Shiver

standing on the second step from the top, almost invisible in the gloom as he pressed himself flat against the wall on the far side of the staircase.
    Frowning, she was just about to say Tyler when his demeanor stopped her. From that alone, her heart was already slamming in her chest when she reached the top and looked down the stairs. At what she saw at the bottom, she stopped breathing: Abramowitz lay sprawled on his stomach at the entrance to the great room. By the faint glow that seemed to be emanating from the kitchen, where the light was apparently still on, she was able to see that there was a great gaping wound in his neck and that the dark stain soaking into the carpet around him was blood.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
     

     
    I nside her head, Sam screamed like a steam whistle, but she didn’t make so much as a sound out loud. Instead, as her son’s wide eyes swung around to her, she pressed her finger to her lips in the age-old gesture of hush, reached out, and caught his hand.
    His fingers were as cold as ice. They locked onto hers as if he were never going to let her go. Heart jackhammering, being as quiet as it was possible to be, she drew him back up the stairs toward her. As soon as he was off the stairs and in the hallway she whispered “Shh” in his ear and pulled him with her in a headlong run down the hall.
    Thank God for the carpet! It muffled their footsteps as they fled as one toward Marco’s room and burst through the doorway that she had left open just a few minutes before. His light was still off, but Sam could see him: he was on his feet by the closet. He’d gotten dressed while she’d been gone, in what, by the dark outline of his shape that was really all of him that she could make out through the shadows, looked like sweats anda T-shirt similar to what she was wearing. Clearly startled by their sudden eruption into the room, Marco swung around to face them.
    “Shh,” Sam warned him in a barely audible but urgent whisper before he could say anything. She was so scared that she could feel goose bumps racing over her skin.
    “They’re here! The bad men,” Tyler blurted, whispering, too, as he made a beeline for Marco.
    “They killed Abramowitz! He’s down there on the floor!” Sam only realized that she had rushed for Marco right along with Tyler when she found herself wrapping her arms around his chest while Tyler grabbed him somewhere around his hips. Marco was only using one crutch for support. Despite that he was apparently pretty steady on his feet because he didn’t so much as stagger as they latched onto him. Instead his arm came around Sam to pull her close even as he peered at them through the darkness.
    “Abramowitz is dead? How?” Marco’s whisper was sharp. She thanked God that he was astute enough not to waste time on the whole what? and are you sure? thing but instead cut right to the chase.
    “Just dead, okay?” She didn’t want to get too graphic with Tyler listening. “He’s lying at the bottom of the stairs. I think whoever killed him is in the house right now!” Striving for calm, Sam failed miserably. She was practically jumping out of her skin. At any second, she expected gunmen to come storming up to the second floor. At the thought, panic surged through her veins in an icy tide.
    “Trey, hurry! We’ve got to get out of here!” Tyler’s whisper sounded as terrified as Sam felt. He looked up at Sam with eyes the size of saucers. Still hanging onto Marco, he was jiggling from foot to foot in agitation. Sam wrapped an arm around him, which pretty much completed the circle for a big group hug.
    “Don’t worry, bud. I got this.” From its tone, Marco’s whisper was meant to be reassuring. Tyler obviously trusted him implicitly, because the reassurance seemed to calm him. Despite the fact that Sam had a way clearer idea about whom and what they were facing than her son, it calmed her a little, too. Even with everything she knew about Marco, her heart persisted in identifying him as someone she and Tyler could rely on in a tight spot. In a deadly spot. Like this.
    “Tyler’s right. We’ve got to go now. ” Fear, thick and cold and oily, rose up in her throat like bile. Swallowing hard, Sam remembered her little research project, the one where she’d checked out all possible exits from all possible areas of the house, and realized that she knew the perfect spot for their escape. “We can go out Tyler’s bedroom window. Come on. ”
    She