by Paula Graves
Trevor opened the door. Abby sobbed in terror.
But Stacy didn’t see Zachary.
“Where is he?” Trevor asked the crying child.
She just sobbed harder.
“Ask her!” Trevor’s grip tightened on Stacy’s arm, pushing her into the room.
She stumbled forward, almost falling into the crying child. Catching herself, she crouched by Abby, reaching out to touch the child’s cold, damp cheek. “Abby, where did Zachary go?”
Abby’s blue eyes shifted sideways.
Toward the open bedroom window.
“WE HAVE MOVEMENT INSIDE.” Around the side of the house, Freedom Sheriff Bernard Hale motioned for Harlan to join him. Behind them, EMTs had arrived, lights and sirens off, to make sure no one inside the ranch house was alerted to the police presence. They scooped up Appleton and carried him off to a safer staging area closer to the road.
Back at the ranch house, the agents had finished a thorough sweep without finding the mysterious gunman who’d fired shots at the governor earlier. They had, however, found a gun hidden in a plant in the upper gallery. It had been recently fired.
Matt Soarez was staying with Zachary in the governor’s office until Harlan could get back to the house. Zachary refused to leave until Harlan came back to get him.
Harlan scooted closer to the sheriff. They were looking through the open window of Zachary’s bedroom, he realized. That’s how the little boy had gotten out.
Borrowing the sheriff’s binoculars, he peered into the room and saw Trevor Lewis standing at the window, looking out.
“It’s Lewis,” he confirmed in a low whisper. He and the sheriff were pretty well camouflaged by the scrubby bush giving them cover, but he still hunched lower as Trevor looked out the window briefly before ducking inside. “Wish I had my M40.”
“You’re a sniper?” Hale asked.
“Used to be,” he answered. Of course, it had been a while since he’d been able to shoot a rifle with any sort of confidence. The man at the firing range thought it was more mental than physical for Harlan, but based on what the doctors had told him when he’d first sustained the injury, the scar tissue alone would preclude regaining his old form.
“I can get you a Remington M24.”
“Shouldn’t we try negotiating first?” Harlan asked.
“Of course,” Hale answered. “Just thinking about contingencies.” He thumbed the radio on his shoulder. “All units, hold position. I’m going to make a call.” He looked at Harlan. “I need the number.”
Harlan rattled it off, keeping his eye on the window. He couldn’t see Lewis anymore, but he caught a glimpse of a curvy silhouette against a rectangle of light inside the room. Stacy, he thought, his heart in his throat
“Stacy’s in there with him,” he said to Hale.
“You sure?”
He nodded. He’d know the shape of her anywhere.
Hale dialed the number, his cell phone on speaker. The phone inside rang four times before Stacy answered. “Hello?”
She sounded scared, Harlan thought. And brave. A surge of emotion racked him, as if someone had opened a flood-gate inside and let the pent-up energy flow.
He loved her. Everything about her, from her bloody stubborn streak to her blasted pride. And if it was the last thing he ever did, he’d get her out of that house safely and reunite her with that quirky little kid they both loved so much.
“STACY, THIS IS BERNARD HALE.” The sheriff’s voice came over the line loud and clear, as if he were in the next room. That meant he was probably somewhere close, maybe just outside. “Is Trevor Lewis in there with you?”
Stacy flinched as Trevor rested his chin on her shoulder from behind, his ear pressing the phone receiver against her own ear. “He’s right here.”
“I’d like to speak to him.”
Trevor’s hot breath brushed her cheek. “Tell him no.” He backed away, pacing a few steps toward the kitchen. “See what your kid did? Sneaked out and made trouble for us. Maybe if you didn’t baby him so much, he wouldn’t have bugged out.”
Trevor was losing it, she thought, trying not to let the gnawing panic in her belly take hold. “It’s not too late to stop this,” she said to Trevor, pleased that her voice remained calm and even despite the fear.
“He’ll stop it,” Trevor said with manic confidence. “He has a plan.”
