Page 86 of Five
A police cruiser arrives, and two officers climb out, hands outstretched as they push the crowd back, further away from the office. The desk clerk begins to harangue one of them, clearly unnerved and stressed.
It’s too much.
I want to watch for Jesse and Oscar to emerge, for Remi and Oliver to come back from their reconnoiter of the premises. I want to make sure they are all safe. But I can’t. The helplessness I feel at this moment is a horrible reminder of how I felt when Nicholas disappeared, and again when that man tried to take little Henry.
I can’t do it.
Not again.
One of the officers pushes the crowd, including Cope and me, further away from the office. Cope tries to protest but the officer shoots him a glare and he shuts his mouth.
As the minutes pass, the crowd thickens until we’re in the midst of the parking lot beside Jesse and Oscar’s cars. More police arrive and so does a reporter, that cocky Beck Wilder from several days ago.
I reach for my phone, needing something to do with my hands, but it’s not in my pocket.
“Damn it…” It must have fallen out into the back seat. “I need my phone,” I murmur to Cope. He’s intent on the scene unfolding in front of us and nods distractedly, so I walk around to the opposite side of Jesse’s car and open the door to Oz’s, then bend into the backseat to search for the phone.
There it is…all the way on the other side…
“Don’t move.” Something hard presses into my neck at the base of my skull, and I go absolutely still. “Give me the fucking—”
There’s a roar of sound, muted by the rush of blood in my ears, at the same time the pressure at my neck rips away, and I jerk up to see Cope tackling the man to the ground. Cope pulls his fist back and lands a rage-fueled blow to the man’s face, only to be flipped almost immediately to the ground as the attacker wraps his legs around Cope’s hips in a move that’s faintly Eastern in aspect. They struggle in a brutal dance for supremacy, Cope divided between ensuring the gun still in the man’s grip doesn’t fire and trying to beat him bloody.
I hesitate for a split second, fascinated by the viciousness of his movement. I’ve never had someone fight for me. Never really had the impetus, but I’m not confident any of the guys I’ve dated would have battled for me as Cope is doing.
Unfortunately, what Cope has in sheer strength is matched by my attacker’s own acumen.
“Help!” I scream, half running toward the crowd. They part as if by magic, one of the officers pushing through. Distracted by my scream, Cope shifts his attention for a second and the man whips him across the face with the pistol. When Cope flinches back, he rolls to his feet and takes off running.
As I watch, the cops doing crowd control pursue. The attacker brings his gun down, hard, on a man climbing into his car some distance away, then jumps into the hijacked vehicle and tears away, dragging the man a few yards before pushing him out and slamming the door.
Cope pulls me out of the way as the car flies past us and my shocked gaze darts to him. Blood splatters the front of his shirt from where he was struck and on instinct, my hands fly out, grabbing hold of his shirt with fists that tremble.
It was him.
I sink to my knees, the asphalt biting into my flesh and my hands still gripping Cope.
He was right there, and he almost had me.
Twenty-Two
Oscar
“Hunt!”
The thundering bellow makes me cringe, but I always knew I’d have to face the music with the captain after the disaster at Conch Marina.
Neve had a gun pointed at her. That shouldneverhave happened.
I’d hoped I might have had a chance to calm down before we got into it, though.
I’ve sent the others home, deliberately putting some distance between us so I don’t say anything I might regret. Because right now I just want to lash out.
I want to lash out at Oliver for persuading me to let her come along.
I want to lash out at Cope because he had one job. One simple job. Stay with Neve and make sure that no one points a fucking gun at her.
Hell, I even want to lash out at Neve for insisting on putting herself in harm’s way.
