A quick jerk of the sharp blade and Darby cut the Flexicuffs binding the APC's door handles. She opened the doors and backed up, bringing up the shotgun.
Her prisoner, still wrapped in the net, had managed to push himself up into a sitting position. In the process he had somehow worked the gas mask back over his mouth, what little good it did him. He had already breathed in the tear gas, the chemicals coating the soft, sensitive membranes lining his lungs, throat and sinuses. His chest heaved as he hacked into the mask, trying to expel the fire.
Darby stepped inside. In the dim interior light she could see his mottled face, his bloodshot and watery eyes. They tracked her as she knelt next to the SWAT officer who had been barely conscious earlier. Now he was slumped against the floor in a puddle of vomit, a white, frothy mixture covering his lips and bubbling from his nose and mouth.
She pressed a gloved finger against the man's neck.
No pulse.
She grabbed the prisoner by the back of his collar. He didn't put up a fight or struggle, too weak and disoriented from the tear gas and the blows to his head. She lifted him easily to his feet and marched him to the opened doors. When he reached the edge, she shoved him outside.
His hands jerked up to try to cushion the fall. They got caught in the sticky webbing and he slammed sideways against the ground, the sharp, painful cry lost in his coughing fits.
Darby hopped out. She kicked him on to his stomach. When he tried to roll on to his back, she brought her heel down against his shoulder and kept it there, pinning him to the ground. Using her knife, she began cutting the net.
As she worked, the sharp blade slicing through the webbing, she found the source of his pain: he had fractured his wrist during the fall. It made her think of Charlie, how his bones had snapped when she'd grabbed his wrist and twisted. No doubt something like that could happen – and no doubt the force of being smashed against the side of the head with an elbow could dislodge a tooth or two. But she had knocked out several teeth. Charlie was painfully thin, covered in scars. She wondered if he had weak, malnourished bones from time spent in captivity.
Captivity, an inner voice questioned.
Yes. After his abduction, Charlie Rizzo had been forced to live somewhere, enduring daily beatings, torture, and God only knew what else.
So you're buying that he is, in fact, Charlie Rizzo.
A part of her did, she supposed. At the moment she didn't know what else to think.
Darby tucked the knife in her trouser pocket then prised the netting off the man's body, surprised at its sticky strength. She cuffed him, then helped him to his feet.
Knife in hand again, she cut the straps for the man's tactical vest, the same model as the ones used by NH SWAT.
The people entering the house were dressed as SWAT officers; they must have grabbed the vests and gas masks from the back of the APC, after the men had been poisoned.
That meant a plan had been put in place before her arrival. They had been near by, watching.
But why grab Mark Rizzo? Why not just kill him like Judith Rizzo and the twins, whose remains were now shredded into unrecognizable bits and scattered across the woods? Why did these people need the father?
Darby ripped the gas mask off the man's face. The fresh air would help clear the burning from his lungs, nose and throat. But not his eyes; she'd have to rinse them with water.
'Where has Mark Rizzo been taken?'
The man didn't answer, too busy hacking, but she felt him stiffen underneath her grip. His clothing was entirely black. Black trousers and boots; and the strange fabric of a heavy black long-sleeved shirt that resembled the one Charlie had worn. She wondered if his body had the same severe scarring as Charlie's.
The man's head certainly did. He was bald, and on the back of his head and neck she saw scars in all shapes and sizes. And a tattoo: words and letters written in the centre of his neck, the light blue ink so faint she couldn't read it. She needed light.
She grabbed him by the collar and pressed the tip of the blade against the back of his neck.
'We're going for a walk. Try anything and I swear to Christ I'll sever your spine and you'll spend the rest of your life as a quadriplegic, pissing and shitting into diapers.'
She gave him a shove and started walking. The elderly homeowner had placed a big white plastic bucket on the front steps. All the inside house lights had been turned on, and she caught shadows whisking behind the curtains. When she reached the bucket, she turned the man around to get a better look at the tattoo in the light.
Two rows of tiny letters and numbers: