One Wrong Step (18 page)

R
owe watched through the rifle scope as Cecelia race-walked toward the boy. Enrique Ramos looked to be uninjured and alone.

“She’s moving toward the kid,” Rowe muttered into the radio mounted on his flak jacket. “No sign of the suspects. Where are you?”

“Security guy’s unlocking the door for me now.” Stevenski answered.

At last communication, Stevenski had been on his way to the roof of a loft apartment building just south of the bridge. From there, he was hoping to have a bird’s-eye view of the scene, which Rowe didn’t have from his position. Rowe did, however, have proximity. He was concealed behind a wet clump of foliage about twenty yards upstream from the bridge. He adjusted the barrel of his SSG 3000 against the notch of a tree branch and waited.

“
Fuck!
”

Rowe’s shoulders tensed. “What’s wrong?”

“I misjudged the angle,” Stevenski said. “There are trees in the way. My visibility’s for shit.”

“Can you see
anything
?”

“Not from up here. I’m coming down.”

“Make it quick,” Rowe snapped.

“Wait. There’s a black Avalanche. North side, pulled up in the grass near the bridge. Taillights are red, like the engine’s running. You see our suspects yet?”

“Negative.” God
damn
it. “Give Abrams’s team a heads up about the vehicle. I think they’re about ten minutes out, but you never know. Then get your ass somewhere useful, fast.”

Celie clutched Enrique against her and tried to shield him from whoever might be hovering nearby. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

She stepped back to look at him. He wore his usually baggy jeans and T-shirt—both soaking wet—and his tattered Astros cap turned backward. His bony shoulders trembled under her hands.

“You sure you’re all right?”

He nodded, and she could tell he was on the verge of tears.

Celie glanced around. They were standing in the middle of the bridge, right next to a lamppost, two targets illuminated for anyone to see. “We need to get you out of here. We need—”

“I’m supposed to take your bag”—he nodded bravely at her duffel—“to the other side of the bridge. Those two dudes in the truck, they’re waiting for it.”

“I’ll take it.”

He looked up at her, his brown-black eyes fearful. “No, they said
me.
You’re just supposed to stand here.”

“Enrique, listen to me. You see that silver SUV at the meter over there? The Volvo?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s my car. It’s unlocked. Walk straight toward it and get inside. Then lock the doors and duck low, as low as you can, understand?”

He nodded, clearly relieved to be given an alternative to going back to his kidnappers.

“When you walk past the planter, you might see John McAllister crouched behind it. He has a gun. Don’t even look at him, okay? Walk straight to the Volvo and get inside.”

Enrique hesitated a second, then nodded.

“Go.”

She pointed him toward the Volvo and gave a little shove. With every step, Celie felt a minute lessening of tension. Enrique was almost to safety.

Then a man stepped into his path. He snagged Enrique’s arm and strode toward Celie, towing the terror-stricken boy behind him.

Who the hell was this guy? Rowe peered through the scope, trying in vain to place the mug. It wasn’t one of his suspects. Juan and Guillermo Barriolo were short and stocky, not tall and lanky like the figure moving toward Cecelia.

“I’ve got an unidentified male subject,” he told Stevenski. “Approximately six feet tall. Thin. Wearing black clothes and a baseball cap. Lightweight jacket possibly concealing a weapon. This guy is not, I repeat,
not
one of the Barriolo brothers.”

“Copy that.”

The subject slipped his free hand into his pocket. Was he reaching for a weapon? With his right hand, he gripped the boy’s arm. People typically held a weapon with their dominant hand, and roughly 85 percent of people were right-handed.

So was he armed or not? Rowe didn’t like the ambiguity.

Rowe trained the crosshairs on the base of the subject’s head as he neared Cecelia. The objective was to hit the cerebellum, causing instant, painless death before the subject had time to get a shot off. Rowe had never actually done this to a live person before, but if a woman and child’s lives were at stake, he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

Cecelia reached out and grabbed the boy. She tucked him behind her, shielding him with her body. Given that Rowe had loaned her his vest, it wasn’t such a bad idea.

The woman had balls.

Rowe counted himself lucky. Whether she’d planned it or not, she’d separated the subject from the hostage, giving him a clear shot.

