It took Rilynne a moment after her eyes opened before the ringing registered to her as coming from her phone. “Hello,” she said as she tried to sound awake.

  “We’re joining the undercover team today,” Matthews said. “Dress in street clothes, and I’ll be there to pick you up in fifteen.”

  Rilynne stared at her ceiling for close to five minutes before she managed to pull herself out of bed. Luckily, she had unpacked the box that contained her undercover outfits just two days before, so she knew exactly where they were. After pulling her clothes on, she looked herself up and down in the mirror. She had on a pair of jeans and with a light gray T-shirt and a thin scarf wrapped around her neck. Before running for the door, she stuck her head back in the closet and grabbed a khaki safari jacket.

  Matthews was waiting for her when she walked out of the front door. “What did you do to your arm?” he asked as she climbed into the passenger seat. “Did someone hurt you?”

  Rilynne glanced down at the fresh bruise on her upper arm in the shape of a hand. “I’m apparently more clumsy than I realized.” He squinted at her curiously as she slipped her jacket on. “Only I would save a kid from being hit by a car, just to step out in front of one myself the next night. I’m lucky to only have a hand print on my arm.”

  “You must have a night in shining armor out there,” he said, shaking his head slowly side to side, as he chuckled softly.

  Rilynne tried to keep the smile off of her face, but was obviously unsuccessful judging by the look on his. There was a quick shot of understanding in his eye, but he didn’t push her on the subject. “Did you have to go shopping?” he asked jokingly as he looked at her assembled outfit.

  “No,” she replied. “I don’t always dress like I’m going to the office you know.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that you actually did anything other than work,” he laughed, backing out of her driveway. “With the exception of running, that is.”

  “I…” she hesitated. “Okay, fine. I had them left over from the last time I worked undercover. But it’s actually something that I would wear if I ever had time to just go out. I call it my ‘soccer mom’ look. So it wasn’t really a lie.”

  He just shook his head as he started down the street. “We’re going to be between the warehouse and the Peterson house so we can be wherever they need us. Officers have been sitting on the Peterson house since last night, but there has been no activity. It doesn’t look like they’re home.”

  Rilynne thought back to her dream the night before. “Take this next turn,” she said abruptly. Matthews seemed almost startled. “I, uh, want a donut from this shop up here.” He looked at her as though she had lost her mind. “I didn’t have time for breakfast,” she added.

  He rolled his eyes as he made the turn. “Where’s the donut shop?”

  “It’s right on the other side of the bar up here.” She pointed to the red flashing sign just down the street. “They have the best donuts I have found in the city. The sugar…” she trailed off. “Wait, aren’t those the Peterson brothers right there?” She did her best to sound surprised.

  “What, where?” he asked looking around.

  She pointed to the door of the bar as two thin men stepped out. The older, a head taller than his brother, had shaggy brown hair that reached his shoulders. The younger of the two had blonde hair just visible with his buzz cut. His short sleeve shirt revealed a tattooed sleeve that covered nearly his entire left arm. “Right there, the ones who just stepped out.”

  He looked from the two men walking down the sidewalk to Rilynne. He seemed as if he wanted to ask her something, but instead just reached for his phone. “We have a visual on the Peterson brothers moving south on Irwin.”

  After setting the phone back down, he peered over to Rilynne. “Of all the donut shops in the city, you pick the one our suspects just happen to be walking past. Now that’s what I call lucky.”

  “I guess. But now I don’t get my donuts,” she joked as she stepped out of the car. “I’ll follow them on foot. Stay close in case I need back up.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer before shutting the door and walking down the street. She followed them for eight blocks before they stopped at a small café, taking a table on the sidewalk.

  “They stopped at Molly’s,” she said when Matthews answered his phone. “It looks like they’re going to be meeting someone here. Make sure to have a team standing by.” He was just pulling up as she put her phone back in her pocket. She slid back into her seat, eyes trained on the table across the street.

  “Are you sure they’re meeting someone?” Matthews asked ten minutes later.

  “The waitress laid out three menus,” she explained. “They’re probably just running late.”

  Just as she said it, a well-built black man walked up and joined them. Despite being strikingly handsome, something about him frightened her. “So, who are we tailing?” she asked as she snapped photos of the men.

  “We’ll take the new man,” he replied. “The team following the Peterson boys just pulled up.”

  After another twenty minutes, the older of the brothers handed their guest a note and they all stood up. “Looks like we’re on,” Matthews said as he turned the car back on. As the Peterson brothers walked back in the direction they had come from, the other man crossed the street and climbed into a car. After giving him a head start, Matthews pulled onto the street and began to follow.

  The black car weaved carelessly through traffic before finally stopping in front of an apartment building.

  “What’s the plan if he goes in?” Rilynne asked.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that,” Matthews replied as a short man with shaggy black hair walked out of the building and climbed into the car.

  “This is going down tonight isn’t it?” Matthews asked as he pulled the car back onto the road and followed the car as it took the next left.

