With Margot being away chasing a bail jumper, Shaw had agreed to pick up the ‘twins’ after school. They weren’t twins or even sisters. They weren’t even the same age, but nonetheless, Mandy and Charlene were known as the twins.

Both teenagers, however, had some things in common. Mainly they had both ended up in Margot’s care. Margot had run into Charlene while trying to track down a lead on her sister Melanie in Colorado. The kid had nowhere to go and had some very nasty people who wanted her dead through no fault of her own, so Margot brought her back to California.

Mandy was another kid Margot had come across while hunting her fugitive sister. Mandy’s mom was part of a murder cult based around a contract killed known as the Boog. It was the same cult Melanie was mixed up in as well. When Mandy’s mother was killed in prison, there was concern someone might be coming after Mandy. It wasn’t a baseless fear. Melanie had already tried to get to her once over some internal conflict within the Boog cult.

Margot felt she was more equipped to keep Mandy safe than her real uncle, so by the time Margot returned from Colorado, she had become almost like a mother, watching over these two troubled teens. The potential for problems was high, but thankfully, Charlene and Mandy not only got along but became good friends.

What no one said aloud but everyone—including the ‘twins’—knew was that while Margot would do anything to keep the girls safe, her efforts weren’t entirely altruistic. She hoped the two girls might bring Melanie out of hiding.

This lurking danger was why Shaw not only picked up the girls after school but got there early and circled the school a few times looking for anything that might be suspicious.

“How was your day?” he asked the two girls as he wove his way out of the after-school traffic.

Mandy shrugged. “It was a day.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Charlene added.

“Did you learn anything?”

“We were supposed to learn something?” Mandy asked, her eyes locked on the phone.

“It is a school.”

“Someone needs to tell the teachers.”

Mandy looked up from the phone and laughed at her own joke. Charlene joined her. After they were through, both went back to their phones. Shaw correctly assumed they were looking at whatever social media app the kids were into these days.

Shaw decided not to say any more about it. The fact both were going to school at all was a victory. It wasn’t that long ago that Charlene was living on the streets. Mandy’s mom never seemed to care if her kids attended school or not, so as one might predict, often they chose not to.

Margot didn’t give them a choice and once they accepted the fact they had to be there, they embraced it. Despite what Mandy said about not learning anything, both were doing well.

Shaw waited until they were free of the after-school traffic before he asked, “You guys mind going by the office?”

“Is it because you don’t want to leave us in the house by ourselves?” Mandy asked.

“It could be because I have work to do.”

“But it’s not.”

“It could be both.”

“Can I use Margot’s computer to do some homework?” Charlene asked.

“Of course.”

“What about my homework?” Mandy asked without looking up from her phone.

“We’ve got the extra office and it’s still got a computer.”

“If we said no, would you take us to Margot’s place?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go to the office.”

Shaw didn’t drive straight there. He took an odd route that featured plenty of seemingly meaningless turns to see if he was being tailed.

If the girls noticed, they didn’t comment. They were used to it.

If someone was tailing him, they were good at it. Shaw didn’t spot anything unusual.

When he got back to the office, Shaw didn’t pull into the small parking lot right away. Instead, he did a circle around the block to see if he could see anything that looked out of place. There was a black van he hadn’t seen before parked behind the building. As far as he could tell, no one was inside. He made a mental note of the make, model, and license plate as he drove by.

Shaw said nothing to the girls about the van as he drove into the office parking lot. More than likely it was nothing. Even then, he put the make, model, and plate number in his phone before he got out of the car and planned to check it out once the kids were inside. Melanie’s little death cult seemed to have a thing for old vans, especially black ones. It might be paranoia—they certainly weren’t the only people who drove vans painted black—but it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Ms. Collins waved at the girls when they walked in. “Are you guys going to hang out in Margot’s office?”

“Yeah,” Mandy told her, “homework.”

“It’s unlocked.”

The two kids headed back to Margot’s office.

Shaw waited until they were gone and went to the locker in his office. He found the Kevlar vest inside and put it on then checked to make sure the Glock 21 he kept in a shoulder rig under his jacket had a full magazine and the thirty-eight police special at his hip had six cartridges in the cylinder.

Finding both satisfactory, he removed his coat and put the Kevlar vest underneath. He thought if he was going to be paranoid, he might as well go all the way.

With that in mind, he eyed the Bushmaster AR-15 in the locker but left it behind, deciding that might be overkill.

Ms. Collins noticed the way his jacket fit tighter as he came back into the receptionist area and knew he’d put on the Kevlar.

“Trouble?” she asked, keeping her voice low to not scare the girls.

“Probably not,” he replied.

She didn’t look as if she believed him.

“Just going to check out a strange van, or maybe it’s just a van and there’s nothing strange about it.”

