by Stacy Eaton
“Why are we doing this?” one of the men asked.
“So when they yank open the door and have a gun on you, you don’t freak out and move. You move—they shoot. Just sit still and wait for the police to find us. They will direct you when and how to move from there.”
I heard the police giving commands to the two men in the main room, and I dropped to my knees. It wouldn’t take long for someone to check the bathroom, and I was right—only twenty seconds by my count.
“Which one of you is Blaire?”
“Me,” I said as I unlaced my fingers and waved my hand.
“Who are these people with you?” he asked.
“All innocent victims,” I said as I looked at the tactical dressed man over my shoulder. He told me to get to my feet, and then I helped the woman get to hers. The cops in the main room told one of the guys to stand still.
When we stepped into the main room, Chuck was seated in a chair. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and his mask was on the table next to him. He watched the cop pull the cover off of Len’s face and gasped.
“That’s not Len!” Chuck exclaimed.
My face snapped to the other man, and I saw tape over his mouth. His green eyes were wide and frightened. The cop yanked the tape from his mouth, and the man sputtered, “I’m not him! He made me trade clothes with him. He told me he knows where I live, and he’d kill my family if I didn’t do it. He walked out of here with the woman who was pregnant.”
I turned to the cop beside me. “That’s not Len, he’s telling you the truth. His voice is not gravelly enough, and his eyes are the wrong color.”
I started rushing toward the door as one of the cops got on his radio. As I breached the door, there was a bit of commotion off to the side, and a few police officers began to run that way. I scanned the crowd, saw Trevor, Alex, and Jake near one of the police SUVs, and then I saw Maggie off to the side talking to two cops.
I made a beeline toward Maggie. I wanted to check on her before I gave my statement to the police. I was a few steps away from her when she turned from the cops and launched herself into my arms the moment that she saw me.
“Oh, my god! You’re alright!” I held her tightly for a moment, glad to see she was unharmed.
“Yeah, I’m fine. How are you?” I leaned back to check her and cupped her cheek.
“I’m a little rattled, but I’m okay and glad it is over without anyone harmed.”
I pulled her back to me and kissed her brow as I tucked her against my chest.
“Yo, Blaire!” I heard my name shouted, and I shifted my body and Maggie’s so I could see Trevor as he approached with Alex. “Dude, where’s my coffee?”
I started laughing. “Sorry, my order got interrupted.”
“Glad you’re alright,” Trevor said as he checked Maggie out. “Only you would go to retrieve coffee and find yourself a woman.”
“Funny.” I chuckled as I tucked Maggie into my side. “Maggie is an old friend. We go back to high school.”
Maggie spoke up from my side, “Yeah, back when I was a prude.”
I glanced down at her, lifting her chin. “I said that to get him off the scent. If he had known that we had any connection, he would have used it. Speaking of which—” I glanced around. “He got away.”
“What?”
“He got away. He traded clothes with an employee and slipped out with everyone else.”
“Oh, my god! He helped the pregnant woman out!”
“Do you see him around here?” I asked her.
She started looking around. “No, he was here a couple of minutes ago, but I don’t see him now.”
“Did you get a look at his face, Maggie?” Trevor asked her.
“No, not when we were leaving,” she answered.
“Not when you were leaving?” Alex echoed back. “Did you see him earlier?”
“Yeah, actually, I did.”
“What?” I barked. “When?”
“Before they came into the coffee shop. I saw them go into the jewelry store. One of the men, Len, almost knocked me down and then glared at me.”
“Shit,” I muttered as I swiped a hand along my jaw and searched the area again.
“Why? I can give the police a description now.”
“Yeah, you can,” Alex replied to her.
“If he remembers that he saw you before the café, he will know that you can ID him.”
“So,” she said with a shrug.
“Mags, he knows where you live.”
Her brow furrowed. “How?”
“He took photographs of all the licenses. He knows where everyone lives.”
She looked like someone had just tossed a bucket of cold water into her face. “That’s why he did that?”
“Yes, and that's why I didn’t give him my ID.”
She frowned at me. “But you didn’t have one on you anyway.”
“Yeah, I did. It was tucked into the back of the notebook, along with my retired military ID.”
“Oh,” she said as she glanced around nervously.
“You think he will come after her, or anyone?” Trevor asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on what Chuck has to say. I have a feeling that Chuck will give up his accomplice to get a better deal. I’m sure that he is smarting now that Len got away and he was apprehended. It was obvious by the look on Chuck’s face in there that he didn’t know Len was going to leave him behind.”
“Good, I hope he tells the police everything,” Maggie said.
Alex spoke up. “The police sergeant wants to speak to you. He was impressed with your message and how you put the call through.”
“What call?” Maggie asked.
“I called Trevor when things first went down. Everything they did in there was aired out here to them. The police knew what was happening because the line was open.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “That’s what you did? What made you think to do that?”
“Training, darling.” I winked at her. “And for the record, I do not think you are a prude.”
“Oh, that’s a good thing because I had been stewing over how I could prove to you that I wasn’t.”
