Page 66 of Unlikely Guardian

Lilly was in the doorway of her bedroom, and even though the room itself was pitch-black, Jason could see the shadowy figure behind her. It took a moment to figure out why he couldn’t distinguish any facial features.

The person was wearing a ski mask.

In addition to the ski mask, he or she had a gun aimed at Lilly. Like Erica’s weapon, it, too, was rigged with a silencer. So, who was the brains behind this operation: Erica, or this person who had seemingly come out of nowhere?

The person didn’t speak, but Jason saw the arm-grip tighten around Lilly’s neck, and he saw the slight gesture with the gun. The gesture was directed at Erica.

“Jason, give me those,” Erica insisted, obviously responding to the gesture.

She reached for the guns that Jason had in his hands, but he sidestepped her. He could have easily brought her down with one hard punch. Or with one shot. And, man, he wanted to do that after what she’d just pulled. However, the person holding Lilly would retaliate.

“Think of Megan,” Lilly whispered to him. A warning for him to do whatever it took to prevent gunfire. Drywall wasn’t much protection against bullets, and he couldn’t risk Megan getting hurt.

But he could say the same for Lilly.

He couldn’t risk her life, either.

Now, the problem was how was he going to convince her to play it safe? That elbow ploy had worked on Erica, but Jason had a feeling that the success had been more luck than anything else. He didn’t want to rely on luck to keep his family safe. And it didn’t matter that Megan wasn’t his biological daughter, or that Lilly wasn’t his wife, they were his family in every way that counted.

“I want the guns,” Erica prompted, motioning for Jason to hand them over.

Jason said a prayer and made his move. He reacted as fast as his hands could react. He tossed one of the guns aside and, in the same motion, he latched on to Erica. He shoved her in front of him and put the remaining gun to her head.

“Drop your weapon,” Jason ordered the person in the ski mask.

The person made a slight huffing sound. “Not on your life. Or rather, should I say, not on Lilly’s life.”

Jason didn’t have any trouble recognizing that voice, and obviously neither did Lilly. Her eyes widened a fraction, and her mouth tightened. “Raymond Klein,” she mumbled.

Another huff and Klein loosed his grip around Lilly’s neck so he could peel off the ski mask. Jason almost made a lunge for him then and there, while he was briefly distracted with the mask removal, but never once did Klein take the gun from Lilly’s head. Jason figured he was fast, but he wasn’t faster than a finger already poised on the trigger.

“I’d hoped to avoid all of this,” Klein said in a discussing-the-weather tone. He aimed his attention at Erica. “We need to do this quickly. We don’t want those two cops waking up.”

“They’re alive?” Jason asked.

“For now. I used a stun gun on them once Erica had them amply distracted. Then, I gave them each a dose of barbiturates that should keep them out for a while longer.”

Jason processed that information. And it didn’t process well. With that ski mask, the two cops probably hadn’t seen their attacker’s face. But they’d sure as heck seen Erica’s. Jason figured that meant Klein planned to set Erica up so she would take the blame.

Erica obviously hadn’t figured that part out yet.

“Drop your weapon, Detective Lawrence,” Klein insisted. “Or I’ll kill Lilly before you’ve even had a chance to say goodbye to her.”

Jason wasn’t immune to that threat. It cut through him like a switchblade. But he pushed aside his fear and concern and focused on being a cop. Somehow he had to get Lilly and Megan safely out of this.

“Have you forgotten that I could do the same to Erica?” Jason fired back at Klein.

“Be my guest,” Klein calmly said.

Because he still had hold of Erica, Jason felt her body tense. The quick, almost frantic intake of breath was an obvious clue that she’d just realized she was expendable.

“What are you saying?” Erica asked, frantically shaking her head. “The plan was to kidnap Lilly. That’s it.”

“The plan has changed,” Klein informed her. “I can’t leave witnesses behind, now, can I?”

“No!” Erica shouted. “We were going to kidnap Lilly, that’s all. You said you could get her out of the country and put her somewhere so she wouldn’t be able to come back. And she’d be out of the way so I could move back in here with Megan and Jason.”

“I lied,” Klein said, and he angled his eyes toward Jason. “Put the gun down now.”

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