“Yes,” she said.
The other waitress said, “No, I think Brandon is still in the office on the phone or something. I’ll go get him.”
“No, I will,” Carina said. “Just leave.”
She started toward the kitchen, flipping her radio on and discreetly talking into the mic. “Suspect may be alone in the kitchen.” She spotted a woman still sitting at a table making no move to get up. There were two sodas on the table.
“Ma’am, do you have a guest with you?” Carina asked.
“My son is in the bathroom.”
“I need to ask you to leave. There’s a possible gas leak.”
“I’ll wait for my son.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“Just a few minutes.”
Carina had been in the restaurant for six minutes. She hadn’t seen the boy pass her to get to the restrooms, which were off the hall that connected the kitchen—and the rear office—with the main restaurant.
“I’ll get him for you.”
“No, I’ll get him. He’s my son. I don’t know you.”
Carina discreetly flashed her badge. “You can’t go back there.”
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
The panic in her voice caught the attention of the remaining patrons.
“Nothing is wrong. Gas leak. We don’t want anyone getting hurt. I promise, I will get your son.”
The mother was clearly torn. She bit her lip. Carina motioned a waitress over. “What’s your son’s name?”
“Josh. He’s only eight.”
“I will bring him to you. Trust me.”
Without waiting for an answer, Carina nodded for the waitress to escort the mother out.
Carina spoke into her mic. “All units. Potential hostage situation, minor child. Am checking status.”
She glanced back to the front, where she’d left Kyle. He was nowhere to be seen.
Had she made a mistake to trust him?
She stood outside the swinging kitchen doors, back against the wall. She heard a voice in the kitchen, but couldn’t make out the words.
Carina looked into the kitchen through the windows in the doors. Where was Brandon? Where was Kyle?
First, get the boy out. Then secure the suspect. She ran down the short hall to the men’s restroom and entered. “Josh?” she called quietly. “Josh?”
No answer. She looked in the two stalls. The bathroom was empty.
Heart pounding, she checked the women’s room next. Empty. She swallowed her panic.
Her hand on her gun, she left the bathroom and walked right into Brandon. A boy stood in front of him, shaking.
“Josh,” she said.
She was only four feet away from the boy, but she didn’t dare rush him. Carina listened to what Brandon heard. Silence. Distant voices. Ocean waves. Then in the distance, sirens.
He turned and saw her. Did he recognize her? She couldn’t tell.
“Excuse me,” she said, plastering a smile on her face, “thank you for finding my son. Josh, I told you to come right back to the table. The waitress said there’s a gas leak, we need to get out.”
She reached for Josh and Brandon pulled the boy closer to his side.
“I know who you are.” Brandon narrowed his eyes at her.
“Don’t make it worse. Turn yourself in.”
He laughed. “It can’t get worse for me.” He showed her the gun he had on Josh. “Give me your gun.”
“Let the boy go. Let him go. You don’t want to hurt a child.”
“Put your gun on the floor and kick it to me. That’s what they say in the movies, right?” As if demonstrating his knowledge of the theater, he pointed the gun directly at Josh’s head.
Against every instinct, she removed her gun from her fanny pack, placed it on the floor, and kicked it to Brandon.
“Go in the kitchen,” he commanded.
She did, glancing at Josh. “It’s going to be okay, Josh. Focus on me, okay?”
Josh was small for his eight years, with large, trusting brown eyes. Just like Justin’s.
No way in hell was Carina going to get Josh killed.
“Josh, you with me?” she asked quietly.
“Shut up,” Brandon said. Josh squirmed, but Brandon pulled the boy close.
Brandon looked her dead in the eye, gun on the kid. “Denise told me Kyle was here. Where is he?”
“I’m right here.”
Kyle walked through the kitchen doors, hands up.
They stood in the parking lot behind two SWAT vans looking at blueprints of the Sand Shack. Nick, Detective Dean Robertson, SWAT team leader Tom Blade, and several cops. Dean was in charge, and Dillon was on the radio.
