Flashback (Kendra Michaels #11)

Right, Paula thought. And both women just happened to forget their cars, keys, phones, and credit cards.

She’d worked with lazy assholes during her twenty-five years with the department, but it seemed there were more of them now. The two detectives, Breen and Danforth, looked at her as if she was some kind of hysterical relic. She wasn’t sure if it was sexism, ageism, or both.

Guys like that made her happy to be retired.

At least Kendra Michaels seemed to take the case seriously, though it still wasn’t clear that she could be persuaded to join the investigation. According to her friends in the department, Kendra turned down far more cases than she accepted.

In any case, it was worth a shot.

Paula pulled into her driveway as the last tinges of sunlight disappeared behind the row of palm trees at the end of the nearby cul-de-sac. She opened her garage door with the visor-mounted remote, parked her Honda CR-V inside, then closed the door behind her.

She stepped inside her house and froze.

The place was a wreck. Someone had ransacked the place, pulling out every drawer, clearing every cabinet, even emptying the refrigerator and freezer. She glanced at the wall where her alarm panel should have been. It was gone.

What in the holy hell?

There was rustling from the next room. Oh, shit. Her intruder was still in the house.

If anyone else was in her position, she knew what she’d tell them.

Get the hell out of there.

But she wasn’t just anyone else. She had a gun, and she knew how to use it.

Paula crept toward her bedroom, on the opposite side of the house from where she could still hear her visitor opening desk drawers and emptying the contents of her office closet. What the hell was he looking for?

She peered through her bedroom doorway. Jesus. This room was in even worse shape than the rest of the house. Her mattress had been sliced open, and the padding was on the floor with every book and every object from the tall shelves. She scrambled toward her bed and felt underneath for her holstered automatic.

“It’s not there anymore.”

The man’s voice came from behind her.

Dammit.

She looked at her television cracked and lying on its side and saw the reflection of the man standing in her bedroom doorway. He was dressed totally in black and wore a ski mask.

He was also holding her gun.

“Stand up.”

She stood and slowly turned around. “What do you want?”

“I think you know the answer to that.” He spoke in a low rasp. She wasn’t sure if he was speaking that way to disguise his voice, or if that’s the way he usually talked.

“I really don’t. But before you destroy any more of my house, how about you just ask me? Is it money? If that’s it, you’re out of luck. I’m living on Social Security and my pension.”

He raised the gun and aimed it at her head. “Fine. Maybe I should just do this.”

He squeezed the trigger.

Click!

It didn’t fire. He tried again.

Click!

She punched him in the face and elbowed his head until he dropped to the ground. She pounced on top of him.