by Rachel Grant
It had happened so fast, there hadn’t been time for Josh to clear out from under the bridge, but others, those on the edges, had made it out, he was sure of it. He’d done that much right, at least.
But this guy next to him hadn’t made it, and they would both die here together if they didn’t escape from beneath the crumbling structure. Josh carefully rolled to his back in the confined space for better leverage. He braced his feet on the beam again and pushed off, digging in his heels as he tugged on the man’s hand, to pull him out from whatever was pinning him down. It was this or death. Josh’s muscles strained, and he feared for the man’s limbs, but he reminded himself that if they’d been crushed, the damage was already done. The debris that had the guy pinned gave way, and the deadweight inched forward as Josh pulled and wriggled through the first opening he’d created in the rubble.
His ears pulsed with the pressure caused by the blast, giving his breathing a tympanic ring. Remembering his headset, he reached for it around his neck or on his head. Even though he couldn’t hear well, he could use it to call or radio. Let someone know he was alive and stuck.
His headset was gone, likely knocked off by whatever had injured his eye, and, from the feel of things, that whole side of his head. That he hadn’t noticed pain from the cuts was due to adrenaline mixed with other, bigger, masking pain. Now he noticed smaller aches all along his limbs and back. He’d been pelted by debris, and who knew what else had been damaged given that he’d lost consciousness for a few moments. Or longer.
How many minutes had it been since the blast? Fifteen? Twenty? Surely it couldn’t be more than that?
He shoved at another concrete boulder that blocked his way, this one bigger than the last. It didn’t budge. This time, he pictured Maddie. The way she’d looked that first time he saw her face—the moment after he’d kissed her in his pretend-boyfriend role. She’d looked like a model from the sixties with her clear, smooth skin and hair pulled back with a headband, curling under at the ends. Her eyes had lit with reaction to the casual kiss, and she’d looked so damn adorable. Warm. She’d brightened the dank crypt with her light, and all his protective instincts had risen to the surface. He’d wanted nothing more than to go after the prick who’d freaked her out so much, she’d been compelled to call for help.
From there, his mind went to last night, when he’d told her he loved her, and again, she’d lit up the room with her smile. But that time, her hair had been tousled by his fingers, her lips swollen from his kisses. Her bare chest pressed to his.
He’d followed up his declaration by making love to her again, and he’d kept his eyes open until the last second so he could see every expression on her face as he made her come.
She was everything he’d ever wanted. And he could have her, if he could just get this motherfucking concrete boulder out of his damn way.
He shoved again, and this time, it moved. Two inches at best, but maybe that was all he needed, because now daylight shone through the hole he’d created. He called out, reaching his hand through the narrow gap, into the afternoon sun.
A hand gripped his. Thick fingers, dark skin. The hand of a bodybuilder. Hope surged in Josh’s chest. If anyone could move that damn boulder, it was Arthur Bond.
37
Ava couldn’t stop shaking. She rode the creepy freight elevator up with the creepy neo-Nazi and the father she’d hoped to never see again, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.
The only thing that stopped her was knowing how much glee her dad would get from seeing her break. Like when he’d finally broken her mom.
In that moment, Ava understood her mom’s final, desperate act, and for the first time knew she could forgive her mother.
She’d only had glimpses of her father’s awful side before her mother’s death. It wasn’t until Lori was gone that Ari had turned his full borderline personality disorder—or whatever the hell was wrong with him—on her.
Mom must have taken the brunt to protect me.
She ached to tell her mom how much she loved her. How much she needed her.
She hadn’t gone to the cemetery since the funeral, not even when Uncle Josh went at the beginning of the summer. Tomorrow, if she was able, she’d go and lie on the grass and cry her heart out. Give her mom all the love and grief she’d denied her for two years.
The elevator doors opened on the top floor, and Ari grabbed her arm and yanked her forward, dragging her out of the steel box. She’d decided on the ride up not to call him Dad anymore, not even in her mind. He didn’t deserve it.
Her real dad was the man who’d taken care of her when she was a baby so her mom could go to school. Who’d sent money to her mom when he was deployed. Who’d moved to Portland and opened a whole new Raptor office just so he wouldn’t have to move her to a new school district.
That was a father’s love.
Troy Kocher led the way down the corridor, while Ari kept a firm grip on her arm, walking at a brisk pace.
She still had her purse, and the file was in her jeans pocket. She’d find a way to fight. Troy Kocher was huge, but she was willing to fight dirty. She’d attended several of the evening training sessions last week, and Desmond had taught her some moves that would work if she didn’t get squeamish.
After two long corridors, they finally reached the vestibule where the main bank of elevators let out and faced a glass wall that looked into a modern glass-and-steel reception room. Top floor, so this must be C-IV’s office.
Troy Kocher waved a key fob in front of the sensor, and the door opened automatically.
Had C-IV’s old security team—the one that included the White Patriots who’d abducted Maddie—taken over the building, or was Nielsen part of whatever was going on?
She followed Kocher into the reception area and down the hall to the corner office. Through the windows, she could see the Willamette River, and beyond that, the Columbia. She broke away from her father’s grip and ran to the window so she could look down and see the waterfront park.
