Of course he could. I’d told Homeland Security. They’d called Sergeant Wade.
I licked my lips.
“I’m waiting, Mrs. Shire.”
“I told her.” Emily bit off the words.
No.
Tex laughed low in his throat.
“Oh.” Sarcasm coated Stone’s response. “It’s the daughter, is it.” The gun barrel moved toward her chest. My breath stopped. “How did you do that?”
Emily kept her chin high. “I make videos for a living. I knew how to slow it down. I saw the words at the beginning.”
“And the encrypted message at the end, I’ll bet.” Stone sneered at me. “Since apparently Leringer didn’t mention that.”
“Yes.” Emily’s jaw was tight.
Stone’s voice hardened. “Where’s the key?”
“It must be in Raleigh,” I said. “He phoned it to his daughter.”
Stone lasered me with his eyes. Then did a slow turn toward his two men. “Tex.” His voice sounded casual.
“I’m here.” Tex took a step forward, eager to please.
“Didn’t I tell you if you didn’t bring the girl to me in twelve hours, you’d be dead?”
Before Tex could reply, Stone swung the gun around and shot him in the chest. Mom jerked. Emily and I screamed.
The hole in Tex’s shirt bloomed blood. He fell with a sickening thud.
The third man turned horrified eyes on Stone.
“Don’t worry.” Stone shrugged. “You did your job.”
He turned back to us. I couldn’t move. How could anyone kill another person so easily? Someone who was supposed to be his friend?
“Now. You.” He pointed the gun at me. “Get up.”
“Mom,” Emily wailed.
“Get up now.”
Somehow I pushed off the couch. Would my legs hold me?
“Don’t hurt her.” My mother’s voice, plaintive and weak.
“I don’t like people who lie to me.” Stone’s expression blackened.
“I haven’t—”
“Shut up.” He half-turned toward his remaining man. “Mack. Take her to the other side of the room.”
Mack grabbed my arm and pulled me across the floor.
“Please,” Emily said. “Don’t. We’ll tell you everything.”
“Yes, you will. When I’m done with you.”
I reached the far wall. Mack spun me around to face the couch. Stone stood in the middle of the room, halfway between me and the two loves of my life. They clung to each other.
God help us! I could not send this killing machine to Ashley Eddington and her little girl.
Stone turned his back on me, the gun aimed at the couch.
“No! Stop!” This could not be real. My knees started to fold. Mack yanked me up.
“You choose.” Stone’s chilling voice filtered over his shoulder.
“What?” My vision was blackening. I couldn’t get air.
“One of ’em dies for your lies.”
“No!”
“You don’t choose one, they both go.”
“Please . . .”
“You got ten seconds.” Stone’s arm moved, and I knew he’d grasped his weapon with both hands. “So, Mrs. Shire. Tell me. Which one gets to live?”
Chapter 50
SPECIAL HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION INTO FREENOW TERRORIST ACTIVITY OF FEBRUARY 25, 2013
SEPTEMBER 16, 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Representative ELKIN MORSE (Chairman, Homeland Security Committee): Again I must note the sudden change in your actions, Sergeant Wade—now that you were at a point where you knew the blackout could not be stopped. Suddenly you were doing everything you could to save the woman you’d hunted before. When the van’s license plate failed to provide the lead you needed, what did you do?
WADE: I called Cheryl Stein, Leringer’s daughter. I asked her again if she knew why her father would have kept repeating the word “Raleigh” before he died.
MORSE: “Again.” So you’d had this conversation with her before?
WADE: Yes, on Sunday night. But she’d just lost her father and had been on site when a second body—that of Nathan Eddington—was found. Perhaps she hadn’t been thinking all that clearly. And, of course, now we had a better sense of how important it was to discover what “Raleigh” meant.
MORSE: And what did Cheryl Stein tell you?
WADE: She had no idea what her father had been referring to.
MORSE: So it was at this point you called Ashley Eddington with the same question?
WADE: Yes.
MORSE: And you had not had this conversation with her previously?
WADE: I was not able to question Ashley Eddington to the extent I would have liked. Ashley had to deal with the loss of her husband while caring for a young daughter. She’d been overwrought and unable to continue answering questions. We’d had to stop.