Midnight Hero (4 page)

She knew Con's depth, intelligence and dedication. The report confirmed everything he'd stressed about preparation. A SWAT officer's job was much more than bashing in doors and eating bullets.

The words
commendation for bravery
jumped out at her. With growing dread, she read on. Last night, Con had apparently spotted and neutralized a series of deadly traps hidden in the path of his brother Liam and Liam's K-9 partner, Murphy. He'd saved two lives. At considerable risk to himself. He would always be a dragon slayer.

Just like her father.

Sick inside, she stumbled to the counter to get her purse and tucked the folded papers away. She'd make sure he got the application back before he missed the deadline.

Bailey stared at the register, trying to sort her thoughts. Deadline. She had to count the money and deliver it to the bank. She glanced into the murky, deserted mall, and her stomach sank. She might already be too late. Getting fired for negligence would make this horrible day intolerable.

The key opened the register and she separated bills into neat piles. Con had told her to think through the problem logically, without emotion. She tried to push emotion aside. There was no doubt in her mind Con loved her, and she loved him. Logically, how strong was love? Stronger than duty? Stronger than sorrow? Stronger than fear?

Not in her experience.

If love were strong enough to overcome all those things, the divorce rate wouldn't be so high. And the divorce rate for cops was astronomical. Thank goodness the news broadcast this morning had jolted her to her senses in time.

She unzipped the bag and stuffed the bills and deposit slip inside. Logically, if someone listed her suitability to be a SWAT wife, she'd fail miserably. Unlike Con, she wasn't cut out for the
job. She'd suspected that when he'd taken her to the department's Halloween party.

The officers' wives hadn't noticed her floundering out of her depth. They'd welcomed her, appearing no different from other engaging, friendly women she'd known. Until the call-out came. The women of Alpha Squad had kissed their men—maybe for the last time—without tears. Had sent them off to war with smiles on their faces and no traces of fear in their eyes. Instead of rushing home and worrying…waiting in dread…those women had stayed at the party and managed to have a good time.

She didn't have the strength or courage. So what if she spoke Latin, French, Spanish and Italian and could recite both positive and negative effects of theobromine? Romance languages and the chemical breakdown of chocolate were of no use to Con.

Bailey sighed in longing. Con wanted her, she wanted him. Giving in to her need would be easy. They'd be happy for a while. She scooped the change from the tray into the bag with the bills, then stared at the money. But at what cost? Logically, as time passed, they would pick and tear each other apart until one of them couldn't take it. The price was just too high.

The unvarnished truth—Con possessed a poet's heart and a warrior's spirit. Logically, in the final battle, the poet didn't stand a chance. The warrior would choose duty over love. Sacrifice his personal feelings for the greater good. He would leave her. Either by desertion or death.

Just like her father.

She zipped the canvas bag closed. Finished. Shoulders slumped in defeat, she stepped into the gloomy, eerily silent mall. River View Mall had been remodeled last year. Rather than a long, corridor-type layout, it spiraled three stories upward, with intricate columns of escalators at its center. During the holiday season, a towering Christmas tree stood on one side of the escalators, reaching almost to the third floor.

A glass-walled sky bridge connected to the food court on the third floor offered panoramic city views. Beautiful fountains, imaginative sculptures and eclectic art drew browsers as well as shoppers. At the moment, some stores were dimly lit by emer
gency lights, some cloaked in shadow. Christmas displays that had looked cheerful an hour ago now seemed spooky. She shivered. She preferred the mall warmly lit and bustling with interesting people to this eerie emptiness. The cold, deserted space echoed the barren desolation inside her.

As she trudged past Beautiful Brides next door, she looked away from the wedding gown displayed in the window. Every cell of her being recognized Con as her mate, yearned to be with him.

Why did it have to be so complicated? So impossible. So cruel.

