Charity's Angel (3 page)

"What is it you're interested in?" she asked calmly. Her smile frozen in place, Charity's finger came down on the silent alarm. The signal would be relayed directly to the police department. And if she was misjudging these men and they were really undercover cops, she'd apologize later.

"Well, we're interested in a lot of things." The clean-shaven one must be the leader. He took a step toward her, a truly sickening smile on his thin face. But he didn't get a chance to continue.

Al Kocek, for whom quick wit could not be placed high on his list of attributes, chose this particular moment to demonstrate why that was the case. The silent alarm had triggered a red light and a discreet buzzer in his office. Charity speculated later that he'd probably been sleeping on the sofa when the alarm startled him awake. There were any number of intelligent reactions he could have had. Unfortunately he bypassed all of them.

"Who the hell triggered that alarm?" His bellow preceded him as he charged from the back hallway.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The man who'd been approaching Charity spun around, his hand reaching inside his coat. When it came back out, the gun was clutched in his fist. She reached out, thinking to push him off balance, but he wasn't close enough. Her fingers barely brushed the sleeve of his coat. The gun lifted and she saw his finger tighten on the trigger.

The sound of the shot was deafening. Charity threw her hands up to cover her ears, turning her head to see Al Kocek's bulky body jerk with the impact of the bullet. Red bloomed on his shoulder. He staggered and fell back.

There was a moment of unbearable silence. It was broken by a scream. For a moment Charity thought the screaming in her mind had become audible. But then she saw Sally's mouth open, her eyes bulging with terror as she stared at Al's motionless body. She dropped her hands from her ears, not surprised to find them shaking.

Sally's scream broke off into loud sobs that filled the shocked silence.

❧

On the phone at the back of the jewelry store, Gabe listened as Annie gave him a rundown of a report that had just come in. They'd been investigating an extortion racket for nearly three months and it looked as if they might finally be getting a break.

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes and we can go over it," he said. "Good thing I didn't have a hot date tonight."

It was probably just as well he hadn't had a chance to ask the saleswoman out, he thought ruefully. If she'd accepted and then he'd had to cancel, it would hardly get their relationship off to a good start. He'd ask her to hold the Pegasus for him. He could come in next week, strike up a conversation and then suggest dinner.

"You mean you'd prefer a hot date to an evening with me, sugar?" Annie's question pulled his thought back to the present.

"It's a tough choice, but duty calls."

"I think it'll be..." Gabe lost the thread of her words, his head jerking toward the open doorway as a large man ran by, his shoulder bouncing off the doorjamb. The contact didn't slow him.

"Who the hell triggered that alarm?" His angry demand came back to Gabe. The words were answered by the sharp, unmistakable crack of a .38.

Instinctively Gabe dropped to the floor, his right hand reaching for the gun tucked in the back of his waistband.

"Report a 211 in progress at Hoffman's Jewelry on Maple." His staccato words cut Annie off in mid-sentence. He heard her suck in a quick, startled breath before he continued in a low voice. "There's been a shot fired. I don't know if anyone's been hurt. We could have a hostage situation."

"Where are you, Gabe?" Her voice was all business, the slow Southern drawl gone.

"In the back. I'm going to try and get a look at what's happening."

"You be careful." Personal concern for him crept through her professional tone. "And don't do anything stupid."

"Believe me, I've never felt smarter." He set the phone down and eased to his feet, gliding over to the doorway.

The shot had been followed by a moment of shocked silence, and then a woman started screaming. From where he was, he could see nothing of the front of the store, which was both good and bad. He couldn't see what was happening, but they couldn't know he was here.

"Shut up, bitch!" The barked order cut the wailing off in midshriek. Gabe dropped to his knees and tried to remember the layout of the store. The hallway was off to one side of the main building, which meant that, unless someone was standing at the back of the store, in direct line with the hall, they wouldn't be able to see anyone in the hall.

Drawing a quick breath, he eased his head around the door, half expecting to have it shot off. There was no one in sight. But if anyone came down the hall, he'd be a sitting duck, probably a dead one at that. A gun and a badge were unlikely to endear him to whoever had fired that shot. They might have already killed one person. Shooting a cop wasn't likely to bother them.

He drew back into the employees' lounge, his eyes scanning it for anything that might be of help. There was nothing. In the distance he could hear the wail of sirens, which meant Annie had relayed the information that shots had been fired. Probably his presence, as well. So here came the cavalry. Great, as long as their arrival didn't precipitate a slaughter.

He hesitated and then jammed his gun back into the holster. Lifting one foot, he struggled with his boots, pulling off one and then the other. Stuffing them behind a box, he shrugged out of his jacket and tucked it in with them. He sincerely hoped he would be back to get them.

