She held his green eyes. The idea of touching the weapon was an anathema to her.

“You shouldn’t need it, but it will make me feel better to know you have some way of protecting yourself should this guy slip past us, okay?”

Reluctantly, she nodded. She didn’t want Shane to be worried about her when he was facing an armed and dangerous suspect. She knew her apprehension was founded on old fears and neurosis. She wanted Ethan Grice stopped so he never hurt anyone else ever again.

From the determined light in Shane’s eyes, he clearly wanted the same.

But the idea of shooting anyone, here…

“I’ll give you a signal when we want the power to go off. Three clicks in your ear if I’m unable to speak,” Shane said. “We don’t want it to go off too early and warn him we’re coming.”

“If he’s here we don’t want him to suspect we’ve found him,” agreed Alex.

Yael went back to the screen. Armed with the knowledge of where EG was, she should be able to track his signal faster and maybe hijack the Wi-Fi or figure out his IP address and maybe hack his machine directly while he was busy with his torture fest. She could cut off the feed to the spectators.

They were almost at the school now. Yael recognized the neighborhood and the play structure she’d used as a kid.

The others pulled their weapons and prepared to exit as Alex drove to the back of the building. They all spotted a green SUV partially covered in snow.

Alex reversed until their SUV was out sight of the other vehicle.

“Even if this isn’t Ethan Grice it is most likely our cop killer,” Shane stated.

And no one believed in that level of coincidence.

“Make him an offer of two million to keep the woman alive,” Ashley ordered. “See if that will distract him long enough to prevent him killing her in the next few minutes. We should be inside by then. Let’s go.”

Alex got out but, thankfully, left the engine running. He tossed Yael the evidence bag with EG’s fortune. “Look after this.”

Her throat swelled. That he trusted her so much was humbling.

Shane gave her a stern look. “Lock the doors. Use the gun if he tries to get in here. Point and shoot.”

“Be careful,” she whispered.

He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the lips, as if he was done pretending they meant nothing to one another. He pulled back, his eyes smoldering with the heat of wanting something so badly you burned for it.

The side of his mouth kicked up. “Always am.” And like that he was gone.