nodded and withdrew her weapon from the holster at her hip. Moving in tandem, they slowly made their way down the hall toward the main part of the house. At the T in the hallway, Josh gestured with two fingers for her to go right, while he’d go left.
Dipping her chin in acknowledgment, she peeled off to enter the empty kitchen. Her pulse beat a frantic tempo.
Hushed male voices came from the next room. At least two.
The muscles in her shoulders tightened. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. The nitty-gritty aspect of taking down the bad guys was a necessary part of the job. A part she had no qualms about performing. As a woman in a field historically dominated by men, she’d worked hard to prove herself. Just as other women in the service had done as far back as the late 1800s, when Ada Carnutt first put on the badge. Serena admired her predecessors as well as the current female director of the U.S. Marshals Service, who’d been appointed by the president. Serena would do them proud.
Skirting around stacked boxes, she made her way to the dining room just as Josh entered from the living room.
Two men stood inside the dining room and another was balanced half in, half out of the broken window on the side of the house. All three men, dressed in black, were big guys in their late twenties.
Josh yelled, “Stop! U.S. Marshals!”
The guy half inside the window dropped back outside and disappeared. One of the remaining thugs reached behind his back to whip out a .357 and aimed the pistol at Josh.
Fear burst within Serena. “Gun!”
Josh ducked behind a stack of boxes as the guy holding the gun fired in his direction. A bullet tore through the cardboard box, nearly taking out Josh’s eye, and smashed into the wall. She dove behind the love seat.
Knowing the boxes wouldn’t provide enough cover for Josh, Serena had to do something. She popped up, aimed at the intruder with the gun and squeezed off a round. The rapid beat of her heart thundered in her ears, drowning out the retort of the weapon in her hand. The bullet slammed into the guy’s leg. He screamed and crumpled to the floor. His buddy jumped through the broken window and escaped.
Serena leaped to her feet and raced around the love seat, keeping her weapon trained on the man writhing on the floor, clutching his leg. She kicked aside the gun he’d dropped.
“You okay?” Josh asked as he skidded to a halt beside her.
She nodded, her gaze searching him for injury.
“Good.” He rushed toward the window. “Watch him. I’m going after the other two.”
Chest knotting, Serena watched Josh disappear through the window.
“Keep him safe, Lord,” she whispered and hoped God would listen. She blamed Josh for her brother’s death, but she didn’t want to have to live through another loss. She’d known Josh a long time. He and Daniel had been friends since basic training at the academy in Glynco, Georgia, over eight years ago.
She dug her cell phone out of the pocket of her suit jacket and called the Houston district office and the police department for backup. While she waited, she cuffed the guy’s hands in front of him and then grabbed a towel from a box to press against the bullet wound.
The man moaned. “You shot me.”
She refrained from pointing out he’d shot first. “Who sent you?”
“I don’t know,” the guy ground out. “I need a doctor!”
“What were you doing here?” Serena asked.
“Trying to find out where they went.”
Serena didn’t need to ask who; she knew he meant Dylan and his family. “What were you supposed to do with the information?”
“I don’t know. Bob set this up. He’d know.”
“Bob who? What’s Bob’s last name?”
The guy clamped his mouth shut.
“Come on, give me the name. It will go better for you if you do,” Serena coaxed.
“I want a lawyer.” A spasm of pain marched across his face. “I’m not saying anything more.”
Serena blew out a frustrated breath.
The wail of a siren announced the arrival of the Houston police force. Josh reentered the house through the front door, leading paramedics and two police officers inside.
Serena relinquished her hold on the rag to the paramedics and joined Josh off to the side so the local LEOs—law enforcement officers—could take over.
“Mr. Bad Shot said they were looking to find out where Dylan and the family went,” she told Josh. “Said one of his buddies named Bob set up the deal.”
“Good job getting that out of him.”
The approval in Josh’s brown eyes made her stand a little taller. She still only reached his shoulder. “I take it the other two got away?”
“Yeah, they had a vehicle on the next block. I got a partial plate.”
“We have to put a stop to this,” Serena said. “We have to bring Munders down once and for all!”
Josh swiped a hand through his hair. “We will. First things first. Let’s finish up here and get home to St. Louis.”
Home. The word reverberated through Serena’s head like a pinball, bouncing off her thoughts. Growing up, she and Daniel had been passed around between their divorced parents like a set of candlesticks that neither really wanted but didn’t want the other to have. When Daniel had reached the age of majority he’d moved out on his own, taking Serena with him.
They’d shared an apartment ever since, but after Daniel’s death, she couldn’t take being there without him. She’d given everything to a local charity and moved into a studio. Her apartment wasn’t a home. It was a place to store her stuff and to sleep when she could.
She didn’t know if she’d ever have a real home again. Without her brother in her life, she was lost. He’d been her anchor. The one constant. Home had been where he was. Now he was gone. Thanks to Josh.
* * *
“Will we make our flight?” Serena asked, as the moving van, escorted by Houston police, pulled away from the curb.
Josh checked the time on his smartphone. “With time to spare.”
With the help of two local marshals, they’d made short work of packing the last of the McIntyre household into boxes and loading them onto the transport bound for Hawaii via Chicago and Seattle.
The Houston marshals had taken the wounded thug into custody and had obtained Josh’s and Serena’s statements. Josh wished they’d had another chance to further interrogate the guy who’d broken into the McIntyre house, but he didn’t want to get into an arm-wrestling match for control of the situation.
He’d let his superiors deal with
