Love You More_ A Novel - Lisa Gardner [140]
We would move on with our lives and never be frightened again. Someday, she’d stop asking for Brian. And someday I’d stop mourning him.
I needed to believe it would be that easy.
I hurt too badly for it to be otherwise.
Four thirty-two in the morning, I found the dirt road that led to Hamilton’s cabin. Four forty-one, I pulled off the road and parked behind a snow-covered bush.
I climbed out of the car.
Thought I smelled smoke.
I hefted up the shotgun.
And heard my daughter scream.
43
Bobby and D.D. had just turned off the Mass Pike for the dark ribbon of rural US 20 when her cellphone rang. The loud chime jerked D.D. out of her groggy state. She hit answer, held the phone to her ear. It was Phil.
“D.D., you still headed west?”
“Already here.”
“Okay, Hamilton has two property addresses. First one’s in Framingham, Mass., near state HQ. I’m assuming the primary home, as it’s listed jointly under Gerard and Judy Hamilton. But there’s a second home, in Adams, Mass., solely under his name.”
“Address?” D.D. demanded crisply.
Phil rattled it off. “But get this: Police scanner just picked up a report of a residential fire in Adams, near the Mount Greylock State Reservation. Maybe it’s a coincidence? Or possibly Hamilton’s cabin is the one on fire.”
“Shit!” D.D. jerked to attention, fully awake. “Phil, contact local authorities. I want backup. County and town officers, but no state troopers.” Bobby shot her a look, but didn’t argue. “Now!” she stated urgently, ending the call, then immediately plugging the Hamilton’s address into the vehicle’s navigation system.
“Phil got us the address, which apparently is near the scene of a fire.”
“Dammit!” Bobby pounded the steering wheel with his hand. “Hamilton’s already there and covering his tracks!”
“Not if we have anything to say about it.”
44
Sophie screamed again, and I jerked into action. I grabbed both the shotgun and the rifle, pouring shotgun shells and rounds of .223 ammo into my pants pockets. The fingers on my right hand moved sluggishly, dumping more ammo onto the snow-covered ground than into my pockets. I didn’t have time to pick it up. I moved, relying on adrenaline and desperation to get the job done.
Weighed down with a small arsenal of weapons and ammo, I careened into the snowy woods, heading toward the smell of smoke and the sound of my daughter.
Another scream. An adult cursing. The sizzling sound of wet wood catching flame.
Cabin was straight up. I bounced from tree to tree, struggling for footing in the fresh snow, breathing shallowly. Didn’t know how many people might be present. Needed the advantage of surprise if Sophie and I were going to get through this. Don’t give away my position, find the higher ground.
My professional training counseled a strategic approach, while my parental instincts screamed for me to charge in and grab my daughter now, now, now. The air grew denser with smoke. I coughed, feeling my eyes burn as I finally crested a small knoll on the left side of the property. I discovered Hamilton’s cabin on fire and my daughter struggling with a woman in a thick black parka. The woman was trying to drag Sophie into a parked SUV. My daughter, wearing nothing but the thin pink pajamas I’d put her to bed in four nights ago and still clutching her favorite doll, Gertrude, was thrashing wildly.
Sophie bit the woman’s exposed wrist. The woman jerked back her arm and slapped her. My daughter’s head rocked sideways. She stumbled, sprawling backward into the snow and coughing raggedly from the smoke.
“No, no, no,” my daughter was crying. “Let me go. I want my mommy. I want my mommy!”
Shotgun on the ground—couldn’t risk it with my child so close to the target. Finding the rifle instead, yanking out the magazine, fumbling in my left pocket. Always load an