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“You two have to leave,” he said. “The building has to be empty.”
“Why?” she asked, drawing out the word. Her subdued manner seemed to be working, judging by the way some of the fear had left Tripp’s voice, and his shoulders had slumped. But then, to her right, she sensed Shamus stepping forward.
“Drop the weapon, Tripp!” he ordered again.
Shamus was definitely getting on her nerves. Mallory took a deep breath to keep herself from saying something not so nice. She was a Christian and needed to show Shamus some understanding. He didn’t know her at all. He had no idea she was capable of handling this on her own.
The first step was to make Shamus see Tripp as a human being. She said a quick prayer under her breath and then turned to him. “Shamus, please,” she said. “Can’t you see he’s scared to death?
“That makes two of us,” Shamus said.
“You?” she asked. “Frightened? I don’t believe it.”
“Yeah, I’m scared he’s going to end up killing you.” Shamus took another step forward. Tripp backed up to where he could see both of them at once, arcing the gun back and forth nervously.
“Please don’t try to stop me!” he said. “This man—he says he took my daughter, and if I don’t do this, he’ll kill her.”
“Somebody took Tara?” Mallory’s heartbeat revved up with her first real flush of fear. Tara Tripp was a sweet teenager who liked to read. She reminded Mallory of herself at that age. And now she was in the clutches of some nut who was sending another victim to do…whatever it was Tripp was supposed to do? Her fear started to turn to anger, and she quickly squashed that down.
Retreating, she stood next to Shamus, whose expression never lost one bit of its fierceness. In the light of the new information about the kidnapping, that fierceness now was comforting.
Not that she would admit it to him.
“Who has Tara, Mr. Tripp?” Mallory asked.
“Just leave so I can get on with it,” Tripp pleaded. “Please?”
“Get on with what?” she asked him, truly perplexed.
“He has a bomb in the backpack,” Shamus said matter-of-factly, as though he’d known it all along and it didn’t terrify him one bit. Her? Her eyes felt like saucers. She blinked, hard, as her gaze shot back to Shamus. He wasn’t joking. His eyes were narrowed and shadowed, his full lips in a thin line. He looked ready to pounce.
And she was almost ready to let him.
No denial sprang from Tripp about the bomb, so Shamus had to be correct. A thin sheen of sweat on her brow joined her thumping heart.
“You need to leave, Mallory,” Shamus said softly, in a different tone than she’d ever heard from him before.
She wanted to. The only thing stopping her was extreme doubt that the caustic Shamus would get any information out of Tripp at all. Her coworker might not like it, but he needed her there.
“Do you have any idea who this kidnapper is or where he might be holding your daughter?” she asked Tripp.
Tripp just stared at her.
She persevered. “Do you have a contact number? Do you know why he’s doing this?”
“No.” Tripp shook his head. “No to everything.”
“The police can help you, Mr. Tripp. We need to call them,” she said. With a trembling hand, she reached for Shamus’s phone, the nearest one.
“He says get away from the phone!” Tripp yelled.
Startled, Mallory dropped the receiver onto its base and took a quick step back, bumping into Shamus. His arm slipped around her waist, steadying her. A few seconds of his touch was reassuring, but it was probably good he withdrew his arm—since they were in the middle of maybe getting blown up and all.
“Who said get away from it, and how would anyone but us know what I was going to do?” she asked.
Shamus spoke. “Tripp sometimes delays answering you. I think he’s wired for sound and possibly has a video cam on his jacket or the backpack strap.” He paused. “Isn’t technology wonderful?” He sounded weary, almost as though none of this was surprising him, and he was sorry that it didn’t.
“We should leave, then,” she said.
“I think I just said that a minute ago.” He indicated the rear exit with a sweep of his head. “Go.”
She should leave. She wanted to. But she felt a strong tie to this man—the first person who had ever tried to protect her from harm. Why wasn’t he budging from his spot to save himself? Probably he wanted to stand guard over Tripp so she could get out of the building safely. No matter what his reason, Shamus was the bravest person she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t abandon him. She just couldn’t let him face this danger alone.
“I’m not leaving without you,” Mallory said. Of course, that made her officially insane.
The look Shamus shot her made her think he’d read her mind and agreed.
