by Karen Rose
A van. There was a black, windowless van sitting there, its engine idling. Fuck.
He changed views, checking the basement, and some of his tension subsided. The kids were still there, exactly as he’d left them. This house had not been breached.
But there was a van in his drive and that meant someone had figured it out. How had they known? How had they known to come here? Someone had told. His pulse started to race and he changed cameras to the one in his home office.
And his heart simply stopped. A man was in his office, sitting at his goddamn desk. Staring at his computer. From this camera angle he had no idea what the man was looking at, but did it matter? There were people in his house. Cops. Cops were in his house. Touching his things. He roared his outrage, tabbing the camera view from room to room.
They were in every room in his house except the basement, but they hadn’t tripped the house’s alarm. How the fuck had they not tripped the alarm? And then he knew.
‘Mallory,’ he said quietly. The girl was going to die, so damn painfully.
But he had to deal with the assholes on his property first.
He drew a breath and switched views to the office at the practice. Someone had been there too. File drawers were open and empty and all the computers had been removed.
They knew. Everyone knew.
Macy would be the first kid to die. Let Mallory live with that.
He switched to Gemma’s house. Her body was no longer on the bed. His hand shaking, he picked up the phone and dialed Bob’s cell. It rang and rang and then went to voicemail. Bob never let his phone go to voicemail. Especially when I call.
They’d gotten him, too. And Bob was such a spineless pussy, he’d probably spilled the beans right away. But Bob didn’t know about this place. Nobody had known. How were they here? How had they found him?
It didn’t matter. He needed to get away.
Just breathe, he commanded himself. You’ve got leverage. Lots of leverage.
But few weapons. He’d left everything back at home, in his basement. He had two guns – his own nine millimeter and the service weapon that had belonged to the cop he’d shot back at the Kroger.
Just focus on getting the hell out of here. Get the kids and get out of here.
He started to move, then froze. His monitor was changing views, and he wasn’t doing it.
Someone had taken control of his surveillance system. The guy sitting at my desk.
Locking his jaw, he tapped a few keys. His self-destruct code. His screen went bright white then immediately dark. He couldn’t see the van anymore, but they couldn’t see him either.
Get the kids, he said to himself, and then get the fuck out of here.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Saturday 15 August, 9.43 P.M.
‘Quincy, what are you doing?’ Kate asked as the monitor began cycling through Edwards’s other properties, her heart sinking because she already knew the answer.
They’d been made.
‘That’s not me,’ Quincy said through the console. ‘He’s taken control. I can’t take it again until he lets go of his mouse or his keyboard or whatever he’s using.’ The monitor stopped on Macy’s bedroom, Gemma’s body no longer on the bed. The ME had taken her away.
The monitor went back to the studio house. ‘That’s me controlling now,’ Quincy said, just as it blazed bright, then went dark. ‘He’s pulled the plug. We’re blind.’
‘Hold on,’ Troy said grimly, and the van took off like a shot, bouncing them around like bobbers in a stream as the tires hit every damn pothole in the road. ‘If he knows we’re coming, we might as well get there as fast as possible.’
‘At least if we’re blind,’ Decker said grimly, ‘then he is too.’
‘There’s that,’ Kate allowed. ‘Okay, Troy, new plan. I’m going to find a tree with a view into the garage. He’ll try to get away and he’ll probably have at least one kid with him.’
‘It’ll be Macy,’ Decker said. ‘He has to know Mallory helped us.’
