by Tee O'Fallon
He wanted to wipe that grin off the bastard’s face with his knuckles, but it wouldn’t do any good. “We’re wasting our time. He drank too much of the sovereign citizen Kool-Aid. We need to find Gant before he leaves the blast radius.”
Heavy footfalls sounded at the office door. “Someone call a bomb squad?”
Nearly a dozen men wearing padded suits came into the loading bay.
“Holy fuck!” one of them said, looking into the truck.
Eric quickly ran down his initial observations.
“We’re on it,” the head of the unit said. “For what it’s worth, you can leave.”
The other radio clipped to his belt crackled. “Eric.” Tess’s voice.
“Tess, are you all right?” As if his pulse weren’t in the red zone already, the hushed, worried tone in her voice sent his heart rate skyrocketing. When she didn’t respond right away, he shouted into the radio, “Talk to me! Where are you?”
“I see him,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “It’s Harley.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Oh my god. It’s really him.
Tess’s hand shook as she turned the radio down. Not that Harley could hear anything over the incessant honking from all the vehicles clogging the intersections or the shrilling police whistles and sirens.
He was wearing beige slacks and a tucked-in button-down shirt when she’d first seen him exit the hotel lobby. She’d had every intention of following Eric’s order to the letter and sticking like glue to Nick and Kade, but when she’d turned to notify them of her suspicions, they were both on their radios with their backs to her. Getting close enough to see the man’s face had been the plan. She followed him out the door then two more blocks before realizing she’d walked off without letting Nick or Kade know where she was.
Now, Harley was barely twenty feet ahead, occasionally twisting his neck to look behind him. Luckily, with the crowd and her vertically challenged height, there was no chance of him spotting her.
As Jesse had warned, he did indeed look different—older, thinner, and with less hair, but she’d know his walk and that arrogant bearing anywhere. Even after her brain had made a positive ID, she still couldn’t quite believe it. Saying it out loud to Eric had made it all real, and now she could barely string together a single coherent thought.
“Tess!” came Eric’s angry voice again. “Do not go near him. Get to Nick, or Kade, or the first cop you see, and tell him where Harley is and that he has the detonator.”
She looked around for a police officer. Spotting a young cop standing at the next corner, she began heading in his direction while still keeping an eye on Harley. When she was within ten feet of the cop, a woman screamed, and the cop began running toward the woman. In the opposite direction of Tess.
“No, wait!” she cried, but he was already halfway down the block and Harley was getting away. She turned back to follow him before he disappeared.
Now, he was thirty feet ahead, and she could barely get through the crowd. She stood on her toes, catching sight of him as he turned a corner. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she pushed past one person after the next, getting elbowed and jostled and cursed out for her efforts.
“Tess.” Eric’s insistent voice. “Tell me where you are.”
The farther from the hotel she walked, the less crowded the streets and sidewalks were. The chances of her being spotted the next time Harley turned to look behind him were about fifty-fifty. If she didn’t hustle, she’d lose him. Her breath sawed as she picked up her pace.
Holding the radio to her mouth, she pushed the button. “I’m—” She looked around for a street sign, but there were none. How can there be no street sign in the middle of a big city? “I don’t know where I am,” she said in a hushed voice. “I made a left out of the hotel, then a right and another left. I’ve been walking straight for about three more blocks, but there’s no street sign.”
“Okay,” Eric said. “Describe what you see. The buildings, the stores…what do they look like?”
Desperate now, she spun, searching for something, a landmark Eric would recognize. Her gaze landed on a church. “I’m passing St. John’s Church.”
“Okay, that’s good. I know where it is. Keep updating me on your location. We’re on our way.”
She breathed a little sigh of relief, but not much. Eric was on his way, but would he be in time to stop Harley from escaping?
When Harley looked over his shoulder again, she ducked behind a mailbox, holding her breath for several seconds before peeking out just in time to see him disappear around the corner.
