“No. No. It is Dave. He is throw our cloth in bags and saying we fly to Sweden.”
I heard a rustling and more angry screams from Marta, then Dave took over the conversation. “Oz? Did you get him?”
The elevator climbed up to the fifth floor and stopped. “In the four minutes since I hung up with you? No, Goddammit. Who’s up there?” I pressed ‘door closed’ before it even opened and kept my finger there. Tucking the phone against my shoulder, I barely contemplated the gender of the person who I pushed out of the elevator.
“Hey!”
“Take the next one,” I thundered.
“I tried to stop it all after they killed Alvarado, but…” Dave, said.
The doors closed and the elevator pulled up, but it wasn’t moving fast enough.
“Confessions later! Who? How many are there, worst case?”
“They just want the kid. So two, maybe three.”
Twelfth floor.
“Guns?”
“Cops, Oz. At least one will be a cop. Probably Mick and Dick, they’re always together. So, yeah, three.”
“Who’s the other one?”
“Leila Alvarado.”
Shit. Leila Alvarado was a crack whore with a mean streak as big as her beehive hairdo. Luis and I had presumed that Prisc had killed her. Maybe it was the other way around? Now she was armed and waiting up there for Peter and Cai. And Dave had seen fit to only inform me five minutes ago. Silently I called him every name I could think of, but because I needed him, the words festered in the recesses of my mind. And I had to think rather than give in to the urge to vent.
Fourteenth floor.
Cops involved. Couldn’t call 911. Mick and Dick surely had their radios. They’d hear instantly if I called. What would be their reaction if they heard the call? They’d just shoot Peter. Probably shoot them both. “Luis in on it?”
Fifteenth.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. I don’t know everyone involved. Only a few of the bigger players.” Trust Luis or not? He’s always trusted you. He’s always stood by you. Risked his career for you.
So has Dave and look where that got you.
I went with my gut. “Call him. Tell him everything.” I hung up.
Eighteenth floor. The ding announcing the floor was like a gong. The doors slid open slowly.
“Go!” Peter screamed somewhere down the corridor furthest from me.
Cai emerged from the left hallway, about forty feet in front of me. He banged his shoulder against the door marked ‘STAIRWELL’. Avoiding the stairs, he stepped onto the railing and jumped off. I didn’t have time to contemplate where he landed. Peter was four steps behind him.
I propelled forward on autopilot, stopping just as a bullet splintered the doorframe near his head. “Jesus Christ,” I whispered, automatically reaching for my nonexistent gun. Shit. Fuck.
Rather than follow Cai down, Peter pulled the door closed, effectively using it and himself as a shield. Two figures barreled down on him. Mick and Dick pushed past without a struggle. When the door swung shut leaving Peter behind them, I saw why.
Peter pulled a hand from his stomach, a patch of red blossoming there as he stared at his fingers. I was a few feet from him when Leila Alvarado put her gun to the back of his head.
“No!” No. No. No.
My shout startled her. Her hand jerked. But I was too late. Peter’s forehead disappeared in a mist of red, and Leila’s gun lifted and pointed directly at me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tourette’s is Contagious
I barreled on toward Leila. A shot whizzed a foot from my shoulder. I ducked, ran two more steps and plowed my head into her stomach. Her next shot hit the ceiling. A sickening crack filled the corridor as her skull collided with the wall. I didn’t bother to watch as she slid to the floor—unconscious or dead. I preferred dead. I snatched the gun from her hand, secured it in my waistband and then crawled to Peter. Sitting back on my heels, I cradled his head in my lap.
He was wheezing each breath, but he was breathing. Streams of blood pumped from his skull and seeped between the fingers he cupped over his stomach. I blinked away sweat and tried to see his head wound while fumbling blindly for my phone. It wasn’t beside me.
Until that moment, it hadn’t registered that the gunshots had been muffled—since no one heard them, no one was coming to help.
“Peter, don’t sleep. Don’t stop breathing.” I needed a phone. I scanned the area and saw mine down the hall near the elevator. In my haste to get to Peter, it had slipped from my fingers. “Help!” My voice cracked. “Peter?” He whimpered in pain. There was so much blood, leaking into my jeans, stiffening the material. “HELP!” I wiped at his forehead, but his hair was matting into the mess. I couldn’t see anything. I pressed my hand over his. At least I could hold one wound closed. “Peter, don’t pass out. Don’t you dare pass out.” Or die. Don’t die.