Hold on Tight (30 page)

As she stood there, staring at the top of her hands, large, strong ones covered them. Saint’s, not Lester’s.

She didn’t—couldn’t—look up for a few moments. When she finally did, her breath caught at the sight of him, staring at her, his eyes wet.

“You told me you wouldn’t leave,” he reminded her.

“I won’t, not for long.”

He nodded, looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t.

“I know you think I’m doing this to make up for what I couldn’t do when I was fourteen,” she said. “You might be right. But if I don’t do this … Kevin put his life on the line for us. Despite her objections, so did Grace. And as angry as I want to be at him, I understand.”

“Just remember, I’m not ready to let you go, Patricia. Not by a long shot,” he managed, giving her hands a final squeeze. “You fight with everything you’ve fucking got, understand? No prisoners.”

“No, no prisoners,” she repeated.

He walked away first and she was glad, because she wouldn’t have been able to turn her back on him. A part of her still wanted to run, to leave all of this chaos, stick her head in the sand and pretend that she was still the damaged girl, the fucked-up woman who no one could count on … who could trust no one.

But that girl had disappeared amid the events of the past days … months, maybe even years. And with that resolve, she began to walk toward the building, without looking back.

She heard Jamie call her name softly, a plea, a prayer … an apology. She saw the ghost of Jamie’s young face peering out at her from the closet and forced herself to turn, to see the face of the woman instead.

With that picture now firmly embedded in her mind, she steeled herself and walked inside the building, not at all sure what she’d find. A strange sense of calm numbed her body when the door closed behind her, and she continued to move forward, her sneakers barely making noise on the highly polished linoleum.

The school smelled like chalk and ammonia, and it was warm, so warm, as she breathed the humid air. Her shirt stuck to her back and she glanced down at her hands again.

I can kill with my bare hands
.

Just then, she heard a muffled sob. She looked up to see Grace standing in an open doorway a couple of feet from her.

“Grace, it’s okay.” PJ tried to reassure her, but Grace turned even more pale, which made the bruises on her face stand out in stark contrast. There were traces of blood along her mouth, and yes, the woman was in shock. She wasn’t moving, and so PJ walked to her swiftly.

“Grace, it’s me, PJ. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to get you out of here.”

No response from Grace other than another whimper. The woman was small and blond and curvy—once had been considered beautiful.

PJ’s palms were sweating. She wiped them on her jeans so she could unfasten the wires in the time Alek had allotted.

Four minutes and she was sure he wouldn’t give them a second longer.

The clock was ticking. Hurriedly, she undid the ties on the vest, fingers shaking at the amount of C4 wired to it.

As she worked, she spoke rapidly. “Grace, when I take this off, you’ll need to walk, and keep walking, straight out the double red doors. Jamie’s out there—so is the FBI. And David. Walk and don’t look back. I’m going to get Kevin.”

Grace stared at her. “I always knew this would happen. I never wanted you or your sister. I knew this would happen.”

PJ had known it too. Finally, the vest was off and she told Grace, “Go,” pushed her toward the door, hard as she could. Grace stumbled, and that seemed to break her catatonic state. She began to run, slamming her fists against the door until it opened.

PJ slid the vest on, affixing the Velcro straps and the wires as she stared out, until light from the police cars momentarily blinded her.

She turned and began to walk down the hallway, felt the rush of air at her back and then nothing as the door slammed shut, sealed like the mouth of a tomb.

“Grace,” Jamie whispered beside him. She made a move toward her foster mother, while he looked down, realized he was rubbing his fingers together. He looked back up and saw the agent helping Grace, and Chris suddenly knew what the hell was wrong with this picture.

“She’s still wired,” he called out. “Get the hell down!”

Without waiting, he grabbed Jamie, ran with her as the explosion shattered the air behind them. A blast big enough to rain debris on their heads, big enough for him to smell the scorch of body and machinery and earth.

Jamie was fighting him—pushing and shoving and scratching to get out from under him. He hadn’t landed hard on her and she wasn’t hurt—but she was yelling,
“No!”
over and over again.

He kept her down on the ground until the rumbling stopped, until he heard the firefighters calling for backup, springing into action. Until he heard the harsh whoosh of water from the trucks, sounding like a pounding rain, and then he pushed himself off her.

She sat up—he let her do that, but he wouldn’t let her stand until he checked her over. She resisted, reduced to simply whispering, “No,” now.

Finally, she looked at him and the fog cleared, enough for her to ask, “PJ?”

“I don’t know.”

“Grace?” she asked, even though she knew. Chris shook his head.

“Grace. My God, she didn’t deserve that.” Jamie stared at him. “PJ was supposed to take off the vest.”

“Grace wasn’t wearing a vest when she came out. Alek probably planted another bomb on her. PJ only had minutes to make the exchange.” Chris surveyed the damage.

It had definitely been some C4—not a lot, or all of them plus the school building would’ve been blown sky high. No, this bomb was about making a statement.

