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“Take the kid.” Sebold shoved Jamal toward Tia.
Kemar shouted, scrambled to his feet. “No—no?—”
Sebold turned, and Kemar caught his breath, held up his hands, stepped back. But his expression twisted—fury, helplessness, pain?—
Despite his stupidity, he clearly loved his brother.
Tia caught Jamal, put him behind her, then held out the fanny pack.
No—Tia—don’t?—
Sebold swiped it, opened it, and the hope on Tia’s face could made Doyle ill.
The man nodded, zipped the pack shut, smiled. “Price just went up.”
It took a second, a long, brutal second, for Tia to gasp, to shake her head. “That’s... that’s all I have.”
Interesting.
“I don’t want your money,” Sebold said, hanging the fanny pack over his shoulder. “I want my gold.”
Gold?
He turned to Kemar, laughed, turned back to Tia. “The kid told me you’re hunting a pirate treasure—” He thumped his chest. “My treasure.”
“I don’t have a treasure,” Tia said, and Doyle had to give her credit for not letting her voice break.
“Then find it,” Sebold said. He leaned in. “It belongs to me, and I want it back.”
Doyle pulled the pin from the canister and depressed the lever.
“I don’t know—I don’t have any idea where?—”
“Find it, or Jamal isn’t going anywhere!”
The skinny guard raised the AR-15.
Nope,nobody was getting killed today. Not on his watch?—
Doyle threw the smoke grenade.
The place exploded, a cloud of dark fog bursting from the grenade. Sebold shouted and Doyle grabbed Jamal.
“C’mon!” He sprinted to the Ford, half-carrying Jamal. Please let Tia be behind him—“Get in!” Shoving Jamal into the center, he leaned down and pried open the steering column case, still loose from his first go-round at the harbor.
Tia barreled into the passenger side. “This is crazy! You’re going to get us killed!”
He found the dangling ignition wires he’d stripped, touched them together. Sparks, and the motor churned, then turned over. He twisted the wires together.
More gunfire, and he pushed Jamal down, shouted at Tia—“Get down!”
Then he hit the gas. The truck shot out of the shade, toward the road, and he deliberately hit the scooter, disabling it as he spat dirt down the driveway.
“What are youdoing?”
He glanced at her. “Saving lives.” He grabbed up Jamal, wishing this old rig had a seatbelt. “Hang on to him.”
Tia put her arm around the boy, her hand on the dashboard. “Slow down!”