Jeffrey tried to keep his voice calm and reasonable. "What's happening here, Jenny? Why don't we talk this through? It can't be that bad."

She wiped her face again. "Yes, sir," she said. "It is."

Her voice was so cold that Jeffrey felt a chill on his neck. He suppressed a shiver as he slid his gun out of its holster. Jeffrey hated guns because, as a cop, he saw what kind of damage they could do. Carrying one was something he did because he had to, not because he wanted to. In his twenty years on the police force, Jeffrey had drawn his weapon on a suspect only a handful of times. Of those times, he had fired it twice, but never directly at a human being.

"Jenny," he tried, putting some authority in his voice. "Look at me."

She kept her gaze on the boy in front of her for what seemed like forever. Jeffrey was silent, letting her have her sense of control. Slowly, she let her eyes turn toward Jeffrey. She let her gaze settle low, until she found the nine millimeter he held at his side.

She licked her lips nervously, obviously assessing the threat. The same dead tone rang in his ears when she said, "Shoot me."

He thought he had heard wrong. This was far from the answer he had been expecting.

She repeated, "Shoot me now or I'm gonna shoot him." With that, she lifted the Beretta toward the boy's head. Jeffrey watched as she spread her feet apart to a shoulder-width stance and cupped the butt of the gun with her free hand. Her posture was that of a young woman who knew how to hold a weapon. Her hands were steady now, and she kept her eyes locked on the boy's.

The boy whined, "Oh, shit," and there was a spattering sound on the asphalt as he urinated.

Jeffrey raised his gun as she fired, but her shot went wide over the boy's head, splitting pieces of the plastic sign and canopy off the building.

"What was that?" Jeffrey hissed, knowing that the only reason Jenny was still standing was that his gut had stopped his own finger from pulling the trigger. She had hit the center of the dot on the "i" in Skatie's. Jeffrey doubted most of his cops on the force could shoot with that much precision, under this much pressure.

"It was a warning," Jenny said, though he had not expected her to answer. "Shoot me," the girl repeated. "Shoot me or I swear to God I'm gonna blow his brains out right here." She licked her lips again. "I can do it. I know how to use this." She jerked the gun slightly, indicating what she meant. "You know I can do it," she said, again taking a wide stance to counteract the Beretta's recoil. She turned the muzzle slightly and blasted out the apostrophe on the sign. People in the parking lot might have scattered or yelled, but Jeffrey did not notice. All he could see was the smoke coming off the muzzle of her gun.

When he could breathe again, Jeffrey said, "There's a big difference between a sign and a human being."

She mumbled, and he strained to hear her say, "He's not a human being."

Jeffrey caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He recognized Sara instantly. She had taken off her skates and her white socks stood stark against the black asphalt.

"Honey?" Sara called, her voice pitched up in fear. "Jenny?" she said.

"Go away," Jenny snapped, but her tone was petulant, more like the child she was than the monster she had been just a few seconds earlier. "Please."

"She's okay," Sara said. "I just found her inside, and she's fine."

The gun faltered, then Jenny's resolve seemed to kick in as she raised it back, pointing the weapon squarely between the boy's eyes. The same dead voice came back with her resolve, and she said, "You're lying."

Jeffrey took one look at Sara and knew that the girl was right. Sara was not a practiced liar, so she was easy to read. Discounting that, even from this distance Jeffrey could see the blood covering the front of Sara's shirt and jeans. Someone inside the rink had obviously been injured and was possibly, probably, dead. He looked back at Jenny, finally able to reconcile the soft, little girl's face with the threat that she had become.

With a start, he realized that the safety was still engaged on his gun. He clicked it off, giving Sara a look of warning to stay back.

"Jenny?" Sara's throat made a visible swallow. Jeffrey did not recognize the singsong voice she used; she had never talked down to children. Obviously, whatever violence Jenny had wreaked inside the rink had altered Sara. Jeffrey did not know what to make of it. There hadn't been any gunfire in the rink, and Buell Parker, the rink's rent-a-cop, had said everything was fine when Jeffrey had checked in with him. Where was Buell, Jeffrey wondered. Was he inside, securing a crime scene, not letting anyone out? What had Jenny done inside the rink? Jeffrey would have given anything at that moment in time to pause the scene in front of him and find out exactly what had happened.

Jeffrey chambered a round into the nine-mil. Sara's head snapped around at the sound, and she held her hand out to him, palm down, as if to say, No, calm down. Don't do this. He looked past her shoulder at the rink entrance. He expected to see a group of spectators with their noses pressed to the glass, but the doorway was empty. What had happened inside that was more interesting than the scene playing out in front of him?

Sara tried again, saying, "She's fine, Jenny. Come see."

"Dr. Linton," Jenny said, her voice wavering, "please don't talk to me."

"Sweety," Sara answered, her tone as shaky as Jenny's. "Look at me. Please just look at me." When the girl did not respond, Sara said, "She's fine. I promise you she's fine."

"You're lying," Jenny answered. "You're all liars." She turned her attention back to the boy. "And you're the worst liar of all," she told him. "You're going to burn in hell for what you did, you bastard."

The boy spoke in a fit of rage, spittle flying from his mouth. "I'll see you there, bitch."

Jenny's voice took on a calmness. Something seemed to pass between her and the boy, and when she answered, her voice was childlike. "I know you will."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jeffrey saw Sara step forward. He watched as Jenny sighted down the barrel of the short-nosed gun, lining it up to the boy's head. The girl stood there, stock-still, waiting. Her hands did not shake, her lip did not tremble, and her hand did not falter. She seemed more resigned to the task in front of her than Jeffrey did.

"Jenny…" Jeffrey began, trying to see some way out of this. He was not going to shoot a little girl. There was no way he could shoot this kid.

Jenny looked over her shoulder and Jeffrey followed her gaze. A police car had finally pulled up, and Lena Adams and Brad stepped out, weapons drawn. They were in a textbook triangle formation, with Jeffrey at the top.

"Shoot me," Jenny said, keeping her gun steady on the boy.

"Stand down," Jeffrey told the officers. Brad followed orders, but he saw Lena hesitate. He gave her a hard look, about to repeat his order, but finally she lowered her weapon.

"I'll do it," Jenny mumbled. She stood impossibly still, making Jeffrey wonder what was inside the girl that she could approach this situation with such resignation.

Jenny cleared her throat and said, "I'll do it. I've done it before."

Jeffrey looked to Sara for confirmation, but her attention was focused on the little girl with the gun.

"I've done it before," Jenny repeated. "Shoot me, or I'll kill him and then shoot myself anyway."

For the first time that night, Jeffrey assessed his shot. He tried to force his brain to accept that she represented a clear danger to the boy in front of her, no matter what her age was. If he hit her in the leg or shoulder, she would have enough time to pull the trigger. Even if Jeffrey went for her torso, there was still the chance that she would squeeze off a shot before she went down. At the level Jenny was pointing the gun, the boy would be dead before she hit the ground.