Bran called Lina’s number. Had she brought her phone into the bedroom last night? If it was still buried in her purse... The call went straight to voice mail. He cursed.
“Her phone is off. It’s probably charging.”
“You don’t have a landline?”
“No.”
“We’ll be there in about two minutes.”
“We don’t know how long it took the first responder to get there. If he had to break in or get a neighbor to let him in—” His right foot was drilling a hole in the floorboard, even though Charlie was already driving faster than was safe. “He’s had time.” Too much.
I’m too late.
No, he couldn’t think that way.
They fishtailed around a corner.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TOWEL WRAPPED AROUND her head, Lina sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her socks. To stay warm, she’d have to dry her hair next, but she took a moment to savor how fabulous she felt. Amazing sex and all the sleep her body could want combined to fizz like champagne in her veins.
Now if only Bran had been snowbound with her. Think what a lovely day they could have had, making love and talking.
She wrinkled her nose. Okay, maybe not talking.
She fully expected Bran to retreat from last night’s high emotion. He probably thought everything that needed to be said had been. Certainly about his sister’s murder, and likely about his and Lina’s relationship, too. After all, she’d agreed to marry him. His plan was back on track.
And...to be honest, maybe there wasn’t anything else to say, beyond practicalities like setting a date and deciding if they were going to have a church wedding or civil service. Of course she’d have to call her parents. They’d want to be there, no matter how simple the ceremony she and Bran chose to have. They’d especially want to come check out the man she was marrying.
Lina had pulled off the towel and was shaking out her hair when she heard the familiar scrape of a key in the lock. Happiness warmed her from the inside out. Bran must have convinced his lieutenant that he could work from home today.
She jumped to her feet and hurried for the bedroom door to meet him, but then came to a sudden stop. He always called to warn her when his arrival was unexpected.
Which he’d probably tried to do. She’d turned off her phone last night when she plugged it in to charge. Bran couldn’t call. And who else would have a key?
From the hall she saw the apartment door swing open. That hint of nerves made her hesitate still, hovering where she was. With the only windows in the two bedrooms, it was mostly dark in the living area since she hadn’t turned lights on yet. But the man who stepped in was briefly illuminated by the hall light behind him. It gleamed off his bald head, which turned as his gaze swept from the kitchen toward the living room.
Stifling a cry, Lina leaped back into the bedroom. Terror balled in her chest. Not him. Oh, God, not him.
As silently as possible, she closed the bedroom door. Her teeth chattered as she looked frantically around. With her phone in the kitchen, she had no way of calling for help.
The bedroom light must show beneath the door, letting him know where she was. No—she’d left the bathroom light on, too. He might look in there first.
Whimpering, she hurried to the far side of the bed and shoved the mattress forward until it tipped almost off the springs, then raced around and wedged herself behind it, pushing again until, with a thump, it fell against the wall, covering the door.
The handle rattled, and the door pressed against the mattress.
Desperate, using strength she hadn’t known she had, she tipped the whole bed over until it lay against the mattress.
There was a funny pop, pop, and the mirror above the dresser behind her shattered. Lina screamed.
Bullets had passed right through the mattress and springs. And he must be using a silencer, like he had at the high school. If neighbors were home, they wouldn’t hear a thing.
Her screams. They might hear those.
But then she saw what had lain on the carpeted floor beneath the bed.
* * *
IN THE CONFINED space of the passenger seat, Bran wrestled on the vest, then kept trying to call, in case she picked up her phone.
“Damn it, Lina, answer! Wake up!” Don’t be dead already.
Charlie remained silent, driving as fast as he dared in risky conditions.
Needing to do something, Bran called information for the complex manager’s office.
Voice mail.
He swore, a low, hoarse litany of fear.
He heard a distant siren, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. God, let it be pulling up to his complex.
Ahead, a car slid through a stop sign and glided into the intersection directly in front of them. Now it was Charlie swearing as he skillfully braked and swerved. It took a minute to regain traction and accelerate.
A minute they couldn’t afford. A minute that had Bran sweating.
* * *
LINA SHOVED THE bed back against the wall, trying to keep herself to the side, where bullets wouldn’t penetrate. Pop, pop.
Abandoning the effort, praying the weight of a king-size mattress and springs would buy her just a minute or two, she snatched up the escape ladder from the floor and raced for the sliding door. She kicked away the bar and unlocked the door with a shaking hand. Impervious to the cold, wearing only socks on her feet, she stepped out in the snow, hung the hooks over the balcony rail, and let the rungs fall. Clank, clank, clank.
Oh, God. Just getting over the railing seemed impossible with her bulky body. I’m sorry, baby. So sorry.
Suddenly, she was weirdly calm. Think of this as getting out of a swimming pool, easy as pie. Hands on the railing, push yourself up. Swing your leg over. That’s it.
For a second she straddled the railing, heart pounding, excrutiatingly aware of the four-story drop to a snow-covered concrete patio below. If she slipped and went over...
