“You don’t have a warrant!” Thomas screamed, spit spraying from his mouth. “You have no legal right to be in here! Get out of my house!”
“Exigent circumstances,” Daniel fired back, lowering his body into a trained combat-ready stance. “We have a visibly battered child and a disconnected 911 call reporting an assault. I don’t need a single piece of paper from a judge to stop you from touching her again.”
“I am her father!” Thomas snarled, his voice dropping into a guttural, terrifying register.
He stared directly into Daniel’s eyes.
Then, without warning, he threw the thick leather belt onto the floor and aggressively reached his right hand behind his body, slipping it beneath the bottom of his t-shirt.
Time seemed to stretch apart.
The air inside the foyer became concrete.
Gun.
The thought flashed through my mind like a strobe.
Before Thomas could withdraw his hand, tearing Velcro and snapping hard plastic echoed sharply through the foyer.
Daniel had drawn his Taser.
Two bright red laser dots appeared directly over the center of Thomas’s gray shirt.
“Pull your hand out slowly, completely empty!” Daniel commanded, his finger resting heavily against the trigger, his voice cold, absolute, and entirely emotionless. “Do it right now, or you ride the lightning. Your choice, Thomas.”
Emily screamed.
It was a piercing, agonized sound of pure terror.
She scrambled frantically down the remaining steps.
I caught her at the bottom and swept her immediately into my arms.
She weighed almost nothing.
She felt like a fragile collection of hollow bird bones wrapped beneath dark bruises.
She buried her wet face deep against my neck, sobbing uncontrollably, with the stuffed rabbit containing the hidden phone still crushed tightly between our bodies.
“I’ve got her!” I yelled to Daniel, shielding Emily with my body as I moved quickly backward toward the open front door, putting critical distance between the child and the threat. “I’ve got the victim. Clear the threat!”
Thomas froze.
The twin red dots trembled slightly against his gray shirt with each of Daniel’s breaths.
He looked down at the Taser.
Then toward me holding his daughter.
The crushing realization that he had lost control over his victim—and over his life—spread slowly across his face, leaving behind a hollow, pathetic panic.
Slowly, painfully, moving only inches at a time, he withdrew his empty hand from behind his back.
