Riley (The Kendall Family #3)
Read Riley (The Kendall Family #3) Online
Authors: Randi Everheart
Chapter 9 – A Hot Summer Night
Chapter 13 – The Mile High Club
Chapter 18 – Flights of Hearts
RILEY
A Kendall Family Novel
Volume 3
by Randi Everheart
Copyright © 2015 Randi Everheart / Fire Heart Books
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means; electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any semblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Chapter 1 – The Target
Jordan Hunt gazed through the sight on her sniper rifle and checked a sigh. “Killing this guy would be a shame,” she muttered to herself, “but a job’s a job.”
Riley Kendall sat shirtless in his living room, six-pack abs rippling beneath a muscled chest as he cleaned a handgun. His torso bore its share of scars, some looking like bullet holes and others like knife wounds. Four tattoos covered his powerful arms: a dragon on his right bicep, an eagle on the left, a snake on his left forearm, and a dagger on the right. Jordan wanted to kiss his thick neck and feel the corded muscles in those arms holding her fast as he manhandled her. Normally the idea of submitting to a man didn’t sit so well with her, but something about him stirred her interest. Then again, maybe it was just because she was about to murder him in the prime of his life. That had never made her feel romantic about her victim before, but there’s a first time for everything.
She used the view port to admire his cobalt-blue eyes, softer than she would have expected given his otherwise macho appearance. A crew cut matched the black stubble outlining his strong jaw. Even if she hadn’t read his dossier, she’d have known at once that he was a Marine. A sniper, like her. Those gentle eyes made her wonder if he was a sweetheart under the typical bravado of military guys. Part of her had always wanted that even though most of them turned out to be pigs.
“I could just wound him,” she murmured, “and go steal a kiss before finishing him. Tie him up, have some fun.” She chuckled, then realized those thoughts were a distraction. “Better stop that or I won’t be able to do this.”
To collect her composure, Jordan put the gun down and picked up her binoculars to scan for witnesses again. Few were likely, for most houses in rural Comus, Maryland sat on at least an acre, and the Kendall family’s property spanned dozens. His green and black Harley-Davidson Night Rod Special sat on the otherwise empty driveway of the guest house he called home. A dog that had been sniffing around had trotted off to the bigger, main house owned by Riley’s brother. Jordan couldn’t see any activity over there because of the trees separating the houses.
A hundred yards off to one side stood the family-owned Sugarloaf Stables; two barns and other, smaller buildings peeked through the foliage. A number of horses were grazing in the surrounding fields, but one of the outdoor riding rings had three riders in it. Jordan had been waiting an hour for them to disappear.
“Maybe they’re used to hearing gun shots,” she speculated, “and won’t think anything of it, but then maybe they will.”
Riley had a makeshift gun range set up behind the guesthouse, the targets being just below her perch on a hillside so that she was firing in the opposite direction from whomever might be using the range. Despite the way movies portrayed them, gun silencers only lowered the sound of a gunshot by a few decibels; no one would fail to hear or recognize the sound. Her shot could be mistaken for his, though usually people at a range fire more than the one bullet she anticipated needing. She seldom missed, and never had at this close range.
She trained her gaze on other houses nearby but saw no activity outside. Behind her, the twelve-hundred-foot Sugarloaf Mountain dominated the mostly flat landscape. A trail led back up to a lookout where her rental car sat, but she was fifty feet from the trail and no one had been hiking in this area when she came down an hour ago, or since. She could’ve made the shot from farther than she was, as only a hundred yards separated her from Riley, but increasing the distance invited witnesses. Besides, she needed proof that he was a corpse to get paid the other half of her fee. A photo of his body would require going down there once he was dead.
Seeing all of the riders exit the ring, she decided now was the time.
“Okay, baby-blue-eyes,” she said to him, settling into position again, “time to sleep forever.”
She suspected Riley had the window open because many of the cleaners used for gun care smelled like hell. It didn’t change her shot, but the absence of shattered glass might make it harder for cops to determine where a bullet had come from. She didn’t intend to clean up the place she was shooting from. The loose leaves and vegetation would prevent anyone, including her, from easily finding the shell casing from her bullet, which didn’t have her fingerprints on it anyway. She’d made sure of that. She took aim and waited for him to stop moving so much. When he picked up a gun barrel and rag, the time had come.
Jordan pulled the trigger. The shot rang out.
But at the same moment, Riley dropped the barrel and leaned forward sharply to retrieve it. Her bullet shattered the glass covering a framed photo behind him. Keeping her cool, she waited for him to straighten up and look around like many victims did, making a second shot easy, but she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t. He likely knew better.
Stifling a sigh, she dropped the rifle, and pulled on a camouflage ski mask that matched the rest of her clothing. She began working her way toward the house as fast as possible while trying to stay unseen. Killing him up close and personal would be harder but might just be worth it to get a closer look at those blue eyes before she snuffed the life out of them forever.
* * *
When the glass in the picture frame shattered amid a rifle’s familiar echo, Riley Kendall threw himself to the floor. No one fired shots at his private range but him and his family, and no one shot in the opposite direction by accident. Someone had just tried to kill him.
