Chapter 42
Pierce almost didn’t see her. Only Knight’s sudden curse had him not hitting the kid running across the road. The SUV slid on the slush and ice, then slammed to a stop. He jerked open his door. “Kid, what were you—“
He stopped. The child was a girl, in a slouchy hat with HHC embroidered on the front.
Big blue eyes, wide with shock, adrenaline, stared into his.
She was covered with blood. Fresh blood.
Her sweatshirt had Horrible Hope Rides Again!
And a cartoon skateboarder. It was too thin for this weather.
But it was the blood that stopped him cold in his tracks.
“Where are you hurt? We’re with the police. We’re here to help.”
“Hurry! You have to hurry! He hurt my dad! And the FBI lady is in there with him! Hurry!”
Pierce put it together fast. Miranda. “Who hurt your dad and where?”
“My dad. Bryan. He owns this house. It’s the Gibson house where the people were killed.
I think my uncle John did it. I think he did it!
The FBI lady is in there with him and he had a gun with a silencer thing on it.
And he shot my dad. My dad is in the garage.
He’s bleeding really bad! You have to help him! Hurry!”
Pierce looked at the man with him. Knight was already pulling his phone and weapon.
But if Miranda was inside with a killer, they didn’t have much time to wait for backup.
“Go. Check on her father,” Knight said. “I’m going in to get Miranda.”
Pierce nodded. Maybe not exactly protocol, but exigent circumstances. “I’ll be right behind you, as soon as I can.”
Pierce looked at the little girl just as the door on the house across the street opened.
A woman stood there, phone at her ear and watching.
He knew who she was. He’d interviewed her a hundred times now—she rented from Bryan, too.
He looked at the little girl, shaking and covered in her father’s blood.
“You go to that woman right there. You tell her Sergeant Asher told her to take you inside. And you wait there. I’m going to go help your dad. You go to her right now.”
He watched until she was safely across the road. And then…he went looking for her father.