Page 121 of Blood Moon

He’d held a low-wattage flashlight in his mouth and dialed in the combination on the well-oiled padlock. As soon as it opened, he’d switched off the light. Inside the shed, the darkness had been stygian, but John had told him where he would find the items he needed.

His eyes had soon adjusted well enough to make outshapes. What he couldn’t detect by sight, he’d located by feel, following the directions John had given him. With the timer in his head counting down the seconds, he’d worked quickly and within ninety seconds had found everything he required.

He’d carried it all outside and set to work. He moved rapidly but efficiently, his ears constantly attuned to what was going on in front of the house. Task finished, he’d hunkered at the base of a live oak, John’s shotgun across his lap.

When he heard Barker order John to stack his hands on the top of his head and had visualized John walking toward the porch, he’d crossed himself, murmured a Hail Mary, and waited for John’s signal.

It had been a short wait.

“Get her!” John yelled.

Now! Mitch began banging the hand spade against the empty metal pail and shouted, “John! Back here!”

Within seconds, the ogre burst out the back door, rapidly firing at a target he hadn’t yet identified and couldn’t see.

Nor did he see the trip wire.

Mitch had stretched it taut between two trees twenty feet beyond the back steps. The ogre fell like a block of lead, landing face-first on the ground. He lost his grip on the pistol. It landed yards away.

Before Frank recovered his wind or his wits, Mitch was on him, grabbing his hands and pulling them behind his back, securing them with a zip tie, all within a matter of seconds.

Mitch snapped up the shotgun, aimed it at Frank’s head, and ground his booted foot against the back of his thick neck. “My choice whether I break it or not.”

“Fuck you,” Frank grunted.

For once, his size worked against him. His breaths were gusting from his mouth. He spat out a wad of chewing gum. He couldn’t throw Mitch off, though he tried.

Mitch said conversationally, “Or I may save myself the trouble and just use the shotgun.” He tapped the double barrel against the ogre’s head. He stopped struggling.

“Mitch!” John came running from the back of the house.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s not here.”

Mitch swiveled his head toward John. “What?”

“Molly isn’t in the house, not in their car.”

“What about Barker?”

“Unconscious and disarmed.”

John, looking diabolical, kicked the ogre in the vicinity of his kidney. Then he went down on one knee, bent over him, drew the knife from his boot, and placed the tip of it in the man’s ear. “Is my daughter dead? Did you kill her?”

“No,” Frank sputtered into the dirt. “I swear. No!”

“You’ve got two seconds,two, to tell me where she is, or I sink this knife into your brain.”

“Fuck you, Bowie. You’re so smart, you find her.”

Mitch increased the pressure on his neck. “It’s as meaty as a ham, John, but I can make his neck bones snap like twigs. Just give me the word.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got this.” Calmly, quietly, John whispered to Frank, “You want to live? Tell me where she is. Two seconds.”

The ogre remained silent.

“Okay.” As he tickled the ogre’s ear canal with the sharp tip of the knife, he began his countdown. “Two.”

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