Would she ever remember him without the pain, the longing? She touched the hummingbird charm nestled at her throat. She didn't think so. More scars for her to bear. He was stronger, more resilient. He was hurt now, but in time, he'd be okay. He was better off without her. She had to believe that.

She cut kitty-corner across the mall's imitation marble floor. Why couldn't she be the woman he needed? The woman he deserved? Why had she been given the desire, but not the courage? She didn't want to give him up.

She jerked to a halt in front of Santa's workshop. Everything in her roiled in hot rebellion at surrendering. She clenched her jaw. She descended from hardy, dauntless pioneer stock. Her past might have left scars, but she wasn't a coward. If there was any way for her to overcome her fears and not let Con down, she'd grab it in a heartbeat.

Bailey stared morosely at Candy Cane Lane. During the past month, excited kidlets had traipsed past reindeer and elves to sit on Santa's lap and request their hearts' desire. But Santa was gone, and Bailey's childish faith had burned to cinders.

She turned her back on the sight. The wishing-well fountain loomed in front of her. Visitors had thrown coins into the pool, each representing a wish, a dream. Hope for a miracle. The money glittered in the fountain's soft, rose-colored lights.

Con's smooth, deep voice floated through her memory.
Believe in the realm of mysteries. Believe in us.

She hadn't believed in miracles for a very long time. Maybe that was the problem. It was the Christmas season. A time of mir
acles. On impulse, she unzipped the canvas cash bag and fished through the coins inside until she found three pennies. One with Con's birth year, one with hers, and a new, shiny copper with the current year. She'd repay them from her purse.

She turned away from the fountain and gripped the coins. “I want to be with Con, forever.” She tossed the penny with his birth year over her shoulder. The coin plopped into the water.

“I need courage to be the woman he needs.” She threw the second penny, with her birth year, and waited for the plop.

“I'll do anything. Pay any price.” Holding her breath, she tossed the third coin. The splash sent hope streaming through her.

Silly, ridiculous and nothing more than superstition. She was the first to admit it. But stating her determination to try had given her resolve. Like a timid wren pushed out of the nest expecting to fall, but discovering she could fly instead, sorrow's unrelenting weight soared from her shoulders.

She zipped the bag and her footsteps were light as she approached the bank. She'd find an answer. Counseling. Assertiveness classes. A police family support group.

She paused outside the wide glass doorway and clutched the bag to her chest. Why
not
believe in the realm of mysteries? Con did. And she believed in him. It was about time she took control of her life. Went after what she wanted with everything she had.

She couldn't see anyone inside the bank, but amber lights illuminated the lobby and the doors were open. Relief streamed through her. Mike Hayes, the manager, often stayed late. He was probably at his desk, or in the vault. Surely, he'd accept her deposit. Especially since this was an emergency situation.

She started to take a step forward, opened her mouth to call out, then hesitated. The hair rose on the back of her neck and prickles crawled up her spine. The sense of menace she'd felt earlier, when she'd taken the spider outside slithered over her. Something was wrong.

She rose on tiptoe and peered inside. The teller cages were deserted. As were the desks. She glanced farther down the lobby, and horror punched into her chest. Nan and Letty cowered on the beige carpet, along with Mike Hayes. A stocky man dressed all
in black, wearing a black hood, stood with his back to Bailey, pointing a gun at her friends. A big, deadly looking machine gun.

As if sensing her presence, the man started to turn. Bailey's heart slammed into her ribs. She froze. Ice-cold terror pumped through her veins and a scream swelled in her throat.

2:00 p.m.

A
n iron hand clamped over Bailey's mouth. Aborting her scream before it was born. Cutting off her air. A thickly muscled male arm snaked around her waist and brutally yanked her to the floor.

