JJ slowly parked the Suburban in the driveway of White Cornell's house. Jubal picked up the phone and called Ronnie again.
"She's in the car," he said calmly.
Inside the house, Ronnie hesitated. He glanced at White, tied to a chair, then at Emma, who was sobbing in the corner. After some deliberation, he grabbed the girl roughly and pushed her toward the front room.
Moments later, the curtains in the front room parted slightly, revealing Emma's tear-streaked face, her heavy makeup smeared.
"I don't have a clear shot—he's using the hostage as a shield," Hannah reported calmly.
"Same here," Clay added, equally composed.
Meanwhile, Jack, who had quietly made his way to the back door, quickly unlocked it with his tools. But instead of rushing in, he turned to Aubrey, who was monitoring the drone footage on a tablet.
The drone's infrared camera wasn't as sophisticated as Hollywood might portray, but it gave them a good enough view of the house's interior to confirm the locations of the people inside.
"Open the damn car window! Don't try to trick me!" Ronnie shouted through the phone.
JJ stepped out of the car in her bulletproof vest and slid open the Suburban's side door, revealing Raelyn in the backseat, her eyes covered with a blindfold.
"Ronnie! Ronnie! Where are you?" Raelyn wailed, thrashing in an attempt to remove the blindfold. For a moment, JJ struggled to restrain her.
"Raelyn! Baby!" Ronnie's face twisted with an ecstatic expression. He yanked the curtains wide open, pressing Emma's face against the glass and shouting, "I want her to see me! Now!"
"That's not going to happen," Jubal said firmly. "We agreed—release a hostage first."
"How about this?" Ronnie growled, pressing his revolver against Emma's head and forcing her to lean against the window. With a maniacal grin, he began undoing his belt.
"You know, your mom clearly didn't teach you how to respect women," a voice dripped with venom and mockery from deeper inside the house. "Oh wait, I forgot—she was a 'whore.'"
Ronnie froze, his deranged mind unable to process the sudden intrusion. He turned instinctively toward the voice, but his body couldn't react in time.
From two different angles, sniper bullets shattered the glass and struck him. The first round entered his back, severing his spine. The second hit his neck, shattering vertebrae and severing an artery, unleashing a geyser of blood.
Before Ronnie's body could slump to the floor, Aubrey fired another shot, this time directly between his eyes. Blood and brain matter splattered across the window, some of it landing on Emma, who screamed hysterically.
"You know we don't get administrative leave for this, right?" Jack muttered, holstering his untouched Sig Sauer P320-XTen.
"What?" Aubrey asked, still dazed from his first confirmed kill.
"Nothing," Jack replied with a wry smile. "Your aim's improving."
"Ronnie! No!"
Raelyn, who had managed to rub off her blindfold on the seat back, began wailing uncontrollably. To an uninformed observer, it might have seemed like a tragic Romeo and Juliet scenario had just unfolded.
Jack and Aubrey emerged from the house, each supporting one of the battered hostages. White Cornell was bruised but alive, while Emma Jennings was visibly traumatized, both physically and emotionally. They helped them into waiting ambulances.
Jubal watched the scene unfold, then glanced at Raelyn's hysterical cries before turning back to the victims. With a bitter smile, he muttered, "If Hollywood gets hold of this story, they might turn it into the next Bonnie and Clyde."
"Who cares?" Jack said dismissively. "We're always just supporting characters anyway."
Jubal suddenly asked, "Do you think things would've ended differently if we'd brought Ronnie's mom here?"
Everyone turned to him, their faces a mix of confusion and curiosity. Raising his hands defensively, Jubal added, "Don't get me wrong—I'm not saying I sympathize. It's just that he seemed genuinely afraid when I mentioned her earlier."
Clay, carefully disassembling his M110 SASS sniper rifle, snorted. "Someone as selfish as his mom wouldn't have cooperated with us. It would've turned into an even bigger disaster."
JJ, returning from handing Raelyn over to local authorities, nodded in agreement. "I don't think Ronnie would've surrendered just because of some residual fear. More likely, he would've snapped completely. He was already unhinged the moment he saw Raelyn."
"She should never have been a mother," Hannah muttered under her breath.
"Alright, discussion over," Jack said firmly, sensing the conversation veering toward controversial territory like abortion laws. Such topics were best avoided, especially at a crime scene.
Whether Ronnie's childhood had involved physical abuse or just psychological manipulation was irrelevant to the task force's report. His mother vanished after the case closed, not even showing up to claim his body. Any journalists hoping to uncover the deeper story behind the case were left with nothing to pursue.
As for Raelyn, the hope was that she'd spend the rest of her life in a secure mental institution.
One Week Later – Task Force Office
Back at the office, the mood was subdued. The team had no administrative leave to decompress and was stuck writing reports for days.
"Promise me, Jack," Jubal groaned, stretching his back with a loud crack. "Unless it's a mandatory case, we'll only take on one fugitive warrant per month."
"Isn't reviewing the warrants your job? Don't try to push it on me. I already helped Clay with his report. You're supposed to write the one about the Charlotte shooting," Jack replied without looking up from his desk.
"I need time off. My gaming console's collecting dust," Hannah yawned, her head resting lazily on her desk.
Jack finished typing the last word of his report and shoved the keyboard aside. "Alright, tomorrow we're all taking the day off. We're going to Clay's house to meet Baby Clay."
Just days after returning to New York, Clay's wife Stella had given birth to a healthy baby boy. Since there's no tradition of postpartum confinement in the U.S., Stella had returned home the same day, with Danny's wife Linda helping care for the baby.
Thanks to the current President's policies, Clay, as a federal employee, was entitled to 12 weeks of paid paternity leave.
This was no small feat in the U.S., where federal maternity leave policies are virtually nonexistent. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave for new parents, but only about half of Americans qualify, as it applies only to employees at companies with 50 or more workers who've been employed for at least a year.
For many, even a few weeks without pay is financially crippling, let alone 12. As such, few people actually take advantage of unpaid leave.
"Lucky guy," Hannah muttered as the team prepared to clock out, looking forward to their well-deserved day off.
(End of Chapter)
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