“You don’t get it, do you?” Rip says.

“Enlighten me.”

“There’s six illegals in a storage building only I know about,” Rip says. “You take me in—or shoot me—and they die. They ain’t got no food. No water. There’s a tin roof on that building, and sitting in there is like sitting in an oven. You think I’m just bargaining with Chelsea’s life? I ain’t. It’s those other six lives that are depending on what happens here.”

I stare at him, saying nothing, thinking. The sirens sound like they’re five minutes away. Not close enough.

I need a new tactic.

“Looks like we got ourselves a stalemate,” Rip says, grinning with genuine pleasure.

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Yeah?” Rip says. “How come?”

“Because I’m calling the shots here,” I say. “And I’m giving you until the count of three to drop that gun.”

CHAPTER 3

Rip’s grin disappears, and I steel myself for what’s next.

My hand is eight inches from my gun, hovering there like a coiled snake ready to bite.

“You go for that gun,” Rip says, “and I’ll squeeze this trigger before you get it out of the holster.”

Chelsea begins to weep again. I don’t take my eyes off Rip.

When I was a boy and my daddy was teaching me to shoot, he said to think of a gun as an extension of my arm. When you’re good enough, he said, you can hit what you’re aiming at just as easily as reaching out with your hand and striking it right in front of you.

Through all my practice growing up and all my training in law enforcement, it’s a lesson I learned and never forgot.

“You heard about what happened in Waco?” I say, keeping my voice cool despite the blood pounding in my veins. “It was a lot like a standoff in an old Western. He went for his gun, and I went for mine. I got him before he got me. Simple as that. All the hubbub happened because the investigators said my story didn’t add up. He wasn’t even touching his gun. They said I must have shot him without provocation.”

Rip stares at me, the fear in his eyes betraying the cool confidence he’s trying to project with his stony facial expression.

“But the truth,” I say, “is that I’m just that fast.”

A bead of sweat rolls down Rip’s temple.

“One,” I say.

“I’ll kill this bitch,” Rip says, trying to be threatening, but his voice cracks. I know he’s scared.

“Two.”

Rip doesn’t wait for three. He swings the shotgun toward me.

What happens next takes less than a second.

My gun is in my hand.

My gun fires.

Rip’s gun fires.

Then the second is over and the room is full of gun smoke and confusion.