She glanced my way for only a fraction of a second, her eyes widening at the sight of my hand holding back the blood. Then she shifted back to Hofer.

“Die here . . . ? Oh, you’re just a little late to the party, darlin’. We’re all gonna die here! Me. The doc.” He dug the barrel of his gun into Hallie’s skull. “Sorry, you too, angel . . .” Then he shifted his gaze back to Carrie. “And you! The only real question is how that’s gonna happen, and where . . .” He stepped on the saw pedal and the jagged blade began to rev and whir like an engine starting up, Hallie lurching forward with a scream. “ . . . That’s where we still have a few things to discuss.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Carrie said, squinting through the sight, taking a breath. “You let her go.”

Hofer grinned at her. “You better be confident, darling. Right, Doc? That’s your little girl’s life she’s playing around with.” He wrapped his arm around Hallie’s neck and drew her near. “Even if you happen to hit me, for her sake you better be damn sure I don’t fall forward and my foot happens to find that pedal and I let go . . . ’Cause if it does . . .” He shook his head grimly. “Well, let’s just say you don’t want to be responsible for such a sight. Would she now, Doc . . . ?”

Carrie’s eyes shifted slightly in my direction, and I had no choice but to nod ever so slightly.

Then she went back to Hofer, pulling back the hammer. “I am confident.”

Their gazes met, Hofer snorting and shaking his head. “Well, then . . .”

Carrie squeezed, her finger barely moving, the recoil jerking under control.

Hallie screamed, and for a second I was sure she had been hit, and I lunged . . .

Hofer’s head barely flinched.

He still had the same, smug expression on his pink face, though his head snapped back ever so slightly, and a dime-size black dot appeared out of nowhere in the center of his forehead, his eyes gently rolling back into his skull.

He seemed to hold there for a moment, his gaze becoming vague and his smile, however sensate, seemed to settle on me, laughing, as if to say: You still lose!

Then he pitched forward.

And in the sudden surge of elation I felt as I realized that he was dead, I saw with growing horror that the threat he’d made seconds ago was about to come true.

His weight pushed forward onto the pedal, and Hallie lurched out of his thick arms, the saw blade starting to whir and rotate. Hofer rolled off the bench to the side, his ample girth covering the pedal, and Hallie was dragged forward by her arms as she started to scream.

“Hallie!” I yelled in horror as I saw what was unfolding.

Carrie got there first, desperately trying to roll Hofer off, but he was way too heavy for her and something, his belt, or his shirt, seemed to be caught on the thing.

Hallie pulled against her binds, arms first, but it was futile. She kept inching forward. Her beautiful face was twisted in horror. “Daddy, please!”

I leaped to Carrie’s side and frantically tried to help roll Hofer off, but the sonovabitch’s deadweight wasn’t budging.

Carrie shot me a panicked glance. “Oh my God, Henry!”

Not even feeling the fire from the gunshot in my side, I dove over to the tool board, Carrie straining to hold Hallie back, and grabbed the ax.

I’d never swung one in my life, and surely not with my daughter’s life on the line, her face contorted in screams, and my adrenaline racing off the charts. I raised it above my head and brought it down with all my might onto the rope near the wheel axle.

Nothing. It clanged off the blade and into the wooden bench.

It didn’t sever the rope.

“Daddy!” Hallie was hysterical now, and I was too, Carrie straining with everything she had to hold her back, to gain precious seconds, but we were losing . . . She continued to be pulled forward, now about two feet away.

I pulled the ax out and swung again.

This time I hit home, twine unraveling.

But it still didn’t snap.

Hallie was now barely a foot away from the serrated, whirring blade, her face flushed a deep red and her eyes like round, horrified orbs. “Daddy, quick! Please!”

I raised the ax one last time, praying to something I wasn’t sure I even believed in, but whom I begged to give me the strength. This was our only chance. The saw’s chilling whir and my daughter’s frantic screams combining in an awful wail.

Please . . . Please, God, I begged, and brought the ax down for a third time.

It snapped.

I felt the twine sever, Carrie yanking Hallie off the table with only inches to spare, both of them falling onto the floor.

For a second everything froze. I didn’t hear crying or exulting. I didn’t know if everyone was safe. My breath was trapped somewhere in my body. I had zero sensation in my side. I was drenched in sweat, my shirt matted with blood. I was scared to utter Hallie’s name. I was scared that Hofer was about to rear up and the whole thing would begin anew.

Then I heard weeping.

Hallie weeping. Not in pain, but joy. Sobbing from shock and happy relief. I ran over and untied her wrists and took her in my arms like she was three years old again. Squeezing her with all my might, both of us smeared with sweat and blood and tears. I began to shout. Exulting now. And laugh. Sobbing and saying at the same time, “Baby, you’re okay. You’re okay. It’s over. It’s over, sweetheart . . . You’re okay.”

I was afraid to believe it myself.

Until the pain hit me, and I buckled.

Carrie ran over to me and eased me against the wall, but I was still clutching Hallie.

No way I was going to let her go. Ever.

“Daddy, I love you, I love you . . .” she cried into me.

“I love you too, baby!” I pressed my face against hers.

We slid down to the floor. That’s when I first heard the wail of distant sirens. The three of us, we just slid slowly down, holding one another, afraid to let go, my daughter’s trembling face buried into my shoulder.

“They’re coming!” Carrie said to me, jubilant. “They’re coming!”

“Yeah, they’re coming!” I nodded, resting my head back against the wall. And I could only smile, grateful tears pooling and shimmering in my eyes. Holding my daughter as tightly as strength would let me. Totally impervious to the pain.

Looking at Carrie.

Those ecstatic blue eyes were about the prettiest thing I had ever seen, and I let my head drop against her, unable to do anything but smile and laugh with everything I had in me, and wince a little.

And cry.

Chapter Seventy-Five

I won’t even pretend that my injuries turned out to be life-threatening.

The bullet went through the oblique muscle of my back, about as favorable an outcome as I could have hoped for. It would keep me off the golf course for a while. And out of the OR.

But I knew I had enough to keep myself occupied for the next couple of weeks.

After the police arrived, Hallie and I were rushed to the Richmond County Medical Center in Augusta, thirty miles away. We both went in the same EMT van, Hallie receiving oxygen and glucose, and Valium intravenously for the shock.

Lying on the adjoining gurney, I held on to her hand the entire trip. Except for the day I first held her in my arms, I don’t think I’ve ever felt a deeper understanding of what it meant to be a father.

We called Liz on the way. Another tearfest. It almost made me feel as if we were a united, happy family again. Past the shoals of jealousy and bitterness that I hoped would never bar our way again.

We told Liz where we were being taken, and Carrie said the FBI would send a plane and fly her up there now, Liz’s choked, grateful voice on the other end barely containing the unstoppable flood of joyous tears that lay behind it. “Thank you, Henry. Thank you . . .” she kept saying, in a fervent—and reproachless—tone I hadn’t heard from her in years.