Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(110)

Weighed down with a small arsenal of weapons and ammo, I careened into the snowy woods, heading toward the smell of smoke and the sound of my daughter.

Another scream. An adult cursing. The sizzling sound of wet wood catching flame.

Cabin was straight up. I bounced from tree to tree, struggling for footing in the fresh snow, breathing shallowly. Didn’t know how many people might be present. Needed the advantage of surprise if Sophie and I were going to get through this. Don’t give away my position, find the higher ground.

My professional training counseled a strategic approach, while my parental instincts screamed for me to charge in and grab my daughter now, now, now. The air grew denser with smoke. I coughed, feeling my eyes burn as I finally crested a small knoll on the left side of the property. I discovered Hamilton’s cabin on fire and my daughter struggling with a woman in a thick black parka. The woman was trying to drag Sophie into a parked SUV. My daughter, wearing nothing but the thin pink pajamas I’d put her to bed in four nights ago and still clutching her favorite doll, Gertrude, was thrashing wildly.

Sophie bit the woman’s exposed wrist. The woman jerked back her arm and slapped her. My daughter’s head rocked sideways. She stumbled, sprawling backward into the snow and coughing raggedly from the smoke.

“No, no, no,” my daughter was crying. “Let me go. I want my mommy. I want my mommy!”

Shotgun on the ground—couldn’t risk it with my child so close to the target. Finding the rifle instead, yanking out the magazine, fumbling in my left pocket. Always load an M4’s stack magazine minus two in order to keep it feeding evenly, my police training dictated.

Kill them all, my mother’s instinct roared.

I hefted up the rifle, racked the first round.

Fresh blood oozing from my shoulder. Sluggish fingers curling laboriously around the trigger.

The woman towered over Sophie. “Get in the car, you stupid little brat,” she screeched.

“Let me go!”

Another scream. Another smack.

Anchoring the butt of the assault rifle against my bleeding shoulder and sighting the dark-haired woman now beating my child.

Sophie crying, arms curled around her head, trying to block the blows.

I stepped clear of the woods. Zeroed in on my target.

“Sophie!” I called out loudly across the crackling, acrid night. “Sophie. Run!”

As I’d hoped, the unexpected sound of my voice captured their attention. Sophie turned around. The woman jerked sharply upright, trying to pinpoint the intruder.

She looked right at me. “Who the—”

I pulled the trigger.

Sophie never glanced behind her. At the body that dropped suddenly, at the head that exploded beneath the onslaught of a .223 slug and turned into a puddle of crimson snow.

My daughter never turned. She heard my voice and she ran to me.

Just as a gun cocked in my ear, and Gerard Hamilton said, “You f*cking bitch.”


D.D. and Bobby followed the GPS system through a winding maze of rural roads, until they came to a narrow dirt road lined by fire trucks and grim-faced firefighters. Bobby killed the lights. He and D.D. bolted out of the car, flashing their creds.

News was short and bad.

Firefighters had arrived just in time to hear screams followed by gunshots. Residential home was an eighth of a mile straight up, surrounded by deep woods. Judging by smoke and heat, the building was probably fully engulfed in flames. Firefighters were now waiting for police to secure the scene, so they could get in there and do their thing. Waiting was not something any of them were good at, particularly as one of the guys swore the screaming came from a kid.

Bobby told D.D. to stay in the car.

In response, D.D. stalked to the rear of her vehicle, where she donned her Kevlar vest, then pulled out the shotgun. She handed the rifle to Bobby. After all, he was the former sniper.

He scowled at her. “I go first. Recon,” he snapped.

“I’ll give you six minutes,” she retorted just as sharply.

Bobby donned his vest, loaded the M4, and walked the edge of the steep property. Thirty seconds later, he disappeared into the snowy woods. And three minutes after that, D.D. hit the trail right behind him.

More sirens in the distance.

Local officers finally arriving at the scene.

D.D. focused on following Bobby’s footsteps.

Smoke, heat, snow. A winter inferno.

Time to find Sophie. Time to get the job done.

———



Hamilton yanked the rifle from my injured arm. The M4 fell bonelessly from my grasp and he scooped it up. The shotgun was at my feet. He ordered me to pick it up, hand it over.

From the top of the knoll, I could see Sophie running toward me, sprinting across the property below, framed in white-dusted trees and bright red flames.

While the barrel of Hamilton’s gun dug into the sensitive hollow behind my ear.

I started to bend down. Hamilton relented an inch to give me room, and I hurled myself backward into him, yelling wildly, “Sophie, get away! Into the woods. Get away, get away, get away!”

“Mommy!” she screamed, a hundred yards back.

Hamilton pistol-whipped me with his Sig Sauer. I went down hard, my right arm collapsing beneath me. More searing pain. Maybe the sound of something tearing. I had no time to recover. Hamilton hit me again, looming over me, slicing open my cheek, my forehead. Blood pouring down into my face, blinding my eyes as I curled up in the fetal position in the snow.