“Shut it,” Wyatt said. He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, trying not to let Coco’s voice trickle into his brain.
“How did you find her?” he said, his voice low.
“Followed you from the hotel to the hospital. She was very cute in her Blue Ox jersey.”
Wyatt could be ill right here on the pavement.
They reached the front of the staging area, where a giant platform stretched across the back. A three-tiered platform of risers was already filled with supporters holding signs and cheering. A couple of them spotted Wyatt and shouted.
They reached the front of the crowd, met another security agent, and Wyatt flashed his credentials again.
“They’re behind the pipe and drape,” said the officer and pointed to a section of the stage hidden by a red drape.
“I’m staying here,” said Kobie, but lifted his phone. “Right in the front. Don’t think about squirreling out because the timer starts now.”
He dialed.
“Wait—no!”
Kobie moved away, holding the phone high.
Wyatt turned and headed back to the draped area.
It was like entering a portal, the calm before the storm. The pipe and drape partitioned off the staging area at the end of the pier. Waves slapped against the great battleship, and Wyatt couldn’t help but notice the two-story drop-off from the end into the murky, cold waters of the Sound.
The backstage was quiet, aides moving around, security agents posted on watch, and in the middle of the quiet cluster, Reba Jackson was reading her phone. She wore a red jacket, a white shirt, and a pair of black pants, her amber red hair pulled back in a loose bun.
She was a very attractive, powerful woman. The kind of woman who could command troops and make policy.
A very capable VP. And potentially, president.
Wyatt didn’t know what to think about Kobie’s statement.
Tate spotted him and came toward him. “What’s going on?”
Wyatt pulled out the card. “I have to…I have to talk to the crowd.”
“What—?” Tate grabbed the card. Read it. “This is crazy.”
“He’s got Coco, and he’s got a timer on his phone that if he doesn’t hang up in five minutes, she dies. I have to tell this audience that Senator Jackson is in collusion with the Russians, right now.”
“It doesn’t help that you were just in Russia,” Tate said. “As if gathering information on her.”
Wyatt hadn’t thought about that part. “Sorry.”
“Jackson thinks you’re going to endorse her, so…she’s not going to stop you from taking the stage.” Tate looked at him. “I might have to.”
He was Benedict Arnold. “Bro—”
“I know. I get it. But this could also be a political nightmare for our ticket.” Tate blew out a breath. “Which one is he?” Tate stepped up to the edge of the barrier and moved the cloth.
“The guy with the—”
“Gauged ears. You’re kidding me.” Tate dropped the cloth. “That’s the guy from the San Antonio bombing.”
Wyatt nodded. “And apparently, he has a beef to pick with Jackson.”
RJ came up, wearing a pair of jeans, boots, a T-shirt, and a jean jacket. “What’s going on?”
Wyatt looked at Tate. “I thought she was going to the hospital.”
Tate gave the tiniest shake of his head. “She won’t leave York.”
He turned to her. “Where is York?”
“He’s in the crowd,” RJ said. “Tate sent him out there to look for Damien Gustov. And I’m looking for him from here.”
He wanted to scream. Instead, “I need to go onstage right now, Tate.”
“Yeah. I agree. You go onstage. Distract him. I’ll get Kobie.”
“Alan Kobie? The bomber from San Antonio you had me check into?” RJ looked past Tate to the crowd. “He’s here?”
Wyatt sent Tate a look, but he didn’t have time. “Hurry up.”
“What is going on?” RJ said, but Tate turned and headed down to the end, slipping into the crowd.
Wyatt looked at the card. Drew in a breath.
No, his worlds weren’t mutually exclusive. Clearly they were connected, one feeding the other, making him whole. But the only one that really mattered was the one with Coco.
Then he took the stage.
He’d been in press conferences all over the world, spoken in live interviews on ESPN, had given hundreds of interviews, but suddenly his hands slicked and his stomach hollowed as the crowd roared.
He heard his name shouted and smiled, waved. He couldn’t help but glance down at Kobie.
The man held the phone up.
He couldn’t make it out, but he’d already ticked off two minutes in his brain.
“Thank you for being here,” he said into the mic.
Just read the card. Kobie was mouthing the words.
“I need to say something about Senator Jackson.” He pulled the card out from his pants pocket. Took a breath. You’re my hero. I trust you.
“I was given this information just recently, just…a few minutes ago, actually, but it’s important that I read—”
A shot pinged off the podium. Wyatt ducked.
Screams.
“Shooter!” The shout rose from somewhere in the crowd.
Another shot. The security agent behind him went down.
Chaos erupted, people screaming, running for the exits.
Wyatt spotted Kobie in the crowd, his eyes wide.
Kobie took off running.
Oh, no—no—
Wyatt leaped from the stage.
Two minutes.
14
Two minutes to the rest of his life.
Their story was not going to end up with Coco in a fire bomb.
They were going to cure Mikka, get married, and live happily ever after.
“Stop him!” Wyatt knew his shouts died in the cacophony of screams, but it didn’t keep him from shouting as he raced after Kobie.