In his stocking feet, he padded back to the door. Once again he eased his head around the doorway. The hall was still clear. Reaching back to pull out his gun, he slipped into the hallway. In a half crouch, he moved silently down the hallway, ducking behind one of the jewelry cases at the back of the store.

He still couldn't see anything, but the low murmur of voices became clearly audible. As he listened intently, he formed a mental picture of what was happening.

"Look what you did!" The voice was young and nervous. "We weren't goin' to shoot anybody."

"The guy came barrelin' outta there like a freight train. What was I supposed to do? Ask him to tea?" This voice was older, a little guttural.

"Shut up, both of you." There was a certain crisp-ness to the third voice, a tone that said he expected to be obeyed. Gabe immediately pegged him as the leader.

"But, Sal, look what Joe did." That was the young one, whiny and scared.

"Shut up!"

Outside, the sirens had screamed to a halt in front and in back of the store. Gabe already knew the back door was useless. A desk and a couple of office chairs crowded the narrow hallway in front of it. Maybe they'd just redone the office and hadn't had a chance to get rid of the old furniture yet. Maybe the owner was just careless. Whatever the reason, the back door was effectively blocked.

In a crouch Gabe crept forward, halting at the end of the case, unwilling to risk crossing the gap between it and the next case. He could hear car doors slam outside. There was a vague murmur that told him the stores on either side of Hoffman's were being evacuated, the employees and customers taken out the back doors, herded into the safety of the parking lot.

"Sal, there's cops all over the place." That was the nervous one again. Gabe marked him in his mind. Nervous people with guns were one of his least favorite things. If someone was going to go off half-cocked and start trouble, it was likely to be the nervous one. Or, obviously, the one who'd already shot the guy who'd come barreling out of the back room.

"That man is bleeding. He needs medical attention." The calm feminine tone was like a drink of cool water. Gabe recognized the voice of the little clerk with the big green eyes, sounding just as cool as if she were asking whether they'd like to pay by check or credit card.

"Let him bleed." That was Joe, the one who'd fired the shot. "Sonofabitch shouldn't'a come out shouting like that."

"I'd like to put a pressure pad on his wound," she said, ignoring the comment. Gabe didn't doubt that she was addressing Sal. "If he dies, it will be murder."

There was a moment's frozen silence while the three would-be robbers absorbed this piece of information. Gabe's fingers tightened on the gun. She was taking a risk, pushing like that. The nervous one and the guy who'd fired the shot both sounded tense.

"See what you can do for him," Sal ordered roughly.

They all seemed to be at the front of the store. Gabe's fingers tightened around the gun as he eased forward until he could look through the gap between the two cases. The wounded man lay directly in front of him. Blood had stained the front of his jacket. Probably not as bad as it looked, Gabe thought. There wasn't enough blood for the bullet to have hit an artery—didn't look as if he was in any danger of bleeding to death.

He slid back out of sight as the girl came into view. What was her name? Chastity? No, but it was something with an old-fashioned ring to it. Charity. That was it. Charity.

Why hadn't he asked her out before this? It would have been nice to have a better feel for how she was going to react in this situation. She seemed calm so far.

He heard the soft scuff of her shoes on the carpet as she approached the wounded man. Leaning his head back against the case, he debated his next move. She had probably forgotten that he was here. Was it smart to remind her? On the other hand, it might be helpful to have an ally.

Drawing a shallow breath, Gabe eased his head around the edge of the case.. .and looked directly into Charity's wide green eyes. She didn't look in the least surprised. She hadn't forgotten him for a minute.

"Anybody else in the back?" Sal's question was so perfectly timed, he might have been following a script.

Without so much as a flicker of an eyelash, Charity answered. "No. There's no one else in back."

"Check it out, Billy."

"Me? What if there's cops back there?" Billy asked nervously.

"If there were cops back there, we'd have been looking down the barrels of their shotguns by now," Sal said impatiently. "Just go make sure nobody else is hiding in the John."

Gabe knew that when Billy rounded the end of the last case, he had only to glance sideways to discover that there might not be cops in the back, but there was one right under his nose.

Holding his breath, he listened to the sound of Billy's footsteps, cursing the carpeting that muffled them. Praying that his timing was right, he swung into the gap between the cases just after Billy walked by it. Now he was visible only from the front.

Charity's eyes flickered up to him, her hands busy putting a pad against the oozing wound high in the unconscious man's shoulder. The lacy edge identified the makeshift bandage as a half slip.

