Only when Alex exited the vehicle and intercepted China did Maverick let go of her hand. “You got her, Boss?”
“Go!” Alex ordered. “Get the girl!”
“My baby!” China screamed, fighting Alex with all she had. “Let me go.”
Maverick didn’t have time to make sure Alex had a good hold on China before he ran. With a flying leap, he cleared the concrete barrier and the open span. Adrenaline propelled him.
Traffic screeched to a halt just as he landed solid in the left lane of astonished westbound drivers. Horns honked. Some idiot cussed. But Maverick kept going.
He dodged the first two lanes of west bound traffic. More horns blared. Other drivers cursed his lineage. He kept going. Leezel had already spotted him, but she had spotted the rest of The TEAM, too. Maverick didn’t have a clue what they were doing behind him. No doubt setting up their rifles and preparing to take a kill shot if it came to that.
God, just shoot her, Gabe. Blow her head off. Send her back to hell where she belongs. Now, before she hurts that little girl.
The smell of the river filled the air. Gulls hovered and screeched overhead. A Potomac River charter boat slipped above the waves on its way to National Harbor while Maverick dodged the last four lanes between him and Leezel. Finally, he cleared the concrete barrier between the traffic and the walkway.
Leezel had backed up to the metal barrier at the edge of the bridge with her daughter clutched on her hip. Poor Kyrie’s frightened face paled against the fiery red of Leezel’s coat. The little tyke still wore the pink pajamas Kelsey had bought her. Tears streamed down her wind-chapped cheeks. She reached for him. “Unca Mavwick!”
Leezel grabbed her daughter’s head, her mouth in Kyrie’s ear. Maverick couldn’t hear the words, but he saw the impact. Kyrie bit her lip and cried, but she didn’t make another sound. Neither did she break eye contact with him.
“See you got my message, Mav.” Leezel looked amazingly good for a psychotic killer, all dressed in red again right down to those damned sequined heels. Her dark mascara wasn’t smudged, but the edge to her voice gave her away.
“What’s this about, Leezel? What do you want?”
“I just want my little girl here.” Leezel planted her scarlet lips against the side of Kyrie’s tear-drenched face, her eyes fixed on him. “That’s all.”
He took one step toward her, but she edged away. She nodded her chin toward the other agents across the bridge. “Call your friends off. Do it.”
“Why are we out here? There are better places to talk.” He took another step.
Her eyes sparked with anger. “So now you wanna talk, huh? I don’t think so. Do as I said. Call ’em off.”
His gaze shifted to Kyrie. Frightened blue eyes stabbed him.
“Now!” Leezel shook her daughter like a ragdoll. “I’m done playing. Tell ’em all to back off or she goes swimming.” Kyrie whimpered, but Leezel only shook her harder. “Shut up!”
Maverick glanced over his shoulder to where Alex and China stood on the opposite side of the span. The Maryland state police had joined them. Two officers were in position and ready to fire. A news helicopter hovered overhead. Traffic had come to a standstill. Gabe wasn’t in sight, but Mark and Rory were set up and poised to shoot, too.
Maverick had no choice. He signaled them all to stand down.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Leezel seemed to calm, but her eyes were still fixed on the scene behind him. “You sure run with some good-lookin’ hunks. Them your friends?”
“Yes.” Maverick took a step closer, but that only incited Leezel to shift Kyrie’s little backside onto the cold metal guardrail. The little girl’s eyes widened at the river far below. Instinctively she arched forward, trying desperately to lean away from the edge. “Mommy!”
“No!” Maverick reached for Kyrie, but Leezel laughed, tipping the child farther backward.
“Stay where you are. One more step and I drop her.”
Kyrie jerked forward. “Mommy! I fawin’!”
“Don’t do it!” His heart lurched to his throat. He reached his palms forward without advancing. “God, Leezel. What do you want? Money? I can get you whatever you want. Let me have Kyrie, and I swear, you can have whatever you want. I can make you rich.”
Leezel shook her head. “That’s not how this is gonna go down. You oughta know that by now. ’Sides, money isn’t everything, is it? Sure didn’t work out too well for Troy.”
