Colton Showdown Read online

  Tate was getting a really bad feeling right about now, even as he nodded, playing along. “Makes sense,” he acknowledged, inwardly cursing the man.

  He was completely cut off from his backup outside, unable to transmit or receive instructions. By now Emma and the others had to realize they’d lost the signal. Were they scrambling for another vantage point so that they could renew the connection? Or was he going to have to be the Lone Ranger in this operation after all?

  “I’m so glad you agree, Mr. Conrad. Or should I say Detective Colton?” Maddox’s smile was malevolent as his eyes bored into Tate. The game was over. “Which do you prefer? And please don’t insult me by saying you don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s so very trite and beneath you, Detective Colton. Besides,” he continued as he gestured for his surprise to be brought in, “Mr. Miller already gave you up. He really isn’t very much for pain, are you, Solomon?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he watched the beaten, semiconscious Solomon Miller being brought in, supported by two of Maddox’s nameless henchmen.

  They were going to kill him, Tate thought. More importantly, they were going to kill Hannah. Maddox would have terminated his own mother without blinking an eye if his agenda called for it. There was no two ways about it. Maddox was an out-and-out sociopath.

  Tate knew he had only seconds to do something—or die. He had no weapon, no backup and, at this point, absolutely nothing to lose. Pushing Hannah directly behind him, he grabbed Maddox and bodily shoved him into the incoherent, babbling Miller.

  The gun Maddox was brandishing went off.

  A scream mingled with a flood of curses. Chaos broke out all at once.

  “Go, go, go!” Tate ordered Hannah, grabbing her hand and breaking into a run that took them through the maze of filmy curtains, wisps of smoke and mingling bodies.

  Tate had no idea where he was going, all he knew was that they had to get out of here if they wanted to live out the night.

  Chapter 6

  There was nothing but static coming through.

  The eerie sound filled the interior of the van where Emma, Randall and another Bureau tech were currently sequestered, monitoring the transmissions and waiting for Tate to give the signal to initiate the takedown.

  The SWAT team was aching to rush the warehouse. The last time she’d checked, their eagerness was puncturing the very air.

  “Tate,” Emma cried, urgency rising in her voice. “Tate, can you hear me?”

  Nothing but more static answered her.

  They’d lost him.

  Emma felt an iciness spread out through her limbs as her heart all but froze in her chest. She struggled to keep her fear at bay.

  This isn’t happening.

  “Try a different frequency,” she ordered Randall, the tech closest to her. He was already doing just that, as was his partner.

  Tate would get out of this, she told herself. He was a survivor.

  The static continued as if to mock their efforts.

  “Nothing,” Randall lamented, exasperated, his eyes focused on the monitor he was trying in vain to adjust. “They’re jamming us,” he declared in frustration.

  Which meant someone was onto them, Emma thought. Someone had told Maddox.

  It was all falling apart. Something was very, very wrong.

  The door to the van opened and Abe Kormann, the head of the SWAT team, stuck his head in. One look at the faces of the van’s inhabitants and he knew something was awry. No one had ordered them in yet and by his reckoning, it was past time.

  He looked at Emma. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

  She weighed the options. They could wait, and her brother could lose his life, if he hadn’t already. Or the SWAT team could rush the warehouse and Tate could get killed in the cross fire. Either option wasn’t very good, but she knew that Tate believed the same way she did: that to go down fighting was a far better way to go than to meekly accept defeat.

  “Go in,” she ordered, then repeated the command, her voice stronger and more confident the second time. “Go in!”

  Weapons raised and at the ready, the men and women comprising the SWAT team quickly flew across the expanse that was between the van and the entrance to the warehouse.

  They closed the distance in less than five seconds.

  The hulking three-hundred-pound-plus bouncer guarding the door reacted automatically, producing a gun. He never got the opportunity to discharge it. The barrel was still pointed down when a marksman’s bullet hit him. The bouncer dropped like a stone.

  Several men on the team used a ram to break down the warehouse door. It splintered and fell to the ground, useless, as the SWAT team quickly infiltrated the former warehouse.

  Screams and cries of confusion greeted their appearance.

  People began running in all directions, bumping into one another, adding to the mass chaos.

  More screams, gunfire and monumental panic broke out moments after the first shot inside the warehouse was fired. Having the building stormed by men and women in full black regalia with guns drawn only added to the sense of disorientation and imminent danger.

  It was a classic case of every man and woman for themselves.

  “What’s happening?” Hannah cried as she ran alongside Tate, stretching her legs as far as she could as she desperately tried to keep up with the man who was holding on to her hand.

  They’d given her drugs shortly before the event had started, but she’d managed to fool them again, pretending to swallow the pills only to hide them between her upper lip and gum. Less had dissolved this time, so she was not as affected as she had been the first time. She was aware of everything.

  “You’re being rescued,” Tate shouted to her so she could hear him above the almost-deafening noise and gunfire.

  It was only a half truth at best. The sting had obviously gone awry. But those were still his people who’d burst in, firing their weapons. If there was any justice in the world, Maddox would be captured—if he wasn’t already.