I leaned down and whispered into her ear, “You could still try to prove it.”
She laughed and slapped my chest as we began to walk toward the police vehicle with the most activity around it. Alex and Trevor walked in front of us.
“What I’d like to know is how you could possibly think that you are a magnum?” Maggie said with a grin.
Trevor burst out a laugh in front of us as he turned and walked backward. “Is he still carrying that around with him?”
“Yes, he is. I assume that’s a joke.”
Trevor, Alex, and I all laughed as I replied, “Yes, it is.”
“Are you going to explain it to me?”
All three of us sobered and said, “No!” at once, startling her.
“Where did Screamer go?” I asked, changing the subject on purpose.
Alex shifted to the side of us to answer. “He said that since you were alive, he was going back to the office and told you to hurry the hell up. He’s not paying you to dilly-dally around anymore.”
“Screw him.” I snorted a laugh.
“Who is Screamer?” Maggie asked.
“My boss.”
“And his name is Screamer? Do I want to know why?”
Trevor chuckled. “We all did a tour together overseas. Jake got the nickname Screamer because when he went into battle, he had a wild war cry, and when he gets pissed, he screams at the top of his lungs.”
Her eyes were wide as I peered down at her. “Sounds like a wonderful guy.”
“He has his moments,” I told her wryly as we paused next to the police vehicle.
Trevor introduced me to Sgt. Wilkins, and I explained more of what I knew. Maggie helped me explain a few of the things for the time I was in the bathroom.
“Well, we thought we had all the hostages deta
ined, but he must have slipped out somehow.”
“Maggie saw him before the jewelry heist.”
“You did?” The sergeant turned to face her more fully, his gaze slipping down her body quickly, and I found myself a little irritated with that. Not that I had a right to be, or that I would say anything, but still— “What did you see?”
“On my way to the coffee shop, he cut me off on the sidewalk. I was on the phone with my boss. Oh crap! I need to call my editor. When do we get our phones back?”
“Not for a little while. What about when you saw the guy?” The sergeant attempted to get her train of thought back on track.
“Nothing really, he almost walked right into me and then glared at me as he passed.”
“That’s all that happened?”
“Yes,” she said, and her eyes cut off to the side. What was she not saying?
The sergeant studied her for a moment. “Okay, well, we’ll need you to work with a sketch artist to get a good composite of him.”
“What about Chuck? Can’t he just tell you who the guy is?” I asked him.
“Chuck isn’t talking right now. He said he wants a lawyer.”
“Okay, but won’t he eventually talk when he decides that he wants to make a deal?”
“Not sure the DA’s office will offer a deal. The guy got away with over three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds and kidnapped nineteen people.”
“What?” Maggie exclaimed. “But where were the diamonds? He wasn’t carrying anything with him.”
“Mag, the package would have fit in his pocket. It wouldn’t be that big.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess it would. They are expensive little suckers.”
“Damn, don’t I know that,” Trevor grunted, and I knew he was thinking about the engagement ring he had bought for Davina. He bitched about it being more than four months' worth of mortgage payments.
“We will need you to come down to the station and give your statement, ma’am, and work with our sketch artist.”
“Okay, I need to call my boss first. He probably wants to fire me right now for not showing up at work.”
“Here.” Alex handed her his cellphone. “You can use mine, and I’m Alex Miller, by the way. This funny-looking guy is Trevor Vaughn.”
“Thank you. Maggie Valor.” She took the phone, shaking both of their hands before she stepped a few feet away and dialed. “Hey, Barb, it’s Maggie, can I talk to Jeff, please?”
“Not bad,” Trevor said in a hushed voice from beside me.
“No, she’s not,” I replied as I let my gaze drift down her light-pink blouse and navy-blue slacks.
“You really knew her in high school?”
“I not only knew her, but I dated her for three years until I deployed on my first tour.”
“How could you leave that for a war zone? Are you stupid?”
I glared at him. “Yeah, like you were ready to settle down when you were nineteen.”
“Ah, true.”
The two of us watched her as she started talking. “Oh, I’m sure he’s pissed, but I couldn’t help it. Just put him on the phone, please.”
She rocked back and forth for a moment as she waited for him to answer and stared at the sidewalk. I knew when he got on the line because she yanked the phone away from her ear, and we could all hear him screaming like a banshee. Maybe he was related to Jake. Alex, Trevor, and I all shared looks and laughed to ourselves.
“Will you just shut up, Jeff!” she hissed into the phone. “I couldn’t help it! I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there was a jewelry heist and then a hostage situation down at Cocoa’s. I was one of the hostages, and they took our phones.”
She was quiet for a second. “Yes, I’m fine. Yes, I was in there, and I want the story.” Her face turned red as she pursed her lips. “No, I’m not telling anyone a damn thing. This is my story! I was in there, and I want to tell the details.”
“Um, Mags—” I touched her arm, but she waved me away. I shared a look with the cop and then went to stand directly in front of her. “Mags, you can’t do the story.”
