CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE TINA
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
T INA
Tina stares out the Black Hawk’s window as they fly low along the eastern shores of Seneca Lake. Moments ago, she spotted her parents’ old cabin as they flew over the western edges of the narrow body of water. Now, they soar over the forested area she recognizes as Sampson State Park. She hiked this area with her parents a couple of times when she was in high school.
Her coffee rises to the back of her throat at the thought of the innocent baby being somewhere among these trees. She strains to spot any sort of movement within the forest, but it’s too dense for her to see anything with her naked eye besides the thick foliage.
“We’ve got a heat signature!”
Tina turns from the window on her right toward the SWAT member seated on the other side of Castillo. He points to his laptop screen.
Tina leans into her supervisor to get a better look. A small reddish-orange blob centers the thermal image.
“It’s moving!” the tactical agent announces.
“We need to get on the ground!” Castillo shouts.
“Roger.” The pilot’s voice comes over their headphones. “The Seneca Army Depot backs up against the state park. I’ll set us down on their parking lot.”
“Agent Harris,” Castillo says into his mouthpiece, “have local authorities dispatched to the army depot. We’re going to need some vehicles.”
“Copy that.”
As the chopper noses over, Tina closes her eyes, gripping a handle to her right as they get tossed about by the wind on their way down. She bounces in her seat when the Black Hawk’s wheels hit the asphalt, and she opens her eyes.
As the door slides open, wind rushes inside the fuselage. Tina climbs out, followed by Castillo and a few of the SWAT team. The tactical agent with the laptop remains in his seat.
“What’s the ETA on the local authorities?” Castillo yells to one of the SWAT agents.
Tina glances around the depot.
“Seneca PD dispatched two vehicles. One should be here in the next minute or two. The other is ten minutes out.”
A patrol car marked “Seneca County Sheriff” pulls to a stop alongside the agents who have their heads down as the Black Hawk lifts back into the air.
“You two come with me!” Castillo points to Tina and a SWAT agent. “You guys take the next car,” he shouts to the three other SWAT members on the ground. “We’ll try to block him in.”
Tina jogs after Castillo to the patrol car and climbs into the back beside the SWAT agent.
Castillo turns to the Seneca officer, who looks at him expectantly. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail at the base of her neck, and her eyes are serious.
“We spotted the heat signature of a person moving through the forest just east of Northlake Road,” Castillo tells her.
She speeds out of the army depot and turns onto the two-lane highway before cutting into a road that leads to the state forest. They pass a small dirt road: P ASCAL L ANE . Tina almost hit a deer in this very spot one night, driving to her parents’ place with Isabel in a car seat. She studies the forest out her side window. It’s strange being in a place she knows so well, searching for a fugitive.
“We’ve regained a visual on the thermal activity. Suspect is moving slow, now on the west side of Northlake Road, heading toward the lake.”
The voice that abruptly comes from the SWAT agent’s radio in the seat next to her makes Tina jump.
“Roger,” he says. “We’re en route, heading north on Sampson State Park Road.”
“We see you,” the voice crackles through the radio. “You’re approaching the suspect.”
The officer steps on the gas.
“Suspect is now one hundred yards to your left.”
“Stop!” Castillo orders.
The patrol car brakes to a halt. Castillo throws open the passenger door.
“Wait!” the radio crackles. “Suspect is moving north at increasing speed. He’s getting into a vehicle on the passenger side ... looks like a pickup truck. The truck is now moving north.”
The Seneca officer reverses down the road. “There’s an offshoot back here to a forest road,” she says. “That must be what they’re driving on.”
“Head straight ahead!” Tina shouts. “I know that road. It meets up with this one farther north. Keep going and we’ll run right into them.”
The officer stops and looks to Castillo for approval.
He points out the windshield. “Go!”
She puts the car into drive and speeds up the road, thrusting Tina against the back of her seat. Tina stares out the side window, along with the SWAT member, until they pass a narrow dirt road on their left.
“That’s it! Right here!”
The officer slams on the brakes as a black truck appears, rounding the corner of the dirt road. Everyone but Tina jumps out of the vehicle as the truck screeches to a stop a few feet from the patrol car.
Tina watches the three of them draw their weapons as Castillo orders the two men inside the truck to step out with their hands on their heads. The passenger door to the truck swings open. Tina registers the barrel of a pistol pointed at the car and ducks seconds before a loud blast echoes through the forest.
“Stop!” she screams. “The baby! Hold your fire!”
She hears Castillo shout something, but his voice is so faint she realizes he’s away from the car. The sound of the Black Hawk helicopter grows steadily, filling the silence. The Seneca officer returns to the driver’s seat and makes a call over the radio.
Tina slowly lifts her head to look at the truck sitting empty with both its doors open.
“Requesting backup on Northlake Road in Sampson State Park. Two armed suspects have fled their vehicle on foot. FBI is in pursuit.” The officer’s shouts into the car’s microphone are almost drowned out by the rising thump-thump-thump of the Black Hawk’s rotor blades hovering overhead.
Pulse pounding, Tina crawls out of the car, trying to avoid pressing her palms into the small shards of glass littered across the pavement from the shots fired. When she gets to her feet, she hears something like a squawk coming from inside the cab.
“Ma’am, I need you to stay back,” the officer calls from behind her as Tina approaches the truck.
Liam, she thinks. Please, God, let it be Liam.
“Stop! I need to secure the vehicle.”
Tina rounds the opened passenger door. She’s aware of the Seneca officer rushing toward her in her periphery, but all Tina can focus on is the car seat in the middle of the truck bench. And the baby who looks to be asleep inside it.
Tina recognizes his thin blond waves from Makayla Rossi’s Instagram. His eyes are closed, his jaw slack. Her heart plummets into her stomach, thinking of the gunshots fired moments before. There’s no way he could’ve slept through that.
She’s unsure whether the sharp gasp comes from her or the officer standing right behind her as Tina places her hand on the infant’s chest, relieved to feel that he’s warm to the touch.
“He’s breathing,” she announces after feeling the shallow rise and fall of his chest beneath her palm.
Tina unbuckles him from the seat and tries to rouse him awake. His eyelids flutter open before closing again. “But we need an ambulance. Now! ”