CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Maggie could tell from the sound that Jake made that this wasn’t good news.
She’d heard David, of course, heard his pleadings for Jake not to shoot, but obviously Jake saw something that made him hold fire. It had to be something critical, a game changer, because there’s no way Jake would have trusted Bruce Tanner’s son.
David was their most obvious suspect.
Since Jake’s attention was fastened to whatever was going on out there in the hall, Maggie turned and tried to unlock the door.
“David’s got what appears to be a bomb strapped to his chest,” Jake said. “It looks real.”
“It is real,” David shouted. “That SOB you just killed popped me with a stun gun earlier when I was going to my car, and he put this thing on me.”
Oh, God.
Maggie had figured it was something bad, but she hadn’t counted on it being this bad. Bullets were one thing, but a bomb could do a lot of damage, including kill everyone in the building.
The bone marrow might even be destroyed.
It broke her heart to think that Sunny might not get what she needed to live. And if she was killed in an explosion, Sunny would have no other donor. It was as if Tanner was giving Sunny a death sentence, too.
That infuriated her.
And terrified her.
She worked even harder to get the office door open. It might not help to get to another room, especially if there were a lot of explosives strapped to David, but she wanted to get Jake and her as far away from that bomb as possible. Sheriff Marcus, too, though she wasn’t sure he could hear her if she shouted for him to take cover. Maybe, though, he could hear David and Jake and had already done whatever he could to protect himself.
“Does the bomb have a timer on it?” Maggie asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. In her mind, she could see the seconds ticking away to their deaths.
“Not that I can see,” Jake answered. “But it appears to be sticks of dynamite taped to some kind of vest.”
“The sticks are all wired together, I don’t know who has the detonator,” David added. “But the dead guy said it would go off on impact.”
In other words, if Jake shot David, the whole place might blow up. It was a good thing Jake hadn’t shot David on sight. They might already be dead.
That got her working even harder.
The pain was running through her hip and side, but Maggie used the doorknob and wall to lever herself higher. Every inch was an effort, and she was in a cold sweat by the time she made it to her knees.
“Do the hired guns know Tanner sent them on a suicide mission?” Jake asked. Not for David’s sake. But probably to rattle the gunmen.
She knew Jake had killed one of the men. She’d heard the bullets as they’d thudded into him. And according to Billy, one of the men on his end of the building was dead, too, but that left two others.
And David.
This bomb thing could be a hoax designed to draw them out into the open. In fact, it was exactly the kind of stunt Tanner would pull.
“No, I don’t think they know,” David growled. “They’re no doubt in this for the money. Well, money’s not going to do you any good if you’re blown to smithereens.”
If the gunmen had any reaction whatsoever to that, Maggie didn’t hear it. Maybe, though, Jake could keep working on them, though she figured even if the bomb wasn’t a hoax, it might take a miracle to get the gunmen to surrender.
“I need to shoot the lock on the door,” she told Jake when she couldn’t get it to budge.
He volleyed glances between her and the hall, and even though it was too dark to see his face clearly, Maggie knew the debate that was going on there. He didn’t want her moving around. Especially since she was gasping every time the muscles moved in her hip.
That seemed to be with every movement.
But he couldn’t very well leave David and the other gunmen unguarded to help her with a door.
“Shield your eyes,” Jake reminded her.
She did. Maggie took aim at the lock, turned her head to the side and fired.
The sound was deafening, the metal bullet ripping through the metal lock, and the jolt seemed to go through her entire body, rattling and shaking her. Not good. Because it also rattled the pain, and it hit her so hard that she had to fight to keep hold of her breath.
While she kept a grip on the gun with her right hand, Maggie used her shoulder to push the door open. Finally. She hadn’t counted on it opening so easily, though, and with her thigh still partly numb, she wasn’t able to stop her forward momentum in time.
She tumbled through the opening and braced herself to smack face-first onto the floor.
But she didn’t.
That’s because someone in the pitch black reached out for her. Caught her, too. But it wasn’t to save her, Maggie soon realized.
No.
The person knocked her weapon from her hand, dragged her to her feet.
And he put a gun to her head.
* * *
JAKE HEARD MAGGIE’S GASP, and he reeled in that direction only to see her being dragged into the other room.
“Maggie?” he shouted.
No answer.
The fear crawled through him, and he kicked the hall door shut. Locked it, too, even though the door frame was so damaged he didn’t know if the lock would hold. It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered at this point but Maggie.
He braced his right wrist with his left hand and moved toward the room. The doctor’s office. And he prayed he’d find her alive.
He made a quick peek into the room and saw the partially open exterior door that led straight into the office. And he saw Maggie. She was there, standing, among all the shadows. Except she wasn’t exactly standing on her own. Someone was behind her, and the person had an arm curved around her waist. Anchoring her in place.
“Stay back,” Maggie warned him. “He’ll shoot you.”
Jake was staying back, using the wall and jamb for cover, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking another quick look.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t see him until it was too late.”
Jake hated that she felt the need to apologize for being taken hostage. And there was no doubt that she was someone’s hostage. The gun to her head was proof of that. But her captor was keeping his own head hidden behind hers.
“Who are you?” Jake asked.
“Why don’t you come in here and find out?” the man said.
It was Wade.
And the slimeball actually sounded pleased with himself. Jake wished he could get close enough to tear the man limb from limb.
“Maggie shouldn’t be standing,” Jake said, though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He just wanted the idiot to poke out his head so Jake could get off a shot. “She’s hurt.”
“Hurt?” Wade grumbled. “You mean she had the harvesting done. Yeah, I know all about that. I’m supposed to collect that, too, in case Tanner needs it for some kind of leverage.”
Tanner. Who else?
Since Jake still didn’t have a clean shot, he tried again to get Wade to move. “I’m guessing the bomb’s a fake or else you wouldn’t be this close to it.”
“It’s real. Not enough explosives to kill us, but it would do David in. His dad is really pissed off at him. Wants him dead.”
Hell. That was one bargaining angle that Jake couldn’t use. He’d hoped that Wade didn’t know about the bomb and would start running.
“Maybe there are more explosives on David than Tanner wanted you to know about,” Jake tried.
“He wouldn’t do that.” And it didn’t sound as if Wade had any doubts about his boss.
“How did you find us?” Maggie asked Wade. “How did you know we’d be here?”
Jake didn’t miss the quick breath she sucked in at the end of her question. She was in pain. And in danger. It was killing him to stand there and do nothing while she suffered. But he couldn’t just take any shot.
“Tanner had teams ready to go to various hospitals. He figured Mustang Ridge was the last place so that’s why he put me with this group. I’m hardly a killer, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” And that was Jake’s opening to keep pushing. “That’s why you should let Maggie go.”
“Not a chance. Once one of the other guys gets in here, he’ll do the killings. And I’ll get paid.”
“The other guys?” Jake questioned. “Not Grange?”
Wade huffed. “Grange isn’t in on this. Tanner could never trust a man like him.”
“You mean Grange isn’t greedy like you are.”
“Yeah, so what? You were more than willing to pay me to hack into that database. Well, Tanner’s paying me a whole lot more to do this.”
So, if the other guy wasn’t Grange, Wade was waiting on one of the two gunmen. Or maybe there were more.
Hell.
Tanner could have sent an entire army. But Jake held out hope that wasn’t true. After all, Wade had just admitted that Tanner hadn’t sent his best crew here because he hadn’t expected Maggie and him to use the hospital in Mustang Ridge.
“You really think Tanner’s going to let you live?” Maggie asked the man. “You’re a loose end, Wade. A bad one.”
“He’s already on death row. Can’t kill a man twice.”
“Yeah, but Tanner has a reason to eliminate you,” Jake said. “If you confess to his hiring assassins, then the FBI can freeze his assets. All of them. Without money, Tanner has no power. So, it’s my guess he’ll arrange for you to have an accident.”
Wade didn’t come back with a smart-mouthed response so maybe he was thinking about it. Jake glanced in at Maggie again, but this time, Wade turned the gun toward him.
And he fired.
Jake jumped back in the nick of time, and even over the roar in his ears from the blast, he could still hear Maggie struggling.
No!
She wasn’t in any shape to defend herself.
Jake turned, ready to look into the room to see what was happening, but before he could do that, he heard another sound. One from a different direction. That was the only warning he got before someone kicked down the hall door.
It came flying right at Jake.
Jake ducked and came up ready to fire. He did a split-second assessment to make sure it wasn’t Billy or Marcus. It wasn’t. It was one of Tanner’s assassins dressed in camouflage. The guy had his gun already aimed at Jake.
But Jake fired first and dropped to the floor.
He fired again.
And the guy dropped, too. Dead.
Jake scrambled back to the doorway of the other room and saw the struggle going on. Maggie was against the desk, and she had Wade’s right hand in a firm grip to stop him from firing. However, Wade was using his left hand to punch and hit Maggie on her face and chest.
Jake didn’t even think.
He ran into the room, and he, too, latched on to Wade’s wrist while he pushed Maggie out of the way. She fell into the wall, and it no doubt hurt, but at least she wasn’t directly in front of Wade’s gun.
The man pulled the trigger again, the shot blasting into the floor. And Jake knew enough was enough. He bashed his gun against Wade’s head. Again and again. Until he finally dropped his weapon. It clattered onto the floor next to Maggie, and she scooped it up. She also grabbed her own gun that Wade had obviously knocked from her hands.
Jake didn’t waste any time. He put his own gun directly to Wade’s head. “Move and you die.”
