Chapter Forty-Two

Maggie rounded the corner of the nearest small warehouse building and leaned against it, breathing hard. She listened for telltale signs of the ongoing scrape between Mac and Valorie—or, failing that, footsteps. Mac’s continued howls of pain told her the fight would soon come to a close, and, no surprise, her martial-arts-trained daughter would emerge triumphant.

She checked the pistol in her hand and discovered the safety still on. The whole frigging time. Rookie mistake. She shoved the gun into her purse.

Maggie needed to find Sammy before Valorie did, and she’d gotten off to a lousy start. She’d chosen the wrong building, and moving to any of the others would expose her. She couldn’t outrun Valorie. Hell, she couldn’t outrun Sammy. Where did he go?

Footsteps approached—not Milt’s. A woman’s. Valorie’s. Time to move. She crept along the rear of the warehouse, a small rectangle with ribbed sheet-metal siding, and reached a door. Tried it. Locked. Crap.

Maggie continued to the end and turned the corner. More wall, and this time, no door. Not even a window. Exposed to the running path, not the parking lot or the water.

Still no Sammy, and no detonator.

She felt bad for abandoning Mac. If she’d stayed, though, Valorie would’ve subdued her, too, and the entire plan would fail. Which could not happen. Mac was right: aborting was not an option. They’d all go to prison for life. Which for Mac meant only a few months, but still. Not for her.

Poor Mac. Maggie doubted he’d get away at this point. So he would go to prison. Not Maggie, though. And unless he operated the detonator…well, that made him dead weight. Yes, expendable.

Valorie wouldn’t give up. She’d sacrifice her own life if necessary to stop the attack. That saddened her, yet also made her proud. Her daughter stood for something. A stupid cause, of course. The tyranny of the state, and its power to crush freedom-loving citizens, like herself and Mac. At least she believed in it, and fought for it. Took bold risks. She respected that.

Not enough to let her win or to put them all in prison…or worse. But still.

Engines revved nearby. Not cars or trucks, though. It came from the river. Boats! The flotilla surrounding the barge started to float upstream. Why? Were they leaving? Maggie checked her watch. The show should have begun already. Was the barge moving too? Or was the show canceled?

She crept back to the corner of the warehouse and peeked out at the river. The barge remained in place, but a tugboat approached it. Of course! Barges don’t move on their own. But the tug would get there soon. If it reached the barge before they detonated, it might push the damned thing out of range.

Or…back to the pier…closer to her!

Voices drifted in over the sound of the engines. Valorie’s and Sammy’s, from behind another building, closer to the water. Dammit! Valorie found him first.

A gangway led from the deck around each side of the structure. A walkway with no rails continued around the back, toward the water, near some vacant boat slips. The slips would soon fill with returning, disappointed fireworks show-goers. A means of escape for Valorie, Sammy, and the detonator.

Time to move.

***

The roar of engines echoed over the water, drawing Val’s attention. Boats on the move. She ought to know what that signified, but she couldn’t suss that out in her condition. Stay focused, girl. Where did Sammy go?

Something slammed into her from behind. Her knees buckled under her, and she pitched forward. She stopped her face from slamming the pavement with outstretched palms, at the cost of some painful road rash. A large body—Milt’s—landed on top of her, his hands groping for purchase, and landing in inappropriate places.

“You’re all grown up now,” he grunted in her ear, his breath rancid. “Shall we finish what we started ten years ago, darling?”

Enraged, she tore his hand from her breast and crushed his fingers in hers. “We didn’t start anything, asshole.” Val swung her elbow backward, clubbing his nose and eliciting a satisfying Crack! He screamed and let go. She bucked him off of her and rolled to her feet.

Milt stood a few yards away, holding his nose, now gushing blood. “You bitch!” He lunged at her. Val dodged him and, capitalizing on his momentum, tripped him to the ground. He landed hard, head-first. He rolled onto his back, tried to sit up. She kicked him in the throat. His head pounded the pavement again. Milt’s eyes glazed, then, moments later, fluttered shut.

Val glared at him, catching her breath. The entire fight took maybe half a minute, but those seconds seemed precious, with Maggie chasing after Sammy and the detonator. At least with Milt out cold for now, she’d only have to worry about one nemesis.

She refocused and tried to think like a nine-year-old: where would Sammy hide? He’d keep it simple, ducking behind one of the buildings.

Val stumbled off toward the water. One of the larger buildings had a walkway all around it, newish, made of those fake wooden planks popular on patio decks. Sammy would prefer that over the older, scary-looking wooden decks. She would’ve, anyway, at nine. She veered off in that direction, opted to take the long way around, figuring he went the short way. He’d be looking back the way he came, so she could approach him from behind, surprise him. Also, it led her away from the direction her well-armed mother had gone.

She rounded the rear edge of the building, and sure enough, Sammy stood at the far end, peeking around the corner. She crept toward him, appreciative of the solid construction of the deck. No creaking, no loose boards to rattle. She drew within twenty feet, then ten. Five—

Sammy turned, saw her, and yelled. “Aah!” Then he laughed. “I found you first! I win!” He wrapped his arms around Val and squeezed. “That was fun! Do you want to hide now and I find you?”

“I think we should celebrate you winning,” Val said with a big smile. “You’re the champion!”

“I should get a prize! A big one!”

“Okay.” Val walked him toward the far end of the building. “Let’s keep our voices down, though, okay? Your mom hasn’t found you yet. You don’t want to give your hiding place away, do you?”

“Okay,” he whispered. “What’s my prize?”

Val shot a glance over her shoulder. No sign of her mother. “How about a nice big ice cream cone?”

“No!” Sammy laughed. So much for quiet. “I want a phone!”