“We have line of sight into all areas of the main dining hall. There’s only one window in the kitchen”—Dean placed his finger on the northern wall—“here.”
“My men have line of sight into the kitchen and my top marksman is holding at this position.” Blade pointed to an area on the map thirty yards away. “And another man here”—he pointed—“has sights on the back door. According to my men, Burns has Detective Kincaid and a minor child in the kitchen.”
“What about the bathroom windows?” Nick asked.
“They’re small split glass, no way an adult could fit through,” Blade said.
“We’ve secured the main doors. I want to send men into the main dining hall, but we can’t tell if he’s watching. If he stands here, by the kitchen doors, he’ll be able to see anyone who enters.”
“So we wait,” Dean said. “Let Dillon Kincaid try to negotiate a surrender. He’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“Sir,” Blade interrupted, “isn’t that a conflict? His sister’s in there.”
“Not for me,” Dillon said over the radio. “But we might not have the time. Burns is agitated. He feels trapped. He can and will do anything to get away. Remember, he has nothing to lose.”
“I agree,” Nick said.
“Do we have a line of sight on Kyle Burns?” Dillon asked.
Blade responded. “No, but he hasn’t left the building.”
“He’s in there,” Nick said, pointing to the kitchen. “My instincts tell me he’s right in the middle.”
“Carina said in her last conversation with me that Kyle was being helpful,” Dillon said, “but we need to be cautious.”
“I’ll go in,” Nick said.
“You’re out of your jurisdiction, Sheriff,” Blade countered. “My men have this covered.”
Dillon said, “Sheriff Thomas has experience with killers like Burns. Wire him and let him go in.”
Dean looked from Blade to Nick, nodded. “We’ll position men in the main dining hall if we’re able. Stay away from the kitchen window.”
Nick nodded. He pushed down his fear for Carina’s safety. This was part of the job. She was a fellow officer. His goal was to get the boy and Carina out alive.
Dillon said, “We’ll try talking first, urge him to put down his weapon and release the hostages. But our primary goal is to separate him from the hostages.”
“I understand,” Nick said as Blade fitted him with a Kevlar vest and wired him. If Brandon didn’t voluntarily surrender, their only choice would be to take him down.
“I’m patched through to your frequency,” Dillon said to Nick. “I’ll give you whatever help I can. But trust your instincts, Nick. They’re solid.”
“Ready?” Dean asked him.
“Ready.”
Brandon stared at Kyle.
“When I was talking to you on the phone, you were here. You were here with her.” He waved the gun loosely at Carina, then aimed it back in Josh’s general direction. He didn’t look comfortable with the gun. He may never have used one before. But even the worst shot could kill someone a foot away.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Kyle said.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid!”
“Put down the gun, Brandon, please. Don’t do this.”
Bran
don kept the gun on Josh. Carina had to find a way to distract him. Get him to release the kid. Brandon was standing close to the kitchen doors, his back against the counter. Josh was in front of him. Carina was also in front of him about four feet away, her butt up against the butcher-block-style work island. The stove was to her right, and Kyle was between the doors and the stove.
The work island was full of partially cut vegetables. A seven-inch-long knife rested on the edge, only a foot from Carina’s hand. Knife versus gun and hostage. Not fair odds, but it might be useful.
Brandon had put her gun high on the shelving unit inside the doors to his left, her right. Not easily accessible, as she’d have to stretch to reach it, but not impossible if he were distracted.
“Brandon, I can help you,” Carina said, diverting his attention to her as she continued to assess the situation and Brandon’s state of mind.
“Shut up. You’re a woman. Women lie.”
“But I’m a cop. Leah’s alive, Brandon.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. She’s on her way to the hospital right now. Right before you left the house you tied a garbage bag over her head, but you didn’t wait for her to die. You left. I arrived at your house as you were leaving. Another officer jumped out and found Leah as I followed you.”
