Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(111)

“You should’ve done what you were told!” he screamed. He was wearing his dress uniform, topped with a knee-length black wool coat, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes. Probably donned the ensemble upon receiving news that an officer had been killed in the line of duty. Then, when he realized it was Shane, and that I’d escaped, was still on the loose …

He’d come to get my daughter. Dressed in the official uniform of a Massachusetts State Police lieutenant colonel, he’d come to harm a child.

“You were a trained police officer,” he snapped now, looming over me, blocking out the trees, the fire, the night sky. “If you’d just done what you were told, no one would’ve gotten hurt!”

“Except Brian,” I managed to gasp. “You arranged his death.”

“His gambling problem was out of control. I did you a favor.”

“You kidnapped my daughter. You sent me to prison. Just to make a few extra bucks.”

In response, my commanding officer kicked me full-force in the left kidney, the kind of kick that would have me peeing up blood, assuming I lived that long.

“Mommy, Mommy!” Sophie cried again. I realized with horror that her voice was closer. She was still running toward my voice, clambering over the snowbank.

No, I wanted to cry. Save yourself, get away.

But my voice wouldn’t work anymore. Hamilton had knocked the air from my lungs. My eyes burned with smoke, tears pouring down my face as I gasped and heaved against the snow. Shoulder burned. Stomach cramped.

Black dots dancing before me.

Had to move. Had to get up. Had to fight. For Sophie.

Hamilton reared back with his foot again. He lashed out to hit me square in the chest. This time, I dropped my left arm, caught his foot midkick, and rolled. Caught off guard, Hamilton was jerked forward, falling to one knee in the snow.

So he stopped hitting me with the Sig Sauer and pulled the trigger instead.

The sound deafened me. I felt immediate searing heat, followed by immediate searing pain. My left side. My hand falling down, clutching my waist, as my gaze went up, toward my commanding officer, a man I’d been trained to trust.

Hamilton appeared stunned. Maybe even a little shaken, but he recovered quickly enough, finger back on the trigger.

Just as Sophie crested the knoll and spotted us.

I had a vision. My daughter’s pale, sweet face. Her hair a wild tangle of knots. Her eyes, a bright, brilliant blue as her gaze locked on me. Then she was running, the way only a six-year-old could run, and Hamilton did not exist for her and the woods did not exist for her, nor the scary fire, or the threat of night or the unknown terrors that must have tormented her for days.

She was a little girl who’d finally found her mother and she tore straight toward me, one hand clutching Gertrude, the other arm flung open as she threw herself on top of me and I groaned from both the pain and the joy that burst inside my chest.

“I love you I love you I love you,” I exhaled.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.”

“Sophie, Sophie, Sophie …”

I could feel her tears hot against my face. It hurt, but I still brought up my hand, cradling the back of her head. I looked at Hamilton, and then I tucked my daughter’s face into the crook of my neck. “Sophie,” I whispered, never taking my gaze off him, “close your eyes.”

My daughter clung to me, two halves of a whole, finally together again.

She closed her eyes.

And I said, in the clearest voice I could muster, “Do it.”

The darkness behind Hamilton materialized into a man. At my command, he raised his rifle. Just as Hamilton placed the barrel of his Sig Sauer against my left temple.

I concentrated on the feel of my daughter, the weight of her body, the purity of her love. Something to carry with me into the abyss.

“You should’ve done what I said,” Hamilton hissed above me.

While in the next heartbeat, Bobby Dodge pulled the trigger.





45



By the time D.D. made it to the top of the property, Hamilton was down and Bobby stood over the lieutenant colonel’s body. He looked up at her approach and shook his head once.

Then she heard crying.

Sophie Leoni. It took D.D. a second to spot the child’s small, pink-clad form. She was on the ground, covering another dark-clad figure, skinny arms tangled around her mother’s neck as the girl sobbed wildly.

Bobby dropped to one knee beside the pair as D.D. approached. He placed his hand on Sophie’s shoulder.

“Sophie,” he said quietly. “Sophie, I need you to look at me. I’m a state policeman, like your mother. I’m here to help her. Please look at me.”

Sophie finally raised her tearstained face. She spotted D.D. and opened her mouth as if to scream. D.D. shook her head.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. My name is D.D. I’m a friend of your mom’s, too. Your mom led us here, to help you.”

“Mommy’s boss took me away,” Sophie said clearly. “Mommy’s boss gave me to the bad woman. I said no. I said I wanted to go home! I said I wanted Mommy!”

Her face dissolved again. She started to cry, soundlessly this time, still pressed against her mother’s unmoving body.

“We know,” D.D. said, crouching down beside them, placing a tentative hand on the girl’s back. “But your mother’s boss and the bad woman can’t hurt you anymore, okay, Sophie? We’re here, and you’re safe.”