Page 27 of Two Hearts
“Are you sure?Can you promise me that?Can you stand there and say you know without a doubt that my sister isn’t going to bleed to death while some negotiator plays psychological chess with this idiot?”
Jack licked his lips.She had a point, and a damned good one.
“At least let’s try to get close enough to see her.To see how badly she’s hurt.Then we can make a decision.With all the information.Okay?”
Jack nodded.Then he smiled just slightly.“You’d make a hell of a cop, Grace.”
“Oh, hell, Jack, you probably say that to all the socialites.”
“Only the ones I’m married to.”
There was a strength in her that Jack hadn’t seen before.Should have, probably.But hadn’t.Or if he had, he hadn’t recognized it for what it was.
But she was something.
Little did he know, he was only beginning to know his wife.
As the ambulances rolled away, Jack left instructions to keep the scene secure, but do nothing more.He made the obligatory suggestion that Grace stay behind, and her response to that was a look that could have wilted lettuce.He’d known better.
And then he and Grace started off across a littered lot in the rain.
* * *
Grace lay on her belly on the rain-wet grass, Jack’s hand on the center of her back to keep her there.Just ahead of them, down a slight incline and beyond the veil of pouring rain, was a large, long building made of powder-blue, ribbed steel.The front of it was lined with giant-size white doors that looked as if they’d roll upward to let large vehicles inside.Five of them.And at the end, a normal-size door, also white, for a person to enter through.
“That must be the office down there,” Jack whispered, pointing to the little door on the end.“I’ll bet that’s where they went inside.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.“They were in a hurry.It’s the easiest access.Lots faster than messing with one of the overhead doors—less noticeable, too.”
Gracie watched her husband for a moment, the way his eyes scanned the area below with hawklike focus.He didn’t even blink.“How are we going to get down there?”she asked.“There’s not so much as a bush on this slope…and it’s going to be light soon.”
“This way.”He slid backward a few feet, before getting up and helping her to her feet, as well.Then he started off in another direction, walking a parallel line with the wall of the building they’d been studying.She assumed he knew what he was doing—so she didn’t ask.But it seemed damned strange.
When they’d gone far beyond the point where the building ended, he turned right and walked this time in line with the rear of the building.She could glimpse it every now and then through the shrubs that were clustered back here.No windows that she could see.No back doors.Again, they kept going after the building ended, and Jack took them to the right again, all the way to the front, so they wound up directly opposite of where they had been before.
He crouched there, looking down at the door.“Only one way in,” he said.“Let’s hope they aren’t right there waiting.”
“So all that walking was a waste of time?”
He smiled slightly at her.“No.He’ll be expecting us to come from the opposite direction, if he’s expecting us at all.He won’t likely be looking this way.”
She nodded.“I like the way your mind works.”Then, glancing down at the little white door, she shivered.
“Stay here,” Jack told her.“I’ll go in alone.”
“Right.”
He looked at her, surprise etched on his face.
“Well, I’m not going to let you go down there and get shot,” she told him.“Suppose Darius is waiting on the other side of that door with a gun drawn?”
Jack licked his lips, averted his eyes.“He won’t be.”
“Maybe we can make sure of that.”She’d been crouching low, but now she dropped to her knees and began patting the ground with her hands.She found one stone, then another, and a third.Gathering them up, she rose.
“What do you have in mind?”Jack asked.