He mentally reviewed the surrounding conditions. The rain had stopped. A slight breeze blew out of the northwest, but not enough to be a factor. “I’ve got a shot,” Rowe reported.

“Say again?”

“I’ve got a shot of the subject. No idea who he is, though. Possibly Saledo found out about the meet and sent someone to intercept. I don’t see a weapon yet. Where are you?”

“Almost to street level,” Stevenski said.

“Forget your rifle. This thing’s about to escalate. I need you near the bridge.”

“Got it.”

But he knew Stevenski couldn’t get there in time. Rowe was on his own. He forced his shoulders to relax, tried to feel connected to his weapon. Just like in training, he and the rifle were one unit; it was an extension of his body, his mind. Rowe tuned everything else out and focused on the people in the middle of the bridge. Cecelia and the boy were separated from the subject by at least three feet. It was a forty-yard shot, a cakewalk. And if the subject made one wrong move, Rowe intended to take it.

Kate watched from behind the base of a lamppost, for once in her life feeling grateful for her petite stature. She was on the north end of the bridge, which could be accessed by a curving bike ramp or a flight of concrete stairs. From her hiding spot at the top of the ramp, she had a perfect view of Cecelia Wells as she passed a bag to the tall, skinny guy in black. Kate didn’t think she’d ever seen him before.

Then the intensity kicked up. They were arguing. Cecelia began stepping backward, corralling the boy behind her as she moved across the bridge and closer to Kate.

Some movement on the stairs caught Kate’s attention. A man was crouched there in the shadows. He wore a dark skullcap and had a black goatee, and Kate could almost swear he was one of the guys in the Avalanche, the ones she’d watched in the surveillance video. He held a handgun poised on his knee and looked tense, as if his legs were spring-loaded.

Suddenly he jumped up and aimed the gun.

“
No!
”

The piercing scream was followed by a
pop,
and Celie’s head whipped around. She first thought of firecrackers, but in a nanosecond her brain identified the sound.

“Get down!” she screamed, shoving Enrique to the ground.

Another
pop,
then a shriek. The shots were coming from the far side of the bridge. Celie tried to shield Enrique, pinning him facedown against the pavement. The man in black had disappeared.

Another shot, this one from the opposite direction. Bullets were flying on both ends of the bridge. They were trapped in between.

Celie rolled off Enrique and grabbed his hand, making sure to keep low. “We have to get out of here. Do you know how to swim?”

“Yeah.”

She clasped his fingers. “On the count of three, we go up and over. Don’t let go of me, okay?”

Enrique nodded. She saw fear in his eyes, but also trust. He
trusted
her. After everything he’d been through, he still thought she could keep him safe.

“You ready?” She tightened her grip on his hand. “One, two,
three
!”

John sprinted onto the bridge.

“Celie!
” Where the hell had she gone?

One second, they’d been in plain view. Then gunfire had erupted, and she’d dropped out of sight. John had taken a quick potshot at the man in black, but he’d sprinted into the trees.

John raced across the bridge now, eyes scanning for any sign of Celie or Enrique. He passed lampposts, planters, benches, knowing at any moment he might trip over their torn up bodies.

And then he saw her.

Kate’s arm was on fire. The burning started just above her wrist and radiated up, taking over her shoulder and her neck. She sat up and clamped her left hand down over the wound, pressing her right elbow into her side and trying to stop the bleeding.

“Omigod, omigod, omigod…” She bit her lip and pressed harder, but the pain was spreading. The blood, too. It poured down her arm, her wrist, her hand. The warmth of it seeped through her jeans.

More sirens approached, and she cast a frantic look around. She got up and stumbled the short distance to the top of the stairs, then felt dizzy and sank back down onto the concrete.

“Hey!” Kate yelled. “I need help up here!” She leaned against the railing and waited for a paramedic.

A young cop mounted the steps, gun drawn. His eyes bugged out when he spotted her.

“He shot me,” Kate said through clenched teeth. For some reason just saying the words made her eyes fill with tears. “I need—”

“Where’s the shooter? Where’d he go?”

Kate nodded toward downtown. “Took off that way. Black Avalanche.” Goddamn it
hurt
!