Gabe heard Billy's boots strike the uncarpeted hallway. He could slip in behind him and eliminate at least one of the bad guys. But that would simply alert the other two to his presence and would do nothing for the remaining hostages. Just how many hostages were there?

As if she'd read his mind, Charity spoke. "You don't really need to hold all of us, you know. Why don't you let the two couples go? And Mr. Kocek needs a doctor. That would still leave you with Sally and me."

Someone—Sally, no doubt—uttered a squeaky protest. Gabe barely heard. Two couples, two employees and the wounded man. Seven hostages. More than enough to bargain with. Hearing Billy's return, he counted slowly to five before sliding back behind the case and out of sight.

Leaning his head back, he tried to decide what to do. He was right in the middle of a very nasty hostage situation with no way to communicate with the cops outside.

It was not a good situation, and he had a strong feeling that it was going to get worse.

"
H
ow'd the cops get here so fast, anyway?" That was Billy, his voice stretched tight with nerves.

"Stay back from the windows, you idiot," Sal-told him.

"Well, how'd they know?"

Billy moved away from the front windows, his movements quick and nervous. Charity found it difficult to take her eyes off the gun he was waving around so carelessly.

"That guy said something about a silent alarm," Joe said suddenly.

She swallowed hard and dropped her eyes to Al Kocek's still form.

"Who set off the alarm?" Billy demanded. "Couldn't'a been the old geezers, and the two of you don't work here, either." He dismissed the customers. His attention settled on Sally, who was cowering behind one of the cases, her heavily made up eyes bulging with terror. "You work here."

Charity had never in her life heard so much menace in anyone's voice. She could almost forgive Sally for her quick denial.

"It wasn't me. I wasn't anywhere near a button," she stammered out, her voice squeaky with fear. "It was her. Charity was right next to it. She must have set it off." One brightly lacquered nail pointed to where Charity knelt beside the wounded man.

Billy was beside her before she had a chance to do more than draw a quick breath. Grabbing her arm, he jerked her to her feet.

"Did you call the cops on us?"

The stubble of beard made him look younger, she thought, focusing her mind on that irrelevant detail. And a haircut would have gone a long way to improving his appearance. Where was Vidal Sassoon when you needed him?

"Did you push the damn button?" His fingers tightened on her arm. He gave her a rough shake. She'd have bruises tomorrow. Always supposing he didn't kill her today. "Answer me!"

"You had guns," she said finally.

"Bitch!" There was no time to avoid the blow, even if he hadn't been holding her. The back of his hand connected with her face, the force of it weighted by the gun he still held. Pain exploded through her face, radiating outward from her cheek until her whole head pounded. She would have fallen but for the hold he still had on her arm.

"You've ruined everything," he said shrilly, drawing his hand back to strike again. Over his shoulder Charity glimpsed a movement in the opening where she'd last seen Gabriel London, and her fear took on a new edge. If he moved to help her, it could set off a shoot-out that would leave all of them dead.

"Billy!" Sal's sharp voice stopped the blow. "Leave her alone."

"But she ruined everything," Billy whined. His hand dropped but he didn't release his hold on her arm.

"Hitting her isn't going to change anything. Come here. The cops are going to be calling any minute. We've got to figure out what to do next."

Billy released her arm reluctantly, a quick slashing look telling her that he wasn't going to forget just who had set off the alarm.

Charity had to lock her knees to keep from sinking to the floor. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, throbbing in rhythm with the pain in her bruised face. She could taste the salt tang of blood from her split lip. She didn't need anyone to tell her that she'd just come close to death.

Seeing their captors huddled together working out a strategy, she dared a quick glance to the side. Gabe's eyes were on her puffy cheek, and she could sense his frustration. She wanted to give him a smile, reassure him that she was all right. But her face was too stiff to allow such a movement.

The shrill ring of the phone was startling in the tense quiet. Everyone's eyes locked on the instrument, which sat on one of the cases. Sally must have made a call and left it out, Charity thought absently. Normally the phone was out of sight. It rang again, a sharp demand for attention.

"You figure that's the cops?" Joe asked.

Sal nodded. "Bound to be. They'll want to know what we want."

"You think if we ask 'em to go away, they'll do it?" Billy giggled like a nervous schoolboy. Sal ignored him. The phone rang a third time.

"Answer the phone. You." He gestured to Charity.

"What do you want me to tell them?" she asked over the fourth ring.

"Just answer the damn phone," Joe snarled. It was obvious that the tension was getting to him.

"I'll tell you what to say once you've got them on the line," Sal told her.

Charity nodded and walked stiffly to the phone. Apparently she was about to get a crash course in hostage mediation.