Guardian Angel. Debra Webb

chemical gases the illegal work inside produced.

      The front portion of the shack appeared to be one rectangular room. A tattered couch and chair claimed the floor space closest to the open window. Beyond the sitting area was a makeshift kitchen. Piles of lithium batteries, hundreds of boxes of what was probably a popular allergy relief medication or one of its clones littered a table. A pistol—a.32 maybe—lay in plain sight.

      A heavyset woman who looked to be about thirty monitored her latest concoction, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. The cook. The dead guy was probably the shopper. Lots of supplies lying around. Too much so to be just a feed-my-habit operation. These dirt-bags were manufacturing with the intent to sell.

      Rage tore through him at the idea that kidnapping had been added to their sick MO, obliterating the much-needed calm. He tamped down the rage, refocused on what he’d come here to do.

      Get the girl.

      That meant going inside.

      The cook wore an MP3 player clipped to the waistband of her jeans, wires extended up to the buds in her ears. Several inches of dark growth revealed the true color of her stringy blond hair. She sang along with the tune playing in the mini headphones, belting out the words in rusty harmony.

      He listened but couldn’t make out any other sound. Just the woman’s unpleasant off-key lyrics and the squeak of the floor beneath her exaggerated dance moves as she went about her dirty business.

      No sign of the girl.

      But she was here.

      He could feel it.

      He’d never been wrong. He wouldn’t be wrong this time.

      There was at least one room other than this one. A door near the couch offered access. A bedroom, probably. And the most likely place to stash a hostage.

      Fury contracted in his muscles despite his having banished it only moments ago. He kicked it aside again. Emotion had no place in what he was about to do.

      Deciding to use the dead man as his invitation, he returned to the scumbag’s location and hefted him onto his shoulder, then headed to the front door. The woman inside continued to chant and sway to the music only she could hear.

      The fingers of his right hand curled more tightly around the butt of the 9mm as he braced for a fight. He opened the door with his left hand and stepped inside.

      Still humming, the woman turned. “I need you to go to the supply room and get—”

      The cigarette dropped from her mouth. She grabbed for her weapon as he shoved her dead friend toward her, causing her to stumble back a step even as she pulled off a shot that went way wide of his position.

      A muffled crack was the only noise his sound-suppressed 9mm made as he pumped one shot into her forehead. The woman’s finger failed to depress her own trigger a second time. For one extended beat she stood there staring at him before the weapon slipped from her hand and her sizeable bulk followed it to the floor.

      Activity stirred beyond the only remaining closed door.

      He crossed the room in three strides and flattened against the wall next to the couch.

      The door swung inward and a man shuffled out. Forty, forty-five. A hairy beer gut hung over his boxers. A .38 was secured in his right hand.

      “What the hell’s going on out here?”

      Before the startled man could recover from seeing his cohorts dead on the floor, he found himself pinned to the door frame and his right arm wrenched over his head. After a few violent slams against the wall, the. 38 clattered to the floor.

      The 9mm jammed beneath the scumbag’s sagging jowls kept him paralyzed. “Where’s the girl?”

      The guy blinked as if he’d just awakened from a deep sleep. The craggy lines of his face, the redness of his eyes and the advanced decay of his teeth signaled that his slumber had been anything but natural.

      “I dunno what the hell you’re talking about.”

      “The little girl.” He jabbed the muzzle deeper into the scumbag’s filthy flesh. “Where is she?”

      Realization appeared to dawn in the bastard’s expression. “I know who you are. I watch the news.” An evil light went on in his eyes as he started to laugh. “Why don’t you kill me, tough guy?”

      “Where…is…she?” With each word he wedged the weapon deeper into the fatty tissue of that sagging jowl.

      “Go ahead,” the bastard dared, a sadistic grin stretched across his lips, “pull that trigger. Save the courts a lot of time and trouble—if you’re man enough.”

      The finger set against the trigger itched to do just that. The rage overpowered him briefly; the need to erase this mistake of nature from the planet made him shudder with its intensity.

      The scumbag laughed louder. “I knew you wouldn’t. You don’t kill nobody unless they try to kill you first. I can just walk out of here and you won’t do a damned thing.”

      Leaning closer, close enough that there would be no mistaking his words, he warned, “Don’t believe for a second that you’re going to get off that easy. I want you to rot in a six-by-nine cell for the rest of your stinking life. That’s the only reason you’re going to live. Now where is she?”

      Too arrogant or too stupid to feel any fear, the scumbag bit out, “She’s in the next room.”

      One shove sent him to the floor.

      The idiot scrambled for the .38.

      Two bullets to the brain stopped him cold.

      He stepped over the sprawled trash and entered the other room. A stained mattress lay on the floor. No other furnishings. Only the discarded jeans and shirt the scumbag now decomposing in the other room had worn. Images of what had most likely taken place in this room made his guts knot in disgust.

      He couldn’t think about it, had to find the girl.

      His tension shifted to the next level, sent his heart smashing against his sternum as his gaze settled on the door on the other side of the room.

      She was here.

      He knew it.

      The knob rattled as he clasped it with his left hand and turned. The hinges creaked with age as the door swung open.

      Total darkness engulfed the room or closet that lay beyond. He reached for the flashlight on his utility belt, switched it on and pointed the beam of light into the room. His heart had started to pound in spite of his efforts to remain calm. This room was about the same size as the adjoining room but pungent with chemical odor. The one window had been boarded up.

      Containers filled with necessities of the business being conducted here were stacked against a far wall. Drain cleaner, uniodized salt, coffee filters and anhydrous ammonia, a highly illegal and strictly regulated ingredient. This was the supply room. The idiots had their dangerous ingredients stored in the house with them. Too bad the stupid bastards hadn’t blown themselves to hell long ago.

      Where was the girl?

      His heart rate continued to rise traitorously.

      He wasn’t wrong. She would be here. Left amid all this poison.

      A faint whimper tugged his senses to the opposite corner of the room, where what appeared to be discarded boxes were piled high. He eased in that direction, not quite ready to put his weapon away. Not quite certain of the sound he’d heard.

      He moved first one box and then the other. Some contained evidence of more of the accoutrements essential in this illegal operation. Others were empty, their former contents anyone’s guess.

      Halfway through the mound he saw her.

      Curled into a fragile ball of arms and legs and pressed