“Tell you what,” he said, his hands still holding his weapon. “If you go, you can take that present on my desk with you for safekeeping, and I’ll let you give it to me again later.”
He wanted her gift. The pleasure she felt over that, unfortunately, was curbed by the danger they were in.
She picked up the wrapped box. “Come with me, Shamus, and you can open it outside.” How innocent that sounded. Like they would be going outside for a party instead of escaping a bombing. She swallowed down her terror.
He didn’t move.
“You have to come with me,” she told him, her voice grow ing unsteady. There was no real reason for him to stay…unless he didn’t care about his life. She gazed up at him. That couldn’t be it.
Panic joined her fear. Her heartbeat made her think of the hidden timer that could be on the bomb, and go off anytime. She didn’t fear dying—she just wasn’t ready. There were things she wanted to do first.
Like save Shamus from himself.
“Let’s go, Shamus,” she said, using her authoritative tone.
Shamus shook his head. “I can’t. You heard Tripp. The building is supposed to be empty. As long as there’s someone here, he can’t blow it up. I’ll stick around and save the taxpayers some money.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, her heart falling when he didn’t respond. “Or do you have a death wish?”
For a few long seconds, Shamus met her gaze. Not a death wish. Too much defiance was in the dark depths of his eyes. But she was getting the impression he just didn’t care about his life. She would ask him why, but he couldn’t tell her, not with some madman listening via Tripp.
“They won’t go!” Tripp said, apparently talking to whoever was at the other end of his microphone. “They’re crazy. Neither of them will go.”
“We’re crazy?” Mallory and Shamus asked together, and then glanced at each other, startled at the coincidence. Too quickly, Tripp started moving, a sharp reminder to Mallory to stop focusing so much on the office recluse.
“You both have to leave now,” Tripp ordered, backing up and over to the wall, allowing them plenty of room to leave without getting close to him via the front door. He brandished his weapon. “Now! He said you’d better hurry.”
“Mallory, get out of here,” Shamus said fiercely.
Mallory’s stomach clenched harder. But she couldn’t leave Shamus alone. She didn’t even know why, but she couldn’t.
Shamus’s arms never wavered as he kept his gun pointed at Tripp. Where did he get the strength? Her whole body was shaking.
“Ask the guy, Tripp,” Shamus said, “what happens if I don’t leave?”
“Please,” Tripp begged. “He says he’s going to kill my daughter. He says he’ll prove it.”
The phone chirped on Shamus’s desk, startling Mallory so badly she jumped right into the side of him. He lowered one arm long enough to grab her hand and squeeze it gently. His fingers were warm, his touch calming. She wanted to keep holding his hand and go into denial.
The phone rang again, but the idea of talking to someone who was threatening them by holding a teenage girl hostage overwhelmed her to the point she couldn’t move.
Go into denial? She was already there.
“Pick it up!” Tripp ordered. “It’s him.”
Stepping sideways to the phone, Shamus answered it, hit the speaker button and took his gun again in two hands. “Look, you—”
“Daddy!” The voice of Tripp’s daughter wailed over the speaker. “Come get me!”
They heard a slap that Mallory felt through her cheek and into her bone. She slammed her eyes shut, remembering another abduction, long ago. How helpless she’d felt not being able to do anything…
Tara’s scream cut through the air, and Mallory opened her eyes. This was not happening to her—it was happening to Tara. She couldn’t do anything then, but now she could get a grip and help this girl.
“Tara, it’s Mallory, your father’s probation officer,” she said toward the speaker. “Don’t be scared. I promise I will help you. No matter what.” Somehow. And she could only pray she’d be able to keep that promise.
The phone went dead.
Mallory’s eyes flew to Tripp. He was leaning against the wall, on the verge of collapse. His daughter was sixteen. Mallory figured he loved Tara tremendously—he’d risked everything to steal money to get her away from bad influences at her old school. He’d broken the law and needed to be punished and finish making restitution, yes, but a part of Mallory admired him and wished her mother had been brave enough to get her and her brother out of the situation they’d been in.
But she needed to stop thinking about her past before she had no future.
Tripp’s knees gave out, and he sank to the floor. “He’s going to hurt Tara! She’s all I have.”