The terrorist had headed for the outskirts of the assembly area, behind the bleachers, along the pier’s edge.
Wyatt felt like he was bodychecking his way through the line of the Boston Bruins, trying and failing to bodily move people. But he was running out of time. He’d apologize later to the woman he’d sent flying into the press risers.
Kobie disappeared behind the crowd.
Wyatt kicked up his speed. “Make a hole!”
The shooting had stopped, but the screaming hadn’t, people running over each other, some hiding under the tiered risers, more simply lying on the pavement, their hands over their heads. Sirens screamed in the distance.
Wyatt spotted Tate in front of him, emerging from the press area. “Get the phone!”
Kobie was fast. He ran down the side of the pier, pushing away obstructions, looking back over his shoulder.
One minute. The clock ticked in Wyatt’s head and he caught up to Tate. Passed him. Kobie was ten feet away.
“Stop! Kobie—stop!”
Kobie slammed into a man with a camera, sent him sprawling, but it slowed him down enough for Wyatt to close the distance. Five feet, nearly a hand-reach away—
Another gunshot.
Before Wyatt’s eyes, Kobie jerked, tripped.
Fell.
The phone careened out of his hand.
Wyatt had spent years honing his reflexes, his ability to follow a small black object, to nab it out of the air.
He became a goal tender and launched himself toward the phone as it flew across the pier toward the water.
He didn’t have his padding, but he cared nothing for his landing as his hand wrapped around the device.
Gotcha.
His body slammed onto the metal lip that lined the pier’s edge, the spiny blade ripping through his body. He bit back a noise, the pain exploding through him.
He might have shattered something.
Then he was falling, his body’s momentum peeling him over the side
of the pier.
No!
He acted on reflex again, the same kind that slapped shots out of the goal to his defensemen. “Tate! Hang up!”
He tossed the phone onto the pier, toward his brother.
The water engulfed him, took him under, the cold like knives to his skin. The suddenness of it stole his breath and he couldn’t move, sinking into the briny sea.
The current slammed him against a piling. Jolted him.
He gasped.
Pulled in a lungful of water.
His head spun, but he kicked, swimming for the surface, fighting the urge to cough out the water.
He surfaced, but his body convulsed. His lungs refused air. He vomited in the water, then tried for another breath.
Hang up!
He looked up, coughing hard. “Hang—” More spasms took him.
On the pier, Tate held the phone, nodding at him. “It’s done!”
Wyatt struggled to keep his head above water as he vomited again.
A life ring hit the water. He reached for it, shivering, still coughing.
Overhead, a helicopter turned the water to chop, probably a news source capturing the confusion on the pier. He fought the waves, trying to kick over to a ladder that led up to the pier.
He hooked his arm around a rung and emptied his lungs again.
Then he turned to the ladder and fought his way up.
Someone grabbed his jacket, and he looked up to see Tate and York hauling him up.
They dropped him onto the deck.
He hit his hands and knees, still coughing.
“Sheesh, bro.” Tate knelt next to him. “You gonna live?”
He nodded. “Coco—”
“I got the countdown stopped. But…”
But?
He rolled over, sitting, still clearing his throat. “Please—”
“Kobie’s dead. Head shot. We’re not sure who took him out.” Tate looked up then, and Wyatt followed his gaze to York. “York took a shot, but we’re not sure it was him.”
“What?”
York was staring at Kobie’s body, some twenty feet away, crumpled and bloody. “I didn’t have the angle. Unless there was a ricochet, but my guess is that it was the sniper.”
York looked at the buildings across the street, as if assessing a sniper’s location from one of the five-story apartment buildings.
“The one that nearly killed me.” Wyatt took Tate’s outstretched hand, then looked at York. “Gustov?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Sure looked like his handiwork at the hotel.”
“Why would Gustov want me dead? Or better, Kobie?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want the information you were about to announce to come out,” Tate said.
Wyatt looked at him, frowning. “You don’t think it’s true, about the Russians…”
“Of course not,” Tate said. But he offered nothing more.
“We need to find Coco. Right now.” Wyatt walked over to Kobie’s body. Already police had established a perimeter around it.
He bent and began to riffle through Kobie’s pockets.
“Hey!” shouted one of the nearby officers, but he ignored him.
Tate held up his hand to the officers, walked over and crouched next to Wyatt.
Wyatt emerged with a crumpled receipt and a pair of keys. He unfolded the paper. “It’s for a campground. An overnight camping permit.”
He examined the keys. “A Subaru car key. And this bunch looks like the kind of keys to a master lock, a padlock type.”
“A camper key?” Tate said.
York had followed them and now stood, scanning the cityscape.
“We need a computer hacker,” Tate said. “Someone who could trace that phone signal.”
“Our hacker might be locked in a car.” York’s jaw tightened.
“And we’d have to make the call to follow the signal,” Wyatt said. “So that’s a no.”
Please, God. Help me find her.
Wyatt was shaking now, the cold finding his bones. From the pain radiating through him, he’d seriously injured his hip. He was still coughing, too, his lungs probably swimming with diesel fuel.
