Holding his Hostage - Amy Gamet Page 0,51

tall storage racks. Sloan hurried along the catwalk to get a better view, finally catching sight of one of his own men lying prone on the floor, his weapon at the ready.

Razorback’s voice came over the comm set. “Three tangos down, at least one more on the loose.”

“Where’s David?” asked Sloan.

“In the office.”

“We got eyes?”

“Negative.”

Shit. He had to get down there. Suddenly, the catwalk shook beneath his feet, and he turned to see a figure in black coming toward him just as the man fired his weapon.

Sloan returned fire, his automatic rifle firing off a dozen rounds in the time it took the tango to fire one. The figure listed sideways, then fell over the guardrail, his torso bouncing off one of the massive shelves before hitting the ground. The shelf wobbled precariously.

Turning, he ran back in the opposite direction. He needed to get to the office without being seen, and he had an idea to accomplish that. After pulling his grappling hook from his pack, he attached it to the catwalk and rappelled down the brick wall, shots ringing out and striking the brick beside him.

He reached the ground and took cover behind the same shelf as his teammate. It looked like Chop. “I’m heading for the office. Cover me,” Sloan said.

“Roger.”

Sloan ran to the office door, shots ringing out as Chop distracted the tangos. He reached the door and kicked it open.

David lay on the floor in a pool of blood, lifeless. Sloan barely had time to register that fact as more shots were fired. He dropped a smoke grenade and hid behind the thick metal door, bullets lodging themselves in its surface before the shooting stopped.

His night vision goggles could see through the smoke, revealing two tangos, and he shot them both long before the air cleared. “David’s down. Call an ambulance. Office is clear.” He crossed to the people on the floor, one female, one male, and checked them for a pulse.

Negative.

He turned to look at David, afraid to check for the same.

“Warehouse is clear!” called Razorback. “We’re coming into the office.” The door opened, Razorback and Chop moving to either side of David’s body. “Let’s get him out of here.”

Sloan followed them out the door, peeling off his goggles and filling his lungs with fresh air. He bent at the waist, putting his hands on his knees. “Don’t be dead, you little fucker.” He spit on the ground and closed his eyes. “Just don’t be dead.”

30

The bright lights of the emergency department belied the fatigue in Joanne’s bones. She hugged herself tightly as she finished recounting the events of the last several days to the plainclothes detective who’d investigated David’s death. “And then I got the call and came here.”

“Is he going to make it?”

She frowned. “We don’t know yet. He’s still in surgery.”

He folded up his small notepad and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket. “Mrs. Regan, I owe you an apology. I don’t think I made a secret of the fact that I believed you were somehow responsible for your husband’s death.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“You do realize that, if he survives, he’ll have to face charges for the death of McKenzie Bannon’s cousin, Finbar.”

“I know he will, but I believe it was in self-defense.”

“I’m going to take your word on that one for now. If it comes down to an investigation, we’ll have to see what comes to light, but I’d say your family has been through enough for one week.”

That was the understatement of the century, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I agree.”

The detective left her his business card and promised to return in the morning to check on David. She tucked it in her purse and walked down the long hall, recounting what David had said about fatherhood and how difficult it had been to break the chain of bad parenting they’d both been caught up in.

Please give him another chance.

Let him be a father to his children.

Help him learn and grow.

While their marriage wasn’t something she cared to fix, he would always belong to Fiona, Lucas, and April. She could help him embrace that role. Be a friend to him when he needed it most.

She would like that.

To think, a week ago she was planning a funeral he would have hated, purely out of spite. She wasn’t proud of herself for that, and she swore, if David lived, she would find a way to get along better with him, if only for the kids’ sake.

She curled