by Debra Webb
A crash echoed in the silence.
The sound of metal spilling across the concrete floor followed.
Ben opened his eyes. Pederson was shoving items out of the way, searching for the exit to the next building. It wouldn’t take him long to find it.
Still, a smile slid across Ben’s lips. Desperation had set in.
“GO.” PEDERSON SHOVED Penny toward the access hole Steele had made for their entrance from the adjoining building.
No way was she letting this bastard get her outside. As soon as he didn’t need her anymore. He would shoot her and take off.
She twisted her body, blocking the opening rather than passing through it.
The muzzle rammed into her face. “Go now or I’ll blow your brains all over the wall.”
“Okay, okay.” She took a breath. Put her hands up. “Just get that thing out of my face.”
“You make a run for it on the other side and I’ll put a hole through that lovely back of yours.”
Penny nodded her understanding. She turned and thrust her upper body through the opening. Moving forward just enough to allow Pederson to stick his head inside, she braced her hands on the concrete floor of the neighboring basement…then she kicked backward with all her strength. Her foot connected with his face.
He howled.
She launched forward, rolled to her right.
A bullet pinged against the floor. Too close.
She rolled some more.
A grunt echoed through the opening.
What she could see of Pederson abruptly disappeared.
What the hell?
The grunts and thumps of a struggle echoed through the opening.
She smiled. Steele had caught up with them.
Moving cautiously, she crawled back to the opening and spotted Pederson’s weapon on the floor just on the other side.
She moved back into the hole…observed the two men rolling on the floor.
Scrambling fast, she snatched up the weapon and pushed to her feet.
“On your feet,” she shouted, clutching the weapon in both hands.
The men froze, Steele on top. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the weapon in her hand, then proceeded to beat the hell out of Pederson.
She couldn’t deny enjoying those final blows.
Eventually Steele got up, dragged the bastard to his feet. Pederson’s face was a bloody pulp.
“You done?” she asked her new partner.
“Not quite.” Steele executed an upper cut that knocked out Pederson’s lights. “Now I’m done.” He staggered over to Penny and wrapped his arms around her. “Damn, I was worried about you.”
Penny hugged him hard. “Ditto.”
Voices echoed from the top of the stairs.
“The cavalry’s here,” Steele said, his voice weary and relieved at the same time as he pulled back enough to watch the rush of cops led by Ian Michaels down the steps.
“I guess that means we’re done.”
Steele brushed back a wisp of hair that had escaped the headgear. “No way. We’re only getting started.”
Despite the activity going on all around them, he kissed her. It had been a long time in coming…and it was worth every minute of the wait.
Chapter Twenty
Mercy General Hospital, 8:30 p.m.
Victoria held her breath as yet another X-ray was completed. The pain she’d suffered indicated fractured or bruised ribs. She had a mild contusion. No concussion, thankfully. Mainly she was just grateful the nightmare was over.
Gordon was in intensive care. He had, indeed, suffered a heart attack. The prognosis was guarded but optimistic.
Thorp and his minions, except for one who was dead, were in custody. As was Clark.
Gordon had refused to give any sort of statement when the doctors allowed a detective to question him briefly. He wasn’t talking to anyone until he had an attorney present. His former assistant, Mia Dawson, with Slade Convoy at her side, had provided detectives with the full details of what she had long suspected and what she knew with complete certainty. Thorp and his men were suspected of District Attorney Ashton Flannery’s murder as well. The poor man had been found murdered in his basement by Convoy and Mia during this insane ordeal.
Gordon’s head of security, Terrell, was nowhere to be found. The mistress who had been with Gordon when he was taken from his home, insisted Terrell had gotten loose and left her in that closet. She was unharmed other than being shaken and furious.
Nicole Reed-Michaels had located the savings and loan VP. He was being questioned by the police as well. His two accomplices had been captured by Kendra Todd as they attempted to flee the back of the building just before all hell broke loose inside.
The Colby Agency had a lot to answer for with the police. There was no question about that. But the two lives lost during this ordeal were not on their conscience. Victoria was thankful for that.
“All rightie, Mrs. Colby-Camp,” the technician announced. “That’s all the pictures we need.”
“Thank you.”
The technician assisted Victoria down from the table and back into the wheelchair. Victoria hated that part, but the hospital staff insisted.
In the corridor outside the radiology suite Lucas waited for her. He took Victoria’s hand as soon as the tech wheeled her out the door. His smile made Victoria’s heart swell.
“We’ll get the images to E.R. right away,” the tech said, before hurrying back to take the next patient from the waiting area.
“So.” Lucas moved behind the chair and started to roll it forward. “When they’ve cleared and released you, how does breakfast—instead of dinner—sound?”
Victoria craned her neck so she could look back at him. “Wonderful. Where did you have in mind?” She only then realized how hungry she was. When had she last eaten? Night before last?
Lucas paused at the elevator, pushed the call button and said, “Home.”
He winked and she understood exactly what he had in mind. Lucas Camp could make an omelet to die for. But it was the dessert to follow that made her warm from head to toe, despite her numerous aches and pains.
When they reached the exam room she’d been assigned in the E.R., Jim was waiting next to the door. He, too, looked tired and disheveled and just as handsome as ever.
Victoria smiled. “You should go home, Jim.” He’d spent the past several hours ensuring all was under control. The head of building security had arrived to personally oversee that everything was set back to rights at the home of the Colby Agency. Jim had taken charge and sorted out the questions with the police and worked out as many of the issues as possible right up front. He’d kept Lucas informed at every step so that Victoria wouldn’t worry during this necessary medical attention.
