Page 24 of One Last Storm
“Negative. We do this by the book. No cowboy moves, Dawson.”
By the book.
Dawson stared at the house. The book said wait for backup, establish perimeter, negotiate from a position of strength. But the book hadn’t spent six months studying Ravak’s violence.
The man possessed a sort of mental illness that, honestly, put a fist into Dawson’s chest.
Dawson pulled up his cell phone and dialed.
The man picked up. “Ravak. This is Detective Mulligan. I know you can hear me.”
Silence stretched across the frozen landscape. Then the front door cracked open, and the barrel of a rifle appeared.
“I hear you, Detective.” Ravak’s voice carried the slight accent that had helped Dawson track him through three different identities. “You’re the one who’s been hunting me.”
“I’m the one who wants to help you end this peacefully.” Dawson kept his voice steady. Professional. “You’ve got nowhere to go. But you can still do the right thing here.”
A harsh laugh echoed from the house. “The right thing? I’m just an honest businessman, trying to make a living.”
Dawson’s jaw tightened. Honest businessman. That was rich, coming from a man who’d been running fentanyl through three states and trafficking women from Eastern Europe. But he bit back those words. Instead, “Would you agree we want this to end peacefully? No one gets hurt?”
Ravak hung up. Shoot. Dawson reached for his radio.
“Chief, ETA on SWAT?”
“Fifteen minutes out. Hold position.”
“Sir, I’ve been studying this guy for six months. He’s not going to surrender. He’s a sociopath—he honestly believes he’s right. And the longer we wait?—”
“Detective.” Chief Blackburn’s voice carried warning. “You will hold your position. That’s an order.”
Dawson released the radio. Lifted his binoculars again. The shadow in the window had stopped pacing.
Oh no. No pacing meant—a decision made.
His phone rang.
“Detective. You want to talk? Let’s talk.”
“I’m listening.”
“Six months you’ve been chasing me. Six months of disrupting my life, my business, my family. Do you know what that does to a man?”
“Tell me.” Dawson kept his voice calm despite the adrenaline coursing through his system. Never mind his wife, in the ER, probably fighting for her life.
“How many families have you destroyed with your badges and your reports and your court orders?” Ravak’s voice rose. “You people think you know what’s best for everyone. Think you can tear apart what belongs to me.”
He caught movement in his peripheral vision—the other patrol units repositioning for better angles.
“Nobody wants to tear apart your family. We want that little girl to be safe.”
“Safe?” Ravak’s laugh was bitter. “You want to put me in a cage and hand my daughter over to your broken system. Hand her over to people who don’t understand that she belongs to me.”
“We all want her to be safe, Ravak. Let’s make that happen?—”
“Stay away!” The shout carried across the frozen landscape, raw with fury. “Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve worked for—it’s mine. And you’re not going to take it from me!”
Through the sheer curtains of the window, a small shadow moved behind Ravak’s larger form. The child was there, close enough to her father that any tactical move would put her directly in the line of fire.
