by Cera Daniels
"No wonder she kept you around." Charlie's voice shook with a mixture of anguish and relief. "How are you with knots, pal?"
Footsteps hurried down concrete steps.
"He's safe," Amanda whispered, and at the same time Ryan said, "Stop Jackson."
Romeo abruptly released the connection.
"They're near the 16th." Amanda tumbled out of his arms and off the couch. "That corner of track drives us crazy at the precinct. We have to warn Dale."
He tossed her his phone as he tapped on the comm control for his earpiece. "Romeo found Jackson."
Nothing but silence.
She yanked the cell phone away from her ear and eyed the display. "One bar, but it's not connecting."
She dialed the landline and Ryan tried again. "Hey. Jay? Zach?" Icy fear hit the bottom of his stomach. He said they were busy.
Even if they were in snoop-mode, switching on a mic would be akin to checking in. Ryan would hear breathing. "Come on." Romeo, where are they?
"You want them, or the bad guy?"
Jackson. Stay with Jackson. He slipped into his shoes, trying to distract himself from the pounding behind his eyes. What if they'd run into Shiv?
Amanda slammed the phone down. "Nothing's getting through, Ryan."
"Same." He rubbed at one of his temples. Amanda didn't want to go after Jackson without her badge, but they had no way to get warning to the others and he had a tail—literally—on her former partner. "Amanda—"
"We've got to go after him. He's moving now, and Romeo's the only one who knows where he is." She stopped long enough to grab her Taser and her boots, then ran barefoot out the front door. Golden hair winked at him from the doorway. "Coming?"
Ryan grabbed his keys and her coat from the front closet. She strapped herself into the Mustang, he tossed the warmer covering into her lap, and the car reversed into the road. She was tugging her boots on as he tried the in-vehicle comm.
Static.
His brothers were silent.
Inside his ribcage, his heart shook with sudden violence. Was this what Brennan's prophecy had meant? Silence, not from losing his hearing, but from losing connection with everyone else?
Romeo's frustration peppered into his head as Ryan pushed the speedometer to eighty. What's wrong?
"He has wheels," Romeo said.
"That'll make him simple to spot," Amanda said aloud.
"Did you lose him?" Ryan asked through the telepathic link.
"Not yet," Romeo said, but even the thought sounded faint and out of breath.
The dog would never catch a vehicle, but vehicles on the road were rare. This late at night, all they needed was the right straightaway and they'd have him. What's it look like? We'll find him. Peel off and get the others.
"Van. White, ladder on top," Romeo sent back. "I'll let you know when I've got them."
Ryan relayed the information to Amanda. She was already nodding. Romeo had been broadcasting the information to both of their minds. Simultaneously. As if the separate telepathic links between the dog and Amanda or Ryan had fused into one.
Spirit-mate.
Was the link getting stronger? Ryan tightened his grip on the wheel and focused on dodging uneven pavement on the darkened street. He wasn't about to test any mind-to-mind communication theories while driving. Been there, got the head wound.
"Dale can send out the patrol cars," Amanda said.
"Most of them went on that stake-out. How many would still be at the precinct?" Ryan asked.
She nibbled at her bottom lip. "Not many, but more than one Mustang and a couple of civilians with a Taser."
"Backup it is." Ryan reached for her hand and squeezed.
Amanda chewed on the inside of her cheek as Ryan's phone rang Dale's desk, then disconnected. "Cell tower isn't responsive. That's all."
The lone bar vanished.
"Or it's down," she added.
"It's not just the cell," Ryan said. "My comm frequencies are full of static, if I get anything at all. Was your partner technically inclined? Computer viruses, that sort of thing?"
She frowned. Jackson had known his way around explosives. But software? "I don't know. I don't think so, but I didn't think he was willing to commit murder, either. I can't count on anything I knew about him. Maybe he blew something up."
"Then he's been busy."