Jim had done an amazing job.
Her son shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re all right.” He opened the door to her room, allowing Lucas to push her inside.
Victoria checked to see that her hospital gown was properly closed as she got to her feet. “You know this whole business is utterly humiliating. I can walk perfectly well.”
“That’s what they all say,” Jim muttered good-naturedly as he assisted her up onto the exam table while Lucas parked the wheelchair in the corridor outside the room.
“We need to talk,” Jim said to her, his expression so grave a jolt of fear startled her.
“Okay.” She turned to Lucas, hoping he wouldn’t mind giving them a moment.
“I’ll track down the doctor and see if they have those X-ray results yet,” her husband offered.
Victoria nodded, telling him with her eyes how much she appreciated his patience and understanding.
When the door had closed, she searched her son’s face. “Has something happened that you haven’t told me about?” Her daughter-in-law, Tasha, and granddaughter, Jamie, were her first thoughts. Victoria surely hoped not. Her limit had been reached.
“Yes.”
Dear God, what now? She braced for more disastrous news.
“I realized something during the past thirty-six or so hours.”
She nodded, not certain what he meant.
“Tasha, Jamie and you are the most important things in my life. Nothing else matters. I would be lost without a single one of you.”
Victoria blinked back the tears. She didn’t want to cry, that would only put him off.
“The past is done. It’s over. I’m never looking back and wondering again. You and my father did everything possible to keep me safe. What happened was not your fault.”
Victoria’s defenses failed. The tears flowed like a river. For more than twenty years she had lived with that underlying current of pain…that she had failed. That the torture and abuse her son had endured had been her fault on some level.
He brushed away her tears with the back of his hand. “You did not fail me, Mother. You never have and you never will. And I’m not going to fail you.”
She couldn’t hold back any longer. Victoria pulled her son into her arms and wept like a child.
“All these years you’ve wanted me at the Colby Agency—at your side. That’s where I will be from this day forward.” He drew back, looked into her eyes. “You and I, we will take back what was lost in this ordeal. Together, we’ll make it right.”
“Thank you, Jim.” Her voice quivered and she had to take a moment to pull herself together. “Your father would be so proud of you.”
“And you,” Jim urged. “He would be so very pleased with all you’ve done. You are the most remarkable woman.”
Victoria traced the scar on his cheek that an old enemy had used to mark him. “A new beginning for the Colbys.”
He smiled, something he rarely did. “Brand-new.” He nodded to the door. “We have to get Lucas in here and share this with him. He’s as much a part of this family as the rest of us.”
Victoria clasped her hands and pressed them to her lips as she watched the two men she loved more than life embrace.
A brand new beginning…no one could stop them now.
“YOU TOOK THAT like a champ,” Penny said as the doctor left the exam room.
Steele sat up, hung his legs over the side of the exam table and eyed the bandage on his side skeptically, then settled his gaze on hers. “It was easy. You were holding my hand.”
She shrugged. “It was the least I could do since you didn’t have a bullet to bite on. Besides, you held my hand while they taped up my little nicks.” In fact, he’d refused treatment until after she had been taken care of. Her silly little scrapes and cuts were nothing compared to his.
“I could still kill that bastard,” Steele growled.
Pederson had attempted to coerce her into talking with his big, ugly knife. She’d held her ground better than she would have imagined. But Steele’s arrival on the fourth floor and the subsequent battle in the conference room was what had stopped Pederson’s torture tactics and sent him fleeing, with her in tow.
“You realize I don’t have any clothes to put on,” Steele commented drily.
Penny surveyed the hospital gown. “You look pretty cute in that getup.”
He sent a pointed look at her jeans and sweater. “How did you end up with clothes?”
“Nicole, Ian’s wife, brought me clothes.” Penny reached for the bag on the chair behind her. “She brought you some, too.”
Steele’s expression brightened. “That’s definitely good news.”
Penny walked up to him, plopped the bag on the exam table beside him. “I was thinking that food would be really, really good right now.”
He pulled her between his spread legs and draped his arms around her shoulders. For a long moment he didn’t respond. Just toyed with her hair.
“Earth to Steele?” she teased. “Aren’t you hungry?”
He tilted his face down to hers. “Yes.” Then he kissed her. “Mmm,” he murmured against her lips, “you taste so good.”
She wiggled out of his arms. “Get dressed.” She cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her tingling breasts. “We have to get out of here before we cause an embarrassing incident.”
He hoped off the table, dragged on the jeans from the bag and then stripped off the gown. The muscles of his arms and chest rippled with every move as he fished the long-sleeved shirt from the bag, then pulled it over his head. “Embarrassing to who?”
“Our colleagues,” she fired back. “Now hurry.” Another appetite was about to override her need for food. Things like his extremely intriguing kisses…and that glorious male body.
If he’d taken any longer to put on the socks and shoes she might have screamed.
He reached out, took her hand. “Let’s go.”
Definitely. She would follow this man anywhere, anytime. And slowly, but surely she would teach him to trust his heart again.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5033-2
COLBY JUSTICE
Copyright © 2010 by Debra Webb
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
†The Equalizers
†The Equalizers
†The Equalizers
*Colby Agency
*Colby Agency
*Colby Agency
††Colby Agency: Elite Reconnaissance Division
††Colby Agency: Elite Reconnaissance Division
††Colby Agency: Elite Reconnaissance Division
*Colby Agency
**Colby Agency: Under Siege
**Colby Agency: Under Siege