She took off running down the sidewalk. At the corner where she’d last spotted him, she paused to peer down the street. Her chest heaved as she struggled to slow her breathing.
He was less than twenty feet away. Talking to him yesterday over the phone was one thing. Then, he’d been nothing more than a disembodied voice that couldn’t hurt her. This was different. He was really there, and her past whooshed back in a flash.
The beat-downs, the degradation, the isolation.
Her fingers clawed at the corner of the building, but she couldn’t move. She was thrown back in time—ten years—to when waking up every morning with the fear of not knowing whether she’d be beaten by her stepfather or raped by his best friend made her life a living hell.
Halfway down the block, Harley pulled open the door of a gray sedan.
Oh, no. If he drove off, he’d take the detonator with him. I have to stop him.
Her entire body shook, and she despised herself for her weakness. The bruises and broken bones had long since healed, but the damage he’d inflicted on her emotions had never fully recovered and never would. Unless I do something about it. Now.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she called upon the strength and emotional fortitude she’d never had under his roof as a child. Strength she didn’t know if she possessed now.
You can do this. It’s showdown time. Move, move, move!
Taking a deep breath, she pushed from the corner and raced down the street toward the sedan. As she ran, she pressed the radio’s microphone button.
“Harley!”
Her stepfather spun. His eyes went wide, then narrowed.
She halted five feet away. So many words crawled to mind, but nothing came from her mouth. She drew in breath after unsteady breath. Unable to speak, she could only stand there numbly, struggling to absorb the fact that this evil person—the man she’d fled from and swore never to set eyes on again—was there, standing before her and holding the fate of this city in his hands. Hands that were empty, she realized. Except for a set of car keys.
“My dearest Tess,” he said in a deep Alabama drawl, leaning casually against the open door and looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I don’t know how you came to be here, but I’m guessin’ you’re responsible for leakin’ word about the little surprise I left at the hotel. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll still kill plenty of people here today, and that will put us on the map in the Garden State.”
“Let’s get one thing straight.” She clenched her fingers tighter around the radio, keeping the button depressed. “I’m not your dearest anything. I never was.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.” He chuckled, and God, how she hated that sound. “Like it or not, you are—and always will be—my stepdaughter.”
“An unfortunate fact I had no say in. Jesse, either. What you did to us was unforgivable.”
“No!” He pounded his fist on the roof of the car, making her flinch. “What you both did to me was unforgivable. You betrayed me, you disgusting little whore. Fuckin’ an ATF agent. Yes, I know you’ve been sleepin’ under his roof and in his bed, just as I knew you both were workin’ with the damn feds. I tracked Jesse all the way to New Jersey, right into the federal courthouse. I gave him a test, and he failed, all because of you. I should have killed you like I did your father.”
“What?” Her mind went blank. Did he really just say…
“Tha
t’s right.” He pulled a small handgun from his pocket, holding it by his leg. “I killed your father. He was in the way. Just as you are now. I don’t know how you managed to get away from Pritchard, but that’s a mistake I’ll be rectifyin’ shortly.”
The full impact of his words hit her.
He didn’t leave us. Her real father hadn’t deserted them after all.
This bastard—this evil sonofabitch—had taken him away, the same way he’d stolen so much of their lives. “No, no, no!” she screamed, then she reared back her arm and hurled the radio at his head.
Harley raised the gun, but the radio was in mid-air. He flinched to avoid it, firing at the same time. She winced and staggered backward. He’d missed.
He lifted one hand to his head where the radio had struck him in the temple. “Bitch!”
“You said it,” she shouted then charged him, clawing at his face with her nails, pounding on his chest and his head with her fists. All the anger and sadness she’d been repressing barreled to the surface, and she hit him harder. “You bastard!” Tears began streaming down her face unchecked, blurring her vision.
He grabbed her upper arm then backhanded her so hard across the face she fell to the pavement. Pain lanced through her shoulder. Stars danced before her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision.
