The 6th Target

'Who wants to shoot you?' I called out.

'My wife, Laura. She's upstairs with a semiautomatic. I can't get her to come out. I think she's going to try to stop me from surrendering.'

This was a bad turn. If we wanted to learn what happened to Madison Tyler, we had to keep Paul Renfrew alive.

'Do exactly what I tell you!' I shouted. 'Take off your jacket and toss it away from you… Okay. Good. Now turn out your pants pockets.'

The mic on my radio was open so that everyone on our channel could hear me.

'Unbuckle your belt, Mr. Renfrew. And drop your trousers.'

Renfrew shot me a look, but he obeyed. The pants went down, his shirt covering him to the tops of his thighs.

'Now turn around slowly. Three hundred sixty degrees. Hold up your shirt so I can see your waist,' I said as he struggled to comply. 'Okay, you can pull up your pants.'

He hurried to do so.

'Now I want you to hoist up your pants legs all the way to your knees.'

'Nice legs for a guy,' Conklin said to me over the roof of the car. 'Now let's get him outta here.'

I nodded, thinking that if the wife charged downstairs, she could blow Renfrew away through the open door.

I told Renfrew to release his pants legs, come out, and hug the wall of the house.

'If you do what I say, she can't get a bead on you,' I said. 'Keep both hands on the walls. Make your way around the south corner of the house. Then lie down. Interlace your hands behind your neck.'

When Renfrew was on the ground, a black Suburban rolled up onto the lawn. Two FBI agents jumped out and cuffed him, patted him down.

They were folding him into the backseat of their vehicle when I heard glass breaking from the second floor of the gabled house. Oh, shit.

A woman's face appeared at the window.

She had a gun in her hand, and it was pressed against the temple of a little girl whose expression was frozen into a slack-mouthed stare.

The little girl was Madison Tyler.

The woman who held her captive was Tina Langer, aka Laura Renfrew, and she looked like a killer. Her face was furrowed with anger, but I didn't see a trace of fear.

She called out through the window, 'The end of the game is the most interesting part, isn't it, Sergeant Boxer? I want safe passage. Oh, I mean safe passage for me and Madison. That helicopter is a good place to start. Someone better give the pilot a ring. Get him to land on the lawn. Do it now. Right now.

'Oh, by the way… if anyone makes a move toward me, I'll shoot this little -'

I saw the black hole appear in her forehead before I heard the echoing crack of the Remington's report from the rooftop across the street.

Madison screamed as the woman calling herself Laura Renfrew stood framed in the window.

She released the little girl as she fell.

Chapter 114

WAS MADISON TYLER ALL RIGHT? That's all I was thinking as Conklin and I burst into the front bedroom, second floor. We didn't see the girl anywhere, though.

'Madison?' I called out, my voice high.

A single unmade bed was against the wall adjacent to the door. An open suitcase was on the bed, with girls' clothing tossed inside.

'Where are you, honey?' Rich Conklin called out as we approached the closet. 'We're the police.'

We reached the closet at the same time. 'Madison, it's okay, sweetie,' I said, turning the knob. 'Nobody's going to hurt you.'

I opened the door, saw a pile of clothing on the floor of the closet, moving in time with someone's breathing.

I stooped down, still afraid of what I might see. 'Maddy,' I said, 'my name is Lindsay and I'm a policewoman. I'm here to take you home.'

I nudged aside the pile of clothing on the closet floor until I finally saw the little girl. She was whimpering softly, hugging herself, rocking with her eyes closed.

Oh, God, thank you. It was Madison.

'It's okay, sweetheart,' I said, my voice quavering. 'Everything is going to be okay.'

Madison opened her eyes, and I reached out my arms to her. She flung herself against me, and I held her tightly, putting my cheek to her hair.

I unclipped my cell phone and dialed a number I'd committed to memory. My hands were shaking so hard I had to try the number again.

My call was answered on the second ring.

'Mrs. Tyler, this is Lindsay Boxer. I'm with Inspector Conklin, and we have Madison.' I put the phone up to Madison's face, and I whispered, 'Say something to your mom.'

Chapter 115

EARLY THAT EVENING, Conklin and I were at FBI headquarters on Golden Gate Avenue, thirteenth floor. We sat in a room with fifteen other agents and cops, watching on video monitors as Dave Stanford and his partner, Heather Thomson, interviewed Renfrew.

I sat beside Conklin, watching Stanford and Thomson dissecting the acts of terror committed by Paul Renfrew, aka John Langer, aka David Cornwall, aka Josef Waller, the name he was given at birth.

'He's lapping up the attention,' I said to Conklin.

'It's a good thing I'm not in the box with him,' Conklin said. 'I couldn't handle this.'

'This' was Waller's smugness and affability. Instead of smart-mouthing or showing defiance, Waller talked to Stanford and Thomson as if they were colleagues, as if he expected to have an ongoing relationship with them after he'd finished the clever telling of his story.

Macklin, Conklin, and I sat riveted to our chairs as Waller caressed their names: Andre Devereaux, Erica Whitten, Madison Tyler, and a little girl named Dorothea Alvarez from Mexico City.

A child we hadn't known about.

A child who might still be alive.

While he sipped his coffee, Waller told Stanford and Thomson where the three missing children were living as sex toys in rich men's homes around the globe.

Waller said, 'It was my wife's idea to import pretty European girls, place them as nannies with good families. Then find buyers for the children. I worked with the nannies. That was my job. My girls were proudest of the kids who were the most beautiful, intelligent, and gifted. And I encouraged the girls to tell me all about them.'

'So the nannies fingered the children, but they never knew what you planned to do with them,' Thomson said.

Renfrew smiled.

'How did you find your buyers?' Stanford asked.

'Word of mouth,' Renfrew said. 'Our clients were all men of wealth and quality, and I always felt the children were in good hands.'

I wanted to throw up, but I gripped the arms of my chair, kept my eyes on the screen in front of me.