"He's trying to destroy the city. I imagine that takes a lot of effort." She tried for light, but her throat tightened around the words. Her nerves, her muscles, even her bones jittered with panic. Narrow threads of hope in her chest frayed, thin as spider webs.
Wordlessly, Ryan tucked her fingers into his.
She'd fallen hard for the simple comfort of his touch. Ryan McLelas had a head full of secrets and responsibilities, so many of his own worries and fears, so many roles to play, but still he reached for her. And he meant it. When he touched her now, he left all of his masks behind.
Amanda squeezed his hand. "Romeo will find them."
"I've never been completely cut off. They've always been here." He cocked his head to indicate the earpiece he couldn't cope without and returned his hand to the wheel to take a sharp corner.
"You aren't alone," she said, and he brought her knuckles to his lips.
He sailed into the 16th precinct's parking lot and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Come back to me."
The leather seat squeaked as she launched from the Mustang at a sprint.
She skipped the elevator and darted up the stairs. Ten o'clock at night and Dale was still at the epicenter of a flurry of activity, surrounded by white boards.
"White van," she got out, and Dale immediately waved over officers.
"Jackson Price is armed and extremely dangerous. Two cars to a block, keep eyes on each other, and don't approach without backup." Men and women in blue charged toward the lot and Dale turned to Amanda. "Walk with me."
He led her at a fast clip to his office and unlocked a desk drawer. "The whole city's gone communication dark. I'm short-staffed and I can't pull our people in off the street."
The adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream surged like wildfire.
"Where do you need me?" Amanda asked.
He slapped both her badge and a loaded Sig into her palms. "Bring him in."
Amanda slipped her badge into the front pocket of her jeans and found that familiar, centered place in her chest as she jogged down the hallway. She would stop her former partner in an official capacity.
The right way.
"About damn time your lieutenant found a brain," Ryan said.
Amanda stumbled. When had he left the car?
"How'd you sneak by me?" She looked for him again as she neared the end of the hallway. She turned, but the only people in sight were a few interns. "Where are you, Ryan?"
"Amanda?" Ryan's voice came again as she entered the stairwell. "No, it can't be."
He wasn't there.
"You're not in the building." He was still in the car. She gripped the railing as her head spun with more impossibilities. Romeo? Am I hearing him because of you?
"You are meant to hear, Spirit-mate his."
"It's the link, Amanda. Connecting to Romeo must've . . . I guess it meant we're supposed to . . . " Ryan's shock hit the link, then retreated. He cleared his throat. "Sweetheart, don't move. I'm coming to you."
"Don't." She didn't have time for shock or questions. She had to stop Jackson. Amanda forced one foot in front of the other, down the stairs.
"If it's worse, if my ability is bleeding over to you—"
"It's just your voice. Like you're standing next to me. No supercharged hearing. I'm fine."
"Fine, you can hear my voice through walls, fine?"
She could almost see the wry smile on his lips.
Amanda pushed open the stairwell door to the ground level. She took a breath to reassure Ryan again and nearly collided with a copier repairman as he stepped off the elevator.
"Sorry," she began, but her instincts scre
amed at her to check the clock. Amanda turned, and her peripheral vision locked onto scruffy sideburns. She jerked her gun up with both hands. "Jackson! Stop right there."
Ryan swore.
Mild surprise registered on Jackson's face. "You weren't supposed to be here."
He held a device of some kind in his hand, and his thumb rubbed lightly over the largest button.
"You didn't succeed in killing me then, and you won't kill anyone else now." Amanda flipped the safety off her gun. "Do not push that button."
"Destiny will remove the infestation," he said.
So willing to die, and he intended to take them with him. He couldn't have an easy out, and he wouldn't get the opportunity to use the weapon.
"Don't do this, Jackson. Put it down," Dale said to her left.
A thin smile shaped Jackson's mouth. He did it. He pressed down and Amanda snapped her finger over the Sig's trigger. The bullet cracked through the air.
Center of mass.
Shouts came from every direction, warnings from ground floor personnel.
Another bullet came from her left, and a third from somewhere near the entrance.
Precinct alarms began to wail.
Jackson dropped the remote and crumpled.
Red and yellow lights flashed inside and outside of the precinct, reflecting across every surface. Bars slid down and clicked into place. Exits sealed. Grates clicked over the night-dark windows and the elevator shuddered, then powered off.
"Tick tock," Jackson swayed on his knees. Dark brown spread like ink to mar his blue, formerly pristine, repair jacket.
Dale cursed. "That's lockdown. He triggered lockdown remotely." He scooped the rectangular device off the floor, then handed it off to a technician.
"It's over," Amanda said.
"It's begun," Jackson corrected.
The 16th hadn't been his first stop.
"Where are the other bombs?" Amanda yelled, her mind already skimming down the list she'd built with Ryan. "Where?"
Dale went whiter than his squad car. "What have you done, Jackson?"
"I've saved you all," Jackson said.
"Where are they?" Amanda stepped forward.
Blood dripped to the linoleum, and he smiled his last, chilling smile.
No interrogation would compel an answer from a dead man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Shoulder-checking the thick steel bars locked over the main entrance was not productive. No rattle of weakness. Solid. Security measures intended to prevent escape.
Ryan's earpiece whined. He weeded through threads of sound faster than he'd ever managed before, building walls against the emergency alarm and locking on to conversations.
The first bullet had come from Amanda's gun.
Jackson was dead.
Whatever he'd done to the building, they could undo.
"Amanda, can you hear me?" Ryan asked.
"Sorry, emergency with the copy machine." She sounded winded. "I'm gonna have to call you back."
"Not funny. What's happening in there?"
Ryan pressed his hands against the wall, grounding himself as he focused on the people around her. Panic, shouted orders, and running feet on carpet, linoleum, and stairs faded into the background.
"We can't even call in a bomb tech," Lieutenant Dale growled. "Werner, take this, get to the control box."
A key rattled in a lock. Another alarm went off.
Amanda swore.
Ryan's jaw clenched. "Talk to me."
"He recoded our lockdown procedures." She smacked metal.
"Recoded?" Ryan asked. "Tell me you can shut this off, reverse it."
"We're sealed in with a time bomb," she whispered.
"No." Ryan jerked back from the building. "There are other ways out. Windows, back door, something."
He shot a look upward, peering through the eerie red and yellow rotating flashing lights spaced along the ground floor walls. The upper floor windows throughout the structure were tinted dark. Mesh grating had snapped into place behind the panes. Her precinct was a fortress. Even if he broke the glass, he'd never get through the wire guard on the inside without bolt cutters. Suggesting a team effort brought no good news from Amanda's side.
"Those bars were designed to hold against war. Riots. Tanks. They're electrified, have failsafes against power failure . . . Hey, if we found the backup generator and killed that—How much time?" The last, she directed to someone inside. "Let me see."
"Maybe there's a flaw. The ventilation system?" He cut around the side of the building and reeled to a stop.
There, tucked behind two massive recycling compacters and just outside of the halo from the alley light, was a white repair van. The back doors were cracked open, and the inside looked ransacked. Gleaming bits of inert electronic devices littered the floorboards, scattered under papers and tools. Tools might come in handy.
Amanda's voice came in a harsh whisper. "Ryan, the two of us collapsed one vent already. The air ducts aren't strong enough to hold this many people."
"There's no fire this time," he said, but doubt burrowed deep. "I found Jackson's van."
She inhaled slowly and her voice dropped even lower. "I suppose it's too much to ask if he left bomb-defusing instructions behind. Or maybe a phone that'll get through to Hazardous Devices so they can disarm this thing. We're at an hour and thirty-nine minutes and counting. Thirty-eight."
The department equipped to handle explosives was on the other side of the city.
I could drive it.