“Then what do you want? Kyrie’s your daughter, Leezel. For God’s sake, she’s just a baby.” He counted the distance between him and Leezel. Eight feet. Maybe nine. If she dropped Kyrie, he could clear the rail in two seconds flat and hit the water in time to save the baby. He knew he could—if the fall didn’t kill them.
Leezel let go of one of Kyrie’s hands, immediately throwing the poor girl off-balance again. Her curly hair swung in the breeze. “Unca Mavwick!” she screamed, her free arm flailing to grab her mother.
Leezel let her slip over the rail until Kyrie hung to it by her knees. Only Leezel’s hand at her wrist kept the frantic girl from slipping over. She flailed at empty air. “Unca Mavwick! I fawing! I fawing! Hewp me!”
“God! Leezel! Stop it!” Maverick screamed, too. “Let me have her! What do you want, damn it?”
“You’re gonna make me do this, aren’t you?”
Her eerie calmness angered him. His fists stayed clenched and useless at his side. He debated charging her, knocking her out of the way to save Kyrie.
Right on cue Leezel did something he hadn’t expected. She swung one high-heeled foot over the four-foot high railing and straddled it, still gripping Kyrie’s wrist.
The girl assumed her mother meant to save her. She latched onto Leezel’s coat sleeve with her free hand. Leezel scraped the child’s fingers off. “Get off! Don’t touch me again!”
Kyrie lurched backwards. “Mommy! I scared! Mommy!”
“Kyrie!” Maverick’s heart all but stopped. He focused on the baby. She had to believe with all of her heart that he would save her. That he couldn’t fail. “Hang on, baby. Look at me, honey. I’m coming for you.”
“No, you’re not.” Leezel’s snide bark cut him off. “You won’t catch my baby because I won’t let you. She’s going to fall, and then she’s—”
“No!” Maverick roared, crazy with desperation, his eyes glued to Kyrie’s. “I’m coming for you. I promise, baby. I won’t—”
“Don’t you hear me? You. Can’t. Help. Her! I’ll drop her and you get to watch her fall like everyone else!”
Kyrie’s sad eyes pierced him through the metal guardrails. For that split second, it was just Kyrie and Maverick. He sent her his unspoken promise. Don’t listen to her. I’ll save you. Trust me. Believe me. Hold on.
Leezel tipped her head back and laughed. “God, I’ve waited for this day for a long time. Free! I’ll finally be free!”
Maverick couldn’t tear his eyes off the girl. Time was running out, but worse, she would fall no matter what happened now. Leezel didn’t want anything but the pain she would cause the two people who loved Kyrie. He planned accordingly, his mind made up.
There is no try. Only do. Well, he would do.
Stupid Leezel balanced on the rail, straddling it with one leg on each side but neither secured. If only she had wedged one of those spiky heels or her foot between the vertical rails, she would’ve been more stable, but no. This had nothing to do with safety. She teetered back and forth as if it were a fun game, using Kyrie’s weight and feeble knee grip on the slippery rail as her only source of fulcrum support.
Her gaze shifted to the other side of the bridge again. “I see my sister over there with your friend, that handsome guy. Who is he?”
Maverick was speechless. He couldn’t take his eyes off Kyrie. Her long hair dangled in the breeze. The little girl was having trouble breathing through her fear. She gasped, hiccupped and choked while her arm stroked the air for something—anything!—to grab hold of.
“Mav! Listen to me.” Leezel jerked Kyrie’s arm up enough to terrorize the child. “I asked who is he?”
“Alex!” Pure adrenaline shot up his spine. “My boss. God, stop it!”
“He the guy who helped you steal my baby?”
“He’s the man who helped me rescue Kyrie and China.”
“Huh.” Leezel’s voice took on a detached tone. She stared across the highway where Alex stood with China. Maverick edged closer, hoping for a handhold on that baby, but Leezel’s eyes zeroed back to him. “What the hell line of work are you in anyway, cowboy? Male strippers?”
“We’re ex-military, Leezel. Most of us were Marines. Some soldiers. Some of us served in Afghanistan together.” He hoped something he said might get through to her hard heart.
“I seen you last night, ya know. You and Sis looked all sorts of cozy in bed together. I coulda killed you both.”
Maverick ran a desperate hand over his head. So. She had seen them. There wasn’t much he could do about that. God, he had never felt so helpless.
