Julie Miller – Baby Jane Doe (страница 2)

Blondie was curiously assessing her surroundings, too. Her movements slowed as she stuffed a bankbook into her purse and angled her head toward Mr. Trench Coat, watching him stride across the geometric designs of the carpet and disappear into the public restroom.

Eli was more suspicious than most cops. And those suspicions were eating at him now, making him fidgety inside his skin, though he allowed no trace of his thoughts to show. His instincts were to follow Mr. Trench Coat and verify that he knew something about the weather forecast that the rest of them did not. Though he prayed the man’s unusual appearance had such a benign explanation, Eli’s suspicions warned him otherwise. He tried to catch the guard’s eye again to find out if the younger man had taken note of the two out-of-place customers.

“Good morning, sir. May I help you?” The teller’s bright blue eyes smiled a greeting as she drew Eli’s attention back to the teller’s station. But Eli zeroed in on the three-piece-suited man behind her who shuffled out from the vault area with an expanding folder tucked under his arm. He stuffed his hand into his pocket, pulled out a white handkerchief and mopped at the perspiration dotting the top of his balding head. Then he nearly jumped out of his oxfords when the older guard greeted him from across the room.

Baldy managed a nod and a vague response. But the guy was sweating. In the air conditioning. The pasty skin from forehead to pate indicated the man was either having a heart attack or…

Damn. Eli’s growing tension clenched through every muscle, then dissipated, leaving an icy chill of certainty in its wake.

Do not rob this place this morning.

He had to get to court. He had to be there for Jillian.

He didn’t have time to be right about this.

Eli jerked his head from side to side. Elevator to the north. Bathroom to the south. Baldy behind the counter. A perfect triangle surrounding the customers, the guards and the money inside the tellers’ drawers.

Glancing over his shoulder, Eli tried to catch the guard’s eye at the front door.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Sir?” The teller’s voice demanded action.

Eli leaned across the counter, pulling open the front of his jacket to flash his badge and whisper into the startled girl’s ear. “Hit your silent alarm. Now.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

He didn’t want to start a panic if he was wrong, but his gut told him he was right. Something was going down.

Blondie sensed it, too. She’d pulled her cell phone from her purse and was walking straight toward the older security guard. She touched the man’s arm, urging him to mask his stunned expression. Blondie turned and faced Eli full-on, but she was pointing past him toward the public john.

What the hell?

Eli wasn’t the only cop in the building.

Recognition did him little good now. There was no time to identify himself. No time to do more than to warn the teller to get off her stool and seek shelter down behind the counter. “Hit the ground. Now!”

The bathroom door swung open. The elevator dinged. Guns came out of billowing coats and saggy jeans. A thunderclap exploded outside and a blast of shattered glass and flying metal rained down inside the lobby. The young guard went down. A deadly staccato of semiautomatic gunfire erupted over their heads.

The older guard’s hand never reached his gun. With a startled gape, he grabbed his chest and sank to the floor, taking Blondie with him. Eli glimpsed the red blooming beneath her hands as she crouched over the fallen guard and tried to staunch his wound.

“Take cover!” Eli shouted over the screams and chaos, grabbing the startled black man beside him and shoving him to the carpet. Others ducked behind the counter. In one fluid movement, Eli dove and rolled toward Blondie. He rose up on his knees, slung his arm around her shoulders and dragged her to the floor, tucking her beneath his long body as bits of ceiling and light fixtures and bullets crashed down around them. “Eli Masterson.” He ground the words against her ear. “Detective. KCPD.”

“GET OFF ME!” Shauna Cartwright ordered between tightly clenched teeth. She didn’t know which angered her more—the senseless violence that left a man bleeding to death just beyond her reach, or the tall, muscular detective who’d wrapped himself so thoroughly around her that she could feel his holster jammed against her shoulder blade and smell his love for coffee on his breath.

His broad shoulders masked her view of the scene and absorbed the brunt of the debris raining down on top of them. Masterson had gone all macho to protect the perceived “little woman” while innocent bystanders cowered unguarded beneath the hail of intimidation shots. As though she couldn’t take care of herself!

