night-vision goggles, which he didn’t have. “Okay, we’ll come up from the south.”
Michael and Tom coordinated their signals, checked their gear and started out.
Fifteen minutes later, they saw the small one-story house. It was lit up—lights in every room. They could use that to their advantage, because if one of the suspects looked out, they would see only dark. There were no streetlights and only a back and front porch light illuminated the exterior. The barn was wrapped in darkness on the north side of the house, towering over the smaller structure.
There were no nearby houses. A dark sedan was parked in the drive, but Michael couldn’t make out the details from this distance. If it was the same make and model as they knew the Lopez brothers were driving, he would confirm with Wyatt. All the SWAT team was waiting for was intel.
He said quietly to Tom, “I’m going around the retaining wall to get confirmation on the vehicle. I’ll mic you once if it’s the Nissan, twice if it’s not. Stay low.”
Tom concurred and lay flat on the ground, his rifle trained on the rear door of the house.
Michael ran low along the retaining wall, on the mountain side of the property. So far, so good. The car was parked between the house and the barn. He wished he had full gear, because night-vision goggles would come in handy right now.
He needed to get closer. He walked around the outbuilding, which was surprisingly modern compared to the post–World War II house. He stayed close to the side of the building as he approached the vehicle from the far side.
Bingo.
He clicked his mic once. Tom acknowledged.
They had the right car; now Michael hoped that Kara was inside the house. He wanted to check, but all the blinds were closed.
Michael was about to return to where he’d left Tom when he heard a vehicle on the road. He expected it to pass—when he looked at the map with the fire chief, there were another half dozen properties up this road. But instead, it slowed. It wasn’t just a car; it was a car followed by a moving truck. Michael pushed himself up against the barn and froze. The car turned up the drive; its lights flashed against the cactus and mountainside immediately in front of Michael, but thankfully missed him.
The car parked next to the Nissan. The truck passed the driveway, then backed up, all the way to the barn doors, the beep beep beep of the backup warning system echoing against the mountainside.
Michael was only two feet from the corner. He slowly moved to the right, still pressed up against the barn, then stopped as soon as he rounded the corner. He couldn’t return to Tom without being seen by the new arrivals. He was stuck.
He pushed gently against the side of the barn, looking for any vulnerabilities. It was well made, but several of the wood planks were worn and some splintered. He found a hole near the bottom and cautiously shined his light in, to see if he could determine whether the newcomers were bringing something in, or taking something out.
Wooden crates filled the barn.
The same type of crates used to transport weapons.
* * *
Kara was trying to listen to Dominick and Rondo in the other room. They were still watching television. The soccer game ended—their team had lost—and now they were viewing a sitcom on a comedy station that played shows at all hours of the night and, apparently, the wee hours of the morning. Dominick was on and off the phone, but she couldn’t make out much of anything because of the distraction of the television, and Rondo’s sporadic laughter.
But she did pick up key information over the last couple of hours: they were waiting for someone who scared them.
It was subtle, something she’d picked up primarily from Dominick’s tone more than what he said.
Helen had fallen asleep on the couch.
Kara had long ago stopped trying to convince Barry to help her get out of the zip ties—she could do it herself, but she’d make too much noise. But Barry said if he let her go, they’d hurt Helen.
She wanted to say, You should have thought of that before you got into bed with those bastards, but she didn’t. She didn’t want them to hurt Helen either. It wasn’t her fault that her husband made a deal with the devil, or that her niece was a bitch.
The more she thought on it, the more she