“Who’s ‘he’?” she asked, hoping the sheriff was taking notes on the other end of the line.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Trevor murmured, his voice almost gleeful.
“Stacy, it’s Harlan.” The low-pitched, familiar voice in her ear set her nerves jangling. “Is he listening in now?”
“No,” she murmured.
“Yes, you will,” Trevor said, waving the gun in a wide sweep. “He’s got it all worked out.”
“Zachary’s okay,” Harlan said. “He came to get me.”
Her heart leaped. “Really?”
Trevor gave her an odd look. “Yes. Are you willing to be part of it, too?”
“Jeff Appleton’s injured but being treated. Are Charlotte and his daughter okay?”
“Yes,” she answered.
Trevor’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
In her ear, Harlan gave her a quick update. “A gunman shot at the governor. She’s okay. Nobody hurt, just bumps and bruises for the guests during the evacuation.” His voice was a bracing shot of whiskey, shoring up her flagging strength. “We didn’t catch the shooter, but he’s long gone.”
So Trevor’s dream of some big plan unfolding wasn’t going to come true. But would sharing that information with her unstable captor make things better or worse? At this point, he seemed to have lost all touch with reality and didn’t even notice she was still on the phone.
“I’m willing to be part of it,” she said aloud to Trevor. “But I don’t think we should depend on someone else. Why can’t we just come up with our own plan?”
“I need to know where you are. We don’t have a bead on the guy,” Harlan murmured.
She met Trevor’s beaming gaze, wondering how to reveal their position without tipping him off. If she could keep Trevor from getting shot, that’s what she wanted to do. But the more he waved around that gun, the sooner someone was going to get hurt. She didn’t intend for it to be Charlotte, Abby or her. “Trevor, why don’t you untie Charlotte and let her go? She can take Abby with her. They’ll tell Sheriff Hale that everything’s okay-won’t you Charlotte?”
Charlotte nodded, her eyes dark with desperation.
“See?”
Trevor shook his head. “You don’t believe her, do you?” He raised the gun and pointed it right at Charlotte’s head. Charlotte flinched, squeezing her eyes shut.
“No!” Stacy took a step toward him, keeping the phone pressed to her ear so she didn’t lose the connection to Harlan. “I believe her. I do. She’s my best friend. She’d do anything to protect me. She’s not going to let me get in trouble for helping you.”
Trevor lowered the gun. “She may not, but nobody out there is going to believe her. Harlan McClain will poison their minds against me.”
“Tell him to trade Charlotte and Abby for me,” Harlan urged in her ear.
“No,” she said sharply, seeing the black fury in Trevor’s eyes. She had no doubt that if Harlan stepped foot inside the house right now, Trevor would shoot him dead on the spot.
“He will,” Trevor insisted, pointing the gun at Charlotte again. The anger in his eyes melted into bleakness. “We’re not getting out of here alive, Stacy. They won’t let us. We’re surrounded and he’s not coming, is he?”
“Maybe your friend’s just not here yet,” she said quickly, not liking the look in his eyes. “Maybe he’s looking for a distraction-if we could send out Charlotte and Abby, the people outside would be so busy dealing with them-”
“He could make his move,” Trevor finished for her, looking at her with almost childlike hope.
“Let me unti
e Charlotte. She could go get Abby.”
“Is Abby in Zachary’s room?” Harlan’s voice was a low rumble in her ear.
“It’s probably getting cold in Zachary’s room for Abby, with the window open,” she said to Trevor.
“We’ll put someone at the window to get them out that way-just warn us if Trevor’s coming with her,” Harlan said.
Trevor looked at Stacy uncertainly. “You think it’ll work?”
I hope so, she thought.
HARLAN HEARD A LOW THUD, and seconds later, the sound of ripping tape. Lewis must’ve duct-taped Charlotte Manning to a chair in the kitchen earlier “Stacy?” he murmured, needing to hear the sound of her voice. But she didn’t answer.
