Chapter 71
Traci sank down onto one of the barstools drawn up to the kitchen table. She regarded her own half-full glass of wine and dumped it out.
Lola sat at her feet, looking up, her expression unreadable.
“Men, huh?” Traci said. “They want what they want when they want it.”
Lola scampered to the back door and began scratching at it.
“Again?” Traci grabbed the retractable leash and clipped it to Lola’s collar.
The golf course grass was thick and damp beneath her feet. Lola trotted along in front of her, stopping to sniff every tree trunk and clump of flowers. Once, she stopped to bark a warning to a green tree frog whose hysterical peeping made Traci chuckle.
Lola trotted over to a bed of asparagus ferns and caladiums planted in the shade of one of the live oaks, and took care of business.
“Good girl,” Traci said, taking out the plastic poop bag she’d stuffed in her back pocket, along with her phone.
As she was stooping, her phone pinged with a notification from the Ring camera at her front door.
She opened the app and stared in horror at the grainy image of a man in a hoodie standing on her front porch, peering into the house through the sidelights on either side of the door. He was dressed in baggy gym shorts, with the hood pulled low over his forehead, but she recognized him. Garrett Wycoff. Had she locked the front door after Whelan left?
She turned and began sprinting back toward the house as fast as she could. She stopped twenty yards short of the house, crouching down behind a tree. Hands shaking, she scrolled through her contact list and tapped Ray Bierbower’s number. It rang three, then four times. “This is Ray,” his voice mail said. “Leave me a message.”
“Ray,” she whispered. “This is Traci. I just got a Ring notification. There’s a man standing on the front porch of my house. I think he’s trying to break in. I’m out on the golf course with my dog, but Felice is in the house alone. Please send a patrol car ASAP.”
Her next call was to Whelan. As pissed as he was with her, would he even pick up?
“Hey,” he said, his voice holding lingering traces of his annoyance.
“Whelan, I’m out on the golf course, walking Lola. I just saw Garrett on my Ring camera. He’s at the house, and Felice is there, alone.”
“Jesus,” Whelan said. “Did you call nine-one-one?”
“It’ll take forever for them to get here from the mainland,” Traci said. “I left a message for Ray Bierbower. Can you come back here? Please?”
“I’m just across the causeway. I’ll turn around. But you stay away from the house, okay? In the meantime, call nine-one-one and stay put until Bierbower or the cops or me get to your place. Understand?”
“Felice is there by herself,” Traci said. “What if he—”
“He won’t.”
She called 911, and then the sheriff’s number, repeating the request for help.
“We’ll have a unit out there within fifteen minutes,” the dispatcher said.
“Hurry,” Traci whispered.
She peered around the trunk of the tree in time to see a light snap on in the kitchen. To her horror, she spotted Garrett through the glass storm door, shoving Felice into the room at gunpoint. Felice was in her scrubs, her hair bound up in a wrap. Even from this distance, Traci could see the terrified look on her face. Garrett was shouting something at her, but Felice was shaking her head.
Lola let out a low, guttural growl. She was standing at alert, her ears set back and quivering, body rigid, tail tucked, teeth bared.
“No,” Traci whispered. “Easy, girl. Easy.”
She bent down to scoop her up, but it was too late. Lola rocketed forward, her barking sharp and frenzied, trailing the leash and handle behind as Traci raced to try to intercept the dog, who was faster and focused on her rescue mission.
Garrett froze, uncertain of what was happening, then turned toward the door, gun in hand.
In that moment, Felice leaped forward and kicked Garrett squarely in the groin.
He screamed and fell to his knees and Felice, emboldened, kicked him again, with a ferocity that frightened and impressed Traci, who yanked the kitchen door open. Somehow, Garrett was still clutching the gun in one hand, while protectively cupping his genitals with the other. Lola was on him now, snarling and snapping.
“Get the gun,” Felice cried, raising her bandaged hands above her head while raining blow after blow on the downed man with her bare feet. She stood, looking down at Garrett, who was writhing in agony on the floor.
“How you like that, motherfucker? You gonna point a motherfuckin’ gun in my face? You gonna drug me and my bestie and try to burn us alive?”
She planted her foot hard in the middle of his face. His nose burst open, spurting blood.
Traci stomped hard on Garrett’s gun hand. He yowled, and Traci kicked the gun, sending it skittering across the kitchen floor. She picked it up and pointed it at Garrett. “Don’t move.”
Whelan was the first to arrive on the scene. When he burst through the kitchen door the first thing he saw was Traci, sitting on a barstool, pointing a gun at the intruder. The second thing he saw was Felice, seated at the kitchen table with Lola in her lap, glowering down at the intruder.
The third thing he saw was Garrett Wycoff on the floor, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey with what looked like the cord from Lola’s retractable leash. His face was swollen, his nose a bloody, pulpy mess.
“What happened here?” he asked Traci.
“Lola doesn’t like it when criminals break into our house,” she said wearily. “Plus, he pulled a motherfuckin’ gun on Felice. He got what he had coming.”