Deep Sleep (Devin Gray, #1)

by Steven Konkoly

The patio was packed tonight. Four residents and a visitor—a middle-aged woman busy preparing a plate of cheese and crackers for her father. Or grandfather. Helen hoped to be long gone before she reached that golden age of ambiguity, and given the likely response to Wilson’s kidnapping, she stood a good chance of skipping the nursing-home stage altogether. If they caught up to her before she could convince the agency to protect her, she’d end up in a gently heated barrel of lye. Turned into a DNA slurry over the course of several days and unceremoniously poured down a drain. Still sounded marginally better than melting into a bed here over the course of several years.

The guy made the decision for him, thrusting with the knife and taking a small, noncommittal step forward—a basic feint designed to test Devin’s discipline. He kept the baton raised and remained in place, eliciting a grimace from his attacker. The man had just accepted the basic reality of their predicament. This would end terribly for one of them, and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t be him.