Chapter 19 Stalling for Time in the Shadows #2
"You're wrong, Sly," I said, holding his crazed stare without flinching.
"You're living in the nineteenth century, but the law isn't. The historical society already has Eleanor's carbon correspondence from 1968.
Clara over at the town registry scanned the county tax easements three years ago when the state widened Route 9.
Sheriff Lawson already has the surveyor's notes in his file.
If that book burns, you don't erase the trust. You just destroy an irreplaceable artifact and leave your fingerprints on an empty hearth. "
"You're lying!" Sly screamed. Outside, a tremendous gust of wind rattled the heavy sash windows until the panes groaned.
"You're bluffing to save your precious museum piece!
You think I'm stupid, Maggie? You think I don't know how you operate with your high-and-mighty preservation speeches and your little aprons? "
He gripped the revolver with both hands now, arms trembling violently as he locked the barrel on my chest.
"Slide the book, Maggie. Right now. Into the fire."
"Sly—"
"I'm not asking again!" he roared, saliva spraying. His finger curled tightly around the trigger, taking up slack. "I'm counting to three! You kick that book into the embers, or I put a hole through you, take it myself, and burn this entire house to the ground with all four of you inside it!"
Buster gave a sharp, ferocious bark, claws scrabbling against hardwood as he tried to break past my grip.
"Stay, Buster!" I commanded, hand anchored to his scruff, feeling terror course through my veins. My heart pounded against my ribs. "Sly, listen to reason—"
"One!" Sly yelled, eyes completely bloodshot, wild and dilated in the firelight.
Across the room, Birdie raised the bronze gargoyle bookend, shoulder muscles bunching.
Beside me, Luke's fingers curled under the lip of the oak tea cart.
"Two!"
"Maggie, move!" Luke roared.
What happened next took less than three seconds, but time fractured into distinct beats.
Luke didn't just push the tea cart—he hurled his entire frame into it like a defensive tackle.
The heavy oak cart groaned, iron casters screaming as they bit into floorboards, launching forward like a freight car.
Four cast-iron kettles and an antique brass urn clattered together with a deafening metallic crash that sounded like an artillery barrage.
Sly flinched, eyes darting toward the charging mass of oak and iron. "What the—"
*BANG!*
The revolver discharged, muzzle flash blinding, gunshot deafening inside the enclosed library. The bullet struck leaded glass behind me, blowing out a spiderweb of fractures and showering crystal shards as cold mountain air rushed into the room.
Before Sly could realign his sights, Birdie struck.
With the terrifying accuracy of a woman who had spent forty years hurling canned goods at garden pests, Birdie launched the eight-pound bronze gargoyle directly at Sly's midsection. It caught him dead in the solar plexus with a sickening, hollow thump.
"Oof!" Sly folded in half like a cheap lawn chair, breath exploding from his lungs in an agonizing wheeze.
The rolling oak tea cart slammed into his shins a millisecond later, taking his legs out. Sly went airborne, flipping over the top tier of the cart, scattering kettles and brass trivets in a catastrophic hail of ironware, before crashing flat on his back onto the hearth rug.
The gun flew from his hand, skittering across the floor toward the fireplace.
"Buster, fetch!" I yelled.
Buster didn't hesitate. With an explosive leap, eighty pounds of golden retriever hit Sly Gable’s chest like a sack of wet mortar.
Buster planted two massive front paws firmly on Sly’s mustard lapels, bared gleaming white teeth inches from the man's nose, and let loose a guttural, earth-shaking snarl that pinned the antique dealer to the hearthstones like a steel bear trap.
"Don't move, Sly," Luke said, voice dead and cold.
Luke was already standing over him, heavy boot planted squarely on the revolver, sliding it safely behind his heel. In his right hand, Luke held a heavy cast-iron fireplace poker, resting its blunt tip lightly against the floorboards right beside Sly's ear.
Sly lay pinned beneath Buster’s weight, gasping for air, clutching bruised ribs, face grey as ash. "Get... get him off me... he's gonna bite..."
"Buster only bites things with nutritional value, Sly," Birdie said, marching forward, smoothing her pleated skirt and adjusting her cat-eye glasses with icy composure. "And right now, you wouldn't qualify as fertilizer."
I dropped to my knees, scooped up the 1845 calfskin ledger from the floorboards, and held it tight against my chest. The binding was intact. Not a single page had been singed.
Through the broken library window, over the howling autumn wind, the wail of approaching sirens rose from the bottom of the mountain road—blue and red emergency lights painting the wet hemlocks in strobes of vivid color.
Luke turned to me, breathing hard, hazel eyes scanning me from head to toe with fierce urgency. "You hit, Maggie? Did it graze you?"
"I'm fine," I whispered, voice trembling slightly as adrenaline began its slow retreat. I leaned back against the mahogany base of the bookcase, letting out a breath that felt three years overdue. "Not a scratch. Just... slightly deaf in my left ear."
Luke let out a ragged sigh, stepped forward, and reached down. His large, calloused hand wrapped around mine, warm and solid and real, pulling me gently to my feet. He didn't let go right away.
"You were incredible," he murmured, gaze holding mine in the firelight, completely oblivious to Birdie, Buster, or the groaning man on the floor. "Standing up to a loaded gun with an antique history lecture."
"It's all about the provenance, Luke," I said, managing a shaky, breathless smile. "You never let the buyer dictate the terms."
"Hear, hear," Birdie muttered, using the toe of her designer loafer to nudge a fallen kettle away from the rug. She looked toward the foyer as the front doors banged open and Sheriff Lawson’s heavy boots echoed across the stone entryway.
"And now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I have an official police statement to give regarding the absolute criminal atrocity of mustard-yellow houndstooth. "