Another shot.
This one also took a chunk out of the doorjamb.
As unnerving at those shots were, it did give Bree some good news. Well, temporary good news, anyway. There likely wasn’t about to be another explosion in this area. Not with their assailant so close.
Close enough to gun them down.
“You’re like cats with nine lives!” the person shouted, still using the voice scrambler. “You should have been dead by now.”
Yes, Bree was painfully aware of that. And so was her body. She was aching and stinging from all the cuts, nicks and bruises. Beside her, Kade was no doubt feeling the same.
“Why don’t you come in here and try to finish the job?” Kade shouted back.
Bree prayed the guy would take Kade up on the offer. Because Kade was still armed. But she didn’t hear any movement in the hall or outside the building.
Were Nate and the other officers there, waiting to respond?
She hoped so because Bree didn’t want this monster to escape. If that happened, the danger would start all over again. The threats to Kade and her would hang over their heads. The heads of their babies, too.
That couldn’t happen.
This had to end now, tonight.
“Are you too scared to face us?” Bree yelled. Yeah, it might be a stupid move to goad their assailant, but it could work.
Maybe.
“Not scared. And I’m not stupid, either. This can only end one way—with your deaths.”
“Or yours!” Bree fired back.
Kade nodded, motioned for her to keep it up, and while he kept low, he began to inch toward the hall door.
“You know, I think I do remember some things Tim Kirk said,” Bree continued, keeping her voice loud to cover Kade’s movement. “He wasn’t very good at keeping secrets, was he?”
Silence.
Kade stopped. Waited.
“All right,” their assailant finally said. “If Kirk told secrets, then who am I?” The person didn’t wait for her to answer. “You don’t know. You can only guess. And guessing won’t help you or Agent Ryland.”
Kade moved closer to the door but crouched down so that he was practically on the floor.
“What if it’s not a guess?” Bree lied. “What if I’ve already left a sworn statement with the district attorney? Think about it—I wouldn’t have risked coming here if I didn’t have an ace in the hole.”
She nearly choked on those words, the same ones that Kirk had used to describe her child. Maybe their attacker would recognize them and panic. Mercy, did she want panic. Maybe then the person would make a mistake, and Kade could get off that shot.
“Well?” Bree called out when she didn’t get an answer. “Should I call the district attorney and tell him to release my statement?”
She waited, her heart in her throat.
Kade waited, too, his attention fastened on the hall and doorway.
Bree was so focused on what she could say to draw out this monster that she barely heard the sound. Not from the hall or the doorway.
But from behind her.
She turned and saw the shadowy figure in the now-open doorway on the right side of the room.
Oh, God.
The person lifted his arm, ready to fire. Not at her. But at Kade.
Bree didn’t think. She dropped the trash can and dived at the person who was about to shoot Kade.
* * *
KADE WHIRLED AROUND just in time to see Bree launch herself at the gunman. And there was no mistaking that this was a gunman because Kade spotted the guy’s weapon.
He also saw that weapon ram into Bree when she collided with their attacker. But it wasn’t just the collision and the gun that latched onto his attention.
Kade’s heart went to his knees when the sound of the bullet tore through the room.
“Bree!” Kade heard himself yell.
She had to be all right. If this SOB had shot her…but he couldn’t go there. Couldn’t bear to think of what might be. He just ran toward her.
And then he had to come to a quick stop.
Their attacker hooked an arm around Bree’s throat and snapped her toward him. In the same motion, the person jammed a gun against Bree’s head.
Now that Kade’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he had no trouble seeing the stark fear on her face. Her eyes were wide, and her chest was pumping for air.
“Run!” she told Kade.
But the person ground the barrel of the gun into her temple. “If you run, she dies right now,” her captor warned. “Drop your gun and give me the backups.”
Kade tried to give Bree a steadying look, and then his gaze went behind her to the figure wearing the dark clothes and black ski mask. Kade also didn’t miss the object in the gunman’s left hand. But he or she didn’t hold on to it for long.
It clattered to the floor.
The voice scrambler, Kade realized.
Their attacker had dropped it, no doubt so that both hands could be used to contain Bree. And it was working. Bree couldn’t move without the risk of being either choked or shot.
“I said drop your gun and give me the backups,” the man repeated.
And it was a man all right. Kade knew that now that the scrambler was no longer being used. It was a man whose voice Kade recognized.
Anthony.
So, they had the identity of the person who’d made their lives a living hell and had endangered not just them but their newborn daughters.
The anger slammed through Kade, but he tried to tamp it down because he had to figure out a way to get that gun away from Bree’s head. He wasn’t sure Anthony was capable of cold-blooded, close-contact murder, but considering everything else he’d likely done, it was a risk that Kade couldn’t take.
“Why are you doing this, Anthony?” Bree asked, but she kept her attention fastened on Kade. Her left eyebrow was slightly cocked as if asking what she should do.
Kade didn’t have an answer to that yet.
“You know why I’m doing this,” Anthony assured her.
Kade heard it, but the words hardly registered. That’s because he got a better look at the grip Anthony had on the gun. Oh, mercy. Anthony’s hand was shaking. Not good. He was probably scared spitless despite the cocky demeanor he’d had earlier, and Kade knew from experience that scared people usually made bad decisions in situations like these.
“Put down the gun.” Kade tried to keep calm. Normally, it would be a piece of cake. All those years of training and experience had taught him to disguise the fear he felt crawling through him. But this wasn’t normal. Bree was on the other end of that gun.
“You don’t want murder added to the list of charges,” Kade pressed.
“No.” And that’s all Anthony said for several moments. “But I’ll be charged with murder and other things if the cops see the surveillance backups.”
Hell. So, that’s what was on them. Murder. Kade figured it was bad if Anthony was willing to go through all of this to get the backups, but he’d hoped for some lesser charges. Murder meant Anthony had no way out.
This was not going to end well.
“I didn’t know my father and Coop had set up the extra cameras,” Anthony said, his voice shaking. “And I did some things.”
Bree pulled in a hard breath, and Kade knew she’d come to the same conclusion as he had. Anthony couldn’t let them out of there alive, not with those backups that could get him the death penalty.
He was a desperate man.
But Kade was even more desperate.
“I didn’t know about the backups at first,” Anthony went on. “I thought you and Bree were the only two people who could send me to jail.”
“So you kidnapped me,” Bree provided. She glanced around as if looking for a way to escape. Kade hoped she wouldn’t try until he had a better shot. At the moment, he had no shot at all.
“The kidnapping worked.” Anthony paused again. “Until Jamie decided to do something stupid like leavin
g the baby at the hospital and letting you escape.” He said the woman’s name like venom. “Jamie’s dead now. I don’t have to worry about her or her stupidity anymore.”
Hell. That was not what Kade wanted to hear. Yet another confession to murder to go along with the ones on the surveillance backups.
“The cops are outside,” Kade reminded him just in case Anthony had forgotten that he wasn’t just going to shoot and stroll out of here.
“Yes, and so is the gunman I hired.”
There was an edge in Anthony’s voice. Not the edge of someone who was a hundred percent confident in this plan. So Kade decided to see if he could push a button or two.
“You mean the incompetent gunman who was supposed to kill Jamie in the park?” Kade asked.
Anthony stammered out a few syllables before he managed some full-blown profanity. Clearly the gunman was a button, and Kade had indeed managed to push it. Now he could only hope that it didn’t put Bree in more danger. Kade needed Anthony distracted, not just fuming mad.
Anthony ripped off his ski mask. “Yes! That’s the idiot. But he won’t fail me this time. He knows it’ll cost him his life if he doesn’t succeed.”
Kade made an I-doubt-that sound in his throat.
Another button push. Every muscle in Anthony’s face tightened. “Give me the backups,” he demanded. “And put down that gun. If I have to tell you again, you’re a dead man.”
Despite the dead man warning, Kade didn’t move until he saw Antony’s hand tense. He was going to pull the trigger if Kade didn’t do something fast.
“Here’s the gun,” Kade said. He stooped down and eased it onto the floor.
Kade looked at Bree, just a split-second glance, so that she’d know he was about to try to get them out of this, and she gave a slight nod.
“Now, I want the backups,” Anthony ordered.
When he was still in a crouched position, Kade reached into his shirt. But he didn’t get the backups. It was now or never. He said a quick prayer and launched himself at Anthony.
Kade rammed into the man before Anthony could pull the trigger. That was the good news. But the bad news was that Bree was still in danger.
Between them.
Where Anthony could kill her.
Anthony no longer had the gun aimed at her head, but he wasn’t ready to surrender. Far from it.
Kade tried to shove Bree to the side, but Anthony held on to her, choking her with the crook of his arm. She clawed at his arm while Kade caught the man’s shooting hand and bashed it against the floor.
Anthony cursed, but he still didn’t stop fighting.
Neither did Bree or Kade. Bree rammed her elbow against Anthony’s stomach, and he sputtered out a cough.
It was the break that Kade needed.
For just that split second, Anthony was distracted while he tried to catch his breath. Kade shoved Bree away from the man, and he brought down his fist into Anthony’s jaw. His head flopped back.
And he dropped the gun.
Bree hurried to pick it up, and she put it right to
Anthony’s head.
“Give me a reason to kill you,” she said. “Any reason will do.”
Maybe she was bluffing, but after everything Anthony had put her through, maybe not.
Either way, Anthony believed her. He stopped struggling and his hands dropped limply by his sides.
Chapter Eighteen
“Can you drive any faster?” Kade asked his brother Nate.
It was exactly the question Bree had wanted to ask. She was more than grateful that Nate had stepped up to rush them to the Silver Creek hospital, but Bree wanted an emphasis on the rush part.
It was torture waiting to see their other daughter.
“I could drive faster,” Nate drawled. “But I’d rather get there in one piece. Well, what’s left of one piece. You do know you’re both bleeding, right?”
Bree swiped at her lip again with the back of her hand. Yep. Still bleeding. She dabbed at the cut on Kade’s forehead. She hated seeing the injuries there on his otherwise drop-dead gorgeous face, but the injuries were superficial and could wait. The baby couldn’t. Well, she could, but Bree thought she might burst if she couldn’t see her and make sure she was all right.
