Chapter 17 - Blood on the Hardwood
The foyer was a war zone.
Tear gas burned Daniel’s eyes and throat as he stumbled across shattered porcelain and splintered mahogany. The living room furniture was overturned. The framed photographs of Clara holding newborn Sophie were crushed into the floorboards, their glass ground to powder under heavy combat boots.
Near the kitchen island, Mateo lay on his side in a pool of dark blood.
"Mateo!" Daniel dropped to his knees, rolling the young man onto his back. Mateo was clutching his shoulder, his skin gray, a jagged gunshot wound leaking crimson through his torn denim jacket.
"Daniel..." Mateo gasped, coughing, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "The... the pantry... they had thermal imaging... they knew the safe room was there..."
"Where is she, Mateo? Where is Sophie?!"
"A man... tall... silver hair... dressed in a bespoke suit over a Kevlar vest... he carried her out to the lawn... Daniel, she was screaming for you..."
Daniel pressed a kitchen towel against Mateo’s shoulder with all his strength. "Hold this! Don't move! The paramedics are coming!"
"Go!" Mateo wheezed, his eyes wild with terror. "Get my niece! Don't let them take Clara’s baby!"
Daniel grabbed Mateo’s discarded shotgun from the floor, racking the slide. One heavy red shell clambered into the chamber.
He charged through the shattered dining room doors out onto the bluff overlooking the rocky beach below.
The wind off the water hit him like a frozen fist.
Fifty yards away, near the low stone wall where Clara’s memorial plaque was set into the granite, stood four men. Three of them were dressed in sterile black tactical gear, carrying suppressed submachine guns.
The fourth man stood apart, tall, impeccably groomed, wearing an expensive charcoal cashmere coat that whipped in the coastal gale.
In his arms, wrapped in her little pink fleece blanket, was Sophie.
"DADA!" Sophie’s voice pierced through the roar of the surf, high, terrified, her little arms flailing wildly toward Daniel. "DADA, HELP!"
Daniel raised the shotgun, aiming directly at the man in the cashmere coat. "PUT HER DOWN! STEP AWAY FROM HER OR I WILL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!"
The silver-haired man didn't flinch. He turned slowly, looking at Daniel with eyes that were terrifyingly familiar. They were the exact same ice-blue shade as Evelyn’s. The exact same eyes Daniel saw in his own bathroom mirror every morning.
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"Hello, Daniel," the man said smoothly, his voice carrying effortlessly over the crashing waves. "You have your mother’s temper. But I’m afraid you don't have the ammunition to back it up."
***