“I’m not stupid,” he said. It seemed to be important to him that he be seen as smart, Carina thought. Okay, she could play with that.
“No, you’re not stupid, Brandon. In fact, you’re one of the smartest killers I’ve ever faced.”
“I’m not a killer.”
He said the words without emotion or meaning. He didn’t believe it.
“You almost got away with it,” she said, keeping eye contact with Brandon. Kyle was inching across the room, heading slowly toward the stove. “We had nothing after Angie. You did a good job cleaning her body. We had no evidence.”
A small, smug smile cracked Brandon’s lips, but he didn’t say anything.
“It was Becca that screwed you up.”
“You’re lying. Again,” he added for emphasis.
“We have proof,” she said. “DNA evidence.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe it. Plastic attracts hair. We know you covered Angie with a wool-cotton-blend blanket when you suffocated her. But you didn’t put a blanket on Becca. You wrapped her in plastic wrap, but you laid on top of her as she died. Your hair attached to the plastic.”
“Now I know you’re lying. I shaved my body.” He moved Josh to the side and pulled down his pants just enough to show that he had in fact shaved.
“I didn’t say pubic hair,” she answered quietly. But her mind wasn’t on what she was saying. She was staring at Brandon’s navel. Four rings, including the missing earrings from Becca and Jodi, protruded. One hoop had the shell, leaf, and rose charms of the navel ring in one of Angie’s online pictures.
Carina swallowed her revulsion.
“Do you know why I was asking questions about your father? Because the DNA evidence we found was a close-blood-relative match. That means that a brother, son, nephew, uncle, or first cousin of your father left his DNA on the body of Becca Harrison.”
“Not possible.” Brandon shook his head.
“It’s just us,” Carina said. “You, me, and your brother. No one else will know. But it’s been bugging me since the beginning. Why did you kill Angie? Was it because of her sex diaries? Was it because she wouldn’t go out with you? Why?”
Brandon turned his full attention to her and for the first time, Carina was scared.
There was no soul in Brandon’s ice-blue eyes.
“She was the girl on the tape,” he said simply.
“What tape?” she asked.
He didn’t elaborate, but said almost as cryptically, “When I saw her website I knew it was her, even though she was supposed to be dead. And then she walked into the Shack and everything came together. I’d been watching her on the computer for nearly a year, and she’s real. It was meant to happen. She already died once.”
Carina didn’t know if Brandon really believed what he was saying or if it was some stunt. She pushed.
“What about Becca? Becca Harrison had no Web page, she didn’t look or act like Angie. Why her?”
“Because I couldn’t have Jodi.”
Nick was right, Carina thought. He took Becca because he couldn’t get to the girl he really wanted.
“But why her and not some random woman off the street?”
“She was nice to me.”
Carina forced her face to remain blank at the killer’s revelation. Brandon had lowered his gun. He was still holding on to Josh’s shoulder with his left hand, but his gun hand was level with his leg.
“Why Leah?” Kyle asked, turning Brandon’s attention from Carina to him. “Why did you take Leah? You know her. You’ve always liked her, you said so after I told you Maggie and I were dating.”
“Because Leah reminded me of Becca.”
That didn’t make sense to Carina, but she didn’t push it. Brandon was getting a faraway look in his eyes and she sensed that she would need to act soon or everyone could end up dead. By this time the SWAT team had to be in place. They’d have the building surrounded. She glanced at the partly open slats in the single kitchen window on the wall between the small office and the walk-in storage unit, which led to the service entrance. SWAT would have a view of the people in the kitchen, but Brandon wasn’t at the right angle. Worse, she was between Brandon and the window.
She looked at Josh. The kid was frightened, but he stood straight. The only sign that he was scared was the way his wide brown eyes darted from her to Kyle and back again. Pleading with her to save him.
For a brief moment she pictured her nephew’s large brown eyes pleading with his killer, begging for his life.