“She probably put the phone down to unbind Charlotte,” Sheriff Hale said softly, his gaze on the pair of tactical officers he’d just positioned on either side of Zachary’s bedroom window. As long as Charlotte entered alone, they’d draw her and Jeff Appleton’s daughter to the window and help them escape.
“There. Let Charlotte go get Abby.” Stacy’s voice was back in his ear again. He felt the tension in his gut ease.
“Good,” he said. “Keep him from going with them.”
“No, she can do it by herself,” Stacy said, clearly talking to Trevor. “We need to stay here and figure out what we’re going to do when your friend makes his move.”
That’s my girl, he thought. And he was going to do whatever it took to make her see they were right together as soon as he got her out of there.
A rectangle of light appeared in Zachary’s room. The door opened and Harlan spotted Charlotte Manning’s silhouette enter.
The men at the window called softly to her. Following their orders, she handed Abby out the window to one of them and let the other officer help her out. The deputies brought Abby and Charlotte over to where Harlan and the sheriff crouched.
“Where are they?” Harlan asked Charlotte.
“Living room. He’s going to come looking for me if I don’t go back out there.”
Sheriff Hale nodded to another deputy standing nearby. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Charlotte looked at Harlan. “He’s completely out of it- Stacy’s walking around talking into the phone and it’s like he doesn’t even see it. You’ve got to get her out of there.”
The deputy walked over, carrying an M24 police sniper rifle. He held it out to Harlan.
Harlan stared at the rifle, realizing what Hale intended. “Sheriff, no-”
On the other end of his headset, he heard Stacy’s soft intake of breath.
“Everything’s okay,” he murmured into the microphone.
“You said you were a sniper,” Hale said.
“I have an injury.” He held up his shrapnel-scarred hand.
“What’s taking so long?” Trevor Lewis’s agitated voice was clear over the line. He must be standing close to Stacy.
Harlan realized they were out of time. Lewis seemed to be growing more desperate by the second, and now Stacy was the only remaining target for his madness. He had to end this mess.
Now.
It had been too long since he’d felt as if a sniper rifle was part of his own body, a third arm with which he could deliver justice in a few well-aimed and well-considered shots. But if that was the only way to make sure Stacy got a chance to hold her little boy again, then he’d make it happen.
He held out his hand to the deputy with the rifle. Into the headset, he murmured, “Get him into Zachary’s room, turn on the light, and get the hell out of the way.”
On the other end of the line, Stacy was silent for a long moment. Then, aloud, she said, “We should go check on them.”
Harlan positioned himself for the best possible shot through the open window. His heart was rattling like a snare drum, beating a cadence of fear, but he shook off the doubt and concentrated on the task. Level the sight. Go for center mass.
A silhouette filled the doorway of Zachary’s room, blocking part of the light. Harlan had the shot, but he didn’t know where Stacy was, so he couldn’t take it yet.
“They’re not here.” Trevor’s voice rose with alarm. Harlan could hear him both on the headset and faintly through the open window twenty yards away.
“Are you sure?” Stacy’s voice was strong over the line. “Let me turn on a light.”
Harlan saw her silhouette just behind Trevor’s. Her arm moved, flicking on the light in Zachary’s room.
Illumination flooded the shadowy scene. Harlan saw Trevor Lewis clearly, standing a few feet inside the room. Behind him, Stacy backed out of Zachary’s room at a run.
Trevor turned and ran to the doorway. His gun hand lifted, as if to fire after his escaping captive. Harlan heard a bark of gunfire from the house.
Now or never. Take the shot.
Hoping the short distance would compensate for the unfamiliar rifle and his rusty skills, he squeezed off three shots. Trevor Lewis’s body jerked with each round.
Then he fell out of sight.
For a second, only the sound of the rifle’s echo filled the night air. Then the area erupted in chaos as deputies and agents rushed the guesthouse.
Harlan handed off the rifle and ran to the front of the house, terrified that Lewis’s round had hit its target before Harlan’s shots took him down. He pushed past the deputies in the front room, calling Stacy’s name.