  But life had taught Tate not to make any assumptions—logical or emotional—until he could verify them with his own eyes.

  For now, he and Hannah had to keep going. He didn’t want her to stop, not even for a moment. They needed to put as much distance between them and Maddox and his people as possible before he could even remotely entertain the possibility that Hannah was safe. Only then would he stop to find out if Maddox was among the captured or, better yet, among the casualties.

  At this point, he really didn’t care which it was, as long as the operation could be put to an end and the girls returned to their families.

  Abruptly, their path was suddenly blocked by one of Maddox’s tuxedoed henchmen. Equal parts fearful and angry, the man clutched a rapid-fire weapon in his hands. Raising it quickly, he didn’t warn them to stop, he just began discharging the weapon.

  Tate pushed Hannah to the ground as he simultaneously lowered his head and charged into the gunman. Catching the man completely off guard, Tate knocked him down. Moving quickly, Tate had the man’s gun before the criminal could recover it.

  The weapon discharged once.

  The henchman stopped moving.

  Tate stood back up, exhaling slowly. Behind him, he heard Hannah’s sharp gasp.

  “He’s dead,” she cried in horrified wonder. It didn’t seem real to her.

  “He was the minute Maddox recruited him,” Tate informed her crisply, his voice devoid of any feeling. He held on to the dead man’s weapon. They might still need it.

  Pulling Hannah to her feet, his eyes swept over her quickly, making assessments. “Are you hurt?” he asked as gently as possible.

  Hannah shook her head. “No, I’m not hurt.” Her eyes were wide, like someone trapped in the middle of a nightmare that wouldn’t end.

  “Then let’s go,” he ordered, taking her hand and running again.

  He’d looked up a schematic of the warehouse on an official website listing building plans filed with the city. He l
iked knowing where he was going before he began his journey.

  “I think there’s a side exit we can use,” he told her.

  Tate was relying on what his mother had once referred to as his uncanny sense of direction, picking his way through the maze of interwoven bodies and mayhem. Getting to the exit felt as if it was taking forever, but finally, he could make it out in the distance. The end of the rainbow.

  The end of the rainbow in this case was a door to the outside world. Freedom was just beyond that.

  Hannah was breathing audibly by the time they finally reached the door. He looked at her over his shoulder again to assure himself that she was all right. “Hang in there.” He flashed her an encouraging smile.

  Unable to answer, Hannah nodded vigorously instead, offering a hint of a smile. It was all she could muster for now.

  Hannah was accustomed to running. Running games among the children had been common when she was growing up, and she had always been one of the faster ones. But the stakes had never been this high and the course had never been littered with bodies before. It made a huge difference.

  As they approached the exit, Tate offered up a quick one-line prayer of thanksgiving.

  The door wouldn’t budge.

  Swallowing the curse that automatically rose to his lips in deference to the woman with him, Tate put his shoulder to the door and slammed it hard. The movement was almost imperceptible.

  He tried again.

  The third time, the door shuddered, then finally moved. One more full-on attack and the door abruptly gave way completely. He was still holding on to Hannah’s hand and they both all but fell onto the ground on the other side.

  “Success,” Tate cried, relieved.

  Relief dissipated immediately in the face of the frigid weather. The temperature had dropped even further and there was snow falling, sticking to the ground. Its pristine appearance provided a complete contrast to the angry red smear on the ground not two feet away from where they’d almost fallen.

  Someone had escaped ahead of them. And then been killed.

  Tate dropped to the ground, pulling her with him as he quickly scanned the immediate area, looking for a sniper. But whoever had killed the man on the ground was no longer there.

  Taking a tentative breath, Tate cautiously rose back to his feet, momentarily blocking out the wall of noise echoing from the building behind him.

  That was when he realized that Hannah was shaking. Not from any overt display of fear—not that he would have blamed her if she had been—but from the cold. The thermometer was undoubtedly registering in the low thirties and the outfit her captors had forced her to wear was one far better suited to tropical weather.

  Tate shrugged out of his jacket and quickly draped it around Hannah’s shoulders, pulling it closed around her. It covered more than half her body.

  “It’s not much,” he apologized. “But at least it’s warmer than what you’ve got on.”

  Clutching the two sides of the jacket to her to trap whatever heat she could, Hannah nodded her head in thanks. “This helps a lot, thank you. But what about you?”

  They were in the middle of what felt like an apocalypse and the woman was being polite. Tate could only shake his head in admiration and wonder. Hannah Troyer was one very special woman, even without taking her beauty into account. The combination was almost more than one man could bear. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her.

  The sound of running feet approaching had Tate pushing her behind him. Hannah’s back was protected by the wall while he was shielding the front of her with his body. The next moment, catching a glimmer of what turned out to be moonlight on the barrel of a gun, Tate reacted at lightning speed and fired.

  An assailant transformed into a casualty, dropping to his knees and attempting to fire one last time. But the weapon slipped from his lifeless fingers before he could discharge it.

