3:22 p.m.
She shouldn’t be here, in this parking lot with Chewy straining against his leash and whining for attention. Bringing the dogs had been a poor decision and it was too late to stash them in the car. Gypsy squirmed in the Moby wrap. Lia distracted her with a treat while she kept her eyes on the couple emerging from the woods.
Peter took too much on himself and he couldn’t be everywhere. When he’d called to say he’d found Dick’s car and was surveilling the house, she’d decided to watch his back. Just in case Dick sneaked past him.
Which he wouldn’t. That’s what she’d thought, foolishly. She hadn’t told Peter, deciding in this case to ask forgiveness later because permission was out of the question.
Except for the Ford, the lot had been vacant when she arrived. Typical for a Saturday, she suspected. She’d scanned the woods, straining her eyes to penetrate the trees as she wondered how Peter handled hours of nothing on a stakeout.
He handled it by not being alone.
She’d brought the dogs for cover, with the parking lot as the perfect place to run Chewy through badly-needed obedience drills. And working Chewy saved her from dying of tedium, or at least it had. Then his concentration had blown.
Tired of performing, Chewy kept dragging her toward the Ford. She gave in, taking a quick look at the woods as they reached the driver’s side. Chewy sniffed at a tire and lifted a leg.
She yanked the lead, harder than she intended. “Leave it!” Chewy gave her a wounded look. She knelt and ruffled the ears he kept shaggy because he hated the groomer.
“Sorry little man, but that’s vandalism. And if this car becomes evidence, your DNA can’t be on it.”
Gypsy pawed at the Moby wrap, wanting down. Another month before she was safe from parvo, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep her strapped up. Lia reached into her back pocket and withdrew the remains of Susan’s scarf.
It was the one thing guaranteed to keep Gypsy happy.
Movement in the trees caught the corner of her eye. “Heel,” she commanded softly, leading Chewy behind a dumpster.
Dick Brewer emerged from the trees, accompanied by the woman in Susan’s video. Jenny appeared to be fine, though she struggled with a large bag Dick could have easily carried with one hand.
Where was Peter? Lia grabbed her phone, fumbled the lock screen while resisting Chewy’s leash tugs, got an error message.
Stupid fingerprint sensor.
The screen responded as Dick and Jenny approached the parking lot. She dashed off the text, knowing they’d be gone before Peter arrived. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she came to watch Peter’s back but never made a plan.
What now?
Stall them. Brazen out a chance encounter. Pray Peter shows up before things go sideways. Brewer wouldn’t hurt her in public, surely.
She slipped her pepper spray in the bottom fold of the Moby wrap where it would be easy to grab, then pulled the top fold over Gypsy’s head, tucking the scarf in to keep her happy. With a smile pasted on her face, she struck out to meet them.
3:23 p.m.
A dog barked. Across the parking lot, a schnauzer dragged a woman. The woman waved.
“Hey, Dick, who’s your friend?”
The gun jabbed Jenny’s kidney. Dick’s voice hissed in her ear, “One word, I shoot you both.” He waved back.
The woman’s chest was wrapped with some kind of cloth. As she walked toward them, it wiggled.
The barrel of the gun rode up and down Jenny’s spine. The woman with the wiggling chest stopped ten feet away. The schnauzer strained and whined.
“Funny running into you. I was just working Chewy. Are you connected to the school?”
“Lia, right?”
The wiggling thing popped a head out. A puppy, with odd, blotchy fur and bright blue eyes. Jenny gasped, a barely audible intake of breath. The puppy snarled, frantic to escape. The woman—Lia—clapped a hand on the pup and shushed her.
Behind Jenny, Dick tensed.
Lia smiled apologetically. “I don’t know what’s got into her.”
Jenny held her breath. Beside her, Dick thrummed like an overwound guitar string. Anything would make him snap.
3:24 p.m.
Where’s Peter?
Chewy tugged and whined, jerking Lia’s attention from the couple in front of her. Alarm bells went off in her head as she felt the situation slipping out of control.
Bad idea, taking your eyes off a possible kidnapper.
She resisted the urge to whip her head back. “Chill, little man,” she scolded, using Chewy as an excuse to keep Dick from seeing panic on her face.
Gypsy kept snarling.
Lia stooped by Chewy, watching Dick and Jenny with her peripheral vision. The woman’s eyes darted like a trapped bird while Dick’s face took on a hard look.
Something was definitely wrong. Lia looked up with what she hoped was a placating smile.
“I’m really sorry, they usually love people.”
3:25 p.m.
Ahead, Susan’s Caddy rounded another curve.
Peter fought the urge to stomp the gas.
Forget the school and what in God’s name Lia is doing there. It’s Saturday. Don’t kill a kid.
