Chapter 17: Five Hundred Fifty Yards

"Ronan."

I had his shirt in my fist and his shoulder in the other.

He woke fast.

"Crane," I said. "A rifle, aimed at the terrace."

He was at the window in one stride, and he did not need the glass.

"Sean drinks his coffee out there at six," he said. "Every day for twenty years."

"Chester knows that."

"Chester knows everything about this house."

The clock on the nightstand said 5:56.

"I'll get Sean," Ronan said.

"I'll get the rifle."

"Erin, the nearest one is..."

"Under the terrace table," I said. "You keep one under every long table."

He stared at me for half a second.

Then he almost smiled, and he grabbed his trousers.

I took his shirt off the floor and ran barefoot down the back stairs.

The terrace doors were glass.

Beyond them, the flagstones were gray with early light, and the iron table stood in the middle with two chairs.

I went out low.

The rifle was in an oilcloth roll beneath the table, loaded, with the bolt oiled.

I unrolled it on the stone and dropped flat.

Across the water, past the moored tugs and the long fat curve of the harbor, the crane's black arm hung against the pink sky.

I put my eye to the scope.

Five hundred fifty yards.

Exactly the distance from the dock at seven.

I laughed once, silently, because I could not help it.

Chester had always liked a callback.

He lay on the arm, in his blue cap, with a rifle in his right hand and his left wrapped in a stained white bandage.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Of All the Fake Heiresses I've Met, You're the Stupidest from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.