Rivals by David Wellington Page A

what
happened. The question is what happens next. Look, Weathers, I can fix this.
I can talk my grandmother out of pressing charges. And I can talk to Maggie,
make her understand that we can’t go on like this. I’m the only one she’ll
listen to. But you have to help me, too. You have to promise you’ll go easy
on her.”
    “I just want
to make sure nobody else gets hurt,” Weathers told him. “Alright. You have a
deal. If you can defuse this situation, if you can bring your sister in so I
can talk to her, I’ll make sure she gets full marks for cooperation.”
    That wasn’t
what Brent had been asking for, but maybe it was the best he was going to get.
    “Of course,
you’ll have to find her before you can talk to her.”
    Brent scowled.
“You don’t know where she is?”
    “As I’ve said
before, the Bureau don’t waste its time following around American citizens.
Though in Maggie’s case that may have to change, now. No, I have no idea where
she went after leaving your house today.”
    Brent bit his
lip. He had no idea, either. He tried to put himself in her shoes. Where
would Maggie go if she felt like everything was crashing in on her? Mom’s
grave? Starbuck’s? Nothing seemed right.
    Lucy put a
hand on his arm. “Where would you go, if you’d just hurt your Grandma?” she
asked.
    He closed his
eyes and tried to imagine it. He had to fight his own instincts, which told
him that he would never, ever hurt a member of his family. He had so few of
them left. But when he got past that, the answer was clear.
    “I’d go see
you,” he told Lucy.
    She nodded.
“So who’s your sister’s best friend?”

Chapter 19.
     
    Special Agent
Weathers drove them straight over to Mandy Hunt’s house—or what was left
of it. Brent could see right away he’d picked the right friend. Maggie had
been there, and she hadn’t left through the front door.
    Not that he
could see a front door. The entire front side of the house had collapsed
inward, broken boards and sheared-off rebar sticking up at crazy angles, the
roof slumped over a gaping hole where the front wall had been. Water sprayed
diagonally across the street from ruptured pipes and fires were starting to smolder
in the heaps of shingles and broken plaster that spilled across the driveway
and into the road.
    If Maggie had
dropped a bomb on the place, it might have done less damage. But Brent knew
instantly what had really happened. She had been in such a rush to leave she
had punched her way out right through the house. It didn’t surprise him that
she was capable of wreaking such havoc. He knew her strength, since he shared
it.
    “Stay in the
car, I’m calling the fire department,” Weathers announced, but Brent had
already pushed his door open and jumped out onto the sidewalk.
    “Come back
here, Gill,” the FBI man shouted, lowering his window. “I can’t let you go in
there! It’s an insurance nightmare.”
    “There might
be people in there, and they could be dead by the time the firefighters get
here. Stay with him, Luce,” Brent said, and in the backseat Lucy nodded. Her
face was wide open, her eyes locked on the destroyed house.
    Finally, he
thought. A chance to do some real good. Nobody could debate that saving people
from a collapsing house was heroic, or noble, or worth doing. Standing by and
waiting with Weathers would be unthinkable.
    Brent jumped
into the mess and grabbed a steel beam that had fallen across the front of the
house. Straining a little, he pushed it up over his head and then jumped
inside. It fell back behind him and the whole house swayed, but he was inside,
in what might have been a living room once though it was hard to tell. Ahead
of him was the kitchen, still largely intact but wreathed in flames.
    “Hello!” he
shouted. “Is there anyone in here?” He would feel pretty stupid if there
wasn’t. There was no answer, but anyone in the wreckage might be unconscious.
He pushed through the kitchen, flames licking