He swooped around an Amazon delivery van, braked for a dog walker. A Chrysler performed a three-point turn at a speed approximating continental drift. He drove on the sidewalk, wincing as hedges gouged his department vehicle and making a mental note to apologize for the ruts he put in two lawns.
Motion in a driveway.
He slammed his brakes. A lawn service truck backed an equipment trailer into the street, maneuvering awkwardly between parked cars.
3:27 p.m.
Jenny froze in an agony of indecision. This might be her only chance. But with the gun pressed against her back, Dick would feel her move. He’d pull the trigger before she took a single step—with the woman named Lia and her dogs in the line of fire.
She prayed.
The sound of a motor. A car, cruising into the lot like a great white shark. As it pulled up to the little group, a blonde head leaned out, smiling and feral, dangerous as the great white.
Susan Sweeney, who’d outed her on YouTube and got her into this mess.
“Dick! I thought you were in Indiana. Who’s your friend?”
As if she doesn’t know.
Dick turned his head toward Susan, his voice curt. “You’ll have to excuse us, we have somewhere to be, and we’re late.”
“Oh,” Susan said. “I won’t hold you up, but before …”
Dick turned a little more. Pressure from the gun lessened, then vanished. Jenny spun away, slamming the tool bag in the back of Dick’s head. The gun roared. She dropped the bag and ran.
3:27 p.m.
Lia continued to shush the dogs, her brain scrambling for a way to stall long enough for Peter to appear. The sound of a car motor sent relief flooding through her. She glanced up.
Not Peter. Susan.
He’s working with Susan? But no, Susan yammered at Dick as her car idled, obviously clueless. Lia tried to catch Jenny’s eye, but Jenny stared into the distance, looking at nothing.
Jenny’s hands tensed around the bag. “Look at the hands,” Peter had said during an impromptu training lecture, “The hands tell you what’s about to happen. The eyes tell you when and where.”
Lia dropped to the pavement, rolling onto a shrieking Gypsy as she dragged Chewy down.
A gun went off. Dick fell as Jenny flew across the lot, tools flying like shrapnel, a gun spinning across the pavement.
Susan leapt from the car. “You bitch! What did you shoot him for?”
Dick pushed up on his knees and shook his head, blood on his face and murder in his eyes. Susan bent over him. He shoved her aside, grabbed the gun, and jumped into the idling Caddy. Someone screamed.
The car took off in a screeching circle, heading for Jenny.
3:29 p.m.
Peter punched his steering wheel, mentally cursing the lawn service truck. When the truck finally straightened out, it backfired.
Not a backfire. A gunshot.
He floored the accelerator. A hundred yards from the school, it came: the unmistakable sound of steel slamming into concrete.
Blood roaring in his ears, Peter whipped into the parking lot, shoved the transmission into park, vaulted from the car. Susan’s Caddy sat, crumpled against a brick wall while Chewy and Gypsy’s howls pierced the air like twin sirens.
Ada Belle of the nights of burning passion banged the Caddy’s passenger door open, waving a small pink something over her head as she emerged. Her voice quavered with rage.
“Try to kidnap me, will you!”
Susan sat on the asphalt, wailing, “My car!”
Lia huddled behind a dumpster with an arm around Jenny, shushing the dogs. Gypsy ignored Lia, howling over a mouth full of scarf.
Dick was nowhere.
“Where’s Dick?” Peter demanded.
Susan moaned, “My car—”
“The car,” Lia yelled. “He’s in the car.”
Ada Belle remained by the Caddy, jabbing the phone-sized pink rectangle at the open door like she was poking a stick at a cottonmouth.
“I stunned him.” Jab. “I’ll do it again.” Jab.
“Ada Belle, back away from the car. Now!”
Jenny called, “He has a gun.”
Brewer had twenty years in the Army. He wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Peter edged up to the driver-side window, drawing his Glock. Dick lay across the seats, groping the passenger-side floorboard. Peter aimed as he slammed a fist on the Caddy’s roof.
“Hands up!”
Dick jerked, turning, gun in hand.
Peter fired. Shreds of leather and foam rubber flew inches from Brewer’s head as the gun clattered to the floor. Dick’s hands swerved up, shaking.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
Peter kept his Glock trained on Brewer’s face as the men stared at each other. With Brewer’s gun in reach, they were at a stand off.
Brewer looked like he could piss his pants, but you couldn’t trust that. Getting him out of the car could be a problem. If Peter had to physically haul him out, he’d have to holster his weapon, giving Brewer a chance to grab his gun.
Backup, he needed backup. The silence stretched out.
“This is a misunderstanding,” Dick said.
“And I’m going to handcuff you until we sort it out. Get out of the car. Slowly.”
Across the lot, Susan shrieked, “What did your nasty dog do to my scarf?”