Allison Brennan - Silenced

“Stay low!” Noah ordered.

There was no fire in the church proper, just a lot of smoke. Noah motioned that the school was in the back.

Slater grabbed a fire extinguisher from one of his men and entered the building. Three more of the SWAT team entered, all with guns. They didn’t know if the second man was in the building or not, but assumed there was still a hostage situation.

Lucy followed Noah into the smoke-filled room and stifled a cry.

Six children and two adults had been duct-taped to their chairs.

Noah picked up two kids, with their chairs strapped to them, and carried them out as quickly as he could. Lucy followed his lead, grabbed the closest child, and followed Noah out.

Visibility was nonexistent. Her eyes burned, her throat was raw, she couldn’t stop coughing.

The little boy in her arms was unconscious.

She made it outside, collapsed in the playground, and pulled at the tape.

Each SWAT member ran in and brought out the remaining children and adults, one by one.

Lucy began to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the little boy.

“Come on,” she willed him, listening for breathing, but the sound of the fire drowned it out.

Not these kids. God, please, haven’t enough people died?

She repeated the cycle and waited a beat.

He began to cough.

She cried tearlessly.

Matt Slater ran out the back carrying a teenage girl. “She’s alive, but she’s been shot in the back. We can’t find anyone else in the building. We’re pulling out.” He said into his headset, “Ambulance?”

“Three minutes,” one of his men said. He shook his head and carried her to the street just as the fire trucks pulled up.

“We need a medic STAT!” Slater called. “Female victim, shot twice in the back. Difficulty breathing. In and out of consciousness.”

The scene was organized chaos. Lucy watched as everyone did their job quickly and efficiently. Kate escorted Ivy to see Mina. A SWAT medic was applying pressure to her wounds. Ivy cried and held her hand. Kate stood there, stoic, watching the scene around her, both participant and observer.

Lucy sat with the little boy, who clung to her like a life vest. She hugged him back.

“God saved us,” the four-year-old said.

“Yes He did,” Lucy said. “With a little help from SWAT.”

He looked up at her with his dark face and darker eyes. “I want to be a SWAT.”

She smiled through her tears. “You will be.”

She saw Noah through the crowd. He came to her, knelt in front of her. He was coughing, filthy, and his hands had first-degree burns. He hugged her spontaneously, the child cradled between them.

“You okay?” He inspected her for injury, though Lucy assured him she was fine.

“How did you know where he was? No one had the visual until he approached you,” Noah asked.

“I felt him watching me.”

He hugged her again. “Good job, Lucy.”

A tall black woman was sitting nearby and consoling the children. “Where is he? Did you find him?”

Noah said, “He didn’t survive.”

“What about his partner?”

Noah tensed. “There were two?”

“One inside and one outside.”

Noah got Slater on the phone. “We have another suspect, and he’s on foot.”

Devon Sullivan didn’t leave until after eight that morning. As soon as her Mercedes drove out of sight, Sean pulled out of the parking lot and turned down the private street.

He monitored the end of every driveway without slowing below twenty-five miles per hour, to avoid drawing attention from residents or any household staff. Not every owner had security along their fence, but the Jager/Sullivan house did. A quick assessment told Sean there were cameras at the end of the driveway and each corner of the property. He recognized the manufacturer and smiled.

“They’re all digital. But the system has a glitch,” Sean explained to Sergio. “It won’t take me more than a minute to freeze all the cameras. If someone is monitoring them, they’ll see a picture, but unless they’re looking carefully-or if someone gets captured on the film and is shown motionless-no one should notice anything different.”

He parked his Mustang in the camera’s blind spot and took out his backup laptop. He opened it up and found the signal from the security feed. “This is even better. I can get into the main system and access every camera in the house to see if there is staff. Once we’re inside we’ll be blind, though-the cameras will be frozen.”

“Won’t they know someone was here?”

“They will if we find the locket. But the security system is designed to photograph as well as provide a video feed. It’s full of problems. What I’m forcing it to do is take a picture throughout the system and freeze-even the security company that installed it will say it’s just a glitch.”

“Why would they put in an inferior system?”

“Ninety percent of security systems can be neutralized in less than three minutes.” Sean grabbed the main feed and scrolled through each camera. “Three here in the front, over each entrance, inside the pool house, seven in the back-they think they’re vulnerable from the rear. Or they don’t trust their neighbors,” Sean joked.

“You enjoy this.”

“I like my job.” He glanced at Sergio. “I don’t like who I’m working for.”

“Jonathon saved my life.”

“Save it. I know the story. And I am sorry about your daughter. Truly. But Paxton thinks he’s God, and he’s playing with the lives of people I care about. And he’s lying to me, I just haven’t figured out what, or why.”

Sergio didn’t say anything, which was good because Sean was growing irritated remembering his conversation with Paxton the night before. Remembering that Paxton had a copy of Lucy’s confidential FBI file. Who had given it to him?

“No internal cameras. I’m searching the grounds and I don’t see vehicles that aren’t registered to the house. Okay, I’m going to freeze the cameras, then I’m going in. Alone. Take my car and go back to where we parked before. I want to know if anyone turns down this street-make and model of their car. If they are feds. Anything. Text me. When I’m ready,” he pulled out the satellite map of the property, “go down this parallel street. These horse lovers that the Jagers don’t trust have no security cameras. Park at the end of their driveway.”

He handed Sergio his keys. “And be careful with my car.”

When the ambulance arrived, Lucy handed the little boy off to one of the DC cops who’d arrived on scene. She joined Kate and Ivy, who were with Mina as she was being strapped onto the gurney. Only seven minutes had passed since Slater carried her from the church.

Ivy wiped away her tears. Soot covered her face from the smoke, though the fire was under control.

“You’re going to be okay, Mina,” Ivy said. “I promise. I need you, Mina. I need you just like I need Sara.”

Mina lifted her hand off the gurney and Ivy grabbed it. “Mina! It’s me, Ivy. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you.”

Mina squeezed her hand, then dropped it.

“Blood pressure’s falling,” one of the medics said and finished putting her in the ambulance. They closed the doors and drove off.

Lucy watched the scene with Kate. As soon as Mina was gone, Kate walked over to Marti North, who was keeping the kids settled while they were checked out by the medics. Lucy and Ivy followed. “What happened?”

“He came in through the back. I should have canceled school, but I didn’t think we were in danger. He had a gun and forced me to tie up the children. I tried to make a game out of it, but they knew I was scared. Dammit, I spent three years in the Army and that bastard terrified me!”