Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [3]
Ten minutes later, McNamara came out, got into a pickup, and drove off. Jorge followed him to an old but well-kept-up frame house on the edge of the town. The house was painted green and had a dark green roof. McNamara parked in the driveway, in front of an attached, one-car garage that had a sedan in it. The wife’s car, no doubt. A breezeway connected the garage to the house and had the washer and dryer in it. As Jorge drove slowly past, he and Emilio saw the woman in there, watched as she greeted McNamara. A thick-bodied woman with dark hair, and even the quick glimpse was enough to tell Jorge and Emilio that she was Hispanic.
“Marry a gringo, you deserve whatever happens to you, you dumb bitch,” Emilio muttered as Jorge drove on past the house. “Tonight?”
Jorge nodded. “Tonight.”
There was no need to wait any longer. They wouldn’t find a better target than this. Soon they would be on their way back to Mexico with a carful of guns and whatever else they could loot from the house.
The lights in the house went out a little after ten o’clock. The two amigos waited half an hour, then waited a little longer still, just to be sure. It wouldn’t really matter all that much if they woke up the house’s inhabitants, because they planned to kill the two old people anyway, but it would be easier to dispose of them if they were asleep. It would be a simple job, no torture, no rape, just murder and robbery. No fuss, no muss, as the anglos said.
They got out of the car and circled around to the back of the house. Back windows were usually easier to break into. And in a place like this, they didn’t take elaborate security precautions to begin with.
These people thought they were safe.
A simple hook-and-eye held the screen on the kitchen window. It took Jorge all of ten seconds to cut the screen, reach inside, and unhook it. He lifted the whole screen out of the window frame.
Emilio used a tiny LED flashlight to check for locks on the window. There were none. What was wrong with these people? Did they still believe it was the Twentieth Century?
Emilio slipped the light back in his pocket and started to raise the window. To his surprise, it didn’t budge. He got the light out and looked again.
“Painted shut,” he whispered to Jorge.
That wasn’t good, but it wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle. It just meant the window might make a little more noise when they opened it.
They had brought small pry bars. They used their knives to whittle out places in the sill where they could work the bars under the window, then working together, they heaved on both bars and broke the window loose. It made a scraping, squealing sound as it rose.
Jorge and Emilio looked at each other and shrugged. What happened, happened.
They climbed inside.
This wasn’t their first burglary. They knew how to find their way around in a strange house. Within minutes, they had located the den. They knew from eavesdropping on the conversation in the Dairy Queen that this was where McNamara kept his guns. First they would check out the haul they were going to make, then they would deal with the old people.
But as Emilio flashed the little light around the den with its gun cabinents and display cases, its big TV, its stuffed animal heads on the walls, Jorge suddenly gripped his arm and whispered, “Somebody’s coming!”
CHAPTER 3
Pete’s chest started to hurt when he saw the reflection of the light darting around inside the den. Somebody was definitely in there. Up until now, he had hoped that Inez was wrong, that nobody had actually broken into the house where they had lived for decades, where they had raised their kids, enjoyed the good things, and endured the bad things that all married couples do.
Somebody was in their house, by God. Somebody who wasn’t supposed to be here.
Pete’s throat was tight with anger, but he had to keep swallowing his fear, too. He’d had a few hairy moments as an MP, but overall his life had been remarkably free from violence and danger.
He stood in the