Peril (38 page)

“I prefer choking the life out of people but in Scott's honor, I think bleeding to death is a good way to go.”

He tore the dressing off of her arm.

Chapter 44

1635, Saturday, August 11

N
ATHAN WAS POSITIONED
behind Lee and his shield.

Lee held a pistol to the other side of the barrier, aimed at the hostage taker. Dylan Worthy hid behind Morgan like a coward. The kill shot was directly behind her head.

“Where's Scott?” Nathan called.

The man shook his gel spiked blond points. “He's the one lying on the ground.”

Sweat dripped down Nathan's neck.

Not again
.
This is not going to happen again.

Dylan repositioned his sidearm, moving it from Morgan's rib cage to her head. “I'm picking up where Scott left off.”

Pressure squeezed at Nathan's heart, and each breath spread chills through his chest.

“Dylan, correct?” Nathan said.

He edged out a little from behind Morgan. The corner of one lip curled up. Outright disdain. Nathan assumed he had the right target. The right information. Which meant the situation was volatile.

How do you give a serial murderer a hero's death—and not lose innocent lives?

What concerned Nathan even more was the misting puff of blood that spewed from Morgan's arm with each rapid heartbeat and formed a small pool of red on the floor that grew larger each second.

“Let's say we start with something easy,” Nathan said. “This is between you and me. Let everyone who can walk leave right now.”

“Fine.”

A faint wash of relief eased through Nathan, immediately replaced by a seed of doubt.
That was easy. Too easy, really
. Nathan turned his head.

Drew
.
Good to see you're still alive.

But his friend hadn't budged.

“Drew,” Nathan said. “Please.”

Drew placed prayerful hands to his lips. “Nathan, you don't have much time. She's bleeding because her dialysis shunt's been nicked. It's like an artery. She'll bleed out if you don't end this soon.”

“Okay, Drew. I got it. Now move. Out. Out. Out.” The drips of Morgan's blood were her sand in the hourglass. “Dr. Adams, you too.”

He shook his head defiantly. “I'm not leaving her.”

The muscles of Lee's shoulder tensed under Nathan's hand. The placement kept him aware of his position in relation to his protection. They didn't need any more variables inserted into this scenario. “Tyler—”

“It's not an option.”

Nathan eased farther from Lee, partially to be a target to Dylan's weapon. “What is it that you want? Spell it out for me.”

Why did Dylan tuck himself and Morgan into the corner?

“Fame.”

An explosion shattered the windows next to Morgan and Dylan.

The shock wave knocked the entire SWAT team off their feet. Nathan's ears were left with a horrifying ring. Shards of glass and shredded blankets blew out from the open space. The wind whistled in with the vengeance of a beast unleashed. Dust and debris felt like a sandblaster against Nathan's face.

His stomach catapulted—from fear or explosive force, he couldn't be sure at that moment. He scrambled to stand up. Quickly, he eyed each of his team members to be sure everyone else was still alive.

They, too, worked quickly to get back up.

Dylan began to step Morgan back to the jagged hole in the wall. Nathan fully exposed himself.

“Nathan,” Lee warned. “Get back behind me.”

“Do you have a shot?”

Lee shook his head. Nathan glanced at the other SWAT members. Their eyes told him they didn't have any shots either.

Nathan held his hands up.

“Dylan, this isn't the answer. You won't be viewed as a hero by pulling an innocent woman from a seven-story window. You'll be viewed as a coward. We can give you what you want. Fame. Glory. A soldier's burial. But you have to let her go.”

Nathan expected Morgan's eyes to be wild with fear at her impending crisis. But they were soft. Resigned. She was calm. She didn't offer the man any resistance. There wasn't anything she was going to do to prevent what she apparently wished for in her heart.

“Sometimes dying for a cause is good, but being famous for being bad lasts longer. Everybody remembers Jesse James, right? They'll remember me for Zoe Martin and all the others.”

Another step back. Two steps from the edge. From the corner of his eye, Nathan saw Tyler begin to move toward his wife. Nathan held a palm up to his movement and nudged Lee to step forward. Closer.

Morgan shook uncontrollably.

Finally, engagement. But what does it mean? Fear? Shock? Both?

“Dylan, I'm not going to let you do it,” Nathan said.

“How will you stop me?” A challenge.

Another step back. The wind blew at Morgan's hair and the blond locks momentarily washed over Dylan's eyes.

Tyler lunged.

And Nathan followed.

Then Dylan pulled Morgan out the window.

Tyler snatched onto a piece of Morgan's body. Nathan sprang into the air. He grabbed onto both of Tyler's legs. The weight of bodies falling out of the window pulled them surprisingly fast toward a peacefully soft, clouded blue sky.

Nathan's body felt like a woodworker's plane going over rough timber as he was dragged through the remnants of the explosion. Glass bit into his skin. The smell of burned gunpowder smothered each breath. He dug his toes into the floor in an attempt to slow his body's progression.

Tyler dropped out the window.

In Nathan's mind flashed the thought of what it would feel like to fall to the concrete, his bones and muscles crushing against each other into one bloodied heap.

Then he thought of Lilly having to bear witness to another death.

She might not recover from that.

He hoped against hope that Lee would catch him. Soon.

