d grabbed it. “I will call the police. I know which ones I can trust. But you—you have to stay away from the police, okay? There are some corrupt cops who are out to steal my work and they will hurt Fitz to do it. Two of them came to the house. They threatened me and tried to blackmail me. You have to promise me you won’t let them hurt Fitz.”

      “Of course.” Panic crawled up her throat. She remembered those cops. There’d been two of them, one man and one woman. But could she really believe any of his ranting? “I promise, I won’t let anyone hurt Fitz.”

      “Good.” Gerry blinked and she saw clarity return to his eyes. “Everything is going to be all right. I have an apartment in Sault Sainte Marie. Take Fitz there. Don’t stop. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll call a cop I know I can trust and get them to meet you there. I have very powerful enemies who are trying to steal my work and they will use Fitz to do that. But you and Fitz will be safe at my apartment, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

      He reached into the sports car and programmed an address into the GPS. There was a car seat buckled into the back seat and next to it a large wooden sailboat with a bright red bow.

      Gerry pushed a cell phone into her hand. “Text me when you get there. I’ll take care of Anna. If I can find a police contact who I know isn’t corrupted, I’ll text you and send you to them. I can’t promise this line is secure, though, so be careful who you call. Trust me, Daisy, do what I say and everything will be okay.”

      She didn’t trust him. Not fully. But Gerry was her boss. If she refused, then what? It wasn’t like running back into the house was an option.

      Fitz whimpered. Gerry reached out, brushed a gentle touch over his head and leaned in toward his son. “You’re the best thing I ever made. We’ll play with your toys again soon.”

      A shout came from behind them. Jones was running toward them, weapon drawn. Gerry yanked a gun from his belt.

      “Daisy!” he shouted. “Go! I’ll hold him off!”

      She yanked the back door open and buckled Fitz inside, then she climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The car purred beneath her. She glanced at the GPS. It told her she was facing a ten-and-a-half-hour drive to Sault Sainte Marie across northern Ontario.

      A hail of bullets sounded in the darkness. She put the car in Reverse and glanced in the rearview mirror. Her eyes fell on Fitz’s startled face through his tiny car seat mirror. One hand clutched the yellow sail of his new toy boat. “Don’t worry, Fitz. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

      Just as soon as she figured out how to do that.

      Lord, I don’t know where this place is that I’m going or what it is I’m doing. I wish for once, there was someone, somewhere, I could count on not to throw my entire life into chaos. All I know right now is that I need to run.

      More bullets sounded, mixed with shattering glass. She gunned the car backward, spun on the driveway and drove off into darkness. She followed the tiny blue line on the GPS, as the Pearce country estate exploded in a ball of fire and flames behind her.

      * * *

      “At least one body has been recovered from the remains of an apparent gas explosion around six thirty last night at the home of computer developer Gerald Pearce, outside Montreal. Fire crews remain on the scene hours after the explosion, battling to keep flames from spreading to the surrounding trees. Despite the rain being forecast, skies remain clear as a column of smoke and flame—”

      Max Henry leaned across the cab of the rapid-response emergency vehicle and switched the radio off. His eyes darted to the clock. Was it after midnight already?

      It had been three hours since he’d left University of Ottawa, where he’d given a talk to students on why they should consider careers as rural community and wilderness paramedics. He’d stuck around for an extra couple of hours to listen in on a talk from the air-ambulance pilots. They’d teased him about the fact that although he’d learned to fly, he’d never got around to getting his license, which meant he was always stuck in the back of the helicopters.

      Now the night fell deep and heavy around him as he drove through the narrow, winding rural roads that would lead him through the Ontario woodlands back home to Huntsville.

      The story about the Pearce mansion fire had been at the top of the news ever since he’d got in the vehicle. He’d heard of the Pearces of course. Probably most people had. Not that he knew much about them beyond seeing the pictures of their small but lavish wedding splashed all over news a few months back. Newly wealthy, reportedly brilliant and quite conventionally attractive, Anna Pearce had made quite a few glossy magazine covers since then. But Max didn’t care about the gossip. Instead, every time the news story played, he couldn’t help but map the emergency-response scenario out in his mind. A rapid-response unit like his would’ve got there first, he guessed. Followed almost immediately by police, who would secure the scene. Then ambulances and fire trucks and eventually news crews.

      Silence filled the truck, punctuated only by the drone of the engine beneath him. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and