Adrenaline pumping, he glared at the ruined picture of his mother. He’d kill whoever had destroyed it. First he needed a gun, but the bullet’s trajectory eliminated getting the one he’d been cleaning because he’d get shot going for it. There were only so many places from which a sniper could fire a rifle into the living room, which was at the house’s rear, facing the mountain. The shot had to have come from near his targets, and directly above them. That limited his options for reaching the gun chest in the upper guest room, too.
“Stairs are out,” he muttered.
His dog, Coby, scampered down the steps, nails clattering on the hardwood.
“Down,” Riley commanded, and the dog lay at the bottom of the stairs, ears perked up. He’d trained his best friend as a guard dog but didn’t want him getting shot.
Riley glanced up at the table; he could have tipped it to slide the remaining gun pieces to him, but he likely didn’t have time to assemble the weapon. The Nighthawk T4 handgun he used for work was sitting in its holster near the front door. If he made it to the hallway by sliding across the floor, solid walls would be between him and the shooter. He set off and made it there easily, then crawled around the corner with Coby beside him. Once there, he almost stood up but realized more than one person might be out there. Crouching, he made it down the hall and grabbed the holster off the table in the foyer and removed the gun from it.
It would take a minute for a sniper to reach him, especially if trying to remain hidden along the way, and he knew the shooter had to try. Most snipers knew enough about their target to make the kill easier, and that meant the guy knew Riley was a sniper, too, which meant that if the assassin came across the open field out back, Riley could pick him off. That meant he had a couple minutes.
Riley had been hunted before. The key to survival was being unpredictable. Be where the killer did not expect you to be. With that in mind, he ducked into the garage and clicked the button to open it. That should lure the assassin that way.
“Find Quinn,” he said to the dog, and Coby bolted through the garage and down the pavement toward his brother’s house. He wasn’t sure Coby would bring Quinn back, but he had to get rid of the dog. When the assassin entered the house, the sound of Coby’s claws would give away both Riley’s and the dog’s position.
Riley slipped back inside, locking the door before discreetly peeking through a front window. No sign of activity except Coby rapidly disappearing. If he knew the sniper was alone, he might’ve gone out that way. Instead, he locked the front door and moved to the side of the house farthest from the garage, where he opened a kitchen window and lifted up the screen. Going outside was a risk, especially if the shooter had help, but the garage door should’ve drawn all the attention away from his location.
He slipped outside, booted feet landing in the grass between several bushes. He ducked behind them. The drop happened so fast no one could’ve shot him even had they seen his escape, but he moved away from the shrubbery anyway, to the house’s rear corner, where he looked across the backyard. Again he saw no movement, but the nearby trees had enough underbrush for someone to hide behind. So did the line of foliage on the garage side. Nothing but treetops and the rounded peak of Sugarloaf Mountain greeted his eyes. Never before had he realized his yard offered so many chances to pick off someone. While he waited for a sign, the hot summer sun beat down on his bare shoulders and reminded him that his bulletproof vest was upstairs.
With nothing happening, he peered around the corner across the rear of the house just in time to see a single camouflage boot lift from the ground and disappear inside the house’s back door. The assassin was already inside, faster than expected, having come down the far side, apparently.
“Answers that question,” he muttered, glad for the knowledge. The advantage was his. On the other hand, the garage door bait hadn’t been taken, so maybe this guy had some brains.
Suddenly he remembered the smartphone in one pocket of his black jeans. His cousin Isabel was something of a geek and had helped Riley install and set up security cameras at the family businesses. On a lark, Riley had her install some in the house. An app on his phone let him see inside when he was gone and even tilt and pan the cameras remotely. Quickly, he grabbed the phone, accessed the app, and pulled up a screen that let him see multiple cameras at once.
And there, in the living room, stood the sniper, a silver Colt Defender revolver sweeping side to side in one hand as his head swiveled quickly. Riley knew the guy was assessing with every second, and listening, too. The shooter moved right for the camera on the corner table and Riley frowned, expecting what came next as the assassin reached behind it for the plug. The image went black.
“Oh, well,” he said, unruffled. “Time for a Plan B.”
Thinking hard about how to handle this, he waited for the assassin to appear in another camera and suspected it would be the kitchen. Anyone with half a brain cleared a floor first before going to another. The seconds ticked by while the guy likely checked the hall bathroom and foyer. Then the killer entered the kitchen, moving straight for the camera overlooking Coby’s food and water bowls. Head scanning back and forth, the intruder’s gaze settled on the open window as one hand reached for the camera’s cord. When the camera went black, Riley realized he had just seconds before the assassin stuck a head out that window and saw him at the corner.
He tucked the gun into his waistband and quietly hurried back to the window. A little hand-to-hand combat would spice up his morning and keep the target alive for questioning. He crouched beneath the sill and flattened against the wall. If he stood to either side, the assassin could see him more easily, but the only way to be certain Riley wasn’t under the window was to stick a head out.