LITMIR.BIZ

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glanced at her. “Are you asking Dr. Connolly and me to trade places with Luke?”

      “No. I’m thinking I got the best leverage of all with the kid. You and the doc will be my backup of sorts.”

      Colin was shaking his head before Boyd even finished. “I’m a federal agent. You can’t get better leverage than that. Dr. Connolly doesn’t need to stay.”

      “Yeah. She does. Grab your binoculars, Colin, and have a good look at the west side of the house. Not the house itself. I’m in the garden.”

      Oh, God. Outside. Not where they’d expected a hostage taker to be. The usual pattern was for the perp to remain concealed.

      “That’s where I am right now,” Boyd continued. “Watching you. Oh, and save your bullets because the kid is right here with me, and you wouldn’t want the little fellow to get hurt, now would you?”

      Danielle heard Luke then. He was asking for his father again. Mercy. This could turn very ugly fast.

      Colin did look through the binoculars and cursed under his breath. “He’s watching us,” he scribbled on the notepad. “And he has a rifle.”

      “Tell them to leave,” Boyd insisted. “And no tricks, no dragging their feet. They got five minutes to clear out.”

      “Evacuate now!” Colin called out to Tom. “The situation’s escalated. Boyd’s not in the house. He went onto the grounds, and he can see us.”

      Tom cursed. So did Colin under his breath. And the place turned to chaos. Everyone began to scramble toward their vehicles. Except Tom. He raced to the van, took the notepad and wrote, “We’ll go to the other side of the mountain, out of his sight but not too far.”

      However, it would be far enough so that Colin and she wouldn’t have immediate backup.

      “I don’t want Dr. Connolly here,” Colin said. It took her a moment to realize he was talking to Boyd again. “I want her to leave with the others.”

      “No way, Colin. I’m calling the shots.”

      “I know you are, but it’ll be easier if you only have Luke and me to watch—”

      “Oh, the doc won’t give me any trouble, and since she’s your wife and all, I’m thinking she’ll be able to keep you in line. Because, after all, you being the do-gooder Boy Scout kind of man that you are, you’ll do anything to keep the little woman safe, won’t you?”

      The muscles in Colin’s jaw turned to iron. “Boyd—”

      “Enough of this!” Boyd yelled. “I’m opening the front gate. Now, here’s what I want you to do. No guns. No equipment or bags of any kind, except for the cell phone you’re using right now. Leave your wallet and the doc’s purse in the van. Both of you put your hands in the air and start walking toward the estate.”

      Colin and she glanced at each other, both trying to figure out how to handle this. But their time for decision making was cut very short.

      “Just come, Doctor,” Luke said. His voice was shaky, and he sounded scared again. “Mr. Perkins wants you to come really, really bad.”

      “You want me inside the estate?” Colin asked. He fished out his wallet and personal cell phone and dropped them onto the table.

      “No. See the guesthouse just inside the fence?”

      Danielle had already noticed the small building that had a similar facade to the estate itself. But the guesthouse wasn’t the problem. It was getting there. Colin and she would be out in the open.

      “You can wait here,” Colin told her. He climbed behind the seat and took off his shoulder holster. What he didn’t do was remove the backup pistol that Danielle knew he always carried in an ankle holster. “I’ll talk to Boyd. I’ll make him see there’s no reason for you to be on scene.”

      But there was a reason. A huge one. Even if Colin figured out a way to keep Boyd calm and get him to back off his demand that she be there, it would mean she wouldn’t be around for Luke. He needed her, and she wasn’t going to abandon him.

      “Please come now,” she heard Luke say. His voice filled the van and seemingly the entire mountain. He hadn’t shouted, but he might as well have because his words slammed through her. “Please.”

      “I’m coming,” she let him know. “Just think about your video game. About those hippos. Think about saving the baby giraffe.” Danielle got out of the van and lifted her hands into the air.

      “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Colin mumbled in a gruff whisper.

      “We’re doing the only thing we can do. We’re saving a child,” she reminded him.

      And she started for the guesthouse. Still cursing, Colin hurried to maneuver himself in front of her.

      Danielle could feel Boyd’s rifle trained right on them.

      Chapter Three

      This nightmare had just taken a bad turn.

      Colin knew letting Boyd dictate the situation was a mistake. He had to figure out a way to stop this from spiraling out of control.

      “Stay behind me,” he warned Danielle.

      And by God she’d better listen. She should have stayed in the van and let him talk to Boyd. Not that it likely would have helped. Boyd seemed hell-bent on getting them out of that vehicle and into the open. But he might have been able to convince Boyd to allow anyone other than Danielle to walk into what could essentially be a trap.

      “We didn’t have a choice,” she whispered.

      Colin cursed because he knew she was right.

      He lifted his left hand, a show of surrender, but he kept the cell phone in his right. If necessary, he could get to his backup weapon that he’d moved from his ankle holster to the back waist of his pants, but he might not be able to get to it in time if Boyd starting shooting. If that happened, Danielle and Luke could be hurt. Or worse.

      “Boyd, I’m asking you man-to-man to send Dr. Connolly back,” Colin insisted. Danielle and he slowed when they approached the high metal gates. “If you do, it’ll prove to me that you want to work toward a peaceful resolution. You don’t need two more hostages.”

      “Well, you won’t exactly be hostages. You’ll just be staying in the guesthouse. Nearby but not underfoot. I’ve got a camera fixed on the place, and I’ll know if you try to leave or if you try to bring in any badges.”

      The explanation sounded almost logical, but Colin immediately found the weak spot in Boyd’s argument. “But why risk having us so close at all? You can obviously watch us in the van, too.”

      But Colin knew the answer before Boyd even spoke.

      “True. I can see the van, if I stand outside. I’d prefer not to do that. Plus, you wouldn’t be in rifle range there, now would you? I want you close by. Because soon, very soon, I’ll have some…chores for you two to do.”

      Since the phone was on speaker, Danielle obviously heard that, and her sharp intake of breath caused her lips to tremble. Colin didn’t want to think of what a hit man would consider chores.

      The only thing good in all of it was that perhaps this meant there was no mole. Boyd seemed to have found a way around the blind spot by going outside. That still didn’t explain how the man had figured out who Danielle was. She wasn’t exactly a public figure. But maybe Boyd had access to profiler or facial recognition software. If so, he could have spotted her when she arrived and gotten a picture of her to feed through the software. Colin hoped that’s what had happened.

      Because the alternative made him damn uneasy.

      “This is a waste of time,” Colin tried again. “Just

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