by Jayne Blue
“Fine,” I said. “So now you know. This is Frank Marek’s house. You still think it’s a good idea to let him die during a fucking home invasion, assholes? Do you have any idea the kind of heat that’s going to bring down on your heads? When they find you, you could face the death penalty. You’ve got about six thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry in that bag. Is it worth your lives?”
“Dale, come on,” Skinny Man said. His voice trembled and I felt bolder. But my father had stopped moving. I felt his breathing grow even more labored as he pressed against my back.
Dale considered my words. He paced in front of me, holding one hand on his hip and his gun hand resting on the top of his head. “You are a fucking idiot, Marlon. You cased the place, you said. You confirmed who lived here.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Marlon-Skinny Man said. “How the fuck was I supposed to know who the bitch’s dad was? Come on, Dale! We gotta skate!”
“Yeah, come on, Dale,” I said, emboldened. “The next thirty seconds are going to determine whether you get out of this without law enforcement from the entire state on your heels. You know I have a house alarm. You know my father is the Chief of Police. You don’t think I’m wired with security cameras too? He had the FBI come in and set it up before I moved in.”
Dale froze. I was bluffing about the cameras, but it gave him pause. I might feel satisfied with myself, but I counted four seconds. My father hadn’t taken a breath. Alarm flooded through me and I struggled to keep my head clear. Go, just go. Please, God, just go.
Something thudded to the ground behind me. My heart stopped. My father’s grip on my hand loosened. The phone he held concealed in the other hand fell to the floor. I couldn’t move fast enough to cover it. Dale saw.
He lunged forward and kicked the phone out of my reach.
“You stupid cunt,” he yelled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He picked up the phone. What he saw on the screen told him everything he needed to know and answered my own question as well. Yes, Dad had time. He’d tried to call for help.
“Dale, we gotta get the hell out of here. Fuck this shit. She’s right. It ain’t worth it.”
Dale threw the phone to the floor and squatted in front of me. He drew back his hand again and I winced, bracing for another blow.
It never came. Instead, Dale spit on my cheek and kicked my leg. Dad stirred behind me and my heart started beating again.
“Today’s your lucky day,” Skinny Man said from behind him. “Doesn’t look like it’s your father’s though. In fact, he looks a little gray. You should see him. Too bad we can’t stay, sugar,” he said.
Dale shot me a grisly smile and heaved his backpack over his shoulder.
Lights flooded through the windows. Screeching tires cut the air and a car door slammed. Skinny Man and Dale froze. Dale’s smile came back. He looked straight at me, raised his gun, then pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ben
Ed Rackham tossed me my Kevlar and helmet as we pulled into position.
“What’ve we got?” I shouted as I slid it over my shoulders and tightened the Velcro. Ed waited then handed me my 9 mm. God bless, Joan, she hadn’t submitted my suspension paperwork yet.
“Shots fired,” Ed said. First unit had pulled our armored van directly across the street from Charlotte’s house. We crouched behind it, protected by its side and bulletproof windows. Tim climbed in the van to get wired and Brett fell in step beside me.
“If they’re keeping with the same MO, we’ve got two in the house. Charlotte and her father are inside. We’re trying to get eyes on them but the front shades are drawn. Anything you know about the layout of the house would be mighty helpful, Ben. I’m damn glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” I said. It was a strange way to feel. My God, Charlotte. She was inside with those fucking animals. I’d give anything not to be here under the circumstances. But I knew from the moment that radio call came through, I would get her out of there if I had to die trying.
“Home alarm went off thirty minutes ago,” Rackham continued. “She disarmed it from the pad but the neighbor heard breaking glass.”
It made sense. It’s how these fuckers got into every other house in the area. Six total. My mind clicked off the pattern. Forced entry in the back. Three houses were vacant. Three were occupied. Of those where the homeowners were inside, they’d hogtied them. In every case, the victims were badly beaten. In one case, a woman had been home alone and she’d been sexually assaulted.
My stomach churned and I doubled over. I coughed once, then puked my guts out in the street.
