Читать книгу Silent Rescue - Melinda Di Lorenzo - Страница 12

Chapter 2

Brooks took a sip of his espresso—now cold—and told himself he was being ridiculous. That he had an overactive cop imagination waving flags when none were necessary.

For a second, though, he could’ve sworn the dark-haired woman was staring right at him. Scrutinizing him. Looking for something. Which she definitely didn’t find, judging by how quickly she bolted into the hotel.

It bothered him, and he had no idea why. What was her deal? Was she actually in trouble? He wished he’d asked her.

And say what? he wondered. Pardon me, ma’am, but are you looking for someone? Or no? Maybe hiding from someone? Yes, here in the middle of this street. No, no. Don’t call the cops.

Brooks shook his head and took another icy gulp of coffee. Canadians were friendly—that characterization had turned out to be true—but he somehow doubted that gregariousness extended to a tolerance for on-leave cops from south of the border asking nosy questions.

Still...

The sudden buzz of Brooks’s cell phone jarred his attention back to the moment.

“Small,” he said into the phone, his voice clipped.

There was a familiar chortle on the other end. “Now, now. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Does that never get old for you, Masters?” he asked his longtime partner.

“Never.”

“At least one of us is getting a laugh.”

There was a pause. “Not enjoying your vacation?”

“It’s hardly a vacation.”

“Civilian life.”

“Barely that, either. Isn’t it, like, four in the morning there?”

Sergeant Masters let out another chuckle. “Almost seven, actually. Finishing up the night shift.”

“So you thought you’d call me?”

“Oh, c’mon, Small. I hear the Great White North has plenty to offer.”

“Like?”

“Hockey? Canadian bacon? Girls looking for a warm-blooded American to melt their igloos?”

Brooks rolled his eyes. “You’ve been watching too many movies, my friend.”

“You’re telling me there isn’t one pretty girl in that entire country?”

Brooks opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again as he lifted his eyes just in time to see the brunette step out of the hotel doors. The top button of her coat had come undone, exposing her creamy throat, and she appeared oblivious to the cold air.

Yeah, he conceded silently. At least one pretty girl.

“You there, man?”

Brooks forced his attention back to the phone conversation. “What I’m telling you, Masters, is that there isn’t one single igloo here—meltable or otherwise—and quite frankly, I’m a little let down.”

On the other end, his partner laughed so hard he sounded like he was choking. When his amusement finally subsided, he launched into some story about their captain. But Brooks was already distracted again, the long tale fading into the background.

A man in a dark trench coat worn over a well-tailored suit was standing behind the woman. A poor-boy cap covered his head, a scarf obscured the bottom half of his face, and a pair of dark sunglasses blocked his eyes.

A tingle crept up along Brooks’s spine, then settled between his shoulder blades.

He’d tuned out Masters’s voice completely now, his attention focused entirely on the scene unfolding in front of him. He’d already set down his empty coffee cup. He kept his hands open and relaxed. He didn’t have to work on the pose at all. Years on the job—years of waiting patiently for the right moment while looking like he wasn’t waiting at all—bred a certain kind of readiness into a man. A second nature.

Brooks’s eyes flicked to the man in the cap. Then to the brunette. Then back.

The man leaned down and put his face at an even level with her ear. Brooks watched his mouth work silently above the scarf. Though he couldn’t hear a word, the intimacy of the conversation was obvious. Seconds later, the man put out his hand, palm up, and the woman reciprocated by placing her fingers in his.

A gold wedding band—on the woman’s left hand, but not on the man’s—caught the cold sun and glittered.

A total misread, Brooks realized.

It wasn’t a criminal activity. It was an affair.

He averted his eyes, embarrassed that he’d been so caught up in the brunette’s action that he’d attributed her nervousness to something dangerous, when in fact it was actually caused by something far more cliché.

You need to get back to work. For real.

“Masters,” he said loudly, interrupting the unending flow of the other man’s story and not caring in the least. “Did the captain say anything about when I can come home?”

The silence on the other end was a bad sign. Clearly, something had been said, and whatever it was...the news wasn’t good.

“C’mon,” his partner replied after a few weighted seconds. “Any of the guys would kill to be in your position. Paid leave in a foreign country? No collars to run down, no worrying about having some two-bit drug dealer shooting you in the—”

Brooks cut him off. “I’ll take that as a no.”

