Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 70628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I need to distract him in some way. Distract him so Aspen can either get her gun or get out of here.
And I hope it’s the latter. If she has to shoot a person…
It’s hard to recover from that, even when the person has it coming.
Wallace’s phone buzzes.
Saved by the bell? I’m not sure. He could easily ignore it.
So I’m surprised when he doesn’t. He taps it with his free hand. “Yes, Denise?”
“Mr. Wallace? There’s someone here to see you, and he’s being very insistent.”
“He’ll have to wait. I’m in a very important meeting.”
“Yes, I’ve told him that, but—”
“That’s all, Denise.” He flips off the intercom.
All right. Not bad. His voice is as icy as ever, but he didn’t give anything away. Except for the fact that he didn’t want to be bothered in this meeting. He wasn’t even interested in hearing who needed to see him so urgently.
Which means… Hell, I don’t know what it means.
“Please,” I say.
Yes, I’m going to resort to begging.
“Please, just let her go.”
“Not happening. Not today.”
I’ve been in this situation before.
But the person on the other end of the gun was never Aspen. Never my forever love, the love of my life. The woman who’s been through so much already. Her life can’t end like this.
It just can’t.
Think, Buck. For God’s sake, think!
How can I distract him?
I train my gun on his shoulder.
I hold steady.
Then, with my peripheral vision, I glance around the room, looking for something—anything—that I can use as a distraction.
What is his weakness?
He’s a psychopath, so he probably doesn’t have one. He doesn’t have a conscience. He didn’t care about his daughter because he disinherited her. At first we thought he disinherited her because she went to her uncle and had Aspen abducted, but that’s not the case. Did he even have a reason to cut her off? Does he care about his wife? His other two children? Doubtful.
He certainly didn’t care about his brother because he framed him. And had him killed.
The albino?
He claims not to know who the albino is.
But perhaps that’s the key.
“Put the gun down, Wallace,” I say. “I need to get my phone.”
“Right. I’m not about to let you call the cops. Are you that naïve?”
“Not naïve at all. But I do need to make a call. Because in the next half an hour, both the albino and Chris Pollack are going to be killed. It’s already set.”
“And you think I care about that?”
All right. Apparently not. He doesn’t care about either of those people, so no leverage there.
“Yes, they will both be offed, and only they have information that could exonerate you.”
Wallace wrinkles his forehead, cocks his head.
Peripherally I look at Aspen. Don’t move, I tell her in my mind. I know you’re thinking about going for your weapon, but don’t move. It’s too dangerous.
She stiffens.
Good. I may not have gotten through to her clairvoyantly, but she came to the same conclusion.
Sweat begins to emerge on Wallace’s forehead.
Interesting. Up until now, he was cool as a fucking alley cat.
All right. My mention of Pollack and the albino got to him.
There’s something there after all.
“I can still call it off,” I say.
He doesn’t respond. But his hand shakes.
Just a bit, but it shakes.
And that’s my window of opportunity.
In less than a second, I retrain my target onto his wrist. I shoot, and he goes down while his gun clatters to the floor.
Aspen shrieks.
I grab her and push her out the door, right into Luke’s arms.
“What are you doing here?” I demand.
“Trying to save your damned ass.”
“Call the fucking cops, will you? I need to get back in there and—”
I race back into the room. Someone needs to be watching Wallace.
But somehow, he’s crawled to his gun, picked it up in his other hand.
A left-handed shot? That could get messy.
He pulls the gun on me.
“No way. No fucking way.”
He cocks it.
Then a gunshot.
I clench my teeth, grit against the pain, the blood…
Except…it doesn’t come.
No one shot me.
Aspen. God, not Aspen! “Baby! Are you okay?”
She runs to me, and only then do I notice Harrison Wallace in a heap on the floor.
The shot came from Luke, behind me.
“Call 911,” Luke says. “Gunshot to the wrist and to the shoulder. This degenerate has to live.”
44
ASPEN
Harrison Wallace is only alive because both Buck and Luke are such great shots.
“He can’t die,” Luke says, as the paramedics roll him out on the stretcher.
“We’ll do everything we can for him, sir,” one of them says.
“I don’t think you understand.” This time Buck speaks. “According to my friend here, this man has information that we need. Information about two murders and a suicide. An assault and battery. Make that two assaults. He was just holding my girlfriend at gunpoint.”
“Our job is to keep him alive until we get to the hospital, sir,” another paramedic says. “It doesn’t matter to us what he’s accused of or what information he has. We just need to do the best we can to keep him alive.”