Pinned facedown in the dark, crushed between the cold floor and a hard male body, panic ripped through her. Primitive, animal instinct for survival drove her to struggle, futile against her assailant's strength. She bit into the smothering fingers. The attacker grunted, but his ruthless hand clamped like a vise. Desperate, she clawed at the air. His forearms tightened, shackling her arms to her sides. She bucked, but he was too heavy to dislodge. Caught helplessly in his grip, she fought for freedom, her murdered scream ricocheting through her brain.

A low growl rumbled in her ear. “It's Con. Stop fighting.”

Relief deflated her like an empty balloon and she went limp.

“Nod if you recognize me, sweetheart.” His voice was a near soundless whisper. If she hadn't freaked out, she would have immediately known his unique, masculine scent mingled with cinnamon. She nodded and his grip loosened a fraction. “Keep quiet, and do exactly what I tell you. If you understand, nod again.” She managed another nod and his hand released her mouth.

Trembling, paralyzed by shock, she gasped in shallow gulps.

Con tugged her to a sitting position, crouched under the solid half wall under the bank's windows. “We need to move fast and quiet. Can you run?”

Her muscles were as weak and useless as cooked noodles. Even shaking her head
no
was an effort.

He caught her face between his hands. They were warm, solid and steady. “I know you're scared. But you've got to focus.”

She couldn't seem to suck in any air. Her vision fogged around the edges. A vast, echoing pit opened beneath her.

“Look at me.” Con's tender gaze held hers, kept her from falling into the abyss. His hands clasped her shoulders and he shook her. “Bailey,
breathe.
”

With extreme effort, she forced her lungs to inhale.

“Hold it to a four-count. Let it out slowly, to a six-count.”

He made her repeat the soothing pattern until her vision cleared and the numbness receded from her trembling limbs. She turned and flung her arms around his neck, clinging to his sure strength. “Con! I thought you'd left.”

“Everything will be okay.” His confidence seeped through her terror, slowing her trembling. “We've got to get out of here.”

As appealing as escape was, she couldn't leave her friends at the mercy of a gun-toting criminal. “What about Nan, Letty and Mike?”

“We're their only hope. If we're neutralized, the hostages are screwed.”

She couldn't think straight. “What are we going to do?”

“We have to reach the main doors. Syrone will let us out, and we can call for backup.”

Backup sounded like a fine idea. Lots and lots of cops. The more cops, the better. “O-okay.”

“Can you run now that you've got some oxygen in you?” At her nod, he flashed a reassuring smile. “That's my girl. First, we're going to crawl along this wall. Without a sound.” He eased his head up for a peek into the bank, and then jerked back down. “Go!”

What seemed like forever in reality probably took minutes. Crawling with Con's staunch presence behind her, she arrived at the corner of the building and stopped. A huge space in front of the back doors loomed ahead. An empty void affording no shelter to the hunted. They had to cross yards of exposed fake marble to reach the main doors. To Syrone and safety.

Con's hands settled on her shoulder. “When I give you the green light, I want you to run across,” he murmured. “Stay low. Then hit the floor by the front corner of the shoe store.”

Her nerves jittered. Surely he wasn't sending her into the open alone. After all, he had the training, the experience. The gun. “Where will you be?”

“Right behind you.” He bobbed up and took another fast peek inside the bank. “Go!”

Exposed, vulnerable and expecting to feel a bullet slam between her shoulder blades any second, she ran. For the first time since the lights failed, she was grateful. Semi-darkness hindered predators and helped prey. She'd once picked up a fallen baby sparrow whose frantic pulse had raced in her cupped hands. Empathy for the tiny bird's terror thundered through her veins as she huddled in front of the shoe store.

She turned, glancing in trepidation at the bank windows behind Con. Dreading to see the dark silhouette of a man with a machine gun who would snuff out his precious life in a hail of bullets and blood.

Con prowled across the void, his body low, his fluid stride as graceful as a tiger's. He wasn't even breathing hard when he reached her side. “All right?” She nodded, and he smoothed back her hair. “We're gonna be fine. I promise.”

“You can't promise. You have no control over this situation.”

