Grant and Ariana drove into Medina as soon as he was showered and she was bathed and ready to go. Rosa gave him a sweet kiss before they left, right in front of her daughter. Ariana giggled from her car seat in the back and Grant felt his face go hot with color for the first time since he was a kid. “You two have fun and be safe.”
“Always,” Grant said, flashing her a smile. “We’ll see you around noon.” Grant was going to take Ariana with him to Benny’s. She could play in the back room and eat her lunch while they had their meeting since everyone would be there.
“Can’t wait,” she said. She blew a kiss to Ariana and Ariana caught it with a giggle. They were so cute that Grant could hardly stand it sometimes.
During the thirty-minute drive to the small town of Medina, Grant and Ariana sang along with the radio. When Ariana grew tired of that, she recited the alphabet for him and counted to ten, twelve times at least. Grant was still smiling from ear to ear when they got to the Halloween store. He pulled Ariana out of her car seat and put her down on her little legs. She took off running for the store. He didn’t realize how fast she was and he almost had a heart attack as she disappeared through the door.
“Ana!” he called, running after her.
“I’m right here!” she said, waiting by the door.
He reached down and picked her up. “Don’t run off like that, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, putting her chubby little arms around his neck. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was excited.”
“I know. It’s okay. Just don’t do it again. How about we look around at what you want, but you hold my hand?”
“Okay.” He put her back down and shooed away a few salespeople as he followed her from one costume to the next.
Each one he picked up to show her, she would wrinkle her nose and say, “No thank you.” He finally gave up and just let her scrutinize each one. The light finally came on in her eyes when she found a Disney Princess costume. It was a princess he didn’t know, one named Jasmine.
“You like her?”
“She’s pretty. Don’t you think so? Aladdin loved her.”
“Oh, she’s from Aladdin, is she?”
“Yeah. She has a real tiger as a pet.”
“She must be a really cool princess.”
“She is and she has black hair like me.”
“I think princesses with black hair are the best.”
She smiled. “Me too. Can I try it on?”
“Absolutely.” Grant took the costume down for her and they carried it over to the dressing room. First, he couldn’t shoo the staff away fast enough and now that they needed one, there was no one in sight.
“I can do it myself,” she told Grant.
“I’d rather someone went in to help you, baby girl.”
Grant turned around and waved at the girl at the front counter. She smiled and nodded and when he turned back around, Ariana was gone. His heart jumped in fear and he immediately felt pain.
“Ana!” he yelled loudly. She didn’t answer. He ran into the dressing room and yelled again. “Ana!”
He started pulling open the curtains and a salesgirl rushed in behind him saying, “Sir, you can’t do that!”
“My four-year-old is missing. I’m going to tear this whole place apart until I find her. Ana!”
There were six dressing rooms and Grant didn’t find anyone or anything in the three on the right. He started at the last one on the left and worked his way forward. When he pulled open the first one on the left side, it wasn’t only his chest that hurt, it was his whole body. He couldn’t breathe. There was a día de los muertos mask lying on the bench and a postcard. From Honduras.
“Ana!” he screamed at the top of his lungs as he ripped the curtain off its rod. He pushed the frightened salesgirl out of his way and went toward the back of the store. It was a giant warehouse with boxes and costumes stacked everywhere.
“Ana!” His voice echoed off the high ceilings of the warehouse, but he thought he might have heard a small squeak. “You listen to me, Cardoza. You will regret this like you’ve never regretted anything in your life. I won’t let you have her. I’ll track you down like a dog. I will hunt you like an animal and I’ll fucking take you apart piece by piece with my bare hands.”
There was still nothing but silence in the warehouse. Grant couldn’t see any exit doors other than the one he came through and the big door that rolled up for shipments. There was no way Cardoza had time to take her out through that one and close it before Grant made it there…was there? Grant reached back and locked the door from the store to the warehouse and then he reached down and pulled his handgun out of his boot. He hadn’t suspected that anything would happen while he was with Ariana, but he also hadn’t been willing to take any chances. His own breathing was so loud in his head that he felt as if he couldn’t hear anything else, any of their movements. As he moved forward in the semi-darkness he tried to control his breathing. He also tried not to think about why Ariana wasn’t crying. Cardoza had to have her mouth covered. God, please let her be okay.
“Listen to me, Cardoza. Just let her go and we’ll leave and you can walk out of here, no questions asked.”
He heard another squeak and then a definite curse.
“You little brat!”
“Grant!”
“Ana! I’m here, baby! I’m coming to get you. Keep talking to me.” He heard Ariana cry out in pain. “You bastard, if you hurt her…!”
“You’re hurting her. You need to just leave and let me have my granddaughter. You have no rights to her. She is my blood. She belongs to me.”
“No, you gave up your rights to her when you…” Grant remembered that
Ariana was listening. He stopped there and said, “I’m not leaving without her.”
“Neither am I. Dead or alive.”
Was he that crazy? Would the son of a bitch kill his own granddaughter to keep someone else from having her? Grant was sweating buckets. His shirt was soaked to his back. His hands that were always steady with a gun were shaking so hard now that he worried he might miss his target if he got the chance to take aim, despite being the best sniper out there. “Cardoza, the girl out front called the police. They’ll be here any minute. If I were you I wouldn’t want to be here when they arrive.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to be here when they arrive. So, let us leave.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Then we leave in matching body bags and you can explain that to her mother. Ask yourself this, would Elena rather know she’s growing up with everything a little girl could want or need…or would she rather be attending her funeral?”
“You’re a sick bastard. She’s your granddaughter. You said it yourself…your flesh and blood. Why? Why would you choose her death and your own over letting her go and allowing her mother raise her in peace?”
“You don’t give a shit how my mind works. I hear you moving as you’re talking. You’re trying to use some psychology bullshit on me. Trust me, it won’t work. I have no conscience. People are here for my amusement and once I’m dead and gone, the world goes with me.”
Jesus, this guy is a textbook psychopath. “Are you ready to die then, Cardoza?”
“This is the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department! Open up!” The banging on the door was deafening from one end of the warehouse and then it began on the other.
“This is it, Cardoza, do or die time. Let her go and put your hands up and they won’t shoot you. If you don’t, we’re all dead.”
“Let them kill me. They’ll be making movies about me for years. I’ll be a legend. I’ll be a Mexican Pablo Escobar. I’ll be immortal.”
“Last chance! Bexar County Sheriff’s Department! Open the door and come out with your hands up!”
“When your madre was a little girl, I used to sing a song to her at night. I’m going to sing it to you, sweetie. Don’t be scared, okay?” Cardoza spoke to Ariana in a soft voice, but it just sounded sick and delusional to Grant.
Grant used his arm to swipe a pile of boxes out of his way. He could tell by the sound of Cardoza’s voice that he was getting close but from the sounds of the pounding on the door, not close enough. He started singing some kind of Spanish lullaby to Ariana. Ariana wasn’t making a sound and Grant was afraid that he’d already hurt her. His heart was about to jump out of his chest and he felt his nerves explode in frustration, panic, and fear.
“Ana, can you hear me, baby?”
“Shush! Her grandpappy is singing her a song.” The crazy bastard started to sing again. Grant stood still and tried to listen, but the sheriffs almost had the door down. It was a fire door so it was taking forever to break it down, thankfully. If this man was as crazy as Grant suspected he was, he didn’t doubt the bastard would use her as a human shield. Cardoza was really getting into his song, hitting a high note terribly. Grant continued to follow it; he sounded so close. Just as he got to the top of the note he heard him scream like a girl, then he heard a big commotion while Cardoza continued to moan.
“Grant!”
“Ariana!” Grant spun around until he saw her. She was running over the boxes and the costumes to get to him and, behind her, Cardoza was holding his crotch with one hand, clutching a gun in the other, and trying to stand up straight. Grant couldn’t wait for Ariana reach him before doing something. He raised his gun and fired. Cardoza stumbled back, clutched at his chest, and fell backward just as Ariana reached Grant and wrapped her little arms around his legs and held on tight. That was also the moment that the cops managed to break down the door. For the second time in two days, Grant was told to get on the ground, only this time they were also telling him to drop his weapon and let go of the girl. He dropped the weapon and tried to drop to his knees, but Ariana wouldn’t let go of him.
“Baby, the police are here. These are the good guys, okay? The bad man can’t get you, but I have to let go of you for just a minute to do what the police are telling me to do.”
Ariana was sobbing and his heart was breaking as she looked up at him with red, swollen eyes.
“I’m scared. I want my Mama.”
“I know, baby. We’ll see her soon, I promise,” Grant said, giving her a kiss on the head and smoothing her hair down.
“Get down on your knees now and let that child go!”
“She’s holding onto me,” Grant called out to them, putting his arms up. “She’s scared. I threw down my weapon. I’m getting down on my knees. Please don’t shoot. She’s scared.”
Ariana squeezed him harder and Grant was really getting worried when suddenly she looked up at him and said, “I kicked the bad man in his marbles.”
In the midst of all the chaos with fear roiling throughout his body and guns pointed at his chest, Grant started laughing. Ariana let go of him at last so he could get down on his knees, and the cops that pinned him to the floor and cuffed him must have thought he was the mad one. That ridiculous sentence from the little girl would forever be his go-to phrase when he needed a smile—that is, if he lived through the rest of today.