“Ben?” Brett put a hand on my back. “Can you do this?”
Pressing the back of my hand to my mouth, I nodded. Fire shot through me and my head cleared. “Yeah. Yeah, man.” I looked at Ed. “What else do we know?”
Ed looked at Brett; he must have seen something to reassure him, because he looked back at me and gave me a grim nod. “Chief dialed 911 at some point. Didn’t say anything. The operator heard shouting in the back and a woman screaming. We had an open line for about a minute, then it went dead.”
“Dammit!” I smashed my fist against one of the van tires.
“Ben, focus,” Brett said. “The house. Give us the layout.”
“Right.” Brett handed me a headset. I clipped the lavalier mic to my vest and switched it on. “Where is he?”
Brett pointed to a house two doors down and across the street. It had an airing deck on one side and an ivy-covered railing. Dan Wimmer, our sharpshooter, held a position there.
“Wimmer, you got ears?” I tapped the headset.
“Loud and clear,” he said in my ear. He was close enough I could see him flash a thumbs up. His spotter, Mark McCain, crouched right behind him.
“What do you see?”
Wimmer shifted. I knew he was peering through his scope. McCain would have another high-powered scope. It was so fucking dark though. The rain had stopped, thank God. I just prayed it wouldn’t start up again. Not tonight, God. You owe me this one.
“Movement in the front room,” Wimmer said. I heard him draw a breath and spit. The bastard was a tobacco fiend. Whoever owned that house would find a wad of slime in the corner of their airing deck for their trouble. “Four people. One’s on his feet. The others are on the ground.”
“It’s her living room,” I said. “The window on the right. The window on her left is her dining room. Behind the wall separating them, there’s a staircase. The kitchen’s in the back. You can’t see it from the front.”
“Eyes in back say there’s no movement in the kitchen. Upstairs shades are open. The rooms are clear from what we can tell. They’re all in the front living room.”
“We have a line into them?” I asked. The second van down the street contained our negotiators. Rackham shook his head.
“They’re not talking. We’ve called the chief’s phone and Charlotte’s cell and her landline. We’ve got the bullhorn set up but it’s dead in there.” Rackham bit his lip at his choice of words.
“How do you want to play this?” he asked. “Wimmer can’t get a shot if he can’t see. We don’t know if the shot fired came from Marek or one of the bad guys.”
“Was he carrying?” I asked. “Jesus Christ. Does anyone know whether the chief had his weapon on him?”
Rackham shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you, Ben?”
“Something fucking useful!” I hit the tire with my fist again. A look passed between Ed and Brett. My earpiece squawked.
“Ben, maybe you better take a seat in the van with me,” Tim said. “You’re too close to this. You know it was against my better judgment to let you even be here.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my nerves. They were at war with my soul. My fingers trembled, itching for action. That same adrenaline coursed through me. I wanted to move. I wanted to bust down the fucking door in a hail of bullets and get my girl safe. Even now I craved The Rush.
>
“He’d been drinking,” Rackham said, his voice no more than a whisper. It didn’t matter though. If Ed knew it, everyone else on Strike Team did. It was critical information.
I dropped my head. Of course Frank Marek would have wanted to kick back a few after work. I’d driven him to it.
“He stopped at Doolittle’s on High Street after he left headquarters,” Rackham said. “Took a cab here. So he was buzzed enough to know he shouldn’t drive.”
Son of a bitch. It meant whatever happened inside that house, Frank Marek wasn’t on his A-game. God, if it had been me, I might have done something stupid enough to get myself shot. Or Charlotte.
“We don’t know who fired. We don’t know if anyone’s been hit. We don’t have clear eyes on anybody. Nobody in there is talking. These assholes have never left a victim unharmed when they’ve found them at home. Is that about everything? What did I miss?”
Tim sighed in my ear. “That about sums it up.”