But then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement in the bedroom. Jerked out of her momentary panic, she emulated a gymnast on a balance beam, swinging herself around, and groped with both feet for a rung on the ladder.
There it was!
Go! Go! Go!
She scrambled down, her last sight through the railing of him, face contorted with fury as he scrambled over the bed he’d now toppled back into the room.
She reached the balcony below, but vertical blinds were drawn, and she saw only darkness past them.
Sobbing for breath, she kept going.
* * *
“JESUS! THAT HAS to be her!” Charlie exclaimed.
They were a block away, approaching the backside of the block of apartments. Bran wouldn’t have thought he could even pick out which window and balcony were his.
Except a woman hung suspended on...yeah...an escape ladder. The one he’d bought in an excess of paranoia because of Tess’s close call. Above her, a man was stepping out onto the balcony. Even from this distance, Bran saw the gun in his hand.
Bran’s Glock was already in his, but he was too far away.
I’m going to see her shot. Fall to her death. Not a praying man, he prayed now.
Charlie accelerated, sending them flying forward, skidding, weaving from side to side, but they’d be there in seconds. Only, the son of a bitch was already out on the balcony. In seconds, he’d be able to lean over and pump some bullets into the woman hanging below him.
* * *
HER STOCKING-CLAD FEET kept slipping on the metal rungs, and Lina couldn’t feel her hands anymore. With her pregnant belly sticking out, this was so hard. Her baby did somersaults, unbalancing her further. She didn’t have the breath to scream, although some kind of sound squeaked out with every exhala
tion. Synthesized terror.
A car was coming fast. Please let the driver see me. Please.
Knowing she was completely exposed to the man above her, Lina did the only thing she could think of. She reached clumsily around the back of the ladder, held on as well as she could and wrapped her right leg around, too. The ladder swung wildly.
Lina risked looking up and, oh God, there he was, smiling down at her. So sure he had her.
She hadn’t thought her pulse could race any faster, but it managed.
Pop. The bullet pinged off the metal railing just below her. But she’d done it! Somehow she’d maneuvered her body around the straps that supported the rungs and now clung to the back of the ladder. The third floor balcony above her would block any easy shot. Only, suddenly, she was paralyzed. Done. Shaking, teeth chattering, she couldn’t make herself move. She looked down at the balcony below her—and at another dark sliding door. No escape.
Then the ladder shook, and she knew he had started down after her.
* * *
THE INSTANT CHARLIE’S Outback slithered to a stop, both men threw themselves out, Charlie scrambling for the back. Bran left his door open as a shield.
“Police!” he yelled. “Drop the gun!”
Tag Jones hooked his left arm over a rung, turned and fired his semi-automatic. Once, twice, three times.
Swearing viciously, Bran dropped behind the door. He heard glass crumbling, the distinctive sound of a bullet hitting metal.
“Charlie!” he yelled, knowing his partner hadn’t had time to put on a vest.
“I’m okay!” Charlie yelled back.
Crouching, Bran stuck his head around the door. The window inches above him exploded. He took a breath, another...and pulled the trigger. He got off at least three shots within the space of a few heartbeats.
The gun dropped from John Taggart Jones’s hand. Seemingly in slow motion, he toppled from the ladder and plummeted almost the full four stories, landing with a hard thud, facedown in the snow. His handgun had already settled a good ten feet from him, vanishing into the virgin snow.
He didn’t move again.
Charlie ran for the body, Bran for where the ladder ended ten feet above the ground.
* * *
GUNFIRE. LINA HUGGED the ladder as it gave a great heave. Now she was sobbing but dry-eyed. A body flew past her, outstretched as if doing a swan dive. She saw blood, and a vacant expression.
And then she looked down, where two men ran forward. Bran came to a stop, directly below her. She had never, and prayed she would never again, see that expression on his face. It echoed all the terror she felt, and so much more.
“Lina.” He didn’t sound like himself. “Are you all right?”
Unable to form words, she tried to nod. All she could do was hold on tight, every muscle in her body rigid and shaking.
“Sweetheart.” Somehow he’d steadied his voice. Deep and strong, it soaked into her. “Can you let yourself down just a few feet to the balcony?”
She shook her head hard, even as she knew she had to.
“We’ll call the fire department. They can bring the ladder truck.”
But, shaking or not, she made herself loosen her grip. She could do this. She could. She reached down with her right foot and finally found purchase. She thought. It was hard to tell, with her feet numb now, too. But it held her weight, so she dared to move the other foot, too. Then one hand, and the next.
He stood below her, anguish in his eyes.
“That’s it, honey. Now another step. You’re almost there.”
She was there, except her foot had come down on the balcony railing because the ladder hung outside it. Lina closed her eyes and whispered, “We’re alive, baby. We’ll get out of this. We will.”
Depending entirely on upper body strength, she lowered herself to a near-crouch, then twisted enough to set her butt down on the top of the railing. Still clinging to the ladder to slow her descent, she dropped to the floor of the balcony and teetered on legs that didn’t want to hold her up. But she was able to look down and wave reassurance at Bran.