“The hell I don't. Those slimeballs just hit the wrong bank. Their last bank.”

“I only saw one slimeball.”

“I saw three, and my guess is there are least three more. I'm betting the power failure isn't due to the weather. For a job this size, you need a full crew.”

She gulped. Six—or more—against two. The odds against them had tripled. “How come you're not scared?”

His teeth gleamed in a dangerous smile. “I know what I'm capable of. This little adversity is a chance to learn and grow. Find out what
you're
capable of.”

At the moment, not wetting her pants was a major accomplishment. In spite of her abhorrence to violence, admiration washed over her. Instead of wigging out, he saw facing his greatest fears as challenges. Growth opportunities, for Pete's sake. “You are some piece of work, Conall Patrick O'Rourke.”

His lightning grin flashed for the second time. “Am I in trouble again?”

God, she loved him. Every gorgeous, mischievous, courageous molecule. “Con, if we get out of here—”

“Not if.
When.
”

She wasn't so sure. Wouldn't that be one of fate's nasty ironies? To die just when she'd decided to really live? “If we get out of here, I'm going to try—”

“Shh.”
His hand again covered her mouth as the sinister silhouette she'd dreaded appeared in the bank's windows.
“Freeze.”

No problem. Her blood froze in her veins, her heart stopped.

Another silhouette joined the first, and she held her breath. Though she couldn't see their faces, like all hunted things, she felt their probing gazes piercing their hiding place.

The silhouettes shrank, disappeared. Con's hand slid from her mouth, and she sucked in a quivering breath. “Did they see us?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

He grinned again. “Because there aren't any bullets screaming past our heads.”

“Could you possibly be any more audacious?”

“This is combat, sweetheart. If I lose my head, we both die. The hostages die. And that isn't going to happen.”

Her gaze snagged on his. Sharp wariness underlying the resolve in his eyes told her he wasn't nearly as unaffected as she'd believed. High-alert vibrations emanated from his tense muscles. His words might be cavalier, but his mind and body were taut and ready for action. The thought whammed her like a sledgehammer to the skull. He was scared, too. A phrase from the SWAT evaluation report replayed in her mind.
Suppression of fear.
How much of his bravado was a front for her sake and how much was real? Did it matter? Either way, she trusted him with her life.

“What now?”

“Keep advancing, fast and quiet. Stay on this side until we're even with the One Hour Photo booth.” He flicked a glance at the empty bank windows. “Go!”

She sprinted past CD Palace. Past Quality Leather Goods. Her breathing loud and raspy in the tomb-quiet mall, she hunkered outside Death by Chocolate. She'd worked at River View five years and this was the first time it had seemed threatening. Running from criminals past windows full of fudge lent an aura of unreality. The smell of chocolate lingered in the air, the rich scent incongruous in the frightening dark void. Her stomach grumbled.

Con's arm slid around her waist. “Hungry?”

She leaned against him, taking comfort in his unshakable warmth. “I don't feel hungry.” Terror tended to squelch her appetite. “I guess my stomach is complaining because I didn't eat breakfast or lunch.” She'd been too upset to manage either.

“After this is over, I'll take you wherever you want. Deal?”

A line from every B movie she'd ever seen popped into her head. “How can you think of food at a time like this? I just want out of here. Intact.”

He gave her a hug. “Almost there. Next stop, One Hour Photo.”

The fifteen-foot-square booth perched in the middle of no-man's-land, between them and the main doors. Con scanned the walkway in all directions, and again commanded her to run.

Gasping, she clung to the orange cabana, and rested her forehead on the cool vinyl. The main doors reflected muted interior lights. Outside, black storm clouds and pounding sleet crowded the glass, thick and impenetrable. Freedom. Safety. A few hundred yards away.

“There's Syrone,” Con whispered in her ear.

The big, uniformed, African-American man had his back to them, staring into the storm. “I wonder why he's still here?”