“Well, then it’s your call. You know damn well what I think. We’ve got one shot at this if they’re not talking. I’m not going to stand out here with my thumb up my ass with the chief and his daughter in there. Anyone else think that’s a good idea? I say we light ’em up. You let me take the lead. I know the layout. You think there’s any reason to think the chief wouldn’t approve?”
It was Tim’s turn to hit something. He picked the side of the van and struck it so hard it shook next to me.
“Goddammit! This is half-assed.”
Lights flooded the street as the local news showed up with a live truck. Tim hit the side of the van again.
“We got no time, Bates. Zero. We doing this?”
“Son of a bitch. Jesus Christ and goddammit. Yes, Killian. Yes. You’ve got a point. If you get anybody killed, you’re a dead man.”
The world sped up. My fingers tingled as adrenaline shot through me. I slapped on my helmet and slid my goggles up my nose. I’d let Rackham and Brett go in with the heavier MP-5s. My job was to set off the concussion grenade and get the goddamn blinds open so Wimmer had useful eyes.
There was no moon tonight. That would work to our advantage. Though I hadn’t spent a ton of time in Charlotte’s house, I had a pretty clear idea of the coverage of those front windows. If we went in low and stuck to the outer wall, they wouldn’t see us coming. The second unit had eyes on the second floor and the kitchen. If the situation changed, I’d get it through my earpiece.
I crouched below the living room window. Charlotte’s scream cut through the air and my heart. But God, she was alive. If she could scream, she could breathe. Hold on, baby. Just hold on.
My vision tunneled. The window above me disappeared and the road stretched before me. I felt the flames licking my back. She was heavy. How could she be so heavy for someone so small? My side ached as the fire melted my skin.
“Killian!” Rackham shouted in my ear. “You good?”
Blinking hard, I pushed the visions away. Today was different. Today I’d pull her to safety even if it meant I’d die instead. It was always how it was supposed to be, wasn’t it?
I held up three fingers, then two. In one swift movement, I broke the window and pulled the pin on the concussion grenade. Shouts and screams. Lightning and chaos. Ed and Brett breached the house, smashing through the broken window. I dove in after them.
One man stood over her. He wore a ski mask and pointed his glock straight at Charlotte’s head. No time. No time. One twitch and she’d be dead.
She was there, on the ground. My mother’s sightless eyes stared up at me. I reached for her and Charlotte’s face appeared. I couldn’t drag her out. God, she was too heavy. I grabbed her arm and pulled. Something held her down. My fingers closed around the rope on her chest. Her father’s lifeless body weighted her down.
“Get down! Get down! Hands up! Hands up!”
Rackham, Davis, Jeffries, and the rest of the unit moved in. Something snapped inside of me. I grabbed the rope tying Charlotte to her father. With both hands, I pulled hard and lifted them both off the ground. The front door crashed open and I ran toward the floodlights. The round came from behind me, knocking me forward and sending fire through my chest. Charlotte screamed my name as the ground came up fast and everything went dark.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Charlotte
Two ambulances came. My heart tore in two as the stretchers rolled up, waiting to take the men I loved away from me. I had a choice to make. Go with my father or go with Ben. One of the other officers took the choice away from me.
“Miss Marek? Charlotte? Look at me.”
I did. He had kind eyes and dark hair. He told me his name was Tim. “You go with the chief, okay? I’m going to stay with Ben. There will be an officer to meet you at the hospital. Everything’s going to be okay. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Please. I just need to know they’re okay.” My father wasn’t. The EMTs moved quickly and it was the only sign I had that he was still alive.
Tim put me in the front of the ambulance and strapped me in. Then he hit the side of the door after closing it. The whirring sirens filled my senses as we hurtled toward the hospital.
When we got there, dozens of police cars lined the ambulance bay and uniformed officers waited for us. The nurses whisked my father away. His face looked so gray, he was so cold as I reached for his hand before they took him. He’d never regained consciousness.
