by Janie Crouch
Ashton took off his helmet and dropped it to the ground, but tried to stick to the wall. If the second man was out there, ready to take a shot, Ashton wanted to give him as small a target as possible.
“I’m willing to talk about that with you. But you need to let Summer and the baby go first.”
“Why don’t I kill them both and then we’ll talk?” Harper sneered.
Ashton swallowed the panic. “You do that and there’s going to be nothing keeping me from diving across this room and you and me fighting one-on-one. Remember what happened last time we fought, Curtis?” Ashton tapped his nose, reminding Harper of his broken one.
Wrong thing to say. Harper brought the gun even closer to Summer. “That won’t happen again, trust me.”
Ashton tensed to pounce, but then Harper brought a hand up to his ear for just a second, then seemed to relax. He eased the gun away from Summer’s head.
“Fine,” Harper said, sulking like a child. Ashton wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. “Did you come alone?”
“Yes.”
“How am I supposed to believe you?”
“The only thing I care about is getting Summer and her daughter out of here unharmed. You can make that happen. Let them go right now and you can do wherever you want with me.”
Harper brought his hand to his ear again. “Is everything a go?”
Ashton stared at the man. What was Harper talking about?
It dawned on Ashton. Damn it. The man was talking to his partner through a radio comm channel, just like Ashton was with his team.
“Who you talking to on that comm unit, Harper? Your partner?”
Harper’s gloating laugh filled the air. “Just because you’re here alone doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to be.” Harper touched his earpiece. “You’re sure he’s here by himself?”
While Harper and his partner spoke, Ashton’s team reported to him.
“Ashton, we’ve got no evidence of a partner out here.” Derek’s voice filled his ear. Ashton didn’t want to answer and tip his hand to Harper that he wasn’t, in fact, alone. “Thermal imagining report in the next two minutes. The rest of the Omega team is here. Tyrone Marcus is making his way around to help Roman.”
Harper was looking at Ashton with glee in his eyes.
“I told you I was alone, Harper. Now let’s stop messing around. Let Summer and the baby go.”
“You killed my father, Fitzgerald. In cold blood.”
“I killed your father because he’d taken people hostage. Had hurt people.”
“He was forced to do that!” Harper’s tone bordered on whiny.
Ashton shook his head. “We gave him every chance to surrender before using lethal force. He’d already killed one of those hostages—a young girl who’d just started college and had never hurt anyone. And he was about to kill someone else.”
As he spoke, Ashton could see a myriad of emotions cross the other man’s face: disbelief, guilt, acceptance, fear. Harper knew what Ashton said was the truth.
Ashton lowered his tone, tried to be more friendly, approachable like Joe Matarazzo would do if he was here handling the negotiation.
“It was an unfortunate situation, Curtis. If I could take it back, I would.” It was a partial lie. Ashton would change shooting George Harper if he could, but only if it meant the other victims wouldn’t have been hurt also. “The Omega team always tries to get everyone out alive if they can.”
He was getting through to Harper. The gun in his hand wavered and lowered. But then his partner obviously said something to him, because Harper stopped and looked away, holding his ear. Whatever the other man said worked. At his words, Harper obviously pushed the other emotions away to hang on to what justified his actions now: righteous anger on his father’s behalf.
“No,” Harper said. “Omega Sector does what it wants. Shoots first and asks questions later. You shot before you had all the facts.”
Derek’s voice came on again. “Ashton, thermal imaging confirms there is nobody out here. I don’t know where Harper thinks his partner is, but no one out here has a bead on you.”
No partner.
This changed things. Yes, Harper still had a gun, but if he didn’t have a partner out there with a sniper rifle, the odds just became much greater in Ashton’s favor. All he needed to do was get the gun pointed at him and not Summer.
But where was the partner? If their goal was to kill Ashton, this was a great opportunity. But the other man had left Harper without any backup. What was their plan?
Ashton stepped closer. Summer started shaking her head.
“I shot before I had all the facts?” Ashton ignored Summer and took another step closer to the couch. He needed to be close enough to attack Harper if things turned sour. “Is that what you really believe, Harper, or was that what someone told you to believe?”
Harper’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve known I shot your father for four years. Why are you just now deciding to take revenge?”
“Because you deserve to rot in hell for what you’ve done.”
“That may be true, but why are you just now deciding that’s the case? I think you had to be talked into it. I think maybe you know your father was wrong, but when someone started talking about revenge, that sounded interesting so you went for it.”
Harper’s eyes darted around the room, and he rocked his weight back and forth, agitated. Ashton knew he was on the right track.
But the voice in Harper’s ear refused to give the man too much time to think it through. When Harper looked at Ashton again, his face was full of resolve.
“Shut up or she dies right now.”
“Ah-ta!” Little Chloe’s voice drew everyone’s attention. Harper’s gun swung around to her and Summer stood, terror in her eyes.
“Harper, calm down,” Ashton said. “Point the gun at me, not at the baby.”
Tears streamed down Summer’s face, but Ashton forced himself not to focus on her. He needed Harper to point the gun away from Chloe.