Chapter 45

1640, Saturday, August 11

M
ORGAN
'
S STOMACH WAS IN
her throat. Her brain had trouble deciphering the dizzying images that loomed in front of her. Dylan held on to her bloodied arm with one hand, and Tyler held on to her ankle with both his hands.

A scream burst through the air—surely the last reserve of air and strength she had left—as Dylan began to shake and pull. Sharp pains shot down her arm into her hand as muscle and ligaments tore. Dylan worked to anchor his legs against the side of the building to further yank his weight against hers in hopes of sending her plummeting to her death.

And still she didn't know which she preferred. Life or death.
Teagan or Tyler?
That really was the choice to make. Her dead baby or her living husband.

She screamed again as Dylan pulled—hard—and all that held her shoulder in one place stretched and ripped more. She brought up her free hand and clasped it tight over the joint in a futile attempt to fight against the dislocation happening in her shoulder.

“Morgan!”

Tyler's voice. Distant. The wind took his words and scattered them like dead leaves.

“Morgan Adams, you do not give up!”

His fingers around her ankle began to shake. She heard more glass breaking beneath her.

“Morgan . . .” Dylan's voice now. “Isn't it a nice day to die?”

She dug her fingers into the skin of her shoulder. Her blood ran over Dylan's hand and droplets fell onto this face. He licked at them with satisfaction. “Just let it all go.”

The heel of her shoe came off. Her sock slid up her ankle the wrong direction—an undressing with her life on the line.

She heard the pop of a weapon firing, and registered a look of horror crossing Dylan's face as red bloomed on his forehead. His hand slipped off hers. No sound, not even a scream, escaped his lips as he fell toward the ground. His body bounced once on the concrete walkway then stopped. Twisted and bent like a marionette with its strings cut, he no longer held any vestige of this life.

From the window below, two additional SWAT members appeared and looked up at her. They tried to grab for her hands.

Just out of reach.

Her shoe came off. She watched it sail downward, landing near Dylan's crumpled body.

Her sock inched farther off her leg.

“Morgan Renee Adams! You grab onto me.”

She closed both her eyes and let her arms relax into the soft breeze. What she'd wanted for three months was seconds away. To leave this life. To leave all the death and grief behind. And just be free.

“Morgan!”

Tyler's screams pierced her solitude. His fingers around her ankle shook uncontrollably.

He would drop her. If she didn't do something to help save herself.

“You have to fight!”

She opened her eyes and looked below. Her body dangled against the side of the building. Her head pounded with the rush of blood in her ears. More SWAT faces below her. Two had climbed out the window in harnesses, trying to figure out a way up. Morgan teased her fingers out to the other man's outstretched hands. Inches. Merely inches from the protective grasp of the police officer.

He looked up at her. “Morgan. It's okay. I'm going to catch you.”

Was there a way to avoid his grasp? Was death still an option? Was it what she truly wanted?

“Tell Tyler to let you go.”

There was something about those brown eyes that spoke truth into her heart. It's what Tyler had been trying to say on the night he'd thought she'd claimed her own life.

Surrender everything.

Let go and be saved. Stop trying to control everything. Pride goes before the fall.

Was it really so simple?

Had she been hoping for death or clinging to life with everything in her?

She just hadn't realized which battle she was fighting.

Her skin ripped against Tyler's, and she dropped another inch. She wiggled her fingers again.

“Morgan!” Tyler screamed.

“Tyler, let me go!”

“No! I'm not letting you die.”

“It's okay. You can't see him, but he's here.”

Morgan heard Nathan's voice as he argued with Tyler. She wiggled her hands again. Both outstretched. A faint brush of skin cells against skin cells.

So close.

“Tyler! I want to be with you. I want to live.”

And she felt his fingers release her.

Chapter 46

Noon, Sunday, August 12

M
ORGAN NEVER THOUGHT A
hospital bed could be so comfortable. Even the soft whir of the dialysis machine was a welcome relief, though having a temporary catheter placed in her groin was clearly not joyous. The shunt in her arm had been permanently damaged. The dialysis nurse eyed her with a warning. She snuggled into the starched pillowcase and stared at the silver-haired man who'd always been beside her but never got enough credit. She gazed into the softness of his blue eyes and tried to move her arm toward him, momentarily forgetting that her forearm was in a bulky dressing, and the same shoulder was encased in a sling. Sharp pain ceased further movement.

He eased his fingers to his lips. “You need to be still.”

A rush of emotions overwhelmed her. A messy mix of regret, sadness, joy all spun together in her tears. “Daddy, I'm sorry.”

He clasped her remaining hand between both of his. “Morgan, there's nothing—”

Her chest caved under his forgiveness. “I was so spiteful to Mom.”

“You were hurt. I understand it. I'm just glad you weren't taken from me so that I could make you understand.” He exhaled heavily. “I know you're not mine in the biological sense, but you are my daughter. The single most important relationship we can have is not bound by blood but by adoption. By the acceptance of a free gift.” He wiped her tears from her cheeks, the pads of his fingers rough like a cat's tongue. “I want you to find that again. The joy of your faith.”

She smiled at the memory of so many moments like this laced through her childhood.

“I know, Daddy.”

“You've stopped with the death wish?”

“Yes.”

Doubt flooded his eyes.

She grabbed his hand. “I promise.”

There was a soft knock at the door, and then the small crack widened. Lilly and Thomas Reeves walked into the room. Lilly held a vase overflowing with white, light pink, and pale lavender roses.