30 Seconds (11 page)

Her feet sank into the deep snow on the roof and her toes curled. She looked into the night. She was in the backyard and from the sound of the shooting, the battle was out front. She waddled to the edge of the roof and looked over. At five foot nine, she was pretty damn tall for a girl, but the distance between the roof and the ground was more than twice her height. She squatted, gripped the edge in her hands, and flung herself off the roof.

The pearl necklace around her neck flew behind her and caught onto the gutter. It dug into her throat, choking her until the string broke. When she landed in a heap, pearls scattered around her. The wet snow soaked through her dress, staining the expensive silk and pricking her skin with cold needles. She jumped up with a hand to her throat.

The bang of Glocks, explosion of rifles and rapid-fire of semi-automatics grew louder. She was ready to make a dash toward the pocket of woods when a voice made her stop.

“I need a doctor.” She whirled. “So I can kill her.” Tony London, with his black ponytail, pointed his AK47 at her—the gun with bullets that could go through a cop’s vest. She lifted her gun without hesitation. Tony sneered at her. “Shoot me and I’ll shoot you.” He waved his weapon, mocking her with its size. It was fifty times bigger than hers and a thousand times more deadly.

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to shake and cry and beg you not to kill me?” she said. “Well, that’s not going to happen.”

“A doctor eager to die? Now that’s new.”

“A murderer who could’ve shot me in the back, but didn’t? Now
that’s
new. Why didn’t you take the shot? Why did you hesitate?”

Tony’s grin was ugly. “Maybe I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to shoot me? Red wants me dead. You all want me dead!”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I will shoot you. After I take you and have some fun.” Tony’s eyes gleamed evilly as they roamed over her body.

She swallowed. She knew exactly what he intended to do before killing her. “I’ll be more than happy to die after that.”

“Then we’ll both get what we want.” He took a step toward her as her finger lowered on the trigger. A deafening pop exploded in her ear. Tony jolted as a bullet entered his body, but it hadn’t come from her gun; hers was on safety.

Tony face planted into the snow and she saw a police officer standing behind him.

“Dani, are you all right?” It was Max, Blake’s partner.

“Fine.”

And I’ll be even better once I take off the damned safety!

She flipped the switch and looked back at Max urgently. “Where’s Blake? Is he okay?”

“He was the last time I saw him. Now come on, I need to get you the hell out of here!”

She took a few strides, but came to a halt with the sound of bullets being fired. Her breath raced out of her lungs in a puff of white fog when she saw Max crumple to the ground, and a line of smoke rising from Tony’s gun.

She raised her gun as Tony aimed his weapon at her. She pulled the trigger twice, releasing two fast bullets. They penetrated his chest and he collapsed into the snow.

Not even bothering to check to make sure he was dead, she yanked up her dress and ran to Max. She fell beside him. “Max. Oh, Max.” She took off his vest and put her hand over his chest wound. “You’re okay.”

But she knew he wasn’t. The bullet hole was where his left ribs were. She feared it was lodged in his lung. On its way there, it could’ve shattered a rib, sending fragments throughout his chest, but there was no telling the full extent of the damage. She couldn’t do anything to help him, but she couldn’t sit there and do nothing. She couldn’t sit there and watch him die.
I’m a doctor damn it!
She ripped a strip of silk off the hem of her dress and pressed it to the wound.

“Dani…go.”

She shook her head.

“Dani…” His voice gargled and blood sputtered from his mouth. She wiped it away with another swatch of torn silk. “Between the two of us,” he choked out. “I’m going to be the only one dying here.”

“Max.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “You don’t always have to be a gentleman.”

Max managed to smile. “I do about this.” He inhaled, his body convulsed. She grabbed his hand and held it tight. “Get out of here, Dani. Go!” The boom of a gun made her flinch. “Go.” His voice was a bloody croak, but she nodded.

She kissed him goodbye on the cheek. “I love you, Max. Thank you.” She sprang to her feet and ran, knowing he probably died before she could take five steps.

