“I understand.”
“I need your gun. He said you’d have one.”
“Where am I going?” I asked as I pulled the Ruger from the holster under my jacket and passed it to her.
I had to drive out to Park Ridge, and Emerson directed me to Touhy Avenue and then down Courtland. Four blocks south on the left was a large two-story house, and I was told to get out and go to the front door and ring the doorbell. Emerson would be right behind me.
Yes, I could have easily taken the gun from her, but she was terrified for her daughter and I understood that.
“As soon as I have my child, marshal, I will send the Marines back here for you, I swear to God,” she promised as we climbed the front steps.
I had no reason to doubt her sincerity.
Ringing the doorbell, I thought of my phone in the truck, under the seat where I’d dropped it when Emerson had glanced away from me to make sure we were going the right way. Hopefully, when Ian tried to call and didn’t get me, his law enforcement brain would kick in and he’d know exactly what had happened. At least the phone in my parked vehicle would alert him to my last whereabouts. From here, depending on Hartley, it was a crapshoot.
Because I didn’t want to scare Emerson any more than she already was, I was working really hard to not come unglued. I was taking shallow breaths, keeping my nerves on a tight leash, and forcing myself not to throw up, even with how knotted up my stomach was. I was terrified, plain and simple, and trying desperately not to let her see it on my face.
When the door opened a crack, I saw a scared, sniffling little girl for a second before she saw her mother.
“Mommy!” she squealed, and Emerson had to put her hand on my back to keep herself on her feet.
“Hi, lovey,” she soothed. “Just stand right there for me, okay? Freeze like a popsicle, until we find out what the man wants.”
Saxon turned her head to listen, and then her little six-year-old face lifted to me. “Are you Miro?”
“Yes, I am.”
She took a deep breath. “He wants you to come in, and if you do, I get to go out there with my mom.”
“Okay, then, lemme in,” I said, smiling openly so she’d know everything was going to be all right.
She turned again, listening, looking at her mother. “He says we can go, Mom, but we have to be superquiet and not talk to anyone until we get to the end of the street. If we’re not good girls, he’s gonna be mad.”
“Yes,” Emerson whispered. “Whatever he wants.”
Saxon listened again. “He wants you to put the gun in the mailbox in front of the house.”
“Yes,” Emerson agreed frantically.
Saxon told the psychopath what Emerson had said, repeating it for him even though he could clearly hear both mother and child perfectly. It was a control measure, and for perhaps the hundredth time in my life, I thought about how clever he was. The man was a master of manipulation; he had a singular focus and no one could doubt his follow-through. It was such a waste that his mind was broken.
“He says okay,” Saxon told me. “You can come in now.”
I moved forward as she came out, slipping easily by me, and I closed the door behind her. I heard mother and daughter scurrying down the front steps, and then everything else was gone as Craig Hartley stepped out of the shadows to face me.
I was certain my heart stopped. How was it even possible that I was with him again? Every part of me screamed for flight, but all I could do was stand there and stare. He’d kill me if I moved, and on the cast, I wouldn’t get far if I punched him and tried to get away.
“Miro,” he whispered.
I had to keep breathing for as long as I could and try to keep from trembling even though I was suddenly freezing from the inside out.
“My God, man, how many lives do you have?”
“Hopefully enough,” I replied glibly.
He moved forward until I felt the muzzle of the gun against my abdomen. “How in the world did you break your ankle? That’s awfully klutzy, don’t you think?”
“Came down on it funny,” I answered as he slipped his hand between the open lapels of my olive-green wool overcoat and pressed it over my heart.
“You’re scared.”
I shrugged, but it took effort. Modulating my voice, repressing both my fight-or-flight instincts, and appearing calm was taking all of my concentration. “Of course I am. The last time we saw each other, you took out one of my ribs.”
“Yes, I did,” he replied, sliding his hand down my abdomen to my belt and then burrowing underneath two layers, Henley and T-shirt, to my skin. “But the scar is barely there. I did a good job with the surgical glue.”