Missing You(114)

There was silence.

He called out again. “Okay, Dana. Listen to this.”

Titus pulled the gun out of Brandon’s mouth. He aimed for the boy’s knee and pulled the trigger.

Brandon’s scream shattered the night.

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Kat stayed on the road, making sure not to slow down and give the SUV a bead on her. She was in constant phone contact with the FBI now. She gave them the locale and pulled off the road about a hundred yards up.

“Good work, Detective,” ADIC Keiser told her. “Our people should be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. I want to make sure we have enough men to take them all down.”

“They have Brandon, sir.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t think we should wait.”

“You can’t just barge in. They have hostages. You have to wait for our team, let them get a dialogue going. You know the drill.”

Kat didn’t like it. “With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure there’s time. I would like permission to go in on my own. I won’t engage unless absolutely necessary.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Detective.”

That wasn’t a no.

She hung up the phone before he could say more and put it on silent. Her gun was in its holster. She left the car where it was and started back. She would have to be careful. There could be security cameras at the gate, so she entered from the side and hopped the fence. It was dark now. The woods were thick. She used her iPhone—thank goodness the guy with the Ford Fusion had a built-in charger—as a dim flashlight.

Kat was walking slowly through the trees, when up ahead, she saw the flames.

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Dana managed to get another box open when she heard Brandon shout: “Mom! Don’t come this way! Run!”

She froze at the sound of her son’s voice.

Then she heard Titus: “Dana? I have your son.”

Her whole body began to shake.

“Come out or he will suffer.”

Dana almost dropped the heavy door, but the first woman she’d helped was suddenly beside her. The woman took the door from Dana and let it drop to the ground. Someone inside the box groaned.

Dana started toward the path.

“Don’t,” the woman whispered to her.

Confused, dazed, Dana turned toward the voice. “What?”

“You can’t listen to him. He’s just playing games with you. You need to stay here.”

“I can’t.”

The woman put her hands on Dana’s cheeks and made her look her straight in the eye. “I’m Martha. What’s your name?”

“Dana.”

“Dana, listen to me. We need to get the rest of these boxes open.”

“Are you out of your mind? He has my son.”

“I know that. And once you show yourself, he’ll kill you both.”

Dana shook her head. “No, I can save him. I can make a trade—”

Titus’s voice cut through the night like a reaper scythe. “Okay, Dana, listen to this.”

The two women turned as the gunshot blasted through the still night air.

Dana’s son’s scream got lost in her own.

Before she could react more, before she could surrender and save her son, this woman—this Martha—tackled her to the ground.

“Get off me!”

Martha stayed on top of her. Her voice was remarkably calm. “No.”

Dana bucked and fought, but Martha held on with everything she had.

“He’ll kill you both,” Martha whispered in her ear. “You know that. For your boy’s sake, you can’t run out there.”

Dana started twisting and turning in panic. “Let me go!”

And then Titus’s voice again: “Okay, Dana. Now I’m going to shoot his other knee.”

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Kat was moving forward a few trees at a time, making sure per protocol that she stayed out of sight, when she heard the man threaten Brandon.

She needed to move faster.

A few second later, when Kat heard the gunshot and Brandon’s scream, she tossed all protocol to the wind. She veered from the woods onto the main drive where she could run at full speed. She would, of course, be easy pickings if anyone saw her, but that didn’t seem like such a big deal right now.

She had to save Brandon.

Her gun was in her right hand. Her breath echoed in her ears as though someone had pressed seashells against them.

Up ahead, she saw the SUV. A man holding a gun stood next to it. Brandon was on the ground, writhing in pain.

“Okay, Dana,” the man shouted. “Now I’m going to shoot his other knee.”

Kat was still too far away for a shot. She yelled, “Freeze!” without slowing down her sprint.

The man turned toward her. For a half second, no more, he looked perplexed. Kat kept running. The man swung the gun toward her. Kat dove to the side. But the guy still had her in his sights. He was about to pull the trigger when something made him stop.

Brandon had grabbed his leg.

Annoyed, the man pointed the gun toward Brandon.

Kat was ready now. She didn’t bother shouting out another warning.

She pulled the trigger and saw the man’s body fly backward.

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