Never done wet work. Never been up this close and personal.

I stopped thinking again.

My hearing had already acclimated to the shrill car alarm. That made it easier for me to pick up other noises: the faint crunch of snow as the subject took his first step, then another. I took one second to check behind me, in case there were two of them in the house, one creeping from the front, one stalking from the back, to circle around.

I heard only one set of footsteps, and made them my target.

Forcing myself to inhale through my nose, take the air deep into my lungs. Slowing my own heartbeat. What would happen would happen. Time to let go.

I crouched, knife at the ready.

A leg appeared. I saw black snow boots, thick jeans, the red tail of a flannel shirt.

I saw a gun held low against the man’s thigh.

“John Stephen Purcell?” I whispered.

A startled face turning toward me, dark eyes widening, mouth opening.

I stared up at the man who’d killed my husband and kidnapped my child.

I slashed out with the knife.

Just as he opened fire.

———

Never bring a knife to a gunfight.

Not necessarily. Purcell hit my right shoulder. On the other hand, I severed the hamstring on his left leg. He went down, firing a second time, into the snow. I kicked the gun out of his hand, leveled the shotgun, and except for thrashing wildly in pain, he made no move against me.

Up close and personal, Purcell appeared to be mid-forties to early fifties. An experienced enforcer, then. Kind of guy with some notches on his brass knuckles. He obviously took some pride in his position, because even as his jeans darkened with a river of blood, he set his lips in a hard line and didn’t say a word.

“Remember me?” I said.

After a moment, he nodded.

“Spend the money yet?”

He shook his head.

“Shame, because that was the last shopping trip you had left. I want my daughter.”

He didn’t say a word.

So I placed the end of the shotgun against his right kneecap—the leg I hadn’t incapacitated. “Say goodbye to your leg,” I told him.

His eyes widened. His nostrils flared. Like a lot of tough guys, Purcell was better at dishing it out than taking it.

“Don’t have her,” he rasped out suddenly. “Not here.”

“Let’s see about that.”

I ordered him to roll over on his stomach, hands behind his back. I had a pocketful of zip ties from Shane’s supplies. I did Purcell’s wrists first, then his ankles, though moving his injured left leg made him moan in pain.

I should feel something, I thought idly. Triumph, remorse, something. I felt nothing at all.

Best not to think about it.