Deep in the woods, she ducked behind a thick bush. While she waited, her fingers froze around the gun. She pried her fingers free and slipped the heavy gun into the pocket of her jacket. Feeling sick to her stomach, she hugged her knees to her chest.

Her life had gone from working twenty-four hours straight in the E.R. and saving people’s lives to trying desperately to save her own. The Mob aside, her life was finally what she dreamed it could be. All the empty spaces were gone. Her past wasn’t a mystery anymore. She had remembered the night of her accident. She remembered Blake. Thinking about him made her heart swell with love and unbearable fear.

When is this battle going to end?

Gunshots sounded like bubble wrap being twisted viciously.

Red wants to kill as many police officers as he can. Each dead officer is his personal victory. Killing Blake will be out of revenge, and killing me will ensure all of his loose ends are taken care of for good.

A twig snapped and she jumped, her eyes as big as satellites.

“Hello, Dr. Hart.” Red stood in front of her, his gun in her face.

“How’d you find me?”

“I followed your footprints in the snow.”

“I meant,” she growled between clenched teeth, “how did you find me
here
?”

“Well, you’re the only Dr. Hart in the area and when we lost you on the streets, I retrieved your cell phone number from your work records. I have many connections and…” He glanced down at his gun. “I can be very persuasive when I want information. I didn’t know you were a woman until you answered your cell phone. And I’m very happy you did, because I was able to track you to this neighborhood. I did research to find out the resident’s names and followed through with background checks. Imagine my surprise when I saw a picture of one of the residents and recognized him as the same fucking asshole who tried to weasel into my family. And he’s a cop to boot. I sent my men to his station to kill him and every pig there, but he was lucky. I called his house the next day and who would answer but Dr. Hart. Two birds, one stone.”

Her fingers twitched anxiously. The weight of Blake’s gun threatened to tear off her jacket pocket. “Don’t even think about it,” Red warned. “Take your hand, and the gun, out of the pocket, and don’t try anything stupid.” She slipped the gun out of her pocket slowly. “Throw it.” She chucked it over a bush, out of sight. “Good. Now take off your jacket and put it on the ground.” She slipped off the jacket and released it from numb fingers.

In the next instant, Red grabbed her. “Let’s go find Officer Herro,” he growled in her ear.

Her head whipped back with his sharp tug. The bones in her arm felt like they were being crushed by his grip. To hide her pain, she chomped on the inside of her cheek and started to recite the names of every bone in the body. All two hundred and six of them.

Red yanked her through stabbing thorns and out of the woods. He pulled her past Tony’s and Max’s bodies where pools of warm blood melted patches of snow. The harsh tug of war continued all the way to the shattered glass door.

She stepped on a large slate of glass, wincing when it cracked beneath her feet, and hopped over the shards.

Red’s steel grip steered her past the staircase and straight to the broken front door. The orchestra of guns played on the front lawn and Red pushed her closer to the dangerous music. It was louder at the threshold, as if she was sitting in a front row seat at a concert. Red jostled her, and she stepped into the flashing red and blue lights of a dozen cop cars.

The scene before her was terrifying. Bullet casings speckled the ground like angry confetti. Trails of blood crisscrossed the lawn, and lifeless forms lay here and there. She couldn’t see any of their faces, but she prayed none of them were Blake. She could forgive him for missing their dinner date, but she would never forgive him for dying.

When Red forced her out into the open, guns silenced. Eyes smeared in black, eyes behind sniper lenses, eyes dilated from loss of blood, all eyes looked in their direction. Red’s breath, hot like a dragon’s, blew into her ear. “Call to him.”

She shook her head. Red moved the gun from the base of her spine to her temple. “Call to him,” he ordered with a sharp jab to the side of her head. She winced. “Now!”

She licked the cold from her lips, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t call his name. She couldn’t call him to his death. A tear of desperation rolled down her cheek.

“Are you crying? Officer Herro, she’s crying!” Red laughed hideously. “I think she’s scared. Why don’t you come to her?” He dug the muzzle deeper into her temple. “Or I can put her out of her misery now.”

