The figure raised a gun and pointed it at him.
This time, she was going to shoot him.
It figured.
He always had bad luck.
"Stop!" the woman on the stairs said. "Stop or I'll shoot, Mr. Collins!"
Collins stopped, catching to the bannister. He squinted hard, and as a stereoptic slide lost its depth when you shut one eye, the woman on the stairs was no longer his mother. She was young, pretty, brunette and sweet-faced, and the gun she held shrunk from an old Army Colt to a .22 target pistol.
"Who are you?" Collins demanded.
The girl took a grip on the gun with both hands and held it steady on him.
"I'm Nancy Comstock," she said. "You tried to assault my mother a half hour ago."