“Well, we’re here to take care of you,” Ian said, trying to soothe her as the rat-a-tat-tat of AK-47 fire echoed in the small space.
If I lived to be a thousand, I would never understand the mentality of people firing at law enforcement when they entered their building. Yes, we were stuck now, but reinforcements would come to surround the building, and then there’d be nowhere for them to go, either. There was no way out. Even if they took hostages, it all eventually ended badly. There was no scenario in which they won. All they had to do was think logically, just for a moment.
“And Javier.”
“I’m sorry?” I had been zoning for a moment, but her comment caught my interest.
“My boyfriend, Javier—Javi,” she explained. “Abel Hardy’s after him too. He’s the guy we were running away from. He’s why we left Texas.”
“And where is Javier?” I asked, not really even wanting to know.
“He was in our room on the third floor.”
Of course he was. We were in the courtyard on the first floor, outside the building. It only made sense that Javier was inside, all the way up on the third. Murphy’s Law and all that.
“I already told the marshals in Lubbock,” she began patiently. “That if Javi and me didn’t get taken in together, that I wasn’t gonna testify. That’s why we ran away, because they wouldn’t listen. But you will, right? You’re different than the Texas marshals.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. She was gazing at us with her big cornflower-blue eyes like we were angels straight from heaven.
“So you and Javier were together when—” I searched my memory. “—the drug bust went down.”
“And we saw Mr. Hardy shoot all those people. Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Five. There were three men and two women. They were those tourists that went missing. It was all over the news in Lubbock.”
I nodded.
“You and Javier were there?” Ian wanted to make sure.
“Uh-huh,” she replied innocently. “He told me to be quiet, but I was so scared—kinda like now, but at least y’all have guns. We didn’t have nothin’. I was sure Mr. Hardy was gonna kill us too, but then the police came, and then the marshals.”
“And you and Javier got separated?”
“Yessir, we did.”
I could see how it happened, how it was reported that Lucy saw it all without mention of her boyfriend.
“So you’ll get him, right?”
Fuck.
“Right?” she pressed.
“Javier what?”
“Valencia,” she sighed. “Isn’t that pretty?”
We both nodded before Ian turned to the Homeland Security agent who had been crouching down beside us the whole time.
“Who’re you?” I got around to asking.
“Agent Gerald Spivey.”
“Okay, Agent Spivey.” Ian sighed. “Marshal Jones and I are going in after another witness, so we need you to secure this one. Do you understand?”
“Yessir.”
“Great.” Ian puffed out a breath before he turned to face me. “Don’t get shot in the head.”
“Ditto.”
The troopers covered us as we ran for the building, and then Ian counted and I had his back as he kicked in the door and we went in. That was as far as we got. Apparently SWAT had come in through the back and they were there, already having breached the interior, fanned out along the corridor, all of them encased in body armor.
“Marshals,” the SWAT commander greeted us tersely.
“Lieutenant,” Ian returned. “Is this level secure?”
“Affirmative, all threats have been neutralized.”
I didn’t even want to know how many people were dead.
“We’re going to the third floor now. Is there a witness here to secure?”
“Yessir.” Ian nodded.
“Follow us up.”
“Do you have snipers on site already?” I asked.
“Negative. We have no higher ground. As this is a residential area, our purpose is containment. No one leaves the grounds that could be considered a threat to private citizens.”
Translation: anyone running from the halfway house who was armed would be shot dead. He had twenty men with him, and even though I could tell Ian wanted to be in the middle of the team, I grabbed hold of his forearm and held him still as they filed by.
“What are you doing?”
“They go first, then us.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then stop tensing up like you’re getting ready to run. Just wait.” I finished talking and let him go.
“I’m waiting,” he retorted, clearly annoyed.
I moved in behind him, my mouth to his ear. “Don’t disappear; stay where I can see you.”
He leaned just enough so he could feel me there, at his back. “I always do.”
“You never do.”
“Okay.”
The rear guard ran by, and Ian bolted after him with me following close.
When marshals searched, we yelled, we announced ourselves, we barked out orders like “freeze,” “get on your knees,” and “put your hands where we can see them.” A SWAT team just moved. With us, if you fired, you still had a chance. We would call out what we were, “Federal marshals, put down your weapons!” With SWAT, if you were stupid enough to fire on them, they fired back and that was it. I was pleased that there was no gunfire in the stairwell as we made our ascent, none on the second floor we searched to make sure the witness hadn’t run, and none when the SWAT team began pounding up more steps to the third.