“You think your boss would kiss me?” Leezel nodded her chin toward Alex again.
“Is that what this is all about?” Maverick took a step toward Leezel. “God, I’ll kiss you right here and now. Just don’t drop her, Leezel. Please, don’t do this.”
“Come kiss me then.” She lowered her voice to a breathy, seductive tone. She wiggled.
He went to her, intent on grabbing Kyrie before her demented mother changed her mind. He was nearly there when—
“Oops.” Leezel let go of her daughter.
“No!” China’s panicked shriek pierced the morning breeze.
Kyrie fell, both hands clutching nothing but air, and Maverick flew, his arms outstretched to catch the impossible pass of a lifetime. There was no way she would fall without him.
Leezel lunged at him, but in that single second of lunacy, she lost her balance. She fell.
He expected nothing but air, but grabbed the railing just in time. There she was. Poor little Kyrie. Clinging by her fingertips to the concrete ledge beneath the railing he was damned near hanging over. Terrified blue eyes lanced his.
“Wait, wait, wait! I’m coming, baby. Hang on.” He climbed over the rail, gripping a vertical post for support and stretching every last muscle to rescue Kyrie. The ledge wasn’t wide enough to accommodate the width of his boots. He crouched as low as he could. Still no good. “Don’t fall, Kyrie.”
God, please don’t fall. It will kill China if we lose you. Hell, it will kill me.
He couldn’t get to her! In order to reach him, she would have to let go of the ledge, but the poor thing was too little to take the chance. Her eyes rolled wild with fright. “Unca Mavwick! Huwwy. Save me.”
“Almost got you, baby,” he said, but sonofabitch! I can’t reach her!
“Maverick, grab my hand! Now! I’m falling to, you know,” Leezel ordered.
Only then did he notice her hanging by her elbows and both hands to the same concrete ledge as her daughter, her eyes just as frightened. Her demand just as desperate. She reached five long, red fingernails toward him, but the simple movement threatened her hold. She replaced her hand to the ledge, for a minute stable, but with her feet swinging back and forth. Her grip slipped. “Don’t just stand there, you asshole. Pull me up.”
Maverick chose Kyrie instead. He slipped out of his boots and let them fall. He extended every muscle to reach her until he was barely holding onto the railing by his fingertips.
Just a little more. Just half an inch more, and—
Kyrie’s right hand slipped completely off the ledge. She couldn’t grab hold of his fingers anymore if she tried. “Unca Mavwick,” she said quietly.
He willed her, the wind, and everything in the sonofabitchin’ universe to keep her from letting go, but he also saw the look in her eyes. Even a five-year-old knows when she’s going to die. “I’m right here, baby. Don’t let go. I’m not going to let you fall. Hang on.”
She cried softly. “I reawwy scared.”
God, me, too. “Don’t look down. Look at me. Don’t let—”
“Mav! For hell’s sake, I’m falling, too,” Leezel snarled.
He didn’t even look at her. Only Kyrie. A gust of wind from the Potomac below had lifted her little body up and her chances were gone. Maverick released the vertical rail, for a second suspended like Kyrie. If she was falling, he was going with her.
The wind pushed her toward him, but not close enough. He leaned into the air and grabbed hold of her flailing hand. With one fell swoop, he pulled her in tight and clasped her snug into his chest. She would not fall alone into the cold dark waters below.
“Hang onto me, baby. I’ve got you now,” he whispered; content to die because she would live. He vowed it with every fiber of his heart. It was only seventy feet. He might not survive the fall, but she would. The wind whipped her black hair into his face, but he had her, damn it. He closed his eyes and let the wind take him. Kyrie would live, and China would be happy again. Only—
BAM!
A vicious jerk halted his forward momentum. Shit. It damned near pulled his head off.
“You crazy sonofabitch,” Alex cursed in his ear.
Instead of falling, Maverick found himself suspended by two sets of grappling hooks latched to his belt and back pockets. The human kind of grappling hooks. The kind with hairy knuckles. The kinds attached to the strong arms of ex-Marines. His brothers.