‘Agreed.’ Kate nodded. ‘And that’s the best of the worst, because she’s small. She won’t be the shield one of the older kids would have been. If I get a shot, I’m taking it. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Troy said, swinging up to the house and pulling onto the grass. He did a quick three-point turn so that the front of the van was facing the road and the back was pointing towards the back of the house. He killed the van’s lights, interior and exterior. ‘Adam, you and I are going around back to break in through one of the basement windows. Other than Kate, I may be the only one skinny enough to get through those windows. I’ll lift the kids out, hopefully before he gets down there. Quince, get us some ambulances. Have them wait at the end of the drive for our signal, because I don’t want them driving into a firefight. Trip, you and Decker stay here. Trip, be ready to take any kids we’re able to bring out through the window and put them in the van. Decker, you’re the driver. We’ll get the kids and get out. But if I give you the signal, you leave with as many kids as we can save, got it? Do not stick around and wait for us if I tell you to go. It means we’re compromised. We save as many as we can. Everybody got it?’
To a person they nodded.
‘Go,’ Troy said grimly. ‘Don’t get killed.’
Kate took a last look at Decker. He was staring hard at her. Be safe.
She nodded. You too. Then she took off for the trees, hoping for the best.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Saturday 15 August, 9.45 P.M.
Decker watched Kate run away from him, her rifle slung over her back. In less than a minute she’d disappeared up a tree with an agility he should have expected.
She’d been that graceful when she’d ridden him in bed. He prayed they’d make it out so that she could do it again.
He and Trip didn’t speak, both of them on edge. From the driver’s seat, Decker could see the front face of the house, including the garage door, which opened as they’d expected.
‘He won’t be able to start the minivan,’ he said quietly to Trip. ‘The OnStar security feature allows them to disable the ignition. Be prepared for some—’
An enraged roar came from the garage.
‘Anger,’ Decker finished.
‘I’ve got her!’ It was Edwards, and he was yelling. ‘I have the cop’s kid and I will kill her without blinking.’
Decker met Trip’s eyes in the side mirror. Trip was pointing to the back corner of the house, where Adam had a bound teenager under one arm. Trip took off running towards Adam, neither of them visible to Edwards from the garage.
‘I am not coming out!’ Edwards screamed. ‘I know you’ve got rifles out there. If you want this kid alive, you’ll escort me out of here. You will be my cover. And you’ll give me your van. I am not kidding! Otherwise the cop’s kid dies and the rest die next. I have nothing to lose.’
And that was true.
Kate couldn’t make her shot unless Edwards came out of the garage.
Trip laid the first teen in the back of the van with a tenderness and care that came as no surprise. ‘I heard him,’ he said. ‘What’re you gonna do?’
‘I’m going to try to lure him out,’ Decker said in a low whisper. ‘You go back and tell Adam and Troy to hurry.’
He took the keys from the ignition. If Edwards managed to make a break for it, at least he wouldn’t be able to drive away. Not without taking me out first. Then, drawing his gun in his left hand, and gripping his walking stick in his right, he edged across the house. He paused when he came to the open garage door, then peeked around the corner. Edwards stood next to the inoperable minivan, a bound and gagged Macy held against him, his left arm around the child’s middle. He seemed to have regained some of the use of his right arm, because he had a good grip on the gun he held at Macy’s head.
Macy was alive, but her eyes were glazed and glassy and she didn’t even blink at Decker. She was either drugged, frozen with fear, or catatonic. Or maybe all of the above.
‘I see you, Davenport,’ Edwards said with a sneer. ‘They sent their cripple? Really?’
‘Really,’ Decker said evenly. ‘Everybody else was camped out in your house, playing with your toys, while I found this place. They’re on their way.’
‘Right,’ Edwards scoffed. ‘That bitch Coppola probably has her rifle trained on the door here, waiting for me to step outside.’
As if by design, the light in the garage door opener timed out and went dark.
Edwards laughed. ‘Not going to be so easy to see me now, is it?’
Decker backed up a few inches, leaning the stick against the outer wall of the house long enough to depress the talk button on the radio hanging on his tactical vest. He grabbed the stick and leaned forward again, until he could see Edwards.
Now the others could hear and hopefully plan accordingly.
‘Considering she’s not here, it’s immaterial.’
Edwards laughed again. ‘You’re a good liar. And that’s a compliment coming from me.’
‘Thank you. But I’m not lying. I figured out where you were and took off at warp speed. I told the others to follow.’
‘Uh-huh. And just how did you figure out where I was?’
He’s curious, Decker thought. That was good. And not completely unexpected. The man was a total narcissist. ‘I’m an accountant, Edwards. I follow the goddamn money.’
‘Huh. You’re really an accountant? I thought that was a cover.’
‘No, the bodyguard for drug-dealing, human-trafficking sociopathic killers part was a cover. I’ve got my CPA and everything, for real. I’m a card-carrying forensic accountant, so I started combing through your brother-in-law’s accounts after we found he’d shot himself in the fucking head – which is really messy, by the way. He ruined the inside of the Honda that I’m guessing you bought for him because he wasn’t making enough money to buy it on his own.’
Decker was talking off the top of his head. Just need to give the others time to get the kids out of the basement. But he’d just told a little girl that her father had killed himself. Dammit. He hoped Macy was too drugged to understand or remember what he’d just said.
‘Ah, fuck,’ Edwards spat. ‘Bob killed himself? Well, that’s better than getting caught. He could have spilled some serious secrets.’
‘Yeah, but his social security number told secrets of its own. Like the houses he owned. Which included this one.’
Which wasn’t true, but it occurred to him that they could have done it that way. Maybe even more easily than the whole OnStar tracking biz. So it apparently also made enough sense for Edwards to believe.
Edwards was quiet for several seconds, but Decker could no longer see his face. ‘Well, they do say the geeks shall inherit the earth,’ he said finally. ‘Well done, Davenport. Now take me to your van, or I will splatter this child’s brains all over these walls.’
From the corner of his eye, Decker saw movement in the trees. Just a flash of pale skin. Kate had jumped out of the tree. Changing her position to better attack.
Good girl. ‘If I do what you say, I want you to leave Macy here with me.’
‘Oh no,’ Edwards said. ‘You’re coming with me. You’ll be driving. I will continue to hold this pretty little girl just like this.’
‘Okay. Just don’t hurt her. Please.’
‘Drop your gun. Kick it this way.’
Decker hesitated, then obeyed. ‘There. Now you have my gun. It’s the only one I’m carrying. You want to frisk me?’
Edwards chuckled. ‘You’re funny. I like that.’ He kicked the gun under the minivan. ‘Just in case you get second thoughts.’
Buddy, if I get second thoughts, I don’t need a gun. I can break your neck like a fucking twig. But Decker didn’t say that. ‘That was my favorite gun,’ he complained instead.
‘Let me see the keys to the van,’ Edwards snapped.
Decker held the key ring between his thumb and forefinger and jingled it. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get out of here.’
Decker laughed bitterly. ‘You don’t know where you’re going because you got no place to hide. But that’s fine. I guess you’ll figure it out after I help you get away and then you kill me.’
‘Aw, don’t be like that,’ Edwards mocked. ‘Cover me, Davenport. I don’t believe you’re here alone, and if your bitch is out there, I don’t want her to get a clear aim at anything vital. You’re my shield, big guy, so spread those arms. Make yourself useful.’
Decker obeyed, extending one arm wide. ‘I need the other hand for the cane. I just got out of a coma, you know,’ he added sarcastically. ‘No thanks to you.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Edwards said, sounding disgruntled. ‘No tricks.’
Decker looked over Edwards’s head to see the door from the garage into the house creep open and Troy slip through. He had his gun drawn and pointed at Edwards.
But Troy could see the hold Edwards had on Macy. Edwards’s finger was poised on the trigger, and the smallest twitch meant Macy would be dead. Being on the receiving end of a head shot could result in one hell of a twitch. So Troy stayed back. But he was there. Which meant all the kids were out and safe. Decker stepped back, giving Edwards just enough room to edge out of the garage. He used his body to guide Edwards so that the man’s back was to the far side of his house.