She spread both hands she couldn’t feel on the swell of her pregnancy and rubbed. “We made it,” she murmured. “We’re safe and sound.”
* * *
WHEN BRAN OPENED the sliding door an endless ten minutes later, Lina flew into his arms. And, God, she was cold. It was like hugging a snowwoman. Making a pained sound, he pulled her into the bedroom of the apartment two floors below his.
“You broke in,” she mumbled against his chest.
He’d have laughed if he hadn’t still been bone-deep, bowel-loosening scared. “Nope. The manager called the woman who lives here. Instead of us having to wait for her to rush home, turned out she had a friend in the complex who had a key.”
Her teeth chattered and she shook.
“God, Lina.” He knew he was holding her tighter than he should, but he couldn’t help himself. He bent forward so his forehead touched hers, closed his eyes, and struggled for calm. Finally, he swung her off her feet and said, “Warm bath for you.”
She didn’t argue.
Bran insisted on carrying Lina through the stranger’s apartment and past two gaping strangers. She tried thanking them, but he didn’t slow his stride. Looking at her stocking feet covered with snow, he didn’t set her down in the elevator, either. Moments later, he had her back in his apartment, where he carried her straight to the bathroom. He ran a warm bath for her, then gently peeled off her clothes and lifted her into the tub.
It just about killed him to watch as her hands and feet defrosted, but the pain passed quickly and she sighed her relief. She had been outside long enough for her wet hair to start to freeze. After asking for more hot water, Lina sank down to immerse her head, too.
Eventually, Bran helped her out of the tub and dried her carefully. He’d brought the warmest clothes he could find for her to put on, including a pair of fuzzy, school-bus yellow socks. She did most of the work, but let him kneel and put on her socks for her. Then she sat obediently on the closed toilet and let him dry her hair. Something he’d never done for a woman before, it occurred to him, but then Lina was introducing a lot of firsts into his life.
She glanced at the splintered bedroom door as she came out of the bathroom, and said indignantly, “He shot your mattress.”
“I noticed.”
Jones had shot at Lina. Bran couldn’t imagine how she had escaped. Bought time for him to get to her. One bullet, and she could have been gone.
It took him a minute to pull himself together well enough to put the bed back together as a temporary measure. Even though the damage wasn’t as noticeable on the mattress itself, he thought it would be worth the money to replace the damn bed.
That wasn’t a memory he’d want hanging around.
He asked if she’d had breakfast. Before the homicidal maniac broke into the apartment. When she said no, he set about scrambling eggs and toasting bread for both of them. He poured her a hot cup of herbal tea and himself coffee. Nothing like a meal to restore a sense of normalcy, right?
A couple of bites later, he pushed his plate away. “I can’t eat.”
“I’m...not sure I can, either.” Lina’s eyes had never looked bigger, more haunted. “I was so scared.”
He was around the table, scooping her up, before he knew what he was doing. Then he sat in the recliner and just held her, curled on his lap.
“I’ve never been so scared in my freakin’ life,” he told her. “When I saw you dangling there—” His throat seized and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
She burrowed even closer and mumbled something.
Bran tipped his head. “What?”
“My hero.”
“We almost didn’t make it in time,” he said
roughly. “Another thirty seconds—” His throat seemed to spasm, choking off the unthinkable words: you’d be dead.
Not just her. The child they’d made together. The one he could feel moving where her belly rested against his.
And, yeah, he wanted this baby, their little girl, but it was Lina who’d shaken him to his core. There’d been an instant there, when he saw her hanging above a two-story drop-off, an armed man climbing down after her, when Bran would have sworn the world had stopped. He hadn’t been able to breathe, suspected even his heart had quit beating. Dying must feel like that. The end.
Lina twisted suddenly to look at him. “How did you know I needed you?”
“Jones murdered my housekeeper for the key to our apartment. The detective it was assigned to mentioned her and I knew right away.”
“Oh, no.” Lina pinched her lips together, distress clouding her eyes. “She died because of me.”
Bran shook his head. “She died because a man with no conscience wouldn’t stop until he killed you. He’d have done anything to get to you, just like he was willing to do anything to walk away from that bank with the money.” He saw that she was remembering again, thinking of her friend, and nodded. “He was a monster, Lina. He was the killer.”
“I saw his face as he was falling.”
Well, shit. That had come out of left field. He kissed her temple and waited.
“I think he was already dead. It was you who shot him, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Charlie got us there, but he hadn’t had a chance to put on a vest. I was in a better position to put myself out there a little.”
Her eyes told him she knew he’d have done exactly the same thing if he hadn’t been wearing the vest. That she knew he’d have done anything at all, if he could save her.
Her forehead crinkled. “Shouldn’t you be out there? Won’t they need to interview you and...I don’t know, whatever else happens after a shooting?”
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 25