One of the officers took my hand and led me to an empty waiting room. I was still close enough to the ER to see them bring Ben in right behind us. I tore away from the officer and ran to Ben’s side. His face looked pale and gray and he didn’t hear me when I called his name. Someone pulled me away from him. They wheeled him behind heavy double doors that clanged hollow when they shut. Someone led me to a waiting room. I sank into the chair and tried to find a way to breathe.
Those last few moments were impossible. Deep Voice … Dale … he had his gun pointed right at us and I saw him pull the trigger. Then Ben was there. He lifted my father and me as if we weighed nothing and ran for our lives. He had superhuman strength, but he couldn’t outrun Dale’s bullet. I felt it hit him as we tumbled into the grass.
“Charlotte?” Tim with the kind eyes squatted in front of me. Another officer sat in the chair next to me. He wore a suit. A detective, my spinning brain told me. Of course. They would have questions.
“Is Ben alive?”
Tim and the detective exchanged a glance but neither of them would answer. “Charlotte, who fired first? Did your father shoot the first assailant? I know this is hard. But we just need to establish what happened. I’m going to find out everything you want to know. We won’t leave your side.”
I closed my eyes. The last hour replayed behind them like a horror movie. Dale’s eyes went wild when he realized the police were already on their way. He was trapped. If my father hadn’t dialed 911, would it have ended differently? Would Dale and Skinny Man have simply left? I don’t think so. I saw evil in that man’s eyes and he knew that I did.
“No,” I finally said, amazed that I could form the words. “My father couldn’t. He was unconscious by then. He was tied up. Dale … he said his name was Dale. I don’t know why he did it. When he realized my father had already managed to call for help, he shot his partner right in the head.”
I could never forget the cold look that came into his eyes when he pointed that trigger straight at me, then moved it to his right and blew Skinny Man’s head off. The force of it knocked him across the room. The suddenness, the gore of it.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said. Tim was fast. He dove for the wastebasket against the wall and put it in front of me just before I threw up.
Tim was so nice. He smoothed a hand at the back of my head and gave me a kind smile when I finally sat up again.
“I don’t know why he did it,” I said again. I said it over and over. Why did it matter?
“Who knows,” the detective said. “Maybe h
e thought his partner would slow him down. It doesn’t matter. You’re safe. You hear me? You’re safe.”
“Ben.” I sank bank into the chair. “Did you see what he did? He carried us both. How the hell did he carry us both?”
Tim smiled and took the seat beside me. “He’s something, all right. A regular superman.”
Superman. I buried my head in my hands and prayed.
“Miss Marek?” A female voice cut through to me. I lifted my head. She was young. Maybe my age. She wore green scrubs and white tennis shoes with pink laces. “You’re Charlotte?”
“Yes.” My throat ran dry. Everyone smiled at me and I wanted to scream.
“Officer Killian is waking up. He’s asking for you. If you’re up to it, I’ll take you back. Do you think you are? I don’t want to pressure you, but he’s pretty insistent.”
Tim laughed softly beside me. He patted my back. “Yes,” I said; my words were strained and choked. “Please.”
I took the longest walk of my life down those black-and-white tiled floors, past the circular nurses’ station, and through the heavy, automatic double doors. Finally, just a simple green curtain separated me from the only place I wanted to be. Squaring my shoulders, I waited as the nurse pulled the curtains back and Ben was there. Smiling.
He wore his black fatigues with heavy boots. They’d cut away his shirt and taken all the heavy equipment away. His Kevlar vest had been case aside on the ground. It dented in the middle and my heart stopped. Such a thin piece of material had meant the difference between Ben’s life and death. Now, an ill-fitting blue hospital gown hung over his shoulders and I could see the mottling of his skin in great, dark bruises across his shoulders.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His hoarse voice made my knees weak. I went to him. Careful not to touch him, I sat on the side of his bed. He winced as he reached for me and took my hands in his. They were warm and strong. I hadn’t cried before; now my tears fell freely.
“Baby,” he said. “It’s okay. I just took a wallop, that’s all. Bullet hit me square in the back where the Kevlar’s the strongest. Doc says it’s gonna smart for a week or so but I’ll be good as new.”
