Tank started out the door. He had Darby Hanes on the line before he reached it, slinging out orders as he headed to his truck.

“Carson!” he called to the dark-haired man on the porch.

Carson looked up from his laptop.

“Let’s go. Right now!”

Carson put the laptop down and ran to the truck. “What is it?”

“You can eavesdrop.” He phoned Cody Banks. “I’ve lost communication with my man who’s guarding Merissa and Clara. How soon can you get there with a couple of deputies?”

“I’ll meet you at the front porch,” Cody said, and hung up.

“We think he laid a deliberate trail away from where he was,” Tank said through his teeth. “He’s in the damned cabin! Probably in the attic. We never even checked it!”

Carson groaned. “What a damned lack of foresight!”

“I just pray we’re in time,” Tank said, and stood down on the accelerator.

* * *

WHEN THEY GOT to the cabin, the sheriff’s car, a state police car, an ambulance and a fire truck were sitting on the road that led to it, sirens and lights just dying down.

“What happened?” Tank asked, trying to fight down terror as he joined Cody Banks at his squad car.

“He’s got the women,” Cody said in a hunted tone. “He won’t negotiate. He says he’s through trying to do it covertly. Now he’s just going to kill them.”

“They aren’t dead?” Tank asked.

“Not yet,” Cody replied.

Tank let out the breath he’d been holding. “Then what do we do?”

“I don’t have a hostage negotiator,” Cody told them. “The police department in Catelow has one, but he’s back East on a long Christmas holiday with his folks. The state police sent us a man who did it for Houston P.D. a few years back.” He indicated the man, who nodded. “Right now we’re waiting for the utility companies.”

“Utility companies?” Tank burst out. “What in hell for?”

“We turn off everything we can turn off,” the state trooper said gently. “Then we negotiate for power, water, electricity...”

“He’ll kill them before you get that far.” Tank drew in a ragged breath. “It’s me he wants. I’ll trade with them.”

“You will not,” Cody said firmly. “Then we’ll have three victims instead of two.”

While they were talking, Carson was stripping off his jacket. He tossed it into the front seat of the ranch pickup.

“And what would you be doing then?” Cody asked.

“What I’ve made a living at for the past several years,” Carson said. “Who’s got a sniper kit I can borrow?” he asked grimly.

The men stared at him.

He stuck his hands on his hips. “Are we going to stand here and make judgments or let me save the women?” he asked curtly.

“Sorry,” Cody said. “Wasn’t thinking. Frank,” he called to one of his deputies, “break out that new rifle with the scope.”

“New. Damned things never shoot right until they’re used,” Carson muttered.

“It’s what we’ve got,” Cody told him.

“You’ll never get close enough.” Tank tried to reason with him. He was sick with fear. “He’ll see you coming.”

Carson lifted an eyebrow. “Remind me to tell you a story or two when this is all over.” He glanced toward the deputy, who was carrying a heavy metal gun box. He sat it on the lowered tailgate of the ranch pickup and opened it.

“Sweet,” Carson said as he fingered the light wood of the stock.

“Ya, isn’t it?” the deputy asked with a sigh. “I’ve just used it on targets, but it’s accurate to a hair.”

“Shoots true?”

“You bet.”

Carson took it out of the box with a faint reverence and looked down the scope toward the house. “Nice optics,” he said. He concentrated. He could see movement at one of the windows. It fluttered, and a woman’s frightened face looked out. It was Clara. She was talking to someone behind her, scared and crying.

Carson’s jaw set. “He sent Clara to look out the window, to see what’s going on out here.” He took the rifle and slung the strap over his shoulder. “I need a diversion,” he told Cody Banks. “I’m not going to tell you where I’ll be. But when you hear a shot, move in quick.”

“Don’t miss,” Cody said firmly.

“It would be the first time,” Carson replied solemnly. “But I won’t.”

He turned and went off toward the end of the driveway.

“He’s going in the wrong direction,” the deputy muttered.

“Think so?” Tank asked. He knew Carson. He turned back to Cody. “If those utility trucks showed up right now, it would be a great help.”

Cody pressed the mike on his radio. “I’ll see if I can hurry them up. Dispatch,” he began, talking into the unit, “I need an ETA on the power company.”