“Probably waiting for you. You know Syrone. He won't leave until every last person is accounted for.”

Guilt assailed her. If she hadn't spent all that time agonizing over her decision about Con, she'd be long gone. Home. Safe. And so would Con and Syrone. But what about Nan, Letty and Mike? “Con? I'd thought you'd gone home. Why did you come back?”

He hesitated. “The roads are icing up. I planned to follow you at a distance to ensure you got home okay. I hung out in my truck
for a while, and finally came to find out what was taking so long.” His smooth, deep voice was low, intimate. “I wasn't going to let you see me, because you needed time alone. Until our friendly neighborhood bank robbers threw a monkey wrench into the works.”

Another phrase from his evaluation popped into her head. Sometimes, a photographic memory was a pain. Sometimes, a comfort.
Quickly adapts when an unexpected event throws the plan into disarray.
Thank goodness. Otherwise, she'd be cowering in the bank with her friends. With a gun pointed at her head. And nobody would know they were being held hostage. Maybe until it was too late.

Con's nudge derailed that awful train of thought. “Looks clear. Tell Syrone what happened. Call 9-1-1. You have your cell?”

“No, it's in my purse, in the bookstore.”

“Syrone has a radio, but just in case, take my phone. Cell phones don't work in this blasted mall anyway.” For some reason, maybe the tall, cylindrical structure, or the steel girders supporting the sky bridge, cell reception wasn't clear inside the mall. The remodeling was supposed to correct the problem, but hadn't. He passed the phone over her shoulder. “Here.”

Like his camera, the cell phone was an up-to-the-minute, complicated technological marvel. The man did love his gadgets. 007 had nothing on him. “If I can figure out how to work it.”

He chuckled. “When you and Syrone get out, dial 9-1-1 and press Send. Have dispatch call up Alpha Squad. Tell 'em I'm inside with a confirmed visual on three hostages and three suspects, with a probability of a crew of six or more. I'll signal from the third floor east windows when they arrive.”

As she slid the phone into her pants pocket, his words hit home. Shock collided with disbelief. She spun to face him. “You're not coming with me?”

“I need to gather intel and scope out the inner perimeter.”

“Are you insane? Those guys have Uzis, all you have is a handgun!”

His impassive gaze flicked away from hers. Not fast enough.

The memory of him withdrawing his hand from his jacket in
the bookstore rose like a specter in her mind.
His empty hand.
“Where's your gun?”

“Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself.”

“Where. Is. Your. Gun.”

“At the armorer's,” he admitted. “Needed an adjustment.”

Sick fear roiled in her stomach. “There is no way I'm abandoning you to those maniacs alone and unarmed!”

“Baby, this is what I do. I'm damn good at it.”

“I am not leaving without you.”

“We want all the hostages to go home safe and sound. In order for that to happen, I need to do my job.”

“Taking on six armed bank robbers with your bare hands? No!”

“I'm not about to pull anything stupid.” The determined look in his eyes said
unless I have to.
If hostages were threatened, he wouldn't hesitate to dive into the line of fire. “Trust me.”

“Con—”

“Sweetheart, we don't have time to debate.” He backed her against the wall. His hard body pressed into hers as he lowered his head and kissed her. Hot and silky, his tongue thrust into her mouth, giving and taking. Reassuring and seeking reassurance.

She tasted love. Longing. And an edge of desperation that scared her more than anything that had happened in the past thirty minutes. She clung to him, kissing him with recklessness born of fear. She could not lose this man she loved with all her being. Not before she had a chance to show him how much he meant to her. If she left and anything happened to him, he'd never know.

He ended the kiss. The steely resolve in his eyes terrified her. The wistful hope wrenched her heart. “Go. I'll see you soon.”

“I'm not going anywhere. I love you.”

“Then let me do what I'm trained for.” His face was resolute, his gaze tender. “You're a liability I can't afford. Now go.”