The 6th Target (Women's Murder Club 6)

“Now turn around slowly. Three hundred sixty degrees. Hold up your shirt so I can see your waist,” I said as he struggled to comply. “Okay, you can pull up your pants.”

He hurried to do so.

“Now I want you to hoist up your pants legs all the way to your knees.”

“Nice legs for a guy,” Conklin said to me over the roof of the car. “Now let’s get him outta here.”

I nodded, thinking that if the wife charged downstairs, she could blow Renfrew away through the open door.

I told Renfrew to release his pants legs, come out, and hug the wall of the house.

“If you do what I say, she can’t get a bead on you,” I said. “Keep both hands on the walls. Make your way around the south corner of the house. Then lie down. Interlace your hands behind your neck.”

When Renfrew was on the ground, a black Suburban rolled up onto the lawn. Two FBI agents jumped out and cuffed him, patted him down.

They were folding him into the backseat of their vehicle when I heard glass breaking from the second floor of the gabled house. Oh, shit.

A woman’s face appeared at the window.

She had a gun in her hand, and it was pressed against the temple of a little girl whose expression was frozen into a slack-mouthed stare.

The little girl was Madison Tyler.

The woman who held her captive was Tina Langer, aka Laura Renfrew, and she looked like a k

iller. Her face was furrowed with anger, but I didn’t see a trace of fear.

She called out through the window, “The end of the game is the most interesting part, isn’t it, Sergeant Boxer? I want safe passage. Oh, I mean safe passage for me and Madison. That helicopter is a good place to start. Someone better give the pilot a ring. Get him to land on the lawn. Do it now. Right now.

“Oh, by the way . . . if anyone makes a move toward me, I’ll shoot this little —”

I saw the black hole appear in her forehead before I heard the echoing crack of the Remington’s report from the rooftop across the street.

Madison screamed as the woman calling herself Laura Renfrew stood framed in the window.

She released the little girl as she fell.

Chapter 114

WAS MADISON TYLER ALL RIGHT? That’s all I was thinking as Conklin and I burst into the front bedroom, second floor. We didn’t see the girl anywhere, though.

“Madison?” I called out, my voice high.

A single unmade bed was against the wall adjacent to the door. An open suitcase was on the bed, with girls’ clothing tossed inside.

“Where are you, honey?” Rich Conklin called out as we approached the closet. “We’re the police.”

We reached the closet at the same time. “Madison, it’s okay, sweetie,” I said, turning the knob. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

I opened the door, saw a pile of clothing on the floor of the closet, moving in time with someone’s breathing.

I stooped down, still afraid of what I might see. “Maddy,” I said, “my name is Lindsay and I’m a policewoman. I’m here to take you home.”

I nudged aside the pile of clothing on the closet floor until I finally saw the little girl. She was whimpering softly, hugging herself, rocking with her eyes closed.

Oh, God, thank you. It was Madison.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, my voice quavering. “Everything is going to be okay.”