  Rilynne pulled out her phone. “This is Evans. Our mark just picked up a second man and appears to be stopping for another,” she said as they stopped in front of a second apartment building. “Double the amount of undercover cars out on the streets. It looks like the next home invasion may be taking place tonight.”

  The third man, a tall man with a crew cut, seemed slightly more observant than the other two had been. After walking out the front doors of the building, he spent two solid minutes looking up and down the block before climbing into the car.

  “Are they going to the warehouse?” Rilynne asked after another ten minutes of driving.

  Before Matthews could answer, they made another turn and watched the black car pull into a warehouse. “All of the robberies happened between eight and ten, so it looks like we’re going to be sitting here for a while,” he said as he leaned back in his seat.

  Rilynne checked the clock, twelve-eighteen. “This is going to be a long day,” she mumbled.

  She wasn’t wrong there. The three men did not emerge from the warehouse until just before nine.

  “Call it in,” Matthews said as he pulled out behind them. They drove straight to a residential neighborhood, and after circling the block twice, pulled in front of a beautiful white stone house.

  After looking up and down the street several times, the men disappeared around the side of the house. Rilynne was about to ask if they could just be visiting someone when all of the lights simultaneously went out.

  “We’re going to need backup at 5702 Walior Street,” Matthews radioed in as they both jumped out of the car.

  By the time they had strapped on their vests, three other cars had arrived. “Okay,” he said as everyone gathered around. “The power was cut three minutes ago. We’re unsure if the homeowners are in the house, so we need to move in quietly and try to take them down as smoothly as possible. You two cover the front door while the rest of us go around the back,” he said, motioning to two of the officers.

  Rilynne drew her gun and followed Matthews across the street and around the side of the house. When she stepped up onto the back deck, her eye caught the reflection of the moon off of the glass littering the pine deck. The window next to the backdoor had been broken, and the door itself was standing wide open. “Do you hear that?” she whispered to Matthews. As she quietly stepped closer to the open door, she could just make out the faint sound of whimpering coming from somewhere inside.

  They spread out when they walked in and swept through the house. Rilynne had made it through the first room when she heard two men speaking just around the corner in front of her. She hugged the wall, Matthews right beside her, and waited for them to appear. When the two men walked out in front of them, Rilynne and Matthews both raised their guns toward them. “Don’t make a sound,” Matthews said, firmly but quietly. After a few moments of hesitation, both men dropped to their knees and raised their arms.

  Two of the other officers handcuffed them and led them out of the darkened house. While Matthews entered the room directly to their left, Rilynne followed the faint sounds of crying toward the back of the house.

  With each step, she could hear the voices growing louder. When she reached the door in the corner of the sitting room, she could make out a woman’s voice from just inside.

  “Just let my daughter go,” she cried. “She’s only two. You can do whatever you want with me, just please let her go.” She could hear the desperation in her voice.

  Then Rilynne heard a low, malevolent chuckle. “You know,” said a gravely voice. “That actually sounds pretty good to me.”

  Mere seconds later, a painful cry sounded out. Rilynne knew she couldn’t wait until Matthews or the other officers joined her. She stepped into the doorway, her gun directed at the source of the crying. A woman was pinned down on the floor by the man she had seen meeting the Peterson brothers. In the corner just behind them was a cowering toddler in nothing but a diaper.

  “Get off of her!” Rilynne yelled.

  The man jumped at the sound of her voice, but in one swift move he had the woman on her feet, with his gun firmly pressed against her temple.

  “My baby,” she begged. “Get my baby.”

  Rilynne kept her eyes on the man as she called out to the terrified child. “Come to me, sweetheart. It’s okay, let’s go into the other room.”

  “Go to the nice lady,” the woman said when the child didn’t move. The little girl slowly walked toward Rilynne, keeping her eyes on her mother as she passed. “It’s okay baby. Mommy loves you so much. You go with the nice lady and she’ll take you to daddy.”

  Rilynne crouched down as the child reached her, and moved her just outside of the doorway. “Matthews!” she yelled down the hall. “Sweetheart, go to the kitchen,” she told the child, giving her a gentle push. “There’s a really nice man that’s going to take you outside.”

  As she heard the whimpering moving away down the hall, she stood back up, her eyes still firmly on the gunman. “Matthews, get the child,” she yelled as she heard him drawing nearer.

  “Now it’s her turn,” she said to the man. “Put the gun down, and let her leave with her child.”

  He seemed to find her suggestion amusing and started to chuckle loudly. “What are you going to do little lady, shoot me? I think that gun may be a little too much for a little girl like you to handle. How about I tell you how this is gonna work?” His gravelly voice was missing something that left Rilynne feeling uneasy: fear. “You’re going to let me walk right past you and out the door, and you aren’t going to follow me unless you want to find pieces of her head on the side of the road.”

  “Now, you know I can’t let that happen,” she said. “Lower you weapon, and let her go.” Just then Officer King, a young and ambitious officer, walked in behind her. “You’re surrounded,” she told him. “Your only chance of making it out of this house alive is if you put that gun down.”

  He pulled the woman in front of him, blocking Rilynne’s shot, and aimed his gun back at them.

