The taillights of the Yukon blink as the driver takes his foot off the brakes.

In a few seconds the SUV with my kidnapped daughter aboard will quietly go out into traffic and then disappear.

“Denise!”

I bring up my pistol but it feels useless.

I’m too far away.

I’m not going to make it.

“Denise!” I scream one more time.

Oh, God, I’m not going to make it.

CHAPTER 86

CHAPTER 86

GEORGES BRINGS his arm in and the gate starts moving, and Pelayo is confident it will all work out. In just a few minutes, he’ll be at a private airstrip to the northeast of Beachside, and with Casper and this little girl with him, they’ll head back south to Mexico.

There he’ll regroup and think things through.

The little girl is still crying and struggling.

As for her?

Well, he knows that objects can be sent via delivery systems to nearly anywhere in the United States. A small shipping container with frozen dry ice would keep something fresh for several days, until it got to a certain Army captain’s home.

Fresh, like a little girl’s head.

The gate is open, but the way is blocked by a steady stream of tourists and beachgoers, and Casper calmly says, “The Cornwall woman is back there, running at us.”

“Georges!” Pelayo yells. “Move!”

The driver honks the horn, the line of people moves to the left and right, except for one tired-looking, short-haired woman, carrying a folded beach umbrella over her shoulder.

The woman doesn’t move.

Casper says, “She’s coming closer.”

Pelayo leans over, pushes the horn again.

The woman stares and stares at them, and then looks behind the SUV, and back to them.

Pelayo pushes the horn, tells Georges, “Move! Drive over her if you have to!”

Then the woman finally moves to the left.

Drops the beach umbrella.

And pulls out a pump-action shotgun.

For some reason the Yukon isn’t moving, and my heart leaps as with each passing second, I get closer and closer…

Damn it!

I’m still not going to make it.

The Yukon honks its horn once, twice, and then I see a woman move around, with short hair, wearing tan shorts and a white T-shirt, and she looks vaguely familiar, and the beach umbrella drops and—

What the hell?

A pump-action shotgun is now in the woman’s hands.

I now recognize her.

Vasquez, the CID officer, with her hair shorn. I had taken her pistol but now she’s re-armed herself.

Here?

To arrest me?

It’s not going to happen.

I make a split-second decision, turning my SIG Sauer in her direction.

But she’s faster.

The shotgun is up and aimed.

I don’t care. I’ve turned into a coldhearted bitch, and I warned her to stay away and told her what would happen if she showed up.

I start pulling the trigger.

But…