Harley laughed. “You’re nothin’ but a snivelin’ little girl. You always were, and now you’ll die here with everyone else.” Instead of shooting her as she expected, he pulled something from his other pocket.
The detonator.
Her eyes flew wide. “You’re insane. Killing all these people won’t accomplish a thing. There won’t be any place in the world you can hide. They’ll come for you, and they won’t stop until they find you.”
“They’re not smart enough.” He advanced on her, stopped, then reared back his foot to kick her.
Harley gripped the detonator in one hand, but his other hand was empty. Somehow, during their tussle, he’d dropped the gun. She crab-walked backward until her hand touched something hard and cold.
The gun.
Her fingers closed around the handle and she whipped it around, aiming at his chest. To her shock, he only laughed again, harder this time.
“You won’t shoot me. You don’t have it in you, so I’ll tell you exactly what’s gonna happen.” He shoved the detonator back into his pocket then opened the car door wider. “I’m gonna leave you here, lyin’ on the ground, snivelin’ and cryin’ while I drive off. Then I’m gonna blast you and all those government pricks into little bitty pieces.”
“I can’t let you do that.” The gun shook in her hand. “Harley, no. Please.” As much as she hated the man, she honestly didn’t know in that moment whether she could do the unthinkable and deliberately take a human life. Even if meant saving hundreds of others.
I can’t let him leave. I can’t. As soon as he was far enough away, he’d do it. He’d set off the bomb.
She inhaled through her nose, slowly letting it out through her mouth, the same way Harley had once taught her to steady her aim.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a mocking grin. “Goodbye, Tess.”
My thoughts exactly.
She squeezed the trigger. The blast reverberated, the gun recoiling ever so slightly in her hand.
Harley didn’t move. Then his gray eyes went wide with shock. Slowly, he lowered his head, taking in the hole in his chest—the one directly over his heart.
Blood seeped through his shirt. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly, as if he were trying to speak. The light in his eyes dulled, then his body slumped to the ground. Even after he’d hit the pavement, she couldn’t move.
Still holding the outstretched gun, she watched his chest rise and fall as he took his last breath.
Someone was crying. No, not crying. More like the keen of a wounded animal. It was her.
Footsteps pounded. A hand closed over hers—the one still holding the gun.
“Baby, let go of the gun.” Eric? “It’s over. You can let go now.” It took another moment before the soothing tone of his voice and the meaning of his words filtered through to her consciousness. Her heart rate slowed, and the steady beat of her pulse in her ears eased to a dull thud. “That’s it, let it go.”
Something wet on her cheek—kisses? No, licking. Tiger.
Vaguely, she felt Eric pry her fingers from the gun. Strong arms came around her, lifting her in the air as if she were flying.
“It’s over,” he whispered against the top of her head, his chest shuddering beneath her cheek. “You’re safe.”
The last thing she was cognizant of was the unshakable belief that for the first time in her life, she was safe.
Finally.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When Eric pulled into his driveway again, it was ten o’clock the next morning. He and Dayne had stuck around to assist the bomb squad, answer questions, and update the brass for the multitude of press conferences that would be hitting the airwaves for days, weeks, probably months to come.
Crisis averted.
He shut off the engine and got a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror. He looked like hell, and there wasn’t one square inch of his body or clothes that wasn’t covered with dirt and dust.
The revenge he’d been fueling for Harley Gant was nothing more than a memory, a puff of smoke after a giant bonfire had died down. His only regret was that he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger.
He should have been exhausted. Instead, he was wired tighter than a wind-up toy. Not from caffeine, but from the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins at seeing Tess again. They were about to have “the talk” that hadn’t been possible until now, and he was scared shitless he’d fuck it up.
“Let’s go, buddy.” He popped Tiger’s door, expecting his K-9 to leap from the Interceptor and charge into the house for breakfast. Deep snores came from the kennel. Tiger was fast asleep, his snout between his paws, his chest expanding in slow, rhythmic motions.
