Cade had waited long enough. The house was dark and quiet, and if he waited much longer, the sun would come up. Detective Stone’s body would be found and they’d know that someone had followed him and Dani Novak out to the house in Bridgetown.

Then they’d move Michael and he’d have lost his chance.

It had to be now or never.

But he was prepared. He double-checked his inventory. Two Molotov cocktails. A lighter. A spare lighter. One rock.

In the event of a necessary contingency, he wore two handguns in shoulder holsters, an AR-15, backup guns at each ankle, and three switchblades—all from the old pedo’s weapons room. And, if things went truly south, he had the grenades in his jacket pockets.

He hoped they still functioned. They were at least fifty years old, relics from the Vietnam War. He’d never had to use them, but he’d never tried to smoke out a house where a Fed was watching over children, either.

Hell. He was planning to smoke out a house where a Fed was watching over children.

So that I can kill a fourteen-year-old kid.

Just leave. Turn your SUV around and drive to fucking Canada.

He closed his eyes. He really wanted to. Michael Rowland had already been through hell. But if Cade got caught on his way to the border, he’d fry for sure. Even if he did manage to cross the border, he could still get caught and, best case, spend the rest of his life behind bars. And wouldn’t his father find that hilarious?

Michael’s eyewitness testimony could send him to prison. Avoiding prison was worth both the risk and whatever guilty conscience he experienced later.

Pulling the ski mask down to cover his face, Cade started his SUV and slowly approached, hugging the wrong side of the road so that he was closer to Dani’s house. He rolled to a quiet stop at the end of her driveway. This was it.

Go! He got out of his car, crouch-walking alongside Deacon Novak’s Suburban, so that he couldn’t be seen. The street was deserted now. No cars. No people walking umpty-million dogs. When he was inches outside the range of motion sensors, he put down the rock and lit the fuse on the Molotov, holding the bottle in his left hand. He had about ten seconds before it blew.

He dropped the lighter into his pocket and picked up the rock, then stood and hurled it at the window before passing the Molotov to his right hand. He leaned backward, ready to launch it through the broken glass.

But the window wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even nicked. The rock had simply bounced off it.