Shamus started toward Tripp again, with Mallory right behind him. She didn’t get three steps before Shamus put up his arm as a barricade and forced her to stop.
Tripp was picking himself up, his weapon once again pointing outward. “Can’t sit,” he said, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. “Blocks the camera view. He has to see when Burke leaves.”
Shamus was specifically mentioned, but not her. This attack was about Shamus. She was obviously expendable.
But why? What was going on? If it was about Shamus, then why was her probationer involved?
“You’re not leaving?” Tripp asked, sounding desperate.
Mallory didn’t take her eyes off Shamus, who shook his head negatively.
“Then I have to. He says abort the mission. Please don’t follow me. My daughter won’t be safe if you do.” Still pointing his weapon at them, Tripp edged swiftly to the door, opened it and hurried through, leaving the two of them alone in the room.
“I need to go after him,” Mallory said, but Shamus beat her to the door and threw the deadbolt.
“Go out the back,” he whispered close to her ear.
“Why?” she asked, whispering back. “You heard him. The bomber told him not to go through with it.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the rear of the huge office. “I’m not sure I believe Tripp, and bomb or no bomb, whoever it is will be expecting us to come out the front. I don’t like that idea. Hopefully, it’s only one person, and there’s no one waiting in back. We’ll call the police outside.”
“You didn’t hit the alarm?”
“What alarm?” he asked, looking frustrated.
Yanking out of his grasp, she double-timed it to her desk and stuck her foot under it. “Under our desks. They probably didn’t install yours yet.”
Now someone tells him—after the emergency starts. Shamus grabbed his present from her so she would have her arms free to run and went to the door in the back that connected the receptionist’s office to theirs.
Opening it, he saw the adjoining office was clear. So was the bulletproof receiving window at the very front of the room that showed part of the hallway through which Tripp had exited. Shamus strode four feet to the exit door, yanked it open and surveyed the parking lot. No signs of anyone lurking in wait. He hoped he was right.
He turned to motion for Mallory.
She wasn’t there.
Shamus cursed and reached the inside door just as she got there, clasping the laughing Santa from Mosey Burnham’s desk. She paused in place when she saw the fury on his face. Did she have a death wish?
“The Santa belonged to Mosey’s daughter. She was killed in action,” she explained quickly. “It’s all he has left of her.”
“Items can be replaced—people can’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I guess my heart gets in the way of my thinking sometimes.”
She sounded so sincere that Shamus considered apologizing for his abruptness. No time. Turning without responding, he strode to the door and stepped out onto the welcome mat. He hoped he was wrong about Tripp’s leaving the bomb behind. Hoped they had all the time in the world to get out of the building. Hoped—
The air around him exploded.
TWO
The force slammed Shamus upward and away from the building, sucking the breath out of him. He hit the snowy asphalt a few feet away and lay there, stunned, as all the emotion he’d buried since his wife’s death tumbled back onto him along with the debris from the bomb. Emotion over another woman.
Mallory.
Did she make it? He pushed himself onto his knees. Swiveled around to face the building. His head spun. He made himself focus, but he didn’t see her. She had to still be inside.
Annoying, do-gooder Mallory, who just had to stay late to give him a present so he wouldn’t feel left out. Who couldn’t believe her client could actually hurt someone. Who wouldn’t leave him behind even though she’d had the chance…
He had to rescue her. He could not have another woman’s death on his conscience.
Finding his gun on the ice, he holstered it, then lunged toward the building. At least, his muddled mind thought he was lunging, but he was startled to find he was only limping slowly. No matter. He pushed onward, trying to move faster, his ears ringing and his head spinning when he tried to turn it.
Sucking in a deep breath of clean air, he plunged inside the doorway and found a dazed Mallory against the outer wall, clutching Mosey’s Santa. Fire licked at what was left of the wall near the receiving window. Smoke poured into the area. Get her out. He had to get her out.
Fighting the stars that threatened to push him into darkness, he lifted her into his arms and carried her outside into the parking lot and away from the swirling smoke and dust. She didn’t speak, not one word, and something inside him—he wasn’t going to call it his heart—clenched.
His wife hadn’t spoken when he’d found her, either. She was already dead.