Quietly, he reached for his bag then went outside. Not even his own door closing was enough to rouse his dog. The last twenty-four hours had been long and grueling, and Tiger hadn’t left his side once.
“Tiger.” He reached into the kennel and gently patted the dog’s rump.
Tiger’s head shot up, his breath coming in quick snorts as he leaped to his feet, spinning around in the kennel, then jumping from the SUV and galloping to the house.
Chuckling, Eric closed the kennel door then made his way between Nick’s and Kade’s SUVs. Tess probably wouldn’t be pleased with what he’d made his friends swear to.
He pushed open the front door to his house, letting Tiger trot in first. Saxon and Tango greeted his dog, sniffing and wagging their tails.
“Hey.” Nick rose from the sofa and fist-bumped him.
Kade did the same.
Not unexpectedly, Tess’s duffel sat on the floor beside the sofa.
“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” Kade said, sympathy evident in his hazel eyes. “She’s not happy.”
Nick grunted. “Understatement.”
“Where is she?” He set his gear bag on the floor, looking around the living room and the kitchen.
“Upstairs.” Nick sat on the arm of the sofa. “And she’s mad as hell. Like a powder keg ready to blow.”
Eric couldn’t keep the corners of his mouth from lifting. “Good. That means she’ll be okay.” Taking a life was never easy. Only a stone-cold killer could get away without any emotional scarring. Tess was anything but stone-cold.
“What’d the prosecutor say?” Kade asked.
“The shooting was justified, and she’s in the clear.” From going to prison, that was. There were still a lot of questions the prosecutor wanted answered about Gant, Pritchard, and the others.
Tiger yawned, then stalked to his bed in the living room, circled twice, and lay down with a groan. His K-9 was so beat he didn’t even want food.
“
Am I under house arrest?” a frosty voice asked from the bottom of the stairs. Tess’s beautiful green eyes lasered into him like bolts of Kryptonite, then she narrowed those twin beams on Nick and Kade. “They refused to let me leave until you got home.”
From her frigid tone, her meaning was clear as a bell. His home. Not hers.
“Thanks, guys.” He tipped his head to his friends. “I’ve got this.”
Kade gave Tess a quick hug. “Tango, let’s go.” The white shepherd sprung to Kade’s side, following him out the front door.
Nick leaned in to kiss Tess on the cheek then hugged her tightly. “Stay in touch, Red. Wherever you wind up.” He winked then waited a moment for Tess to crouch and wrap her arms around Saxon’s back.
Nick’s black shepherd licked her on the cheek then trotted out behind Kade and Tango.
“Good luck, man.” Nick clapped him on the back.
“Thanks.” He needed it.
After closing the door, he turned to find Tess kneeling by Tiger’s bed, gently stroking his dog’s ears. “Goodbye, Tiger. I’ll miss you. Jesse will miss you even more.”
Tiger lifted his head to give her hand a lick, then went back to sleep.
“How are you?” He tamped down his need to pull her into his arms.
Ignoring his question, she rose to retrieve the small velvet bag on the side table—the one with her crystals. “Am I going to prison for shooting Harley?”
“No.” He snorted. “The mayor of Newark and the governor want to give you a medal.”
She stared at him, unblinking, then went to her duffel and stuffed the velvet bag inside. “Then I’m free to leave.”
“How’s Jesse doing?” he asked, feeling the first vestiges of panic that she might actually leave before he said what he needed to say.
“He’s weak and dehydrated.” She zipped her bag closed. “Nick took me to the hospital last night. They’re releasing him tomorrow, but don’t worry. I’ll send you the money to cover his medical bills as soon as I can.”
“You don’t need to do that.” The small talk was killing him. If he didn’t get his shit together, she’d be out the door and out of his life in two seconds. Problem was, he didn’t know where to begin.