Now the life she’d made for herself might be snuffed out because she’d come up to the HR department to check on a malfunctioning communications link.
Unfortunately, Duckworth had already been in the back, making demands and babbling about why he thought S&D had screwed him.
He was watching her as she crossed to the coatrack, but he was still talking to the room in general. She longed to tune him out, but she forced herself to pay attention to the flow of words, listening for clues to his state of mind. As she returned to Lisa with a raincoat, he started to pace back and forth, making her think that his mental state was deteriorating.
He moved the gun from his right hand to his left, shook out his wrist, and clasped the weapon in his right hand again.
All eyes were focused on that shift. But as Elena kept her gaze on the gunman, she saw something that made her heart stop, then start up again in double time. Duckworth was standing with his back to the window, and there was a flicker of movement behind him where there should be nothing to see—unless it was a bird or a plane—since they were on the eighth floor of the S&D building.
As she stood with her breath shallow in her lungs, a face emerged behind Duckworth, a man with medium-length dark hair, wearing a running suit and protective goggles that partly obscured his face. She was sure that only one man at S&D would do something so daring—and crazy.
Shane Gallagher, the new head of security.
He’d been at the company for a few months, and he’d come around to interview a lot of people in the workforce. He’d said he wanted to get familiar with the employees, but she had the feeling he had some hidden agenda that he wasn’t sharing. Which was one of the reasons she’d been cautious around him. The other was that she was attracted to him, which was dangerous, as far as she was concerned. He was a tough, no-nonsense guy who reminded her too much of the military officers back home. She should stay away from him. Without being obvious about it, of course, because that would make him wonder what she had to hide.
But now he was here—poised to do something about the hostage situation.
He was hanging on to a rope. With one hand, he pushed the goggles onto his forehead and looked into the room. She saw him focus on Duckworth, then flick his attention to her. Across fifteen feet of charged space, their eyes met. He held her gaze, and she was fairly sure she knew what he wanted her to do—keep Duckworth’s attention away from the window. While Gallagher did what?
As he pulled the goggles back over his eyes, her heart started to pound so hard that she felt like it would come through the wall of her chest.
She dragged in a breath and let it out, then cleared her throat.
As soon as she made that small noise, the gunman’s attention riveted to her.
She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly so dry that she wondered if she could speak, but she managed to say, “Excuse me.”
“What?” he snapped.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“That’s too damn bad.”
“This is making me nervous. Couldn’t you just let me go to the ladies’ room?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I…”
Behind him, Gallagher was moving. He held on to the rope and swung away from the building, then came flying back, feet first, the metal tips on his shoes gleaming in the sun as they aimed at the window. She heard a tremendous splintering crash as the glass broke and Duckworth whirled, his gun raised.
She was the only other person in the room who moved as Gallagher smashed through the window, flying at Duckworth like a giant bird of prey, but feet first.
Still, the gunman wasn’t going down without a fight. He had a clear shot at the unexpected intruder, but just before Duckworth fired, she sprang forward and leaped onto his back, her weight pulling him down so that his gun discharged below the level of the window.
“Bitch,” he shouted as he gave a mighty heave and shook her off. She crashed to the floor as Gallagher fired back, hitting Duckworth at point-blank range.
As Gallagher landed next to the gunman, Elena pushed herself to a sitting position. Turning her head, she saw the security chief bending over the man on the floor, who lay unmoving in a pool of blood.
“He’s done. It’s over,” he said as he got up and addressed the hostages. “Is anyone besides Miss Walters hurt?”
None of the shocked people in the room spoke or moved.
The door burst open, and paramedics ran in, heading directly for Lisa, who still lay on the tile floor where she’d fallen.
Elena watched in confusion. “How did they get here so fast?” she asked.
“You were on audio the whole time,” Gallagher explained. “They came up here without making any noise, and they were waiting in the hall.” As he focused on Elena, he caught his breath. Coming down beside her, he touched her face. When his hand came away, she saw blood on his fingers.
“You’re hurt.”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered, even as she struggled to figure out if it was true.
“Don’t get up yet,” he said when she started to stand. He inspected her carefully. “I think it’s Duckworth’s blood.”
She shuddered.
“Come on.”
He helped her to her feet and kept his hand on her arm as he led her into the hall, then a few yards away into the ladies’ room, where he turned on the water in the sink and grabbed a wad of paper towels from the dispenser. Gently he washed her face and inspected her blouse.
“There’s blood on your shirt. I guess Lincoln Kinkead owes you some new clothing.”
She nodded numbly. Then finally the realization of everything that had happened hit her, and she felt her knees buckle.
Gallagher caught her as she started to fall, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against his muscular body as he stroked his hands reassuringly up and down her back. For a moment she let herself lean into his hard body.
“You did great in there,” he said. “Just what I needed you to do.”
She was shaking now, and she struggled to bring herself back under control. She should pull away from him, she knew. But she stayed in his arms. “I was scared.”
“Everybody was, but you were the one who wasn’t afraid to act. You didn’t panic.”
As she listened to the admiration in his voice, she let her head drift to his shoulder, and her hand anchored itself at his waist. A voice in her brain told her she shouldn’t be so intimate with this man. She shouldn’t be holding on to him as if they were lovers, but under the circumstances, she thought she was entitled to the comfort. And maybe he needed it too after what he’d done. He’d risked his life to get into that room. That couldn’t be part of his job description, but he’d gone ahead and done it.
“You were brave, too,” she murmured.
He answered with a rough sound, and she was fairly sure he didn’t want to discuss his bravery.
“You heard everything?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Yeah. I was listening in. You told him you needed to go to the bathroom.”
She felt her face heat. “I didn’t know anybody could hear us, or I would have thought of something else.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kinkead doesn’t advertise he’s got the building wired for sound. And, by the way, I didn’t thank you for jumping on the bastard’s back. You probably saved me from being hit.”
Someone knocked on the door. Before either she or Gallagher could respond or break apart, the door opened, and Bert Iverson, the assistant security chief, strode in, giving them a long, considering look as he took in Elena standing in Gallagher’s embrace. There was something about Bert Iverson she didn’t like, something she couldn’t articulate.