There was another pause, then a sigh. “We all know what hell you went through, Small. None of us would wish it on our worst enemies. But you lost control. A good man died.”

Regret hit Brooks straight in the gut. More painful than a gunshot wound, and far more lasting, too.

He refused to let it overwhelm him. “Parler slept with my informant. He got himself killed. And the girl, too. The man’s ‘goodness’ is questionable at best.”

This time, the blank air went on for so long that Brooks thought momentarily that his partner might’ve hung up. He knew better, though. Masters was simply giving him a chance to retract his statement. To let his brain catch up to his mouth. But he wasn’t going to give in to the silence.

I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a killer.

He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until Masters answered him.

“I know that, man. Anyone with his lid screwed on tight knows that. But when the chief’s favorite rookie winds up dead...”

The other man’s voice carried on, but Brooks had tuned him out again, this time because he really didn’t want to hear what Masters had to say.

His gaze drifted back toward the striking brunette, but she and her lover were gone.

Maybe to take their tryst to the next level. Maybe to—

Brooks’s musings cut off as he spotted them on the corner of the road.

The girl’s mouth was open in a silent cry, her body bent away from the man, who held her elbow tightly. Too tightly. The man lifted his other hand then and pressed it to the small of the woman’s back. Something metallic glinted in the small space between them.

Brooks leaped to his feet. His thighs slammed into the table hard enough to send the espresso cup rolling off. It smashed to the ground, and his jacket snagged on the chair again, leaving him stuck.

“Small?” Masters’s voice was full of concern.

“I have to go.”

“C—”

Whatever his partner had been about to say was lost as Brooks clicked the hang-up button. He abandoned his jacket, dropped the phone into his pocket and took off at a run.

Because he recognized that glint for what it was.

A gun.

* * *

Without warning, the man with the gun slid an arm around Maryse and pulled her back into a darkened doorway. He clamped a hand over her mouth, pushed the weapon into her back and warned her to keep quiet as a blurred figure went running by. Even with the freezing air surrounding her, and the thick winter coat acting as a buffer, the cool metal drove into her and made her shiver.

She wanted to recoil away from it. Almost as much as she wanted to recoil away from the man wielding it. The single glance she’d stolen before he bundled up his face was enough to make her chest squeeze with fear. His eyes were dark, angry slashes. His mouth no better. A terrible, star-shaped scar covered one cheek.

Maryse closed her eyes for just a second and reined in another shiver.

What were you expecting? she chastised silently. A kidnapper who looked like Santa Claus?

But truthfully, it didn’t matter what he looked like, any more than it mattered he had a weapon. The uncertainty of her daughter’s fate and the hope that this man would lead Maryse to her were more than enough to keep her quiet.

After several long minutes, he forced her back to the sidewalk. And as he led her through the warren of streets, she swore she could feel the cool metal barrel digging a little farther into the small of her back with each step.

Hold on, she told herself. Means to an end. This man knows where Cami is.

She resisted an urge to ask about Camille’s safety. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to hear the sound of her voice. When they’d left the hotel doors, she’d uttered a single word and he’d pinched her so hard that it still smarted.

Trying to distract herself, she glanced up at the nearest building and tried to place it. But it was too late to orient herself. They’d already managed to weave through a half dozen streets that blended together.

Rue Rouge.

Rue Laurent.

Rue...who knew what?

The corners came quickly, and the buildings were piled atop one another, each looking as drearily the same as the other.

Please, she prayed silently, just let her be okay.

In spite of her resolve not to show any emotion, tears pricked at her eyes. It got worse when she glanced up and saw a discarded doll hanging from the edge of a balcony. Normally, that kind of thing made her smile. This time, it made her cringe. Unconsciously, she slowed to stare. And it earned her yet another sharp jab.

“Go,” growled the gunman.

Maryse stumbled a little as they reached yet another corner, this one unmarked by any street sign at all. In her boot, one of her ankles twisted. Even though she tried to bite down and keep it in, a little cry escaped her lips.

Weakness, she chastised herself.

Not something she should be showing. Not if she wanted to negotiate her daughter’s release. The smallest chink in the armor could jeopardize that chance. So she ignored the searing pain that shot up her leg from her twisted ankle, and she let the man behind her push her on.