  Tate heard Hannah stifle a scream.

  “I know him,” she cried. He turned to look at her as she explained, “He was the one who took us, who took Mary and me prisoner and brought us to that motel.”

  “He won’t be taking anyone anywhere anymore,” Tate assured her grimly.

  They needed to keep going. He couldn’t afford to hang around here, waiting for the dust to settle and a body count to begin. His cover had been blown and Maddox’s people knew he was a detective. If any of them got away, that made his life worth less than nothing and his death immensely desirable.

  As for Hannah, she would simply be collateral damage if they killed him. He needed to get her somewhere safe—and fast. He could gather information later, once he knew she was safe. Or as safe as possible, given that she was a material witness that the state undoubtedly would want to build their whole case on.

  He quickly scanned the area, looking for a means of escape. His eyes came to rest on their way out.

  “My car,” he declared, thinking out loud. When Hannah looked at him quizzically, he pointed to the Ferrari at the far end of the parking lot. The team had secured the vehicle to flesh out the persona he was playing in this sting-gone-wrong. “Over there.”

  He didn’t have to add the word run. Hannah was already doing that.

  Reaching the vehicle, he yanked open the unlocked door and pushed Hannah inside, then slid across the hood rather than rounding the short distance to the driver’s side.

  He got in, then threw the car into gear. Less than a second later, he was tearing out of the lot, as if the very forces of hell were right behind him.

  Because they very well might have been. He wasn’t sticking around to find out.

  * * *

  He didn’t know where else to go.

  With a shameful lack of contingency plans, Tate had no choice but to drive to the small apartment he maintained in the heart of Philly. He went there rather than to the hotel room he’d been staying in under his assumed name. The latter would have been the first place he knew Maddox or his men would look, provided they’d eluded capture.

  He was still hoping that they hadn’t.

  The apartment was just a temporary stopover, he told himself. He’d regroup and get in contact with his team so he could get filled in on exactly what the hell had gone down. Equally as important, he had to stop by the place to get his backup weapon. He felt naked unless he was packing both his weapons and doubly so since he’d been forced to leave them both behind to carry off this now-failed charade.

  What had tipped Maddox off? Had he been suspicious all along or had Miller slipped up and said something that had clued the man in?

  He needed to get answers.

  But first, he needed to get his weapons, he reminded himself. The one he’d taken off the dead man had served him well enough, but he wanted a familiar piece in his hands if he was going to have to defend Hannah, as well as himself, for who knew how long. He knew both his piece and his backup piece inside and out, knew they wouldn’t fail him or jam. He took better care of the weapons than some men took care of their wives.

  Because his life depended on them.

  As he drove the Ferrari into the underground parking structure beneath his apartment building, Tate could feel Hannah stiffening beside him. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  “What is this place?” she asked, tilting her head slightly so that she could get a better view of the immediate area.

  Tate brought the expensive vehicle to a stop in the parking spot assigned to his apartment number. Ordinarily, his vintage Mustang occupied the space. But right now, it was in the shop for its hundred-thousand-mile tune-up, leaving his parking space conveniently empty.

  “This place is where I live,” he told Hannah, answering her question. “My apartment’s up on the third floor.”

  Despite recent events, she still wasn’t accustomed to buildings rising above a second level. They made her nervous, as if she was waiting for the floors to buckle under the accumulated weight.

  “Your family won’t mind your bringing me?” she asked him uneasil
y.

  Looking carefully around, just in case, he saw nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary. Only then did he reach in and, taking her hand, help Hannah out of the car. He remained alert as he guided her to the elevator. “My family’s scattered,” he told her.

  The elevator arrived and they got in. He took one last look before the doors closed to make sure no one was suddenly approaching them.

  Then he turned his attention to Hannah.

  He knew all there was to know about her, he thought, but she didn’t know the first thing about him. Maybe she’d feel a little more at ease if he clarified a few minor points for her.

  “I’m not married,” he told her as they rode up.

  “Oh.”

  She pressed her lips together, feeling oddly happy over the information she was digesting. Was that wrong? In the middle of all this discord and death, she found herself relishing the knowledge that the man who had come back for her, who had rescued her, just as he’d promised, was unattached.

  It gave her definite reason to smile.

  Shouldn’t she be feeling guilty about that instead of strangely jubilant?

  When the elevator doors parted, Hannah began to step out of the car only to have him put his hand up before her, stopping her in her tracks. Keeping her in place, Tate moved ahead and looked to the left and right of the elevator, the way a child might if he were crossing the street without an adult accompanying him.

  “Okay,” he told her, beckoning her off the elevator car.

  Tate led the way down the hall to his apartment door. Unlocking it, he went in first, making sure that she was half a step behind him.

  The gun he had secured earlier was still in his hand as he scanned the remarkably neat one-bedroom apartment, looking for a telltale shadow, or something to tell him that he and Hannah were not alone in the apartment.

  But they were.

  He let his guard down just the slightest bit.

  Meanwhile, Hannah was taking a survey of her own. “You keep a very tidy home,” she told him.