Where Kate had crept. She showed herself to Decker then stepped back into the shadows, waiting for her opportunity. He needed to get Edwards’s gun away from Macy’s head so she could take her shot.
His hand clenched on the brass grip of his borrowed walking stick as a plan started forming in his mind. He hoped Kate was watching, then smiled to himself. Of course she was. She’d probably thought of the plan before he had.
He stumbled on purpose, pretending to overextend the arm that held the stick so he could keep his balance. Shifting his grip, he spun the stick, gripping with both hands as he swung upward, like it was a golf club. The brass ball at the end caught Edwards squarely on his elbow, and Decker followed through, using momentum to drive Edwards’s arm up in an arc, taking the gun along for the ride.
Edwards screamed, stumbling for real, and Decker used the moment to snatch Macy from his left arm. Covering the child with his body, he twisted away, the stick still firmly clutched in one hand. He swung again, hitting Edwards in the back of the head, knocking him to his knees.
With Macy tucked tight against his chest, Decker had time to take only a few steps toward their van before a gun fired twice, both shots hitting him in the back. His vest absorbed them, but it still hurt. Swearing at the pain, he misstepped and staggered, his knees hitting the sidewalk pavers with an audible crack. Throwing his weight to one side, he landed on his shoulder so that he didn’t squash Macy. Then he tucked his head down and gritted his teeth for the next shot.
Gunfire exploded in his ears. But none of it hit him.
It was over in the space of three heartbeats, the resulting silence deafening. Groaning, he rolled to his back to find Trip standing over him, bending to take Macy from his arms. Decker let the girl go and flopped both arms wide.
He hurt. All over. But he wasn’t dead. Neither was Macy. So that was good, right?
He blinked up at the sky, trying to get his bearings. ‘Kate!’ he called. ‘You okay?’
He exhaled, relieved when Kate’s face appeared above his, her brown eyes filled with worry. ‘If you say you’re okay, I’m going to smack you,’ she snapped.
He laughed up at her. ‘I think I cracked my kneecaps, and my back just spasmed. I hurt all over. Does that satisfy you?’
Her
hands shook as she brushed the hair from his face. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re a hard woman, Kate.’ He turned his face into her palm and let himself relax. Let her pet him. ‘You got him?’
She relaxed too, her hands no longer shaking. ‘I did. And Troy did. And Trip, too. But you got him first.’ She grinned, her mood suddenly perking up. ‘Nice moves with the walking stick, Decker. You went all Kung Fu Panda on his ass.’
Adrenaline had hit, leaving them both almost giddy. ‘I most certainly did not,’ he said, affronted. ‘Bruce Lee maybe. Or even Jackie Chan. But no pandas, especially cartoon ones.’
‘Hey, pandas are badass, Decker. They can eat your face.’
He gave her a hot look that made her catch her breath. ‘I’d rather eat—’
‘Decker!’ She covered his mouth with her hand, looking up because Troy had joined them.
‘Children, children,’ Troy said mildly. ‘Decker, do you need an ambulance? We’ve got several en route for the actual children.’
‘God, no. No more ambulances for me.’ He shuddered, suddenly sobered by the thought. ‘Just help me sit up. The pain’s already passing.’ Which was a total lie, but neither of them called him on it. Kate helped him sit, and he closed his eyes until the world stopped spinning. ‘I could sleep for a week, but no ambulances.’
Triplett jogged over to pull him to his feet, and Decker reached for the stick to help keep his balance, but checked the movement even before Troy shook his head.
‘Sorry. The stick’s evidence now. Besides, it’s covered in Professor Asshole’s blood. You don’t want it anymore.’
Kate put her arm around Decker’s waist. ‘I’ll hold you up,’ she said quietly, and he had no doubt that she could.
‘I’ll take you up on it.’ Because he really just needed her hands on him. ‘The kids?’
‘The teenagers are physically okay,’ Troy answered, relieved. ‘They’re scared and dehydrated and hungry. But they’re in emotional shock. Lots of therapy in their future.’