Mark’s boots slammed against the asphalt as he cleared the lawn, adrenaline vaporizing all holiday cheer. He didn’t think; he just launched himself, tackling the man in the black jacket and sending them both crashing hard onto the freezing suburban street.
“Hey! What the—” the man grunted, struggling as Mark pinned his shoulders to the pavement.
“Sarah, get her out!” Mark roared.
Sarah didn’t hesitate. She threw herself at the dark grey trash bin, her heart hammering against her ribs. She expected muffled screams, blood, or worse. Reaching in, she grabbed the denim-clad legs sticking out of the garbage and hauled them upward with all her might.
They came loose instantly. Too easily.
Sarah stumbled backward, her stomach dropping. She was holding nothing but an empty pair of jeans tucked into black boots, stuffed tight with tightly rolled bubble wrap. There was no torso. No woman.
“What…” Sarah gasped, dropping the fake legs onto the pavement.
A sharp, metallic *click* broke the sudden silence behind her.
Sarah froze. Slowly turning around, she found the “wife”—very much whole, very much not in the trash bin—stepping out from the shadows of a parked SUV. She was holding a suppressed Glock 19, aimed squarely at Sarah’s chest.
Beneath Mark, the man in the black jacket suddenly stopped struggling. He chuckled, effortlessly sweeping a stunned Mark off his chest and flipping him onto his back.
“Took you long enough to leave your porch,” the man said, his panicked demeanor instantly replaced by ice-cold professionalism.
The woman with the gun smirked, kicking the fake legs aside. “We knew you two weren’t real neighbors,” she said, nodding toward the dropped wreath. “You’ve been fiddling with that same strand of wire for three days, Agent Walker.”
Mark and Sarah exchanged a horrified glance as the trap snapped shut. They weren’t the ones on a stakeout anymore.
They were the targets.