The guy was Iraqi. Maybe they all were, or maybe they were a hodgepodge of Arabic extremists. What the hell had she heard about terrorists killing a family? Something on the news, but she couldn’t remember now.

Iraqi, okay. But what the hell that meant and how all the pieces fit together, she had no idea. The detectives—Monteforte and Jarman—had asked about Nizam’s family, and if they might try to get custody of Leyla. That alone had been difficult for her to imagine, but this? Cold-blooded murder? Gunfire in her apartment—

Miranda. Oh, God, Miranda.

“Fuck you,” Cait sneered, her aim not wavering. “One step and you’re dead.”

She had the gun pointed directly into the face of the man who’d spoken. Leyla went silent and still, but Cait could feel the baby’s heart beating against her chest. A deathly calm had come over Cait. The war had given her the ability to kill when necessary. She had never wanted to learn that skill or to lose the part of her soul that it had cost her, but she had. Her government had demanded it.

“They’ll kill you anyway, after you’ve shot me,” said the one who gave the orders.

“But you’ll be dead.”

The man lifted his chin. “So be it.”

Fuck. She hated martyrs. There was no way to get a fair fight with someone who didn’t mind dying for their cause.

She shot him in the face. Even as the bullet snapped his head back, she swung the gun toward the third man, who still had his own gun out, but she knew she would not be fast enough. He had the drop on her. He would pull the trigger. This close he couldn’t possibly miss. And then the other would stab her to death and they would take Leyla. They would …

These thoughts filled the space between two heartbeats. Her finger started to squeeze the trigger a second time, tracking the two survivors, the knife, and the gun, but knowing the bullet that would end her was on the way.

The gunshot made her flinch, resounding across the night sky. He had fired first, or so she thought until his gun hand drooped and he staggered aside, then crumbled to the grass and sprawled there, a bloody hole in the back of his shirt.

Leyla started wailing again.

Cait and the knife-man turned at the same time to see a pair of men in dark suits coming around from the front of the house. Only seconds had passed since she’d come out the back door. These two must have been on standby in front, but the gunshots had drawn them around back.

The knife-man dropped his blade, reaching for his gun.

Enemies. They were enemies.

Cait leveled her weapon at the men in suits, hoping the knife-man would shoot them before he’d try putting a bullet in her. They want Leyla. Why do they want to hurt my baby?

Her finger tightened on the trigger, but then she saw a third man coming around from the front yard—a black man in shirt and tie, no jacket. Him she knew.

Detective Jarman planted his feet and took aim, shouting.

“Police! Drop your—”

Three shots rang out in quick succession and Detective Jarman spun around and fell, and only then did Cait see the skinny blond weasel hanging halfway out the broken apartment window, gun clasped in both hands.

Knife-man took aim at him, put a bullet in the window frame, and then the two who’d come from the front shot him dead, there in the yard, and the gunshots echoed into silence. The sounds drifted away like smoke.

“Get her, damn it!” the weasel in the window shouted.

Over the cries and choking sobs of her baby, she heard the distant banshee wail of police sirens, but by the time the cops came, this would all be over. She shot the one closest to her and ran, headed for the shed at the back of the yard. Shouts followed her, and so did bullets, one shattering the window in the shed, but though she braced for impact, none of the shots hit her.

A glance over her shoulder showed her the weasel using his gun to smash the rest of the glass out of the living room window. He crouched on the sill and jumped down, but the other guy had a twenty-foot lead on him, sprinting.

Cait knew then that they would catch her. The shed would block bullets, but offered no hiding place, and she would never make it through the backyards to the next street before they caught up with her. This wasn’t going to work, which left her only one option—to be the last one standing.

She rounded the corner of the shed and stopped. Using it for cover, with Leyla’s terrified shrieks filling her ears, she took aim at the black-suited gunman who was closing in on her. The weasel sprinted to catch up to him.

An engine revved, out on the street. Headlights swept the darkness of the yard and then the car’s growl turned into a roar. The two men in suits spun around, silhouetted in the headlights as a silver, mid-’90s Cadillac El Dorado tore across the lawn, ancient Rolling Stones blaring on the radio. Weasel bounced off the front grill with a sickeningly wet crunch of bone and vanished underneath the car. The other guy lifted his gun, ready to fire at the Caddy’s windshield, but the driver leaned out the window and shot him twice in the chest.

As the guy fell, she got her first clear view of the grim-faced old man behind the wheel, his hair as silver as the El Dorado’s finish. He lowered his gun the moment he saw her—a comforting change of pace. But she wasn’t in a trusting mood, and kept her own weapon trained on his face.

“Caitlin McCandless,” he called, over the growing song of police sirens and Leyla’s diminishing cries. “My name is Matthew Lynch. If you want your daughter to live through the night, you’d better get in.”

“The police are coming,” she said.

“They’ll buy you a few hours, no more,” Lynch said quickly. “You’ve got dead Feds and terrorists in your yard, honey. This is bigger than the Podunk P.D. Please, get in. For your daughter’s sake, if not your own.” The sirens grew louder.

Lynch put his car in reverse, staring at her. “Decide!”

“Shit!” Cait snapped, and ran around to the passenger side.

As she climbed in, she kept her gun trained on Lynch, but he ignored her. She hadn’t even closed the passenger door when he floored the car in reverse, tearing up the grass. He bumped over the sidewalk and into the street, jammed on the brakes, threw the car in Drive, and took off so fast the door slammed shut on its own.

Cait had made her choice. She put her gun on the floor and grabbed the seat belt, strapping it across her chest, holding Leyla in her lap. As she adjusted the belt, she caught sight of an empty car seat in the back, like Lynch had come ready to take the baby with him, and she turned to stare at him, wondering how different he was, really, from the other men.

Silent now, Leyla stared up at her, eyes wide with shock and probably exhausted from all of the crying.

Lynch reached Powder House Circle at the same time four police cars poured into it from three different directions. He slowed down, just an old guy in his well-preserved Caddy, and went around the rotary, headed for Route 16, or maybe Route 93.

As she stared at him, Lynch wrinkled his nose.

“Jesus, your baby smells like piss.”

Cait laughed in disbelief. “I didn’t have time to grab her diaper bag.”

Lynch tapped the accelerator and shot through a yellow light. “I’ve got one in the trunk.”

A terrible chill, growing too familiar by now, spread up Cait’s spine. What the hell had she gotten them into now?