Not now, Kincaid. It wouldn’t do her any good to think that way. She caught Josh’s eye and made a connection. Trust me.
“Brandon, what have you done?” Kyle’s voice barely registered, and Carina focused on the scene unfolding in front of her. Kyle had stepped closer to his brother, his hands out, palms up. “You killed Angie? You killed those other women?”
“You’d never understand,” Brandon said.
“No, I don’t. For years I’ve been trying to forget about our father and how he fucked up our lives, and here you are pulling the same shit.”
“Don’t talk to me about Dad! Don’t you see? This is my chance to find him. She”—he waved the gun toward Carina—“knows where he is.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Carina said.
Brandon glared at her. “You were asking questions about him. You’re looking for him, right?”
“He’s wanted by LAPD for rape,” Carina said.
“No, no, you have it all wrong,” Brandon said, moving the gun from Josh to Carina and back. “She lied. She had sex with my dad and then lied about it to get him in trouble.”
“That’s Mom talking!” Kyle exclaimed.
Brandon’s attention turned back to Kyle, and Carina nodded, hoping Kyle saw her. Keep him talking, Kyle. Keep him focused on you.
She inched toward the stove. It was off—the cook had heard about the fictitious gas leak—but the oil for the fries was still hot. If she could get Josh away from Brandon, she might have a distraction until she could get to her clutch piece, the small twenty-two she had tucked in her back waistband.
But Josh had to be safe before she made any aggressive move.
“You always talked shit about Dad,” Brandon said. “You always believed the lies.”
“They weren’t lies! Don’t you see?”
“Stop. Just stop it! I’m going to find Dad and then you’ll see.”
“You won’t find him! He’s dead!”
Brandon stared at Kyle, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything.
“I know he’s dead because I killed him,�
� Kyle said, taking a step toward Brandon. “I killed him. He deserved it.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re just saying that so I give up trying to find him.”
“Our father was a rapist, a sadist. He was bad news all the way around. When he got out of prison he didn’t wait long. Just a few months. And I knew he was going out at night, up to his old tricks. So I followed him.”
Brandon’s focus was solely on Kyle. His grip on Josh hadn’t loosened, however; if anything, it was firmer. The kid winced under the pressure of his fingers.
“I watched him crawl in through the unlocked window. I stood there, saw what he did to that woman. I just stood there and didn’t do anything.” Kyle glanced at Carina, then looked down. “I’ve hated myself ever since. Hated myself for not stopping him. For not calling the cops.”
“You’re lying,” Brandon said.
“I followed him to a bar. I couldn’t go in, but I waited. He came out drunk. He saw me, came over. I had Mom’s car. He sat in the passenger seat and asked how I’d liked watching.
“The bastard knew all along I was there. I pulled out Mom’s gun, the one she got after the trial, and shot him. I didn’t even think about it. I just shot him and he died right there.”
Brandon paled, his hand shook, and he raised the gun toward Kyle. “You…you couldn’t have. You didn’t—”
“I killed him. And guess what? Mom helped me dump his body in the Sunshine Canyon landfill in Sylmar.”
“No.” Brandon let go of Josh and pressed his hand on his head. “No!”
Carina caught Josh’s eye, and he ran to her. She had him behind her back by the time Brandon turned the gun toward her.
“He’s a child, Brandon, please. Let him go.”
Brandon looked confused and undecided. Carina inched toward the swinging kitchen doors very slowly, shielding Josh’s body with her own. “You don’t want to hurt a little boy, Brandon,” Carina said. “He’s innocent. You have me. Let him go and take me.”
Two long strides forward and Brandon had her arm. The gun was to her head.
“Nothing stupid.”
“Run, Josh,” she said, not breaking eye contact with Brandon.
The boy hesitated for only a moment. He then ran for the swinging doors. Brandon followed, pulling Carina with him, looked out as Josh ran through.
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