  “Drop the gun now!” the young officer beside her yelled.

  The gun moved from Rilynne to King, but before she could respond, a shot rang out.

  Rilynne could see out of the corner of her eye Officer King crumbling to the floor. “King,” she called out. “King, are you okay?” She could hear backup storming through the house toward them between the grunts coming from King. She could tell by his lack of response that he had been seriously injured, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off of the gun.

  Just then the woman let out an empowered yell and threw her head back into the man’s face. The shock made him loosen his grip on her just enough for her to fall to the floor. As his gun swung from Rilynne to the woman at his feet, Rilynne gently squeezed the trigger.

  The floor shook as the man landed hard on his back. Before Rilynne had reached him to clear his gun, the woman had already passed her and was on her knees next to Officer King.

  “He needs an ambulance now,” she said in a strangely calm tone. Rilynne turned around to find her with both hands pressed against the base of his neck. Just then, Matthews and two other officers burst in. “We’re all clear,” Rilynne said. “We need to get King to a hospital. He’s been shot in the neck.”

  Matthews pulled out his radio. “We have an officer down, sent the paramedics in now.”

  It took mere seconds for the stretcher to be rolled up next to him.

  “We can take it from here,” one paramedic said to the woman as he slid his hands gently over hers. “We’re going to need to scoop him and go. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Come with me,” Rilynne said, placing her arm gently around the woman and leading her down the hall and out the front door. “Let’s go find your daughter.”

  Ben was sitting on the back of one of the ambulances with a bundled blanket in his arms. As they stepped closer, Rilynne could see curly red hair poking out from the top. “She just passed out,” he said as her mother approached, his eyes shifting to her blood soaked hands. “Can you get her something to clean herself off with?” he asked the paramedic sitting on the bench behind him.

  She jumped out of the back with a package of wipes and some hand sanitizer. “Are you injured, ma’am?” she asked as the pulled the wipes open and handed her one.

  “Clair,” she responded, her eyes on the other ambulance as it speed away. “My name is Clair. And no, it’s not my blood. How’s my baby?”

  “Perfect,” the paramedic answered. “I looked her over myself. There’s not a scratch on her. I’m going to need to check you out too as soon as you’re finished cleaning that off.”

  Clair nodded, her attention now on the sleeping child in Ben’s arms. “Thank you,” she said a few moments later as she turned to Rilynne. “You saved our lives. I could never thank you enough.”

  “You saved your lives,” Rilynne replied. “You stayed calm and made sure above anything that your child was safe. Not to mention that incredibly well placed head blow. I’m going to have the medic check that out. Your quick thinking may have saved Officer King’s life.”

  “Kenny, my husband, pushed me to enroll in a self defense class a few years ago. I only went a few times before I found out I was pregnant, but I guess it paid off. Oh,” she said. “I need to call my husband and let him know what’s happened. He’s out of town on a business trip.”

  “Here,” Rilynne said, pulling out her cell phone. “You can use this.”

  Clair wiped off the last drop of blood and lathered her hands in hand sanitizer before taking the phone.

  “That’s going to be an interesting call,” Ben said as she stepped away. “What happened to Officer King?”

  “He took a round to the neck,” she said grimly. “He was still conscious when I left, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “I got here right before the shots rang out,” he said. “It isn’t my favorite sound in the world.”

  The little bundle in his arms squirmed slightly as the sleeping child shifted around, faint snores filling the air. With everything the child had been through, Rilynne was amazed she had been able to fall asleep so quickly.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked looking back up at Ben. “It’s a little soon to have the forensic team out.”

  “I was on my way back to the station with another officer when the call came in. I’m not here in an official capacity. He offered to drop me off, but I had a feeling you would be tied up in the middle of this, so I wanted to be here.”

  Clair walked back up and handed Rilynne the phone before she had a chance to respond. “He said that he’s going to catch the first flight back. I had to actually talk him into going on this trip,” she said gloomily. “He didn’t want to leave us alone for a week. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get him to go anywhere ever again.”

  “Okay, Clair, why don’t you step in here so I can get you checked out,” the paramedic said, motioning to the back of the ambulance. “Do you mind if we get a little privacy?” she said to Ben.

  “Of course not.” He slid smoothly off the edge, making sure he didn’t wake the baby. “We’ll be right here when you’re ready,” he assured her.

  After several minutes, the doors opened back up and Clair stepped out.

  “She has some pretty significant bruising, and after the blow to the head, I’m going to recommend we take her in and get it checked out,” the paramedic said as she hopped out behind her. “Did you want to ride with us to the hospital?”

  “I’m going to need to wait here until we’re finished with the scene, but I can meet you down there when I’m done,” she said to Clair.

  “I’ll go,” Ben offered. “You take care of the scene and I’ll make sure that everything we need is sent over to the station.”

  Rilynne smiled as he held his hand out to help Clair into the back of the ambulance. As soon as she was seated, he handed her daughter up and climbed in himself. “I’ll check on Officer King’s status and call you as soon as I hear anything.” She shut the doors behind them as the ambulance pulled away.