“Medic’s on his way.” The cop darted a worried look at her arm. “Don’t move, ma’am. You have any weapons on you?”

Kate choked out a laugh. “Yeah, right.”

He reached out with his free hand, like he was going to frisk her.

“I’m not armed, I’m
wounded
! Where’s the ambulance?”

“They’re coming, ma’am.”

She watched her blood seeping between her fingers. It looked purple in the lamplight.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it.” This couldn’t be happening. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on something besides the burn.

“Kate?”

Her head jerked up. Nick Stevenski towered over her, hands on his hips, panting like he’d just run a marathon. “What happened back there?” He quickly unzipped his windbreaker and turned it inside out.

“I was hiding behind a lamppost,” she told him. “Just over there.”

“You need to elevate this. You’re losing blood.” Nick crouched down and gently pulled her arm away from her body. It was bent at a strange angle, and Kate had to look away so she wouldn’t think about what he was doing.

“I saw the guy,” she said. “From the surveillance video. And he had this…this gun…. And he was watching Cecelia Wells. And that little boy, too.” She felt Nick wrapping the windbreaker around the top of her arm. God, was she even making sense? The events felt blurry now.

“He stood up and raised the gun. Like…like he was going to shoot them? And I screamed and ran at him—”

Nick pressed too hard, and she shrieked.

“Sorry.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. God, where was her phone? She needed to call her dad.

“I…I tackled him,” she stammered, “and the gun went off. And we were on the ground. And it went off
again.
”

Nick gave her a reproachful look. His eyelashes were damp and his face was so close, she could smell the rain on him. She suddenly had this insane wish that he’d put his arms around her.

“You shouldn’t have jumped in the middle like that,” he said. “You could have been killed.”

“He was about to shoot a
kid
! What would you have done?”

God, her arm hurt, like she’d been touched with a branding iron. She started to feel nauseated.

She looked at Nick. “They’re okay, right?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Nick?” Her voice hitched. Had one of them been
hit
?

“We don’t know,” he said grimly. “They’re not on the bridge.”

The impact smacked the breath out of her. Celie kicked and groped for the surface, all the while clenching Enrique’s hand in a tight fist.

Suddenly,
sky.
And trees and lights and a glimpse of the bridge. She gasped for air and sputtered Enrique’s name.

He didn’t answer.

She yanked him up, flailing and thrashing in a frantic bid to keep her head above water. God, why was she
sinking
?

“Enrique,
breathe
!”

She needed a better hold, but she was terrified that if she let go his fingers, she’d lose him. Using her free hand, she grabbed a fistful of his T-shirt and pulled him up. Now his mouth was above water, but he was gurgling.

She maneuvered behind him and tried to push his shoulders up. He needed air. “Enrique, come on! Cough it out!”

He made a wet, strangled sound. The fall must have knocked the wind out of him, too. God, what if he’d hit his head on the way down?

The lake was pulling at her, sucking her under. She kept
sinking.
She choked and spit and tried to keep her head above the surface, but her body felt leaden.

Rowe’s vest.
Panic hit, and she gasped, instantly filling her lungs with water. Enrique’s hand jerked away, and then she was alone, sinking. She pulled at her shirt, trying to yank it off so she could get rid of the vest.

“
Enrique!
”

Suddenly something wrapped around her throat. She kicked and punched. A powerful arm snaked around her waist and grabbed her, trying to pull her under. She screamed and clawed at it.

“Celie,
stop
!”

McAllister.

“Get this off!”

The shirt ripped free. She felt the Velcro pull and tug as he yanked off the vest, and cool water surrounded her. Then she was weightless, bobbing up like a cork.

McAllister hooked his arm across her chest and pulled her across the surface. The chilly water swished around her as his legs scissor-kicked and scissor-kicked, propelling them forward.

Where was Enrique? She struggled to locate him, but sky and trees and wet hair filled her field of vision. Then the world around her darkened. Her feet touched bottom. They were near the shore, shadowed by trees. McAllister grabbed hold of a low-dangling limb and heaved them both out of the water. Her butt plunked against something hard and solid. She slid down the slope of it, saw that it was a rock, and then grasped the tree branch and caught herself before she could slide back into the lake.