But they only made it four more steps—not quite all the way across the road—when he abruptly released her arm. As he let her go, he barked out something gutturally unintelligible. For a second, she thought he’d switched to speaking in French. Puzzled, Maryse spun to face him.

Then stepped back as he flew toward her.

What the—

Her thought cut off as her mind worked, trying to make sense of what she saw.

His eyes were wide, his mouth open. A crimson drop fell from one corner of his lips. Then his body hit the ground, and she figured it out.

Not French, she realized. And not English, either.

The sound he’d made hadn’t been words at all. Just a last utterance.

As if to confirm it, his coat flapped open, revealing an increasing pool of red, with a narrow hole in the center.

A gunshot wound.

Maryse’s gut twisted, and she doubled over. The motion saved her. A bullet whizzed by, then slammed into the ground just a few feet in front of her.

With her heart in her throat, Maryse righted herself, turned and fled toward the buildings on the other side of the road. She pushed her back flat against the icy structure just as another bullet hit the cement, this time mere inches from her boots.

Sure it had come from above, her gaze flew up, searching. Was that a pinprick of red light, up in the window of the low-rise up the road? Did the curtains just flash? But everything was still now.

She hazarded a quick glance toward the fallen man. His head had rolled to one side, and his chest no longer rose up and down at all.

Cami.

Oh, God. What did this mean for her daughter? The man on the ground had been her one link to whoever had her.

The wall Maryse had been holding around her heart for the last few hours teetered. A dull ache formed in her chest as the anxiety threatened to overwhelm her. It made her sway a little on her feet. And she stumbled.

But surprisingly, she didn’t fall.

Instead, a warm, strong hand closed on her elbow, steadying her. Then the hand pulled her back into the building. Out of sight. Out of the potential line of fire. It gripped her tightly. And for a paralyzing instant, Maryse’s instinct wasn’t fight, and it wasn’t flight. It was simply to sink into the reassuringly solid touch. And the strange sensation worsened when she looked up and met a man’s gaze. Hazel, flecked with gold, and full of genuine concern.

She had to force herself to pull away enough to take in a little more of his appearance. Whoever he was, he had a frame as bulky as it was tall, and if his height topped less than six foot three, Maryse would eat her wool hat. But as he pulled back a bit more and opened his mouth, it wasn’t his impressive size that made her gasp. It wasn’t even the fact that she finally recognized him as the man who’d been sitting outside the café near the hotel. It was the slight flash of metal at his hip.

Oh, God. This man is the shooter.

And Maryse was off as fast as her legs could take her. Three steps to the edge of the street. Another five to put her past the body lying there. Two more and—

The stranger’s body slammed into hers, then twisted. The motion sent them to the ground together, and for a second, Maryse was on top. But the momentum kept them going, and they rolled. Once. Twice. And on the third time, his powerful forearms locked to her elbows and his thick thighs locked hard against her hips, pinning her to the icy concrete.

He stared down at her, his hazel eyes dark. Like it was she who’d done something wrong. And it made Maryse mad. All the stress of the last few hours funneled through her, found purchase in her knee, then jerked up full force. The man must’ve seen something in her gaze, though, because he swung sideways at the last second, and she just barely managed to graze his hip.

“Stop,” he ordered, his voice full of authority.

Yeah, right.

“I’m trying to help you,” he growled.

Equally unlikely. She struggled harder to free herself, flailing wildly.

“Parlez-vous anglais?” he asked in badly accented French. “I want to let you go so we can get the hell out of here.”

As if to prove his point, he released her arms. She reached up to throw a fist at him, but before she could follow through, three more bullets—not quite rapid-fire, but successive enough to be thoroughly jarring—hit the building behind them.

It really wasn’t him, Maryse realized.

He glared down at her, an I-told-you-so look on his face. The smugness didn’t last longer than a second, though. Another shot made him jerk backward in surprise.

He let out a groan, then rolled off her and pushed to his feet. “C’mon.”

Maryse only hesitated for a heartbeat. Long enough to glance down and realize the flash she’d seen at his waist hadn’t been a gun—just a belt buckle. She took his outstretched hand and let him guide her away from the gruesome scene, and away from whoever was still firing on them.

And just in time. The wail of sirens cut through the air, warning them that authorities were on their way.