Snagging a flashlight from his trunk, he shook his head. There wasn't enough time. Even speeding, by the time he got to a team who could help, the timer in the 16th would be half gone. Bomb techs couldn't do a thing if the building was shut up tight when they arrived. There had to be something else he could do.
"You mentioned a backup generator." He climbed into the back of the van and swept the flashlight beam across the utility carpet.
"Dale's on it." Amanda must have come to the same conclusion. "Trying to bypass the lockdown controls first."
Sour chemical scents assaulted his nose as he inspected the grimy interior. An open layout in the back, two seats up front. Scribbled notes, an overturned table, netting, straps, boxes of bullets, jewelers' tools, technical sketches. Glove compartment bare, save a decade-old registration card. Nothing under the worn leather seats, no phone or radio. The good old McLelas lack of luck meant no wire or bolt cutters in sight. The netting was clear of debris. Ryan guessed it had contained the only cargo Jackson cared to strap down.
He lifted the table got a better look at the intricate components spread like fall leaves across the floor. Tiny, electronic devices went beyond his skill set. But not his brother's.
"Zach, come in." More silence. Romeo, where are they?
"Climbing, Spiritwalker," Romeo said.
Rummaging through a mess of color coded notepads turned up a map, folded neatly and riddled with burn marks. Ryan recognized Amanda's handwriting.
"Found the missing map," he said. "Doesn't look like Jackson approved."
Amanda didn't respond.
"Amanda?"
"You find a phone?" she asked.
"No, but—" He stopped himself. "You didn't hear what I said."
"Evidently not," she said, then addressed a technician who sounded insecure in his role of hacking precinct security. "This panel over here."
Before Ryan could figure out what that meant for their new two-way built-in communication system, his earpiece rippled with static. He fine-tuned it as his gaze landed on the myriad of burned holes in Amanda's map. Too precise. Too clean. One over the precinct. One over a courthouse. One over a prominent law firm near McLelas Financial . . .
The bombs?
Ryan's earpiece sent a wail of interference screaming through his head. He doubled over in pain, but in the distance, he swore he heard his brothers calling his name.
"Found them." Romeo's smugness filled his mind.
&nb
sp; "Not this one either. Try another frequency."
"Jay? Wait!" Ryan jolted upright and smacked his head on the roof of the van. Stars flooded his vision but no pain in the world could dampen the surge of renewed hope when both Jay and Zach responded.
"It worked. It worked! I," Zach crowed over the speaker. "Am. Awesome."
"At the risk of encouraging that ego, I need some awesome right about now," Ryan said.
Minutes ticked down as he filled them in and they put together a plan on the move. Closer to the official bomb experts, Jay would rally a single team for the 16th and try to convince the rest—civilian style—to split up and head for Jackson's other likely targets. On disarming duty, Zach would arrive at the precinct with over an hour to spare.
Ryan called to Amanda. "Sweetheart, if you can hear me, we might need a badge to convince the hazardous devices folks to evac half the city."
"Are the cars we sent after Jackson back yet? Send them." Her voice was warrior-strong, but worry splashed into his mind.
Each without the other, the world became dust.
Her thought, or his? Pounding, pulsing waves with an edge of desperation. Her emotions came to him with the same force as his spirit guide's. Ryan gripped the back of the driver's seat and tried to reciprocate with calm thoughts. Whatever was happening between him and his Spirit-mate—this link they now shared—could be a tool, but they needed to get it under control if they both hoped to come out of this crisis alive.
"How are things in there?" he asked.
"The techs found the bypass for our security system, but it's not working." She sighed, and the concern threading through his mind eased. "They're going to try for power, and the backup generator."
"Think shutting down will unlock the bars?"
"No." An uneasy laugh that made Ryan's throat burn. "But some people feel better when they have things to do."
"I know the feeling." He choked out his next breath and couldn't help but reach, pushing the budding connection between them. A simple telepathic impression.
An image of his arms holding her close to his heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