“Harper, you have to admit, that baby has absolutely nothing to do with this. You’re not going to shoot her, are you?”
Chloe began to cry, upset that Ashton was ignoring her. “Ah-ta. Ah-ta. Mama.” She stretched her arms, trying to get free of the restraints of the car seat where she was buckled. It didn’t take long for her cries to turn into wails.
“Somebody shut that kid up!” Harper yelled, agitated.
“Let her mom get her out of the car seat,” Ashton argued. “She’s a baby, Curtis. She doesn’t understand what’s going on.”
“I have a confirmed shot on Harper.” Lillian’s voice sounded in his ear.
Ashton immediately held a fist up at shoulder level. It would look odd to Harper if he noticed, but to the team it would be an indication to hold. It was too dangerous to take the shot when Harper had the gun on Chloe.
“Ashton signals to hold fire, Lil,” Derek said. “Harper has the gun pointed at the baby.”
“Roger,” Lillian said.
“Let her mom pick her up and she’ll stop crying,” Ashton said.
Harper put the gun against the back of Summer’s head. “If you try anything, both you and your daughter are going to die.”
He saw Summer flinch, but she nodded. Harper pulled out a knife and cut through the long rope that kept her bound to the couch. She walked over to Chloe, Harper with her the entire time, knelt down and unhooked her daughter as best she could with her hands bound with zip ties, and helped her out of the car seat.
Chloe wrapped her tiny arms around her mother’s neck and stopped crying as Summer scooped her up awkwardly. “Mama.” She patted her mother’s cheek and touched the gag wrapped around her face. Summer just snuggled up against her.
>
Ashton took another step toward the couch, which drew Harper’s gun away from the girls and back to him, which he wanted.
Harper actually smiled that Ashton had moved closer. “Is that close enough?” he said into his communication device.
Close enough for what?
“Hey, are you there?” Harper tapped his ear. “What are you waiting for?” The man said something to him as Harper listened. “Wait. Are you driving?”
With Harper’s shock, Ashton finally figured it out. Harper thought his partner was out there. But he wasn’t. He’d left Harper here alone, and Harper obviously wasn’t expecting that.
“Guys, something’s not right here. Tyrone and I are trying to get under the house and it’s locked up like Fort Knox,” Roman’s voice said through the comm unit. “Weird, considering the state of the house. What would someone want to protect under there?”
Ashton looked over at Harper who had pulled the communication device out and hurled it down in anger. What would someone be willing to go to great lengths to protect under the house?
The plan.
There was obviously some elaborate plan going on here and Harper didn’t know about it, probably because he was expendable to the unknown second man who’d been pulling the puppet strings from the beginning. A plan put in place by a man willing to kill Summer last night and willing to kill her now again.
A plan that didn’t require the man to be here, but required that no one interfere with whatever was under the house.
“Lillian, take the shot now!” Ashton called, not caring anymore if Harper knew he wasn’t alone. Ashton was already leaping toward Summer and Chloe when the shot rang out. He didn’t wait to see what happened to Harper. Lillian wouldn’t miss.
“Roman, get out!” he roared into his comm piece as he scooped Summer into his arms with Chloe in hers and continued his forward motion toward the back door, bursting through it with his shoulder.
They’d barely cleared it when the house exploded behind them. As the force of it propelled them through the air, Ashton could feel heat singeing his exposed skin. He twisted his body to the side so he wouldn’t crush Summer and Chloe as they landed.
His arms wrapped more tightly around them, his hands covering Summer’s who was covering Chloe’s head. He felt his shoulder pop out of socket as they slammed against the ground, but immediately turned so the girls were on top of him.
It took him a second to get any words out. “Are you two okay?”
He felt Chloe wiggling between him and Summer as she struggled to get up. His eyes met Summer’s. She nodded.
He grimaced as he forced his shoulder to move to untie the gag from Summer’s mouth. She stretched her jaw, then lay back against Ashton’s uninjured arm.
Chloe just got up on Ashton’s chest and started wiggling, laughing.
“Ma, Ah-ta. Ma. Ma. Ma.” She kept hitting the fingers of her two tiny hands together.
“I think she wants you,” Ashton said as he let the girl wiggle. “She’s saying Mama.”
“Oh no,” Summer responded, shaking her head. “She’s saying more. That signal she’s doing with her hands is a little piece of sign language I taught her.”
“More?” Ashton asked. “More what?”
Summer laughed and threw her arm around them both. “I think she wants you to blow up another building.”
Ashton just pulled them both closer.
Chapter Twenty
The next couple of days went by in a blur for Summer.
It was amazing what money could do to ease the way when you wanted quick repairs done to a condo. Especially when you were talking about the type of money Joe Matarazzo had. By the time Summer got back home from the hospital the day after she and Chloe had been taken, the front window had been replaced and the entire place had been cleared out and cleaned as if the shooting had never happened.
Joe also had a new and much more advanced alarm system installed. One that still worked even if the house’s power was cut. Heck, it might work even after a nuclear holocaust.
