She turned toward the house. The door to the kitchen had been kicked open. It hung at an angle from the hinges. She saw the bloody handprint her mother had left, the space where her ring finger should’ve pressed against the wood. Faith held her breath as she pushed open the door, expecting to be shot in the face. She even closed her eyes. Nothing came. Just the empty space of the kitchen, and blood everywhere.

When she’d entered the house two days ago, Faith had been so focused on finding her mother that she hadn’t really processed what she was seeing. Now, she understood the violent battle that had taken place. She’d worked her share of crime scenes. She knew what a struggle looked like. Even with the body long removed from the laundry room, Faith could still recall the placement, what he’d been wearing, the way his hand fanned out against the floor.

Will had told her the kid’s name, but she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t remember any of them—not the man she had shot in the bedroom or the man she had killed in Mrs. Johnson’s backyard.

After what they had done, they didn’t deserve for her to know their names.

Faith turned her attention back to the kitchen. The pass-through was empty. She could see straight down the hallway. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the house appeared to be in dusk. The bedroom doors were closed. The blinds covering the large windows on either side of the front door were drawn. The only unfiltered light came from the bathroom window. The shade was pulled up. Faith walked past the dining room and into the front foyer. She stood with the hallway on her right and the kitchen on her left. The living room was in front of her. She should take out her gun, but she didn’t think they were going to shoot her. At least not yet.

The room was dim. The curtains had been pulled closed, but they were more sheer than opaque. A gentle breeze stirred the material where the glass door had been broken. The room was still turned upside down. Faith couldn’t recall what it had looked like before, though she’d lived here eighteen years of her life. The packed bookshelves that lined the left-hand wall. The framed family photos. The console stereo with the scratchy speakers. The overstuffed couch. The wingback chair her father sat in while he read. Evelyn was sitting there now. Her left hand was wrapped in a blood-soaked towel. Her right was so swollen it could’ve belonged to a mannequin. Two broom handles were duct-taped around her leg, keeping it straight out in front of her. Her white blouse was stained with blood. Her hair was matted to the side of her head. A piece of duct tape covered her mouth. Her eyes widened when she saw Faith.

“Mama,” Faith whispered. The word echoed in her brain, conjuring all the memories Faith had from the last thirty-four years. She had loved her mother. She had fought with her. Screamed at her. Lied to her. Cried in her arms. Run from her. Returned to her. And now, there was this.

The young man from the grocery store was on the other side of the room, leaning against the bookcases. His vantage point was ideal, the top of a triangle. Evelyn was down and to his left. Faith was fifteen feet away from her mother, forming the second base angle. He was in shadow, but the gun in his hand was easy to see. The barrel of a Tec-9 was pointed in Evelyn’s direction. The fifty-round magazine jutted out at least twelve inches from the bottom. More clips hung out of his jacket pocket.

Faith dropped the duffel bag onto the floor. Her hand wanted to go to the Walther. She wanted to shoot the entire clip into his chest. She wouldn’t aim for the head. She wanted to see his eyes, hear his screams, as the bullets ripped him apart.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He smiled, his platinum tooth catching a bit of what light was in the room. “ ‘Can I pull my gun before he pulls the trigger?’ ”

She told him, “No.” Faith was a quick draw, but the Tec-9 was already pointed at her mother’s head. The math was against her.

“Get her gun.”

She felt the cold metal of a muzzle pressed to her head. Someone was behind her. Another man. He wrenched the Walther from the waist of her jeans, then grabbed the duffel bag. The zip ripped open. His laughter was like a child’s on Christmas morning. “Shit, man, look at all this green!” He bounced on the balls of his feet as he walked toward his friend. “Goddamn, bro! We’re rich!” He threw the Walther into the bag. He had his Glock tucked in the back of his pants. “Goddamn!” he repeated, showing the bag to Evelyn. “See this, bitch? How you like that? We got it anyway.”

Faith kept her eyes on the kid from the grocery store. He wasn’t happy like his partner, but that was to be expected. This was never about the money. Will had called it hours ago.

The man asked Faith, “How much is in there?”

She told him, “A little over half a million.”

He gave a low whistle. “You hear that, Ev? That’s a lot of money you stole.”

“Damn right.” The partner fanned out a stack of bills. “You coulda stopped all this two days ago, bitch. I guess they call you Almeja for a reason.”

Faith couldn’t look at her mother. “Take it,” she told the man. “That was the deal. Take the money and leave.”

His friend was ready to do just that. He dropped the bag beside Evelyn’s chair and picked up a roll of duct tape from the floor. “Yo, man, let’s go straight up to Buckhead. I’m’a get me a Jag and—”

Two shots rang out in rapid succession. The duct tape dropped to the floor. It rolled under the chair where Evelyn sat, then the boy’s body collapsed in a heap beside her. The back of his head looked like someone had taken a hammer to it. Blood gushed onto the floor, pooling around the legs of the chair, her mother’s feet.

The young man said, “He talked too much. Don’t you think?”

Faith’s heart was pounding so loudly she could barely hear her own voice. The concealed revolver in her ankle holster felt hot, like it was burning her skin. “Do you really think you’re going to make it out of here alive?”

He kept the Tec-9 aimed at her mother’s head. “What makes you think I want to get out of here?”

Faith allowed herself to look at her mother. Sweat dripped from Evelyn’s face. The edge of the duct tape was pulling away from her cheek. They hadn’t bound her. The broken leg ensured she wasn’t going anywhere. Still, she was sitting up straight in the chair. Shoulders back. Hands clasped in her lap. Her mother never slumped. She never gave away anything—except for now. There was fear in her eyes. Not fear of the man with the gun, but fear of what her daughter would be told.

“I know,” Faith told her mother. “It’s all right. I already know.”

The man turned the gun to the side, squinting his eye as he aimed down on her mother. “What do you know, bitch?”

“You,” Faith told him. “I know who you are.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WILL HAD HIS EYE PRESSED TO THE RIFLE SCOPE WHEN the Tec-9 went off. He saw the flashes first, two bright strobes. A millisecond later, he registered the sound. He flinched away; he couldn’t help it. When he looked back in the scope, he saw Faith. She was still standing in the front entrance hall, facing the family room. Her body swayed. He waited, counting the seconds, making sure she didn’t fall. She didn’t.

“What the hell happened?”