Nate’s phone buzzed, and he answered it while he took the final turn to Silver Creek. The seconds and miles were just crawling by, even though it had only been twenty minutes or so since they’d left the Fulbright Clinic. When she’d looked back in the rearview mirror at the place, the SAPD officers had been stuffing a handcuffed Anthony McClendon into a patrol car.
Bree hoped he’d rot in jail.
It wasn’t a forgive-and-forget sort of attitude to have, but she never wanted the man near her, Kade or their children again. Anthony was slime and had done everything in his power to destroy them.
Thank God, he hadn’t succeeded.
“You’re still bleeding,” Kade let her know when she made another unsuccessful swipe at her mouth. He caught her chin, turned her head to face him and touched his fingers to her lip. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. There was probably pain, but she couldn’t feel it right now. In fact, Bree couldn’t feel much physically, only the concern she still had for Kade and their daughters.
“Does that hurt?” She glanced up at the bump and cut on his forehead.
“No.” He kept his fingers on her mouth and his gaze connected with hers. He replaced his fingers with his lips and kissed her gently.
It stung a little, but Bree didn’t care. The kiss warmed her and took away some of the ice that Anthony had put there. In fact, it even took some of the edge off her impatience and reminded her of something very important.
She smiled. “We won.” With all the turmoil going on inside her and the hatred she had for Anthony, Bree hadn’t had time to put things in perspective. Leave it to Kade’s kiss to do exactly that. They’d won, and the prize was huge.
Kade smiled, too. “Yeah. And we’re the parents of twin girls.”
For just a moment that terrified her as she imagined trying to be a mother to both of them. Twins. Before Leah, she’d never even held a baby, and now she had two.
“You look like you’re about to panic,” Kade whispered.
Bree chuckled and winced as it pinched at her busted lip. “So do you.”
He nodded. “Maybe a little. I’m thinking about how we can get through those 2:00 a.m. feedings with both of them.”
“And the diapers.” But suddenly that didn’t seem so bad. It even seemed doable. Maybe because Kade had said we.
“You mean that?” Bree asked before she could stop herself.
He flexed his eyebrows and made a face from the tug it no doubt gave that knot on his head. “Mean what?”
Bree froze for a moment and considered, well, everything. Kade and she had known each other such a short time, and most of that time they’d been working undercover or getting shot at. Hardly the foundation for a relationship.
But somehow they’d managed just that—a relationship.
Of sorts.
Bree was still a little hazy on Kade’s thoughts and feelings. However, hers were clearer now. Maybe because they’d come so close to dying tonight. That had certainly put things in perspective. So, she decided to go for it. She would question that we, and then she would tell him it was what she wanted, too. She wanted them to do this family thing together.
Whatever that entailed.
But before Bree could answer, Nate ended his call and looked back at them.
“They found Jamie’s body,” he let them know.
And just like that, Bree was pulled back into the nightmarish memories that Anthony had given Kade and her. Enough nightmares to last a lifetime or two, and now Anthony had another victim—Jamie. Even though Bree didn’t care for the woman’s criminal activity, Jamie had tried to help her, and now she was dead because of it.
“Anthony confessed that he killed her,” Kade explained.
<
br /> “Yes, he confessed it to my men, too,” Nate verified. “He’ll be booked on capital murder changes, and he’s not just looking at jail time but the death penalty.”
Bree remembered something else he’d said. “Anthony murdered someone else. It’s on the surveillance backups.”
Nate nodded. “Kade gave them back to us, and we’ll give them a thorough review. Trust me, we’ll add any and all charges to make sure Anthony is never back on the streets again. His father, too, because Anthony said there’d be plenty enough on the backups to bring charges against Hector McClendon.”
Good. After everything that had gone on at the clinic, McClendon certainly deserved to be punished.
Kade glanced at her first before looking at his brother. “Did Anthony say anything about Coop?”
“No, and from the sound of it, Anthony is blabbing about anyone who can be arrested for anything. A misery loves company sort of thing.”
Bree felt the relief wash over her. So, her former boss and mentor wasn’t dirty. That was something, at least, even though Kade’s and her lives would never be the same.
And part of that wasn’t all bad.
In fact, part of it was nothing short of a miracle. She might never have become a parent by choice, and it broke her heart to think of all the things she would have missed. She couldn’t imagine life without Kade and the babies.
Except she might not have Kade.
And she didn’t know what she would do if that happened.
Bree saw the Silver Creek hospital just ahead and knew her baby was inside. Just like that, the jitters and impatience returned with a vengeance. Her breath started to pound, her mouth went dry. She felt a little queasy.
And then Kade caught her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. That squeeze was a reminder that she didn’t want to do this alone.
No, that wasn’t it.
She wanted to do this with Kade.
Bree looked at him to ask him about that we remark, but again she lost her chance when Nate stopped directly in front of the hospital doors. A discussion that would have to wait.
Kade and she barreled out, leaving Nate behind to park his SUV, and they rushed through the automatic doors. Her heart was in her throat by the time they made it to the lobby.
Kade Page 17
