“Hey, Bob,” she greeted in her most cheerful, unbothered voice. “What are you doing working Christmas Eve—?”
Her words died in her throat as two men wielding powerful flashlights stepped out from the backseat of the sheriff’s car, where they’d evidently been waiting, purposely out of view. They were dressed identically, in sharp, custom-fitted black suits, their eyes shaded by mirrored sunglasses, even though the sun had set long ago. Trinity’s eyes darted from one to the other, apprehension coursing through her veins. This did not seem good.
The two men didn’t wait for an invitation to enter. They pushed into the barn as if they owned the place, overturning bikes and opening storage chests. Trinity turned to Sheriff Bob, begging for an explanation, but the small-town sheriff just gave her a helpless shrug. He would be no help, she realized. It was all up to her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded of the men. “This is my neighbor’s barn.”
“Homeland Security, ma’am,” one of the men interrupted. He flashed her a badge so quickly she had no idea whether it was legit or had come from a Cracker Jack box. “Perhaps a better question would be what are you doing here?”
Her mind raced to come up with a reasonable explanation on short notice. Then she realized honesty might be the best policy—at least partial honesty. “There were men,” she said at last. “They barged into my house. I freaked out and ran here to hide before calling 911. I think one of them might still be in the house.”
The men looked unsurprised. “No need to be afraid,” the first one said in a voice that told her otherwise. “Those were government agents. We have reason to believe your grandfather may have come into possession of some stolen property. Do you know anything about that?” He gave her a pointed stare.
His insinuation infuriated her. She met his gaze, her eyes fierce. “My grandpa would never take anything that didn’t belong to him,” she retorted. Then she shot a look over at Sheriff Bob. “Tell him,” she demanded. “Tell him he’d never do something like that.”
“Well, yes, the girl’s right about that,” Sheriff Bob blustered, looking nervous and unsure. “I’ve known Charlie Foxx for fifty years. He’s good people. He’d never intentionally—”
“Search the barn,” the first agent interrupted, evidently bored by the glowing tribute for the man he’d been sent to hunt down. He pointed to the ladder. “You check the loft. I’ll finish up here.”
Trinity sucked in a breath, watching the suited man start toward the ladder. In a moment, he’d be up there and Connor had nowhere to hide. He had his gun, but if he shot it, he’d give his position away to agent #2. The barn would erupt into a war zone, with she, most likely, the first civilian casualty.
She had to do something and fast.
Her eyes fell to the sheriff’s revolver, dangling from its holster. Her grandpa was always teasing him about forgetting to secure it. “Someday you’ll shoot yourself in the foot,” he’d say. And suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do.
She started to stagger, waving her arms wildly around her. “Oh God,” she moaned in an overloud voice, attracting the attention of the agents. “I feel dizzy! I think I’m going to—ohhh!”
She threw herself backward, with as much drama as she could muster. As predicted, the chivalrous Sheriff Bob dove to catch her. Not an easy move for a man of sixty-five, clocking in at more than three hundred pounds, but the sheriff, to his credit, gave the rescue his all.
Sorry, Bob, she thought, as she allowed herself to collapse into his meaty grip, letting her arms flop to the side like limp spaghetti.
“Never mind her,” the first agent instructed. “Get moving.”
But Trinity’s fingers had already wrapped around the sheriff’s gun, yanking it from its holster. She leapt to her feet, flicking off the safety, aiming the firearm at the two men.
“Drop your weapons. Now!” she cried.
The agents froze, looking at one another doubtfully. Trinity waved the gun, hoping they couldn’t detect the fact that her hands were shaking like crazy.
“Do you even know how to use one of those?” the first agent asked, evidently not quite buying her “I’m a crazy killer and you should be scared of me” routine. Which wasn’t all that surprising, she supposed, seeing as she’d never actually shot at anything but the zombies in her video games.
“She certainly does.”
Trin looked up in surprise as Connor dropped down off the ladder with an easy grace.
He trained his own gun on the agents and gave them a cocky grin. “In fact, you might have seen her handiwork, back at the museum. Man in black? Head blown to smithereens?” He snorted. “The girl’s completely cracked. If I were you, I’d do as she says.”
The agents exchanged unhappy glances but reluctantly obeyed, gingerly lowering their weapons to the floor before straightening up again. Trin shot Connor a grateful look, a rush of adrenaline surging through her. He gave her a curt nod as he deftly kicked the surrendered guns across the barn and out of reach.
Now get the sheriff’s handcuffs, she heard his voice in her head. She still didn’t know how he was doing that, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
“Bob, I need your handcuffs,” she said in a terse voice, turning to the white-faced sheriff. She held out her hand.
“You don’t want to do this, Trinity,” Bob blurted, sounding as if he were still in shock. Not surprising, she supposed. After all, the last two minutes had probably contained more action than the poor guy had seen since taking office forty years ago. “Please. For your grandpa’s sake, just put down the gun.”