Summer, Chloe and Ashton had spent last night in the hospital. Ashton had dislocated his shoulder getting them out of the house and had some burns on his skin that had been exposed—the back of his neck and part of his arms and hands.
Nothing serious. Unbelievably.
Summer and Chloe had been kept overnight just to confirm there was nothing in their systems that would cause any long-lasting harm. Both of them were fine. There was no way Summer was going to allow Chloe out of her sight, so she’d been glad the hospital had worked with them, bringing a crib from the children’s ward so Chloe could sleep next to Summer.
Summer hadn’t liked being away from Ashton, but figured he could take care of himself. He probably wouldn’t wake up scared and crying like Chloe might.
Although he would have good reason if he did.
That was the second time Ashton had gotten her and Chloe out of a burning building safely. Summer just prayed it would never happen again.
She’d felt so helpless there on the couch, unable to communicate with Ashton, afraid he would walk too close to the couch and Damien would shoot him.
But Damien hadn’t been there at all.
Thank God Ashton had figured it out in time, because Summer sure hadn’t. She’d known Damien was playing Harper, using him, but she hadn’t thought Damien would actually try to kill the other man.
Although from what she understood, Damien hadn’t actually succeeded in killing Harper. Harper was still alive. Barely.
But Damien had killed young Tyrone Marcus in the explosion. Summer brought a hand up to her face to wipe away the tears at that thought. He’d been so excited about the possibility of joining the SWAT team.
“Hey, you okay?” She felt Ashton’s hand trail up her side, then along the arm she’d raised to her cheek.
She and Ashton had left the hospital together yesterday morning. Neither of them could stand the thought of being away from each other, so when they’d heard Joe had graciously rushed her condo’s repairs, Ashton had just come home with her.
He hadn’t really left since. They’d gone together to pick up a few of his things, for Summer to see where he lived—a confirmed bachelor pad in an apartment complex about five miles away—then returned home.
Chloe couldn’t be happier to have her precious Ah-ta around. Even if his arm was in a funny cast. She was now napping and they were taking advantage of the calm to do the same.
“I was just thinking about Tyrone Marcus.”
Ashton sighed. “Yeah, he’ll be sorely missed.”
More tears leaked from her eyes. “I thought they were going to kill you. That I was going to watch you die in front of me.”
“I’m amazed you even want to be here with me right now. Nobody would blame you if you didn’t want to be involved with someone who works in law enforcement. You’ve been privy to way too much personal violence in your life.”
Summer shrugged. “I wasn’t there when Tyler died, so even though that was horrible, I didn’t really experience it. When Bailey Heath kidnapped us a few months ago, she drugged us first. I was never fully conscious for that. Don’t even remember much, unlike Laura and Joe.”
She took a shuddery breath. “But this. I thought they would kill you and then Chloe and I would be at Harper’s mercy.”
He put his good arm around her and pulled her close. “Even if they had killed me, the team was out there. No way Curtis was going to get to you.”
“I can’t believe he thought you would actually come alone.”
He kissed her forehead. “If there’s one thing Curtis Harper seems to excel at, it’s deluding himself.”
She snuggled closer. “I might not ever be able to let you out of my sight again.”
“I
know the feeling.” She felt his lips against her hair. “When Harper told me you’d been taken off the plane... When he had just enough details for me to know he’d somehow really managed to kidnap you and Chloe... I almost couldn’t function.”
So many things could’ve gone wrong. If Ashton had been five seconds later in figuring out that Damien had placed a bomb under the house, they would both be dead.
But they weren’t.
She kissed the side of his chest and, twisting around, pushed herself up until she was sitting across Ashton’s hips, straddling him. “I say, since we’re both so dang grateful that the other is alive and relatively unhurt—and since the baby will be sleeping for another hour—that we should celebrate life.”
“Sounds perfect to me.”
She saw him wince as he moved his injured shoulder reaching for her. She put a finger in the middle of his chest and pushed him back down.
“But in this celebration, you’re going to let me do all the work.”
The sudden flash of his bad-boy grin stopped her heart. He tucked his good arm under his head as he looked up at her, heat smoldering in his eyes. Had she truly ever thought this man shy?
“By all means, I would never turn down the request of a lady.”
She heard him suck in a breath as she pulled her T-shirt over her head, and felt him harden beneath her hips. She loved that she had this effect on him.
“That’s right, you save your strength for figuring out who this Damien guy is tomorrow. But right now—” she leaned down to kiss him “—right now is just for us.”
* * *
ASHTON DIDN’T WANT to leave Summer to go back to the hospital the next day, but he knew he had to.
Curtis Harper had woken up. The man had survived the explosion. If Lillian’s shot in his shoulder hadn’t propelled him across the room, he’d most definitely be dead now.
The rest of the Omega Team wasn’t so lucky. Not only had promising young agent Tyrone Marcus died, but a few halls down, Roman Weber lay in a coma, back and arm covered in second-degree burns. The locked door he’d found leading to the crawl space under the house—the one that had tipped Ashton off that they were all in grave danger—had blown off and hit him on the head. For all the damage it had done, it had also probably saved Roman’s life, covering him and protecting him from much of the heat of the explosion.