“Why?” she asked, totally ignoring the barking on the phone. “I was there; I can tell this story. You might not think I’m a good reporter because I write a romance column, but I am!”
“I don’t doubt that, but you can’t. At least not right now. You are a witness to a host of felony charges. You can’t talk about it with anyone. Not until it goes to trial. If you do, you could jeopardize the case.”
“What? That’s not fair! Wait!” She put her hand up to stop me. “Jeff, I’m alive, and I have to go down to the police station. I’ll call you when I’m finished.” She hung up the phone and handed it back to Alex. “Are you telling me that I can’t talk about this case to anyone?”
“No, you shouldn’t, not even me.”
She frowned. “But you were there. Why can’t I talk to you about it?”
“Because talking about the details that you have in your mind to someone else who has their own version can taint the eyewitness account—influence it.”
Her brows dropped low over her pretty smoky-blue eyes. “Well, damn, that sucks! I was going to use this as my big break.”
“Sorry, Mags. After the trial is over, you can share your story, but not until then.”
Chapter Six
Maggie
That was stupid! If I didn’t tell my story now, then someone else would tell it, and by the time I was allowed to talk about it, it would be old news, and no one would care. I growled to myself, and Greg put his hand to my lower back. His thumb rubbed gently over my spine and caused tingling in my toes and a few other places.
“Come on; they want us down at the station.”
“Do we have to ride in the police car?”
“No, I can take you down.”
“Actually,” Trevor said, “I have to go down too because you were nice enough to call on my phone, and they want me to write a statement. I can drive you guys down.”
“Thanks, Trev,” Greg said.
“Alright, I won’t say no to a ride,” I replied as Greg put his hand to my lower back again to escort me through the crowd, but once we were out the other side, he dropped it and stepped away from me. His eyes scanned the area, just as Trevor did, also.
Were they looking for Len? Or were they just wired to be always looking for some unknown enemy? I had read a few articles about military veterans, and some of the interviews talked about how they could never really relax. That they felt that at any moment a new threat would appear, even when they were walking through their hometown where nothing disastrous had ever occurred; what would that be like to be fearful of the unknown all the time? To expect something to happen around every obstacle?
I couldn’t imagine it—I honestly couldn’t. We walked around a corner and down an alley. Both Trevor and Greg stood close to me, flanking both sides as if they were sentries. Every few seconds, one of them would look over their shoulder.
A nervous laugh slipped from my mouth. “What’s so funny?” Greg asked as he glanced my way.
“You two are. Do you guys have any idea how serious you look? I mean, you are both walking beside me like you are private security guards, and I’m some important person to protect while you check behind us every few steps to make sure the boogeyman isn’t back there. It’s creeping me out a bit.”
“Good to know we’re doing our jobs.” Trevor chuckled.
“What do you mean, doing your job?” I asked him.
“We work for a security company, although most of our work is for clients overseas. We do protect a few people and locations in the states,” Trevor shared.
I glanced at Greg. “You’re really out of the military now?”
“Yep, private security and training. I did twenty and got out.”
“And you live here?”
He gave me a cocky smile. “Yes, I live here, where I assume you do too.”
Why did that give me a little thrill? �
�Yes, I do.”
We took the stairs up four flights, even though there was an elevator, and Trevor led us to a newer shiny pickup truck. Greg opened the rear passenger door, and I paused. Somehow, I had not expected there to be a child's seat in the back.
“You have something against car seats?” Greg asked as I stood there, staring at it for another second.
I shook my head. “No.”
Greg leaned toward me. “Are you going to get in?”
I turned my face toward him; our noses almost brushed, and we locked gazes. Did Greg have children? Did he have a wife? Had he ever been married? Did he ever think about me over the years? A hundred other questions zipped through my mind in an instant, and I just kept staring at him.
If Greg and I were back in the same town, could we try again? Was it too late? Had our relationship hit its high point when we were only sixteen and eighteen? What would he be like in bed now?
“Mags?” His voice was husky. “You alright?”
Trevor started the truck, and the sound yanked me out of my head. I jerked back from Greg. “Yeah, fine. I was thinking about something.”
“Were you still wondering how to prove to me that you weren’t a prude?”
“Ha! You wish!” I said as I brushed past him and climbed into the truck. I peered at the car seat again as Trevor pulled out.
“I have a son, Devon. He’s four months now.”
“Are you married?”
“Not yet, engaged.” Trevor grinned right before he turned around.
“Aren’t you doing things a bit out of order?” I joked. He grinned at me in the rearview mirror.
“Davina is not his birth mom. Carol was, but she died during childbirth, and no Carol and I were not really a couple. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until after Devon was born. Then Davina, who was Carol’s best friend, dropped Devon in my lap.”
Greg laughed. “I’m sorry; the whole thing was funny. You taking care of a baby by yourself was hysterical.”
“That was not funny. Thank god for Alex and Lexi.” He glared at Greg for a whole half a second before he laughed and looked in the mirror at me again. “Anyway, Davina and I hit it off and got engaged, and once we get married, she’s doing to adopt Devon as her legal son.”