The two police cars closest to the building had been destroyed, as was the back of the building, where Grace had come from. The gaping opening was nothing but charred brick, allowing them to see into the building, straight through to a second set of doors.

“PJ—my God, PJ!” Jamie screamed when she followed his gaze, saw what a hit the building had taken. The corridor where PJ and Grace had swapped the vest was now a melted mess.

“We need a phone—get me a line!” Lester was calling out, and was quickly handed a cell phone, which he immediately dialed and then placed on speaker. The line rang and rang, Jamie nearly hyperventilating.

There were no immediate signs of another body—of PJ—but knowing the condition the bodies of both Grace and the agent who’d run to help her were in right now, Chris didn’t take that as a reliable indicator.

He said his own version of a silent prayer, even though he was pretty damned rusty in that department.

Fuck, don’t fucking let this happen to PJ—to both PJ and Jamie. They were so close to reconnecting
.

“You both okay?” Nick knelt down by Jamie and Chris.

“Yeah, we’re all right. You?”

“I was on the other side of the building when I heard the explosion, doing some recon,” he said as he helped Chris up. Chris’s ears rung, but otherwise he was fine. Both men picked Jamie off the ground, held her steady as she stared at Nick.

“Tell me it didn’t explode inside the building.”

“The other side of the building’s fine,” Nick said. “That’s where he’s holding them.”

“How do you know that?” Chris asked.

Nick pointed to the house nestled behind the school. “I went on their roof, looked in. Saw shadows moving in the upper stairwell. It’s pretty well blocked off, according to the building plans. There’s a small window, but that’s about it. It’s a tough shot, but unless the SWAT team’s going to barrel-ass in there, it’s all we’ve got.”

Jamie nodded. “Did you tell Coop or Lester?”

“Lester knows. Coop’s unconscious,” Nick said. “Jake’s with him.” He pointed to where Coop lay on the grass. Immediately, Jamie rushed over to him, Chris and Nick following.

“He’s okay—a definite concussion,” Jake told her, “but otherwise okay.” Jake, who was also bleeding from somewhere—it had soaked through his T-shirt, but he waved off the medical attention when it arrived, telling them to
fucking take care of the head injury
.

“It’s a circus,” Jamie said, looking around. “This is exactly what Alek wants. Besides PJ and me inside with him.”

As Chris peered at her he realized the expression on Jamie’s face wasn’t terror. It was anger. Determination. All fear was gone.

“That’s not happening. Under no circumstances,” Chris barked at her.

She grimaced and moved to walk away from him. But he was done letting her call the shots with this. He didn’t care how caveman he had to get.

He hadn’t been able to stop Mark, couldn’t save him—and perhaps there was no saving PJ, but there was no way he was letting Jamie sacrifice herself on his watch. No fucking way.

“I know,” he said evenly. “I’ll do everything in my power not to let that happen. You have to trust me on that.”

Two SWAT snipers were walking toward them. Earlier, she’d heard Coop tell Lester that Chris was the best sniper for this job, bar none. That the CIA and the FBI regularly tried to recruit him.

That a rifle was magic in his hands.

Now they were going to take him up on it.

She watched as the men spoke with Chris. Within a few minutes, they were handing him a match grade rifle and a SWAT vest.

Chris stood in front of her, worked with his rifle and the scope. He put his headset on; she didn’t know if he was talking to his brothers or the FBI or the marshals, and she didn’t care. Instead, she kept trying to feel PJ, to channel her sister … to pray.

Chris’s face remained tight, his mouth drawn into a thin, grim line, and she realized, with a sudden, aching clarity, exactly what the problem was. “This is the first time … since Mark.”

He didn’t answer, stared through the scope and then brought it down again. “If I miss, you’ll never forgive me.”

“That’s not true.” She grabbed his chin, forced him to look at her. “That is
not true
. But I know you can do this.”

He nodded, twisted his head free from her grasp. He didn’t believe her.

“I want to go with you,” she said.

“No,” she heard Nick say, and she turned. She realized that Jake, Nick and Saint were right behind her.

“You two,” Jake said as he pointed at both Jamie and Saint. “No fucking way. You’re too close to this. So is Chris, but he’s the best person for the job—we all know that.”

Saint began to argue, but Chris stepped forward to calm him. She took that opportunity to approach Jake.

“Jake, listen … Chris hasn’t been able to shoot his rifle, not since Africa,” she whispered, yet there was no mistaking the urgency in her voice.

He watched her carefully, his smoke-gray eyes giving nothing away. And then, “Yeah, we know. We’ve got his back, Jamie. He can do this.”

Chris was already walking away from their small group.

“We’ll get him,” Jake told her before he and Nick followed Chris.

She watched the trio’s backs as they jogged across the field, toward the closest neighboring house. The FBI had already cleared the family out, and now Chris and his brothers began their ascent to the roof, in order to line up the best possible shot.

“He’s the best,” Saint told her, just as Lester called out, “Jamie, we’ve got Alek on the line—he wants to talk to you.”

She took off at a dead run for Lester, with Saint right on her tail.