And Jake gave Wade a look to let him know that it wasn’t a bluff.
Wade cursed, but he quit fighting. In fact, he practically went limp. It wasn’t enough for Jake. He shoved the man to floor, putting him on his belly and facedown.
“Put your hands on the back of your head,” Jake ordered.
Once Wade had done that, Jake looked at Maggie, afraid of what he might see. There was blood trickling down her mouth, and she was still unsteady because she had to catch on to the wall to keep from falling.
Jake went to her, just to try to reassure her and himself that she was indeed okay. She was. But they weren’t out of this yet.
“I need something to tie up Wade,” he told her after he ran his hand down her arm.
“Maybe use that.” She tipped her head to the doctor’s jacket that was on a hook on the wall.
It wasn’t handcuffs, but maybe he could make it work. Jake snatched the jacket and went back toward Wade.
But he only made it one step before the sound of another shot stopped him cold.
* * *
MAGGIE’S MOUTH WENT DRY, and her breath stalled in her throat.
She waited to feel the shot slam through her. Or worse, to see it slam through Jake. But it took her a moment to realize neither had been hit. Not Wade, either.
The shot had come from the hall.
She allowed herself a moment of relief, but Maggie knew this wasn’t good. Both Billy and Sheriff Marcus were somewhere out there. Dr. Allen Blake and Betsy, too. Plus, the patients and other staff. David was out there as well, and according to Wade he had a real bomb strapped to him.
Since Jake had his gun aimed at Wade, Maggie glanced into the room where Jake and she had been earlier, and she saw David run into the room. Even though this room was dark, too, it did have slightly more light because of the window.
And she got her first look at the bomb.
Maggie tried to back away from it. From David. But she could barely move.
“He’s trying to kill me,” David yelled. “And if he hits the bomb with one of those shots, we all die.”
Maggie heard everything he said, but her attention wasn’t on David but rather the gun he had in his hand. Even in the dim light, she had no trouble spotting it. He didn’t have it aimed at her but rather at the doorway to the hall.
“You need to drop that weapon,” Maggie told him, and she put Wade’s gun on the desk she could aim her own weapon at David.
And at the hall.
Just in case the other killer made his move. Too bad she wasn’t exactly a show of force since she had to latch on to the wall to keep from falling.
“What the hell is he doing?” Jake snarled, and with his gun still pointed at Wade, he rushed to the door.
The moment Jake’s attention landed on David’s gun, he stepped in front of her. “Keep an eye on Wade,” Jake instructed, and he turned his attention to David.
Jake turned his gun on him, too, the moment that Maggie took aim at Wade, but as she’d done, Jake also kept his eye on the hall door.
“It’s not my gun,” David volunteered, glancing back at Jake. “I picked it up off the floor.”
It’d belonged to the dead assassin no doubt, and while David still didn’t seem to be threatening Jake and her with the weapon, she didn’t want it in his hands.
Apparently, neither did Jake.
“This is your last warning,” Jake told him. “Drop the gun. I can shoot you without hitting that bomb.”
David looked behind him at Jake, and he no doubt saw that Jake wasn’t bluffing. He’d shoot.
“Okay,” David said, and he lowered himself toward the floor.
From over Jake’s shoulder, Maggie saw the blur of motion in the hall door. Jake turned his gun from David toward the movement.
Toward the assassin who had a gun pointed right at them.
The shot echoed through the room, and in the murky darkness it took Maggie a moment to realize that Jake hadn’t fired the shot.
David had.
The assassin froze and he dropped to the floor. David dropped the gun, too, and he went to the man and touched his fingers to his neck.
“Dead,” David announced. “Is that the last of them?”
“I think so,” Jake answered, but he didn’t lower his gun. He kept it trained on David.
Maggie did the same to Wade. The man was still on the floor, his hands on the back of his head, and he was cursing a blue streak.
With his left hand, Jake took out his phone and made a call, just a few words to give someone their location and request the bomb squad.
“Billy’s on the way,” he relayed to her. “And he’ll check on Sheriff Marcus, too.”
Good. That was a start, but Maggie wouldn’t breathe easier until she was away from both Wade and David.
“I want a plea bargain, Sheriff McCall,” Wade insisted, adding some more profanity. “I’ll tell you everything you want to freeze Tanner’s accounts, but you have to give me a written agreement that I won’t get any jail time.”
It sickened Maggie to think of slime like Wade going scot-free, but it sickened her more to think of Tanner being able to continue these attacks.
“A plea won’t be necessary,” David whispered. He cleared his throat, repeated it. “Soon, you’ll get the word that my father is dead. Killed in a prison fight.”
Jake walked closer so he could see David’s face. “How do you know that?”
David released a long, weary breath. “Because I’m the one who arranged for him to die.”