“This is dispatch, Sheriff. He’s two minutes away.”

“Tell him to turn on his yellow lights and come in fast,” Cody said.

“Sir?”

“Just do it, okay?”

There was a smile in the voice that answered. “Okay.”

Cody turned to his deputy. “There’s a sudden emergency you have to handle. Turn on the lights and sirens full blast and make a big production of turning around in the driveway. Go closer to the house when you do it, but not too close.”

The deputy nodded. “Yes, sir!”

He jumped into his car, turned on the lights and sirens and went careening a little way toward the house before he cut the wheel sharply and tore off down the road.

“There,” Cody said. “Maybe that will give him time to get in place. And here’s another diversion.”

The power truck pulled up next to the squad car. “I had some really strange directions...” the driver began.

“No time to talk, I’m afraid,” the sheriff told him with a weary smile. “We have a hostage situation. We need you to cut power to the cabin, as quickly as you can.”

“I’ll get right on it.” He turned off the engine, got out, pulled on his tool belt and climbed into the cherry picker. He lifted himself up to the connections. A few twists and turns with his tools and the cabin went dark.

“Nice work,” Cody said when he came down again.

“Now what?” the man asked.

“Can you stay with us for a few minutes?”

“Unless we get an urgent call about something,” the lineman agreed.

“Thanks.”

Cody turned to the state trooper. “I’ll try to get him to answer the phone, if it’s still working.” Some phones wouldn’t work without power.

The trooper nodded.

Cody dialed Clara’s number and waited. The phone rang once, twice, three times. It rang again. And again. Just when Cody was about to give up, there was a click.

“Yeah. What do you want?” a man with an Australian accent asked.

“Your hostages,” Cody said.

There was a cold laugh. “No way, mate. Messed up all me plans, they did. Now they have to pay for it.”

Cody handed the phone to the state trooper.

“Can you let me verify that both women are still alive?” the trooper asked in a gentle tone.

“You’ll just have to take my word for it,” the man replied.

“What do you want?”

“For starters, turn the power back on.”

“Can’t do that, I’m afraid. Not yet, anyway. Talk to me. What do you want?”

“You’ll find out, very soon.”

He hung up. The trooper relayed the message.

Tank groaned. He should have married Merissa weeks ago. He should have carted her off to a minister the night they had Chinese food. Why had he hesitated? He knew how he felt. He knew how she felt. Now it might never happen. That murderer in the cabin was going to kill her, kill her mother, and it was all his fault.

A telephone truck came down the road, followed by a county water truck. They pulled into the driveway.

“What do you want us to do?” they asked Cody Banks.

“Wait.” He turned to his deputy, who was just driving up. “Rev that thing up, hit the lights and sirens, hard, and head toward town!”

“Yes, sir!”

The deputy went through the same routine he’d used earlier, and cut out onto the highway. Just as he vanished into the distance, a shot rang out.

* * *

HEART IN HIS mouth, hammering, Tank disobeyed a direct order from Cody Banks and ran toward the cabin just as fast as his legs would carry him. Who’d fired the shot? Carson had said to come running if they heard one, but what if it was the man in the cabin firing and they cost the women their lives by running in on him?

He couldn’t stop. He already was imagining seeing Merissa lying dead on the floor, blood in her mouth. He’d never live if she didn’t. He couldn’t go through the process of losing her, not again, not when she’d almost died of poison just days ago.

His chest was bursting as he followed the other men up on the porch. Cody reached for the door handle and there was an explosion.

The concussion from the explosion knocked the men backward onto the ground. Tank, flat on his back, breathless, saw the fireball go up into the air, like an orange balloon that just kept growing. The sound of the explosion followed seconds later.

“Get them out of there!” Tank yelled.

The firemen were already on the way. They pulled the tanker up next to the steps, jumped out and started stretching hoses.

Tank tried to go onto the porch, but Cody tackled him and brought him down again.

“No!” Tank raged. “God, no! I have...to get...in there!” he pleaded with his friend.

Cody wouldn’t let go. “If you go in there, you’ll die with her.”

“I don’t...care!” Tank choked out. “I can’t live without her! I won’t!”

Cody ground his teeth together. He’d never heard so much raw emotion in a man’s voice. He was dying for his friend. But he wouldn’t let go, either.