Midnight Hero - By Diana Duncan Page 0,27
steeled her gaze. “Conall O’Rourke is a dedicated police officer, not a vigilante. He upholds the law, does not take it into his own hands.” The conviction in her voice yanked him back from the edge of no-man’s-land. “Our objective is to go home with the same number of holes in our bodies we came with. And to get our friends out of that bank.”
He gritted his teeth. Shoved his grief and anger deep inside. Right again. His priority was to keep them both alive. He rested his forehead against hers until the confusion and pain receded and he regained control. “What would I do without you?”
She kissed him, her soft, gentle mouth reviving his strength, her sweet, fresh taste restoring his purpose. “We’re in this together, for now. So, I guess we need a…what do you call it? Tactical plan. Your forte, Officer Sexy. What’s our next step?”
He managed a shaky grin. This woman amazed him more every second. “Communication. Get word out there’s an incident going down in here.” He hesitated. Could she handle the truth?
He should have known better. She read him as easily as one of the books she always had her nose stuck in. She frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Trying to hide it from her was futile. He might as well come clean. “If my suspicions are correct, this crew has been doing bank jobs and home invasions for years. They seem to fit the profile on a number of unsolved cases. They don’t leave any witnesses. Once they crack the vault…” He didn’t finish. Didn’t need to.
She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply. “Oh no!” When she opened her eyes, panic laced her expression and her voice quivered. She grabbed his arm. “What can we do, Con?”
“Mike bought some time by slamming the vault door when the robbers stormed in. Calling out SWAT will buy more. The suspects won’t kill the hostages if they need bargaining chips. I wish we had access to a phone or radio. We can hardly send smoke signals.”
“Wait!” She jerked upright. “We can! What about the fire alarm?”
“The crooks disabled the electricity, phone and computer systems. Thus the earlier ‘malfunction’ announcement.”
“But they might not know the alarms and sprinklers are on an independent, protected circuit…with battery backup. I saw the schematics when I chose the layout for the bookstore’s electrical fixtures during the remodeling.”
“That photographic memory of yours comes in mighty handy at times.” He tugged a bright curl that had fallen over her shoulder. “So, we start a contained blaze, and summon the trucks. Then we have to signal the firefighters without putting their lives in danger.” He pursed his lips. “It could work.”
“The third-story windows on the sky bridge facing south are visible from the parking lot. What if we get a sheet, write SOS on it and hang it in the window?”
“Great idea.” He grinned, steady and sure, his feet again on solid ground. “Only we’ll write the police code for armed robbery in progress, with hostages involved. And add my badge number.”
She surged shakily to her feet. “Let’s go!”
“Not so fast, slugger.” He rose and flexed his cramped muscles. “First, we train.”
“But we have to hurry!”
“When you hurry, people die. We do this by the book.” He glanced around the murky store and grabbed his pack and the baseball bat he’d snatched from the sports outlet upstairs. “Let’s change locations.”
“Okay.” She picked up her pack and baseball bat. “How come?”
“Not smart to stay in one place when you’re being hunted.”
She froze with her pack dangling from one shoulder. “Are we being hunted?”
“Odds are good. The bookstore’s deposit bag wasn’t on the floor outside the bank. The robbers must have found it.”
“I’m sorry, Con.” Her delicate red-gold brows scrunched together in an anxious frown. “It’s all my fault.”
“It is not your fault. I grabbed you and scared you. Besides, we have an advantage. The bad guys don’t know about me. They think they’re after a terrified bookstore clerk. They’ll search the other end of the mall first.” He left out the fact that the criminals who were after them seemed as disciplined and heavily armed as any SWAT team. Professionals with the precise teamwork of ex-military men.
Con welcomed the sharp slap of adrenaline in his bloodstream as he shrugged into his pack. He’d need every ounce of strength, courage and wits he possessed. Every moment of training. He and Bailey were in for the fight of their lives.
Bailey followed Con to the doorway. He motioned