Don’t come out, Blake. He wants to kill you first. Don’t come out. Please, God, don’t let him come out.

A movement caught her attention and her eyes flashed to the right where Blake stepped out of the woods. Her heart plummeted to her stomach.
No!

“So this is the hero?” Red said it as though he were talking about a cockroach. “Put that big gun down, you don’t want to scare Dani anymore than she already is.”

Blake held his gun at arm’s length, laid it at his feet, and stepped over it. His eyes were on her, and hers were on him. He appeared to be unscathed.

“Keep your hands away from your side firearm and step up onto the porch,” Red ordered as he yanked Dani back toward the door. “Don’t try anything you’ll regret.”

Blake stepped onto the porch.

“Good,” Red said. “Now come into the house.”

Blake stalked forward, his eyes blazing. Red and Dani disappeared into the house and in a couple of steps so did he.

“Close the door,” Red ordered.

Blake kicked the door closed. His eyes didn’t so much as flinch from Red’s.

“We obviously want the same thing.” Red stroked Dani’s hair. “And boy…” His hand touched her naked shoulder and caressed her arm. “It’s beautiful what we want.”

Dani’s skin crawled. She could feel his eyes on her body and it made her want to scrub herself with bleach. Red’s finger skimmed back up her arm. “But she’s not the only thing we want, now is it? We want each other dead. Killing each other is the easy part. Deciding who will get her is not. How about we settle this with a good old-fashioned shoot out?” He released the cartridge from his gun, letting it slip to the floor. “One bullet. One shot to kill. What do you say?”

Blake responded by ripping off his Kevlar vest and removing the cartridge of bullets from the Glock waiting at his hip. He lowered it to his side and looked back at Red, his eyes were full of rage and hate.

“Whoever doesn’t die will get the prize.” The tip of Red’s finger skimmed her jaw. She would’ve jerked her head away if the gun wasn’t digging into her temple. “But she’s not going to be watching. Oh, no. She’s going to be in the middle of it.” He shoved Dani forward, causing her to stumble. Trying to stay upright, she felt the gun at the back of her head. “Walk!”

She stepped forward. Her knees wanted to buckle, her legs were gelatin, but she was able to walk until Red ordered her to stop.

“Our only visual is over your pretty shoulders, Doc,” Red told her. “So don’t move. Don’t even flinch.”

Dani locked her gaze with Blake, willing him her strength and gathering his around her. His face was as hard as stone. She knew the odds. She knew both of them were going to get shot, and she knew the chances of a lethal wound were great, far greater than survival. With every fiber of her being, every cell in her body, she prayed for Blake to live. He was her high school sweetheart, the man of her dreams. She loved him with all her heart. She mouthed the endearment, wishing she could say it aloud and hoping she’d have a chance to again. She knew Blake understood it, because when he raised his gun, his eyes were fierce.

Horror pumped through her, leaving her ice cold. She couldn’t breathe.
What if Blake dies?

“Don’t worry, Doc,” Red said from behind her. “This will be over in thirty seconds.”

She swallowed hard. Her ears burned red hot. She could feel the two guns, the two sets of eyes trained over her shoulders. Anger sizzled with anticipation. She closed her eyes, held her spine stiff, even when it felt like it would crack. She held her breath, even when she thought her lungs would explode.

She heard a gun go off, followed instantly by another bang. The twin booms echoed in her ears and two bullets sailed past her head as her mind screamed. She opened her eyes to see Blake fall.

“Blake!” She ran to him and fell to her knees. A dark shadow was spreading across his chest. She tore open his uniform. Her hands stilled at the sight of the red stain soaking his white T-shirt.

“How bad is it?”

She looked into Blake’s green eyes. “It’s not. It’s not.” She used the hole from the bullet to tear his shirt apart and examined the wound. The bullet was in the middle of his chest. She searched for a puddle of blood at his sides and found none; the bullet was still inside him. She watched blood bubble out of the wound and pressed his shirt to it, while praying his artery hadn’t been clipped.