Page 85 of Forged in Peril

“Special delivery,” he said cheerfully, holding up a large paper bag with the cafe’s logo plastered on the front. “Already all paid up.”

“How nice,” Jaclyn said sweetly, leaning over and taking the bag before Bristol could move. “Forgive me, sir, if you don’t mind, we do have some rather urgent things to finish up here.”

Ron turned toward Jaclyn, who slid the gun further behind the door and out of sight.

It was a perfect chance to run, and there was no way that Bristol could take it. Not if it meant that this innocent man might be caught in the crossfire.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Ron said, shaking his head. “I hate to interrupt, I’m sure work here in the security world is real important. But they told me to bring it right to Bristol, and when she wasn’t at her desk, I had to bring it in here, since your office was the only one that had someone in it.”

He chuckled nervously, and Bristol watched in disgust as Jaclyn stared at him as though he was nothing more than a bug on the bottom of her Italian leather shoes.

At last, she gave him a final fake smile and began to close the door, and without another word, he was gone.

Bristol let out a breath as Jaclyn locked the door again. She was glad that Ron was safe, but she may have just passed up her best chance at getting away.

Jaclyn waited several seconds before she spoke.

“I figured there’s no point in arousing suspicion prematurely,” she explained, sounding almost apologetic, as though the man had interrupted some important task she’d asked Bristol to complete. “Besides, we might be holed up for a few hours yet. Kind of nice of the universe to provide us with something to eat.”

Bristol nodded, unsure how to respond to someone who revealed so little emotion. She was like a robot, and it made the situation all the more terrifying.

She was growing more certain by the minute that the delivery truck really did contain a bomb, just like in the case she’d read about at D&P. This time, however, she feared that their wicked operation would be successful.

She was the only one who knew what was coming, and she had no way to alert anyone else. The phone sat mere inches away on the desk, but if she so much as reached for the receiver, she was as good as dead.

She watched in silence as Jaclyn pulled out several plastic forks and knives as well as a small stack of napkins from the takeout bag.

“It’s really in there,” the woman muttered to herself, trying to get the last, large item free of the too-small bag. Bristol said nothing.

At last, Jaclyn drew forth a square box and laid it on her desk. She opened the lid, plastic knife in hand, revealing one of Iris’s favorite peach pies, which happened to be Bristol’s favorite.

On top of it were the words ‘I’M SORRY’, written out in coffee beans.

Bristol felt a swell of tears in her throat and struggled to swallow them back.

Jaclyn closed the lid a little too fast, sending several of the brown beans falling over the edge of the pie.

“Lunch would have been nice, but it’s all calories, I suppose,” she said, but Bristol barely heard her. Even the constant terror of the gun that was pointed at her had begun to fade into the background.

All she could feel was regret.

Had she gone to Cam right away, had she given him the benefit of the doubt, she wouldn’t be here now, held hostage by a madwoman. She wouldn’t be waiting helplessly as the good people of FBS were put in mortal danger, including the man who deserved so much better than what she’d offered to him.

She’d relied on herself, and in the end, she’d let everyone down.

It was all her fault.

CAMERON

After his pep talk with Reilly, the morning had passed by in a rush.

Most of the time had been taken up by the firearm audit, and by the time lunch rolled around, Cam realized that he’d scarcely managed to put even a dent in the rest of his endless piles of work.

Instead of heading for the cafeteria like he usually did, he’d asked one of the security trainees–a nice young guy called Braden–to bring him something from downstairs. He was still at his desk now, typing up reports between bites of cold-cut sandwich.

He’d tried to stop thinking about Bristol long enough to get some work done, but thoughts of her face still managed to distract him every few paragraphs.

All he could do was hope that Iris’s famous pie might smooth things over enough that she’d at least tolerate his presence for a few minutes.

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