Oh, why had he left her in the first place? If he hadn’t been such a coward—
You’re pretty hard on yourself, Guns. But the more you focus on your failures, the more cluttered your brain will be.
He took a breath, trying to think. So maybe he didn’t have to have all the answers. And maybe he was focused too much on his failures. Sort of went with the job, really.
But maybe he needed to start looking at his blessings.
Like Mikka, back at the hospital, waiting for his daddy to bring his mommy home.
Back at the hospital.
“She’s at the hospital.” Wyatt grabbed Tate’s arm. “He met me at the hospital, and we took an Uber here. He had to have…well, what if he parked at the hospital?”
“He could have parked anywhere and taken a cab to the hospital.”
“He said he wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t trying to get people killed.”
“Except Kat,” York growled.
Tate was nodding. “Let’s go.”
Wyatt bit back the grinding in his hips as he followed Tate and York through the crowd, toward the exit.
Tate led them over to a black SUV, talked to the agent standing near the driver’s door, and by the time Wyatt caught up, Tate had slid in behind the wheel.
York jumped in the front beside him. Of course.
Wyatt slipped into the back seat, stifling a groan. “Go!”
He leaned up, backseat driving as they cut through the city. “C’mon, Tate.”
“Sit back! We’ll get there.”
“Take a right!”
“I can see the GPS—”
York rounded on him. “We’ll find her, Wyatt.” Something resolute, even lethal in his tone.
Wyatt leaned back. Looked out the window. Please, God, let her be okay. His eyes burned, along with his throat and…
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
The voice was low, solid, and so familiar it felt like his father had sat down beside him. But suddenly, he heard him.
Change your name or change your ways.
His name wasn’t Marshall. Or even the Hottie of Hockey.
It was beloved son.
He’d spent his entire life trying to be someone who mattered. And it had cost him everything. You’re enough, and you’re loved because God says so. Nothing else.
And Wyatt didn’t care what anyone thought of him. Let his brothers be the heroes, let his career go up in flames. He put his hand over his mouth, his eyes blurring.
I believe you, God. I give you my fame, my future, and my life. I give it all to You. Whatever happens, please, save Coco. Please, just save Coco.
They pulled into the circle drive near the main entrance. A tiered outside parking lot flanked the east side of the building.
“I don’t see a camper,” York said.
“There’s another lot,” Wyatt said. “On the west side.”
Tate gunned it around the circle and back out to Penny Drive.
Wyatt looked up but hadn’t a clue what window might be Mikka’s as they passed the sprawling buildings.
Tate turned into the west lot. More tiered parking, landscaped with spruce trees, flowers, and fully populated near the entrance.
“There!” York said, pointing.
On the third tier, near the back of the lot—an orange Subaru wagon took up three spaces, a tiny trailer hooked onto the hitch and parked horizontally under the shade of a cedar tree.
Tate rounded the top tier and gunned it, coming around the back side.
Yes. Wyatt leaned up, letting out his breath. Yes—
The trailer exploded with such force it shook the SUV. Pellets of stone, rock, and debris bulleted the front windshield.
Tate slammed on his brakes.
Tate
ducked his head, York doing the same.
Wyatt just stared at the fire, now engulfing not only the trailer, but the Subaru.
What—?
No—Please—
He was out of the car, running, hobbling toward the fire. “Coco!”
The heat burned his face and coughed out black into the sky as it consumed rubber and foam and…
“Wyatt—stay back!” Tate grabbed him around the waist, pulled him back.
“No!” He fought him, but York grabbed his arm. “Let me go!”
“She’s gone, man!” York said.
No!
His legs gave out and he collapsed onto the pavement.
I trust you, Wyatt.
He covered his head with his arms, shaking.
“Wyatt—”
“Leave me. Just leave me.”
Tate stepped back.
And then Wyatt shattered.
She always knew it would end like this. Coco didn’t know why she’d expected anything different, really.
She’d been running her entire life, after all, from people who wanted to kidnap her or kill her, use her to hurt the people she loved.
Wyatt would never forgive himself if she died. If this suicide vest went off.
And it was going to go off. Because twice it had been turned on, the countdown beeping. The third time it turned off so close to the zeroes, she’d been weeping.
Then abruptly, it had stopped.
She didn’t know what game her captor was playing, but she couldn’t wait around for another time.
She couldn’t leave Mikka motherless.
She knew exactly how that felt. She’d been bereft as she’d stood at the graveside, a sunny day that only burned her neck.
Come home with us.
Not Gerri’s voice but Orrin’s in her memory. He’d walked back after everyone else had left her alone, and stood like a tree beside her.
She liked Orrin Marshall. Dark hair, a cowboy mustache, he was quiet, commanding, and something about him felt safe. He wore a leather jacket and a pair of dress pants and boots. When she’d looked over at him, he gave her a tight-lipped smile.
“Your mother and my wife were best friends. You have a home with us, Coco, if you want it.”
She’d been trying not to cry, her eyes cracked and dry as she stared back at the casket, the fresh earth piled up under a blanket.
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