“Harlan!” Her cry swung him in the direction of the kitchen, where she was standing near the sink, tears streaming down her eyes.
Elbowing deputies and agents out of the way, he ran to her, wrapping her in a crushing embrace. Her breath hot and sweet against his cheek, she whispered, “I knew you’d come.”
He kissed her temple. “I always will.”
Epilogue
The silence in Harlan’s apartment was unnerving. Even though Stacy knew there was a guard posted outside to protect her and Zachary, she didn’t feel safe.
Not until Harlan finally came home.
He looked tired when he came through the door. Tired and a little haunted. After Harlan put him in charge of taking her and Zachary back to his apartment and posting a guard while he briefed the other CSI agents at the office, Matt Soarez had told Stacy what Harlan had kept from her: shooting Trevor Lewis had been the shot of a lifetime for Harlan, given the injury to his hand. Doctors had told him he’d never be able to shoot a rifle for accuracy again. It was a big damned deal.
But why hadn’t Harlan told her that? Why did she have to learn everything important about Harlan from other people?
“Zachary asleep?” he asked, shrugging off his overcoat to reveal his rumpled tuxedo. The tie was untied, hanging loose at the collar, and grime marred the snowy surface of his shirt.
“Yeah.” She wanted to be strong, not let her feelings show. Not until she knew he meant those words he’d whispered in her ear when he’d come into the chaotic crime scene to find her. She couldn’t deny she loved him, but she had to be sure she was making the right choices for Zachary and herself.
She’d loved Anthony, and look where that had gotten her.
“Any luck finding the gunman?”
Harlan shook his head. “We think he worked with Trevor Lewis to gain access to the ranch. I think Lewis had already planted the gun days ago so the man could sneak through the metal detector. The caterers had a man call in sick and hired a new guy without time to do much of a background check. We’ve got a description, but it’s pretty vague. But we’re still looking.” He crossed to where she sat curled up on his sofa. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” she asked carefully.
There was almost no furniture in the room besides the sofa, not even a chair to pull up beside her. So he tugged the low coffee table forward and sat in front of her.
“That I had to deal with so much stuff before I could get back here to you.” He reached across the distance between them and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ears, the touch light but warm. He let his fingers slide slowly
down the side of her face, until his hand came to rest on her shoulder, his thumb gently stroking her collarbone. “That I left in the middle of the night last night and didn’t get to wake up with you.”
Damn it. Why was it so impossible to stay angry with him?
“You could have left a note.” She tried not to get emotional, but after the day and night she’d just had, it would take a much harder woman than she to keep from feeling a little teary-eyed. “I mean, it was the first time we-”
He brushed his thumb across her trembling lower lip. “But not the last. Right?”
“You’re such a man.”
He grinned at her. “I’m afraid so.”
She released a soft sigh, knowing she loved him anyway. “I guess you were kind of busy.”
He eased off the coffee table and onto the sofa beside her, laying his arm across the back of the cushions. “When I got the call about Lewis, I had to go take care of it right then. And I know, I should have written a note, but all I thought about was getting Trevor out of the way so you and Zachary would be safe.”
With another little sigh, she snuggled closer to him. “You’ve got this whole apology thing all figured out, don’t you? Appeal to my concern for my son, snuggle up and make me feel warm and safe-you’re really pretty ruthless, Mr. McClain.”
He chuckled, the sound rumbling through her where their bodies touched. “I prefer the word determined.”
“Determined to do what?” She gave him a look of challenge.
“This.” He dipped his head, claiming her mouth with fierce intensity that had her head swimming in record time.
When he let her up for air a little later, she had forgotten why she’d ever been upset in the first place, although one sticking point came back a couple of minutes later, when Harlan was nuzzling the side of her neck. “You should have told me what a big deal it was to shoot a sniper rifle again.”
He drew back to look at her. “I wasn’t sure I could do it. It used to be as easy as breathing, but there was so much on the line tonight…”