She spotted a uniformed officer drawing his weapon as he crested the steps. The man must have been patrolling the parking lot and heard the shot. “Police! Put the gun on the table!”
An odd expression flickered across the reporter’s face as he obeyed. Was that fear? But he’d been in much more danger earlier.
While the policeman collected the gun and requested backup on a handheld radio, Gina jerked free of Sonya’s grip. “I gotta go. Duke’ll get mad.”
“No one’s going anywhere.” The name tag read K. Monroe. To the reporter he added, “Do you have a license for the weapon?”
“Officer, that’s not my gun.” He turned to Sonya for confirmation.
To agree meant betraying Gina. Although the girl had probably been carrying the weapon on Duke’s orders, by the time they sorted this out she might have to give birth in a jail ward.
On the other hand, the interloper had put his life on the line. And he seemed a lot more worried about the gun than Sonya would have expected.
“He took it off a guy named Frankie who was holding Gina hostage,” she said truthfully.
“And where is this Frankie now?”
All three of them pointed in the same direction. That appeared to satisfy Monroe, who requested a description and called it in.
“My boyfriend’s waiting for me.” Gina was edging away as he got off the radio.
“Miss, please sit down,” the officer commanded.
Instead, she lumbered down the slope. When Monroe shouted at her to stop, she increased her pace. “Wait!” Sonya told him. “Please don’t scare her into falling.”
The officer hesitated. Gina dodged out of sight past some restrooms.
“That girl requires immediate medical treatment. I’m a doctor.” Sonya ignored the man’s quizzical glance at her clothes. “She suffers from hypertension and she’s in labor. I need to go after her.”
“We’ll put out an APB. We have other officers in the vicinity.”
“I’ve been trying to find her for days!”
He glanced toward where Gina had vanished. “Sorry, ma’am. You’re the one who said not to frighten her. Wait here, please.” He radioed in a description, including the medical condition, then requested ID from Sonya and the stranger.
The man failed to produce a badge. So much for her suspicion about the DEA.
Sonya itched to give chase. Instead, she and the man had to suffer through the police formalities, which included being questioned separately by Monroe and a backup officer. Sonya couldn’t help interspersing her step-by-step account with warnings about what might happen if Gina wasn’t found.
Frustratingly, her interview lasted even longer than the man’s. He paused, as if to speak to her, but at a word from the other officer, he headed toward the parking lot.
Finally, she received permission to leave. She knew the police were simply doing their jobs, but she wished they’d give her concerns a higher priority. Since more than half an hour had passed, clearly no one had managed to pick up Gina.
Weary and upset, Sonya trudged down the staircase. She hesitated at the sight of the tall man leaning against his car, silhouetted in the glow of a security light.
Why was he waiting? Her annoyance dissipated as she remembered his attempt to substitute for Gina as a hostage. Under other circumstances, she might even welcome his presence after the way he’d leaped to her rescue with old-fashioned masculine protectiveness. She hadn’t believed that existed anymore.
“Barry Lowell.” He extended a hand.
“Sonya Vega.”
His palm felt large and slightly rough. When they shook, he winced as if his ribs hurt. “You’re sure you didn’t break something?”
“Just bruised. Believe me, if I’d cracked a rib, I’d be writhing on the ground,” he said dryly.
Even so, he’d suffered for her sake, and Gina’s. “I didn’t know reporters were so good with their fists.”
“I can hold my own.” He neither bragged nor pretended false modesty, she noted with grudging approval. “Planning to hunt for that girl?”
“Someone has to.” She ignored the two cruisers on the far side of the lot, dome lights still flashing. In one, an officer sat talking on his radio. Sure, the police would keep an eye open, but they obviously didn’t consider this an emergency.
Barry reflected briefly before saying, “I don’t usually get involved in other people’s business, but…”
“Oh? That wasn’t the impression I had when you followed me into the park.”
A smile fleeted across his face. “You were on an errand of mercy. I had a suspicion the situation might get rough, which it did.”
Sonya recognized, and rejected, an impulse to play the poor helpless female. Okay, so tonight’s events had shaken her. But life had taught her not to lean on anyone, no matter how tempting.
And she was tempted, much as she loathed her own weakness. Tempted to rely on the big strong man the way she’d once trusted her fiancé. Maybe because she found this guy unnervingly appealing.
Better get moving, fast. “Well, I appreciate the chivalry, but I’m in a hurry.”
“To land in the middle of a shootout?” he demanded. “Frankie will go hunting for Duke to collect that debt, and Duke’s already lost too much face in front of his girlfriend, which means he’ll have to fight back.”
“Then I’d better find Gina before they start World War III,” Sonya responded sharply. “I certainly don’t get the impression the cops are having any luck.”
“So you’re taking on the job,” Barry concluded. “Okay. I’ll help.”
Capable as the guy seemed, she disliked his presumptuousness. And having a male protector along might escalate tensions with Duke. “You’ve shown you can defend yourself, but do you have any experience with gangs, Mr. Reporter?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Also knives and crude homemade weapons. You see a lot of those in prison.” His jaw worked. “I’m an ex-con. That’s why I was disturbed about getting caught with a gun.”
The admission surprised her. The clothes and refined speech, touched by a slight Southern accent, didn’t fit her idea of a crook. As for the sexy male vibes he radiated, Sonya usually wasn’t attracted to losers.
Still, lots of people rehabilitated themselves after a rough adolescence. Perhaps he’d mixed with the wrong crowd when he was younger. By now—mid thirties, she guessed—he’d evidently pulled his act together.
That didn’t make him a suitable companion for the night’s mission. She was having enough difficulty winning Gina’s trust