“A phone? Why a phone?”

“My mom won’t let me have one. But I won, so I should get one. Like the one in my backpack!”

“That’s not a very good phone. How about we get you a nice one at the store?”

“No!” he shouted. “You think I’m stupid. I’m not stupid. I want this phone and you can’t take it from me!” He ran down a ramp leading to some vacant boat slips.

Val panicked. The deck there lacked any sort of handrail. He might fall in, and she didn’t know if he could swim. She chased after him. After a few head-pounding steps, she had to stop.

Sammy sat on the edge of a boat slip, holding the detonator in his hands, examining it with a puzzled expression. “How do you turn it on?”

Val stumbled to her feet, took slow, plodding steps. Must reach him before he pushed any buttons of consequence.

Something blurred by her. No, not something—someone. Her mother reached him, grabbing the device from his hands. Sammy wailed in protest and grabbed at it, but she held it out of his reach. “Settle down!” Maggie said. “Mommy has to work!”

Val forced herself to take steps toward them. Maggie looked up and drew her pistol from her purse. “Stop, Valorie. Don’t take another step.”

Val stopped, considered sitting. Didn’t. “You won’t shoot me.” She took another step.

Rita’s eyes grew wide. “Stop right now! Don’t test me, daughter. I will pull this trigger.”

Val willed her foot to step forward. Paused. Took a second step.

“Last chance! I’m warning you!”

Val lifted her foot—

A shot rang out, and a gash appeared in the decking a foot away from her, plastic splinters flying everywhere. Sammy screamed, his hands over his ears.

“Another way that we’re not alike. You’re a terrible shot.” Val set her foot down a half-yard forward, paused. Ten, maybe fifteen feet separated them.

“I get better, the closer you get.” Rita’s hand shook, and with the other hand holding the transmitter, she couldn’t use it to stabilize her aim. The roar of boat engines grew louder.

“We’ll see.” Another step.

Sammy, crouching next to Maggie, suddenly leaped high in the air, his hand reaching for the transmitter. He missed, but his leap and her evasion forced Maggie to take her eyes off Val.

Val summoned her last ounce of strength and ran at her mother. She reached for the pistol, instead grabbed a handful of flesh, just below the wrist.

Mom struggled to free Val’s hand, failed. She swung her other hand, smacking Val’s chin with the transmitter. The device fell to the ground. Sammy scooted away toward the warehouse.

Val gripped Rita’s gun hand with both of hers, twisting and bending her mother’s arm backward. Her mother held on. Another shot fired, this one into the air. The loud report hurt Val’s ears, and her head pounded. Her resistance faded, and her mother punched her in the side with her free hand. It hurt like hell. Maggie hit her again, and Val struggled to hold on.

Val’s anger and frustration mounted. While her mother stood a good three or four inches taller, Val always stayed in top physical shape. If not for her concussion, she would have had no trouble overpowering her.

Another punch to the midsection, and Val would have vomited, except she’d emptied her system onto Milt. She should hit back, use her martial arts skills.

Her mother’s gun hand shook free. The nuzzle pressed against Val’s neck. She grabbed at it, squirmed away, as the roar of the boats seemed to envelop them—

A thud sounded, something hard hitting flesh. Her mother cursed and stumbled backwards, waving her arms…and fell, screaming, into the water.

A speedboat splashed to a halt. A man holding a metal crutch like a baseball bat stood on the edge of the boat, panting.

“Gil,” she said. “I thought you’d never get here.”

“When you said ‘send backups,’ I assumed you meant me,” he said, grinning. His smile faded a moment later. “Where’s the detonator?”

Val’s head swiveled, first on the deck, then to the walkway, where Sammy sat, fiddling with a black device the size and shape of a cell phone.

***

Splashing reminded them that Val’s mother remained in the river. She thrashed about, bouncing above and below the surface of the water. “Help!” she said on one of her above-surface bounces. “I can’t swim!”

“We’ll get her,” Gil shouted from the boat. “You get the device!”

Val ran a few steps, then almost collapsed again, and settled for a brisk walk over to her brother. “Sammy,” she said, “if you give me that phone, I promise to get you a better one. Here.” She offered her own cell phone. “You can use mine until then.”

Sammy pouted a moment, then held the device out to Val. “I can’t get it to work anyway.”

Val traded her phone for the transmitter. A robotic voice sounded from its speaker, nearly causing her to drop it. “Twenty seconds,” it said.

She checked the display. 00:19, it read. 00:18.

Shit! He’d somehow pressed whatever button set the damned timer in motion. It had two on each side and one on the top edge. “Sammy, which button did you press?”

“All of them,” he said, playing with Val’s phone.

“Which one did you press to make it start counting?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Ten seconds,” said the robotic voice.

Val pressed all the buttons. Eight seconds. Seven.

She set the device on the deck and stomped on it.

“Five seconds,” the machine said. “Four…”

Val raced to the edge of the deck, finding speed within her somehow, and heaved the transmitter into the river, as far from the barge as she could. As it flew, the robotic voice continued counting: “Three, two…”

The slender device knifed into the water, disappearing from view.

Val waited. One second passed. Two. Three…

A loud blast erupted overhead, and the sky lit up with bright colors. Red, white, and blue streams emanated from a series of explosions in the sky. Across the river, the crowd broke into a loud cheer.

Fireworks.

Just fireworks.

“Got her!” Two men in the speedboat—Gil and a balding man in a dark suit—pulled a sputtering, coughing Maggie from the water. Val’s partner, Bobby Grimes, waved to her, as did the boat’s pilot, a short Asian woman Val recognized as Agent Powers.

“Happy Fourth of July,” Gil deadpanned, and the speedboat motored to a halt next to the deck.