John Gilstrap - At all costs

Thorne recovered quickly, but Wiggins was faster, sweeping the newcomer’s legs out from under him with a vicious roundhouse kick. Wiggins was on him the instant he hit the floor, and suddenly, the struggle looked like something you’d see in the halls of a high school: a wrestling match, with only a few punches thrown-and those to little effect-as each man struggled for dominance over the other.

Jake moved in, weapon drawn, and pulled Nick out of the way by his armpits. “Help my wife,” Nick groaned, and he pointed overhead.

Melissa looked like she was trying to swim, her legs kicking uselessly in the air as she dangled from her one good arm. What the hell? Jake wondered, and then he saw the rope. “Oh, my God!”

The two fighters broke apart as Thorne’s head snapped back and a smear of blood flooded the lower half of his face. Thorne countered with two savage lefts to the killer’s mouth. A tooth hit the floor, and the men locked it up again.

Jake took the stairs two at a time. As he arrived at the top, he saw the angulation in Melissa’s ruined shoulder and realized for the first time just how desperate her situation was. If she let go, she was dead.

Melissa greeted Jake with a look of faint recognition. “You-” she said, not completing the sentence. She eyed the Glock in his fist and gurgled out something like “Shoot him.”

Jake didn’t bother to respond. He needed the killer alive and prayed Thorne would be able to hold his own while he concentrated on saving this woman’s life. He examined the complex knot on the railing for just a second before abandoning it as hopeless. Reaching over the top, he grabbed a fistful of shirt and heaved her high enough to where she could regain her foothold on the ledge.

“Shoot him!” she said, air returning to her lungs.

He helped her climb back over the banister. “I can’t,” he said.

A heavy thump and a crash whipped his attention back down the stairs as Thorne and Wiggins exploded apart, each tumbling backward onto the wooden floor. Thorne landed in the broken glass.

Wiggins landed on Lauren.

“Mommmeeeee!!!”

In an instant, Wiggins had the little girl in his grasp, his forearm around her middle, squeezing her hard enough to turn her face red. The Beretta appeared in his other hand, and he brought it toward the little girl’s head.

Melissa and Nick shrieked in unison, “No!”

On the floor, Thorne rolled to his side, and there was a flash of silver as he slapped his own weapon out of its holster. A tongue of flame six inches long jumped from the muzzle of Thorne’s big. 45, and the house rocked with noise as Wiggins’s gun hand left his arm. Fingers flew through the air like chips from a log, and the Beretta dropped harmlessly onto the polished hardwood surface of the foyer.

The impact of Thorne’s bullet spun the attacker into the wall with tremendous force, but he never let go of the girl, who flopped in his arm like a doll.

Jake flew down the stairs as Thorne drew a bead for his kill shot. “God, Thorne, no!” He slapped at the chrome-plated. 45 even as it rocked the house one more time. “We need him alive, goddammit!”

“Get out of my way!” Thorne yelled, and he brought the gun around one more time.

But he was too late. Wiggins had shifted arms again, the tattered stump of bone and tissue painting horrifying red stripes across Lauren’s pink coveralls. She stood tall and still in his arms, though, her feet dangling by his knees as his knife blade pushed into the underside of her jaw, just far enough to draw a bead of blood.

“Put the piece down or I’ll cut her throat!” he commanded.

Thorne never broke his aim. “Like I give a shit,” he growled. “Go ahead and cut it. I’d love to see your brain on the floor.”

“Oh, my God!” Melissa shrieked.

Nick was standing again, his weight on his only good foot. “Thorne!” he yelled. “For Christ’s sake, put your gun down. That’s my daughter!”

“Then make another one. I’m gonna kill this asshole.”

Wiggins smiled, even as he backed out of the foyer, toward the kitchen. “You gonna shoot right through her, tough guy?”

Thorne shrugged. “If I have to.”

Jake didn’t know what to do. He knew without the tiniest doubt that Thorne couldn’t have cared less about that little girl. Jake moved in behind him, his own weapon drawn, as together they backed the killer through the kitchen, toward Melissa’s workroom.

“Don’t kill him, Thorne,” Jake said softly, nearly whispering in his ear. “If you kill him, it’s all over. We don’t have squat for real evidence. That’s what we’re here for, remember?”

“Stay out of my way, Jake.”

Melissa and Nick joined the group, helping each other move as best they could. “Nick!” she wailed. “Stop him! My God, who are these people? What are they doing here?”

Thorne never broke eye contact with his target as he hissed, “Do me a favor, Nick, and get control of your wife.”

“Fuck you!” Melissa shouted. She darted out in front of Thorne, blocking his aim, and facing Wiggins eye-to-eye.

Nick panicked. “Melissa, no!”

“Please let her go,” she pleaded. “I tried…”

Wiggins was gone. Keeping the flailing, sobbing little girl between himself and his pursuers, he glided out of the kitchen and through the glass doors of Melissa’s studio.

“Get out of my way!” Thorne shouted as Melissa tried to block his path.

“He’ll kill her!” she screamed. She grabbed Thorne’s jacket in her fists. “Let him go!”

Thorne settled the issue with a slap that sent Melissa reeling.

Jake stood watching, horrified. He saw Nick’s wife hit the floor shoulder-first and heard her scream in pain. Nick shot him a look of pure hatred as he hobbled over to help her. Jake stared for a moment, absorbing his friend’s anger, but there was nothing to say. He hurried to follow Thorne into the yard.

Out back, the grass gave way quickly to woods; small scrubby stuff up front, backed up by a thick forest of brilliantly colored young hardwoods-a final insult to the property’s nearly forgotten heritage as a farm.

Movement drew Jake’s attention to his left as he saw a flash of Thorne’s back disappearing among the colors. He followed at a dead run. With the sun resting low on the horizon, streams of light painted a confusing mosaic through the leaves, making it difficult to keep Thorne in sight. Jake couldn’t see their quarry at all.

When Thorne stopped, Jake was with him in an instant. “Where are they?”

Thorne gestured for silence, using the muzzle of his pistol as an extension of his vision as he scanned the forest for movement. “I saw him,” he whispered. “He’s here.”

The words triggered a chill. Where could he be, then? He didn’t have that much of a lead.

“There!” Jake pointed. “Isn’t that blood?”

In the distance, they heard Melissa’s plaintive voice. “Lauren! Lauren, honey, we’re coming!”

Out in front, and off to the right, they heard a child’s muffled cry. Together, they moved toward it, following the blood trail and listening for additional noise.

“Lauren!” This time it was Nick’s voice, and they were getting closer.

Soon the woods opened up again, to reveal another cleared field, with a dilapidated barn growing up out of the center. Jake and Thorne stopped at the edge of the clearing.

“What do you think?” Jake whispered. “Are they inside?”

Thorne shook his head. “He’s too smart to corner himself.”

“Then why…”

A rustle of leaves just inches to their left brought both men around, their guns bearing down on the terrified face of little Lauren. She screamed, yet even at five, she understood the unasked question. “He dropped me!” she shouted.