ever seen, and she couldn’t abandon him. She just couldn’t let him face this danger alone.
“I’m not leaving without you,” Mallory said. Of course, that made her officially insane.
The look Shamus shot her made her think he’d read her mind and agreed.
“Tell you what,” he said, his hands still holding his weapon. “If you go, you can take that present on my desk with you for safekeeping, and I’ll let you give it to me again later.”
He wanted her gift. The pleasure she felt over that, unfortunately, was curbed by the danger they were in.
She picked up the wrapped box. “Come with me, Shamus, and you can open it outside.” How innocent that sounded. Like they would be going outside for a party instead of escaping a bombing. She swallowed down her terror.
He didn’t move.
“You have to come with me,” she told him, her voice grow ing unsteady. There was no real reason for him to stay…unless he didn’t care about his life. She gazed up at him. That couldn’t be it.
Panic joined her fear. Her heartbeat made her think of the hidden timer that could be on the bomb, and go off anytime. She didn’t fear dying—she just wasn’t ready. There were things she wanted to do first.
Like save Shamus from himself.
“Let’s go, Shamus,” she said, using her authoritative tone.
Shamus shook his head. “I can’t. You heard Tripp. The building is supposed to be empty. As long as there’s someone here, he can’t blow it up. I’ll stick around and save the taxpayers some money.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, her heart falling when he didn’t respond. “Or do you have a death wish?”
For a few long seconds, Shamus met her gaze. Not a death wish. Too much defiance was in the dark depths of his eyes. But she was getting the impression he just didn’t care about his life. She would ask him why, but he couldn’t tell her, not with some madman listening via Tripp.
“They won’t go!” Tripp said, apparently talking to whoever was at the other end of his microphone. “They’re crazy. Neither of them will go.”
“We’re crazy?” Mallory and Shamus asked together, and then glanced at each other, startled at the coincidence. Too quickly, Tripp started moving, a sharp reminder to Mallory to stop focusing so much on the office recluse.
“You both have to leave now,” Tripp ordered, backing up and over to the wall, allowing them plenty of room to leave without getting close to him via the front door. He brandished his weapon. “Now! He said you’d better hurry.”
“Mallory, get out of here,” Shamus said fiercely.
Mallory’s stomach clenched harder. But she couldn’t leave Shamus alone. She didn’t even know why, but she couldn’t.
Shamus’s arms never wavered as he kept his gun pointed at Tripp. Where did he get the strength? Her whole body was shaking.
“Ask the guy, Tripp,” Shamus said, “what happens if I don’t leave?”
“Please,” Tripp begged. “He says he’s going to kill my daughter. He says he’ll prove it.”
The phone chirped on Shamus’s desk, startling Mallory so badly she jumped right into the side of him. He lowered one arm long enough to grab her hand and squeeze it gently. His fingers were warm, his touch calming. She wanted to keep holding his hand and go into denial.
The phone rang again, but the idea of talking to someone who was threatening them by holding a teenage girl hostage overwhelmed her to the point she couldn’t move.
Go into denial? She was already there.
“Pick it up!” Tripp ordered. “It’s him.”
Stepping sideways to the phone, Shamus answered it, hit the speaker button and took his gun again in two hands. “Look, you—”
“Daddy!” The voice of Tripp’s daughter wailed over the speaker. “Come get me!”
They heard a slap that Mallory felt through her cheek and into her bone. She slammed her eyes shut, remembering another abduction, long ago. How helpless she’d felt not being able to do anything…
Tara’s scream cut through the air, and Mallory opened her eyes. This was not happening to her—it was happening to Tara. She couldn’t do anything then, but now she could get a grip and help this girl.
“Tara, it’s Mallory, your father’s probation officer,” she said toward the speaker. “Don’t be scared. I promise I will help you. No matter what.” Somehow. And she could only pray she’d be able to keep that promise.
The phone went dead.
Mallory’s eyes flew to Tripp. He was leaning against the wall, on the verge of collapse. His daughter was sixteen. Mallory figured he loved Tara tremendously—he’d risked everything to steal money to get her away from bad influences at her old school. He’d broken the law and needed to be punished and finish making restitution, yes, but a part of Mallory admired him and wished her mother had been brave enough to get her and her brother out of the situation they’d been in.
But she needed to stop thinking about her past before she had no future.
Tripp’s knees gave out, and he sank to the floor. “He’s going to hurt Tara! She’s all I have.”
Shamus started toward Tripp again, with Mallory right behind him. She didn’t get three steps before Shamus put up his arm as a barricade and forced her to stop.
Tripp was picking himself up, his weapon once again pointing outward. “Can’t sit,” he said, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. “Blocks the camera view. He has to see when Burke leaves.”
Shamus was specifically mentioned, but not her. This attack was about Shamus. She was obviously expendable.
But why? What was going on? If it was about Shamus, then why was her probationer involved?
“You’re not leaving?” Tripp asked, sounding desperate.
Mallory didn’t take her eyes off Shamus, who shook his head negatively.
“Then I have to. He says abort the mission. Please don’t follow me. My daughter won’t be safe if you do.” Still pointing his weapon at them, Tripp edged swiftly to the door, opened it and hurried through, leaving the two of them alone in the room.
“I need to go after him,” Mallory said, but Shamus beat her to the door and threw the deadbolt.
“Go out the back,” he whispered close to her ear.
“Why?” she asked, whispering back. “You heard him. The bomber told him not to go through with it.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the rear of the huge office. “I’m not sure I believe Tripp, and bomb or no bomb, whoever it is will be expecting us to come out the front. I don’t like that