Alex and Gabe dragged him and Kyrie back over the rail, scraping his back and butt as his feet flailed for solid ground. He held her in a suffocating grip, his hands in her hair and hanging on tight. She sobbed her heart out, but damn it. She was safe. And so, by hell, was he.
“Got you, buddy,” Gabe ground out, panting a blue streak while he pushed Maverick to the ground and held him there. “You kids aren’t going anywhere. Not without me. Damn you, Carson. Do not EVER try a stupid stunt like that again! You hear me?”
Gabe sounded a lot like a drill sergeant, only scared. Maverick could have laughed if he hadn’t been just as scared as his buddy. He blew out a huge breath while adrenaline turned his insides to pure crap. Kyrie clung to him like a little spider monkey, her nails dug into the skin at his neck and her face buried in his shirt. She shook as much as he did, but damn it to hell. Staring up at the blue sky was one helluva lot better view than looking down at the gray Potomac.
“Maverick!” Leezel shrieked.
Gabe eased the crying child out of Maverick’s grip. “Come on, baby. Let’s take you to see Andy China.”
Maverick pushed up from the ground. His legs were weak as hell and shaky, but rescuing Leezel would be easier. She was stronger and had a better grip on the ledge. When he peered over the guard rail, the wind toyed with her, but she was still resting on her forearms. Plus, her red heels had fallen. She was barefoot, better able to scramble up once he had a hold of her. Her red coat still flapped in the breeze like a damned declaration of her stupidity, though.
Alex gripped his arm and belt.
“You got me, Boss?” he asked before he did anything stupid.
“Now you ask?” Alex muttered sarcastically. “Just don’t fall. I hate swimming in the Potomac, and if I have to dive in after you, I might drown you myself.”
Enough said.
Maverick proceeded with his second rescue of the day. He reached for China’s sister. “Grab hold. Come on. It’s your turn. You can do it. Let’s go home and have a tall one,” he coaxed to give her incentive.
She didn’t answer, and for a second, he thought she was just plain scared. He sure as hell was. He hadn’t noticed the distance to the river until now. Seventy feet was a helluva long drop.
A Coast Guard cruiser waited nearby, all hands on deck.
“Come on,” he ordered again, his fingers almost in reach of those fake fingernails. “I’ll save you. Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall.”
With a lurch, she grabbed hold of his wrist with one hand, her othe
r arm still supporting her weight on the ledge. And God, she was killing him. He hadn’t re-bandaged his burned hands or wrists after making love with China. He hadn’t even felt the pain when he rescued Kyrie, but now? Leezel’s grip was skinning him alive.
“Good.” He encouraged her, despite the slimy sensation that she had pulled the skin off his wrist and hand. He gritted his teeth and clamped down on his lip. Almost there. “Real good. Don’t let go,” he growled, “you hear? Lift one knee onto the ledge, and you’re home free. Alex and I’ll haul you up.”
It was an easy enough feat. She wasn’t a big woman, and he had a solid grip on her. She had a solid grip, too. It was the best hold possible. No way could she fall.
The look on her face startled him. Her panicked eyes had gone vacant. The light gone. “You think you’ve got me?”
“I do,” he answered, bewildered she would ask. “Of course I’ve got you. Up you go. Keep trying. Get one knee on the ledge. Hurry. Let’s go home.”
The morning sun glinted off her brassy short hair. She shook her head. Instead of hoisting herself onto the ledge, instead of trying to help herself—she let go.
“What the hell?” Maverick lunged forward to adjust to the sudden shift of dead weight at the end of his arm.
Alex grunted while Leezel dangled. She swung out over the river, her bare feet kicking in the breeze, and her free hand loose at her side.
“Damn it!” Maverick dug his fingernails into her wrist, struggling for a better grip. “I’ve still got you. We can do this. Take my hand again! Come on. You can do it.” He let go of the railing and reached for her, but the hollow, blank shadow in her gaze chilled him to the bone.
“You really do love her, don’t you?” she asked, her tone as empty as her eyes.
Maverick didn’t answer, just kept on holding on. Leezel would not die. Not like this. Not today.
She lifted her other arm upward and like a fool he reached for her, but—
Shit! A flash of silver sliced his forearm. Bright red blood spurted down his wrist and over the fingers gripping her. “Leezel! Damn it! What’d you do that for?”
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