It was much farther away and down than it had been in the hotel, and she couldn’t make out the details beyond emergency vehicles, collapsed end of the bridge, and clusters of people as small dots on the grass.
She pressed her fingers to the cool glass.
Uncle Josh is alive. Uncle Josh is alive. Uncle Josh is alive.
She would believe it until she was presented with proof otherwise.
“What the hell is she doing here?” a male voice behind her said. “You were supposed to bring my sister.”
Josh’s hearing was improving. The shouts of excitement as another person was found alive in the pile were dulled, as if he were underwater or had earplugs, but he could hear them.
He’d experienced similar hearing loss in the Navy, when an op went sideways and ear protection wasn’t in place, but this might be the worst case of temporary deafness he’d had. But then, he’d been way too close to the explosive.
He sat on a gurney in the triage area that had been set up while he was still tunneling out. A medic washed his head wound, and Josh managed to open his eye. Vision was blurry, but he could focus.
“Pupils normal,” the medic said. “Looks like you might have skipped the concussion.”
That was a damn miracle considering a bridge had fallen on him and he wasn’t wearing the Kevlar helmet that had protected him on ops.
One gurney over, the guy he’d dragged from the rubble was being worked on by a team of paramedics. The guy had turned out to be a White Patriot—swastika tattoos and all. Josh had no illusions the man would see the light when he discovered a Jewish man had saved his life, but then, Josh had always hated stories in that genre.
He shouldn’t have to save a person’s life for them to see him as human. As equal.
If Desmond and the guy with the swastika tattoos were both pulled over by a cop, Desmond had a higher likelihood of getting arrested on a bullshit charge or outright shot and killed than the guy with the actual Nazi
symbols on his body, when the hate-monger almost certainly had a violent record. Hate and violence went hand in hand.
Josh didn’t regret saving the guy’s life—everyone deserved rescue and aid—but he didn’t want kudos either.
“Josh!” His name reached his muted ears, and he looked up to see Chase running toward him. It was a relief to see the Raptor operative. Josh hadn’t had a chance to debrief with Arthur before he was hauled off on the gurney. And he hadn’t really been able to hear what Arthur had to say anyway.
Officers tried to stop Chase from entering the triage area. “Let him through,” Josh said in a commanding tone. He had no authority here, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try.
Miraculously, it worked.
Chase wove his way between the gurneys, which held people with varying degrees of injuries from slight scrapes to the unconscious but breathing man one gurney over.
Once Chase was close enough that Josh would be able to hear his answer, he asked his most burning question. “What’s the status of Ava and Maddie?” If they’d seen the collapse from their hotel room, they had to be worried.
“Ava’s been taken. By your brother. Maddie’s gone after her.”
38
Maddie typed in the pass code Mothman had provided, and the elevator light turned green. “It worked,” she said into the headset.
“Great,” Mothman replied. “That’s the code that’s going to get you through most of the building. The exception is the top floor—Josh wasn’t given access to that, and I can’t find any overrides he might have tried to gain access.”
“Got it.” She sighed. “That means she’s been taken to the penthouse, doesn’t it?”
“That would be my guess,” Keith said.
The series of short clicks that Maddie had come to recognize as another person joining the call sounded, followed by a new voice. “Hey, Maddie, mind if I cut in on this conversation?”
Her knees went weak, and the world spun a bit. “Josh?”
“Yeah, it’s me, sweetheart.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. In front of her, the service elevator doors opened, but she was frozen in place. “You’re…you’re okay?”
“A little battered, slightly deaf, but otherwise fine.”
She leaned an arm on the wall next to the open elevator and let out a loud, ugly sob. “I was so scared.” She swiped at her tears and straightened her spine, just in case the code Mothman had given her hadn’t shut off the garage camera.
“I know, babe,” Josh said. “It was a close one.”
“I love you.” She didn’t care that everyone was listening in. Josh was alive, and she had to say the words. They were oxygen to her starved lungs.
“It was thoughts of you and Ava that helped me move the rubble in my way.”
She let out another sob. He’s alive. The bridge collapse hadn’t been a nightmare she could wake from, but also, talking to him now wasn’t a dream. Both were real.
“I love you so much, Maddie.” His voice cracked with emotion. “But we’ve got other priorities right now. Chase brought me up to speed on the situation. Said you’re going after Ava.”
“I just missed my elevator—”
“Good. Go back to my SUV and lock yourself in. It’s bulletproof and locks up tighter than a vault. You’ll be safe there. Chase and I are on our way.”
“Okay. Hurry.” She turned and sprinted toward the SUV, her vision slightly blurry from the tears, her brain foggy with the emotional overload.
Josh would confront his brother and get Ava back. Ari had no legal rights. This was a simple family dispute and would be over quickly. Then they’d get Josh to a hospital to have his wounds looked at, and she and Ava could both dote on him.
She was enjoying that fantasy when she circled the vehicle to the driver’s side and came face-to-face with Peyton Hoffman.
He gave her a nasty grin. “Well, well, well. Madeline Foster. Have you missed me?”
Before she could step back or say a word into the headset, his arm swung out. She saw the pistol in his hand just before it hit her temple, pain exploded, then she felt nothing at all.
“Maddie’s headset is offline,” Mothman said.
Josh swore even as fear ripped through him. What had happened? Two minutes ago, she’d told him she loved him and everything was fine, she was safely on her way back to the SUV. But she hadn’t made it.
“Has my SUV been unlocked?”
“No. Still sealed tight. If someone took Maddie, they probably haven’t figured out about the thumbprint to unlock it.”
Six months ago, it had been possible to unlock a Raptor vehicle without a thumbprint. It was only the engine that wouldn’t work without authorization. Then Nate’s girlfriend tried to take off in his company SUV. She’d failed, not knowing she needed Nate’s thumbprint, but she was a programmer who loved a challenge, and a few weeks later, on a lark, she found a way to bypass the thumbprint using the door lock loophole. Mothman had proceeded to close the loophole, and he’d been damn grumpy that anyone had been able to compromise his security, especially on a lark.
But that closed loophole told Josh something important. Maddie had been intercepted on the lowest garage level, between the service elevator and the SUV within the last two minutes. It was a narrow window of space and time, and thankfully, Chase sped through the garage like a race-car driver.
Josh wished he were at the wheel, but his bum eye was a liability and his ego was far less important than the two women who needed him now.
His daughter and the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
How had Ari found Ava? It couldn’t be a coincidence that he met up with her right outside the only operating hotel exit. He must’ve known where they were staying.
But nobody knew. They’d been damn careful. Ava and Maddie both knew they couldn’t tell anyone. Maddie hadn’t even told her parents.
Ari had claimed Maddie had orchestrated his release to get Ava out of the way. Josh saw right through that lie, but he didn’t doubt Ari had been sprung by Tisdale.
What was Tisdale’s role in this, and who had taken Maddie?
“We can override all security, go black everywhere, then take the elevator to the twenty-ninth floor. Stairwells will unlock if you use the earthquake protocol,” Chase said.
“I was thinking fire protocol. It’s easy to confuse the system by pulling several alarms nearly simultaneously.”
“We’re only two people. How are we going to do that?”
Josh held out his hand. “Give me your phone.” He’d lost his somewhere in the rubble.
Chase complied, and Josh quickly logged in to his Raptor account. “I set up a test for the system yesterday where I can set off alarms one by one from a phone and make it look like I’m on multiple floors, pulling physical alarms.”
“Nice. We’ll wait until we’re on twenty-nine?”
Josh nodded. “Let’s suit up.”
Chase had the standard gear in the back of his rental car. One M-4 rifle, two Sigs, a Taser, spare headsets, and a lot of bullets in multiple calibers. It would make Troy Kocher’s wannabe-security-guard heart envious.
Usually, Josh was against wearing so much hardware, but this wasn’t security duty. This was an op.
Armed and ready, Josh and Chase went to the service elevator. Josh could control it with his phone too, sending different signals as far as floor numbers visited back to the security system. It was appalling how lax Apex had let security go, but Simon Barstow had always been interested in doing the least amount of work possible. He was one step above grifter, in Josh’s opinion.
Right now, Josh wanted to thank the guy because, for all intents and purposes, Josh could seize the entire building with the overrides and backdoors he’d added to the system over the last few days. He’d planned to present a list of flaws to C-IV at their scheduled meeting tomorrow.
“Ready?” Chase asked.
Josh looked his friend in the eye. “I’m than
kful to have you by my side in this, Chase. You’re a damn good operative.”
Emotion flashed across Chase’s face before he locked it down. “Thank you, sir. Now let’s find your family.”
39
Ava lost all hope the moment one of the Hoffman brothers entered the room and dumped Maddie on the couch. Her body was slack. Lifeless.
A sharp, piercing fear settled in Ava’s chest even while her heart raced. She scurried across the carpet to Maddie’s side and touched her neck, finding a pulse. She watched her chest and saw a slow rise and fall.
She was breathing, at least.
“What did you do to her?”
“Gave her what she deserved,” Peyton Hoffman said.
“Dammit. We need to question her,” Tisdale said, without an ounce of real concern for his unconscious sister.
Wow, between her father and Maddie’s brother, Ava was suddenly glad to be an only child. Siblings could really suck.
“She’ll wake up, and we’ve got time. Karl has locked down the building. Only the parking garage is open so people who parked here for the rally can get their vehicles. We’re safe here.”
“You forget that Warner had full access to the system,” Tisdale said.
“Warner is probably dead. He was under the bridge when it collapsed,” Hoffman said.
Ava couldn’t help but jerk at the harsh words, but it was Tisdale’s response that surprised her. He turned to her father. “You sonofabitch. You were supposed to draw your brother away from the bridge after you dropped the pack. We needed Warner alive if he’s going to take the fall for the false flag. What do we do now?”
Uncle Josh had explained false flags to her this week, how a group will do something to themselves—stage an incident—and blame their opposition, claiming they’d attacked first. Like the theory that Russians had intended to shoot down a Russian airliner over Ukraine with the plan to blame Ukrainians, so they’d have an excuse to invade. But it had been a Malaysian airliner that was shot down by mistake.