She’d spotted the body armor beneath the trench coat of the man who’d disappeared into the john. She’d alerted the guard, paged 911 and kept her head low when the bullets started flying.

Shauna squirmed beneath the immovable weight of the determined detective and repeated the command. “Get. Off.”

But she went still beneath his surrounding warmth when the bullets abruptly stopped. She recognized the sound of the thieves switching out their ammo. Would they fire again? Choose more living targets this time? Could she reach her gun in her purse? Where was her purse? Was there any way to get to the two wounded guards and help them? The eerie silence after the deafening barrage of gunfire made her thoughts seem loud inside her head.

“Shh.”

At the whisper against her ear, Shauna caught her breath, thinking for one crazy moment that she’d uttered her thoughts out loud and given herself away. She might have trembled as fear found a chink in the adrenaline charging through her system. And Detective Masterson’s arm might have tightened imperceptibly around her, offering reassurance as well as protection.

For one deep, controlled breath, Shauna allowed herself to accept Eli Masterson’s comfort. A man’s personalized warmth and strength were a rare treat in her life, and for that one breath, she let herself be a woman who was sheltered and cared for.

But that wasn’t who she was. With the next inhale, she became a cop again. And not just any cop.

An acrid cloud of gunpowder, plaster dust and fear stung her nose. But the only thing she reacted to was the shift of hard muscles against her back and bottom.

The instant she felt Masterson move, Shauna snatched at his arm, silently warning him to stay put. The detective could play cowboy on his own time. But not when there were hostages present. Not when the perps’ intent remained unclear.

“Easy,” she breathed against the dusty wool of his sleeve. Though he stopped moving, the tension in his body never relaxed. “Assess the situation before we act.”

“Everybody stay put and no one else gets hurt!” The man in the trench coat took charge. The movement of his voice indicated that he’d gone behind the counter. “Get the documents and whatever cash you can grab.”

Documents? Shauna frowned. So this wasn’t a straight-out robbery. She should have guessed as much from an assault that had started with a precisely timed explosion.

As the voices moved farther away, the detective began a succinct report in her ear. “The situation is you’ve got two armed men, possibly three—”

“—the sweaty banker behind the counter?”

“Sharp eye.” So Masterson had been suspicious of a possible setup, too. “Those guns were stashed so they could get past the guard. And who knows what’s waiting outside? That could have been an unmanned bomb, a projectile shot—”

“These guys will have a getaway car waiting. This robbery’s too well planned not to.”

Masterson nodded agreement. “Early-morning strike. Minimal hostage risk.”

Shauna wriggled a few inches of freedom from beneath him. “Those hostages should be our first concern. I need to get out and help the guard.”

She had both arms free and was pushing up before the detective cinched his arm around her waist and pulled her back into the heated curve of his body. “Look who they took out first. I don’t think these men would be too impressed to find out we’re cops.”

Turning her cheek into the carpet, Shauna looked into Eli Masterson’s cool brown eyes. “You know who I am?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She supposed that was the curse of having such a public face. Detective Masterson thought he was earning brownie points. Fat chance. On a more charitable note, maybe he was just being a team player. If that was the case, she wasn’t cutting him any slack. He should be obeying the chain of command.

Shauna pried his arm from her waist. “Then chances are, they do, too. Keep your sidearm holstered and don’t try to be a hero.” She got her knees beneath her and wrenched free before Masterson could nab her again. “I’m a trained negotiator. I’ve dealt with situations exactly like this one. I’ve already paged—”

“Backup’s already on the way,” he informed her. His hard exhale matched her own. “Stay put. Let these guys take what they want and walk out of here. They won’t get far.”

“You two. Shut up.” The antsy thirtysomething, whose street-tough look lacked the bulk of his partner’s Kevlar vest, leveled his Smith & Wesson at Shauna’s forehead, silencing the debate. “Get behind the counter with the others.”