Ms. Collins nodded. “Be careful.”

“Always.”

Shaw went out the front door and cut between buildings in the office park to get to where he had seen the van. He wasn’t surprised to see it wasn’t there any longer. It was probably nothing, anyway. Having them gone saved him an awkward conversation with a plumber or someone having lunch in their van.

He checked down the block since he was there and, other than a few cars he recognized, there was nothing there. He felt a little silly standing there with two loaded guns and wearing body armor.

Shaw turned and headed back to the office. He slipped between buildings and was almost to the door when the black van pulled into the parking lot. The door slid open and a trio of gunmen dressed in black emerged.

He was going for the Glock when a three-round burst struck him in the chest, slamming him back against the wall. Kevlar had a ceramic breastplate that took the brunt of the blast, and he might have been able to return fire if the impact hadn’t bounced the back of his head off of the wall and knocked him unconscious.

Inside, Ms. Collins heard the shots. She hit the interoffice intercom and told the girls to go out the back door. She grabbed the pistol she kept under the counter. Shaw had taught her how to shoot a long time ago, but she seldom needed to fire her weapon. Someone pulled open the front door and tossed in a grenade. It rolled right up to her desk and stopped.

Ms. Collins dove for cover behind the desk as the grenade detonated. Even though being attacked always seemed a little farfetched, Shaw had built-in steel plates behind the wooden desk just in case anybody tried. It seemed excessive then, but now it kept Ms. Collins from being ripped apart by shrapnel. The top of the desk was just a thick heavy slab of quartz. It was dislodged by the blast and fell on top of Ms. Collins, pinning her to the floor.

When the trio of gunmen stepped inside, one of them sprayed down the reception desk with bullets, but the steel plates held up and once again saved Ms. Collins’s life. If anyone had bothered to look, they would have found her trapped and helpless under the countertop, but no one did.

When the shooting started, Mandy had gone for Margot’s desk and found the Glock she kept there. Her criminal mom had taught her how to use firearms from an early age and since moving in with Margot she had been given a refresher course.

A male voice said, “I’d suggest getting on the floor, girls.”

Charlene dove to the floor and Mandy did the same.

The person wasn’t kidding. A few seconds later, machine gun fire shredded the walls. All the shots stayed high, which made both Charlene and Mandy wonder what they were up to. It wasn’t like the Boog Death Cult to give warnings.

Someone kicked in the door and Mandy came up from behind the desk firing, adding a few bullet holes to the already ripped-up door.

“Come on, kids,” the man said. “I gave you a warning.”

Mandy replied with another couple of shots.

Two black canisters came into the room and, having heard the explosion earlier, both girls thought they were grenades. Charlene got to her feet and ran to the desk. She dove over it and joined Mandy, hiding underneath.

The canisters didn’t explode. Instead, they filled the room with white smoke.

“What the hell is this?” Mandy said, as her eyes burned. Opening her mouth to talk let the white smoke in her mouth and soon her throat was burning as well.

Both girls were trying to hold their breath to keep the toxic mist out of their lungs, but it wasn’t really working. Their eyes burned too much for them to open them, but they both still crawled out from behind the desk, hoping to find some relief.

Someone grabbed Mandy’s arm and twisted it until she dropped the gun. She opened her eyes enough to see a large man in a gas mask holding her. She tried to get away, but he punched her in the stomach, doubling her over, and then secured her wrists and ankles together with flex cuffs.

Charlene punched and kicked as she felt someone grab her, but none of her blows landed cleanly enough to stop her attackers from pinning her to the ground and binding her hands and wrists as well.

She screamed but all that got her was a piece of duct tape over her mouth.

The tear gas was still in their skin and eyes after being pulled out of the room. Even if they weren’t bound, they were in no condition to resist. The trio dragged them into the waiting van. The doors closed.

Inside, the woman behind the wheel said, “Make sure Shaw is dead.”

A gunman jumped out to put a bullet in Shaw’s head, but the private detective was gone. The gunman looked around and could hear the sirens getting closer. He decided if Shaw crawled somewhere else to bleed out, he was fine with that. He got back into the van, and they drove away.

Shaw watched them leave from his spot between the two buildings. He knew he was hurt and outgunned. When he’d got his wits about him, he’d headed for the space between his office and the business next door to call for help. The Kevlar kept him from getting ripped in half, but there was a lot of blood, and he was too dizzy to walk. The fact that he had to crawl made him realize the severity of his injuries.

While he waited for someone at 911 to pick up the phone, Shaw forwarded the license plate number to Margot. He was planning to send it to Radcliff as well, but he passed out before he could.

By the time the 911 dispatcher asked, “What’s the nature of your emergency?”, Shaw was unconscious.