Chapter 12

  The bus pulled into the parking lot. After it came to a stop and the engine was shut down, the automatic door opened with a whoosh. One by one, the kids rushed off. They were terrified; shaking and pale and doing their best to huddle together. Flynn motioned them to the side, where Murphy was waiting to lead them into the closest building—the main hall where the cafeteria and the headmistress’s office and Tess’s apartment were all located.

  Flynn held his breath, waiting for Tess to walk down the bus steps. She likely wouldn’t get off until all the kids were safe, so he didn’t expect her to step down at the front of the line. But still, waiting was tougher than it should’ve been.

  Most of the kids were off the bus, and so were a couple of the teachers, but he still hadn’t seen Laura or Bev. Maybe he’d lost them in the crowd, but that was unlikely. Stephanie McCabe exited, along with the only other teacher remaining on the bus, a fumbling, frightened Leon Toller. McCabe glanced back into the bus, and her step stuttered a little, as if she were uncertain about walking away.

  Flynn did more than hold his breath, in the moments after McCabe was guided into the main building. No one else got off the bus, after the English teacher.

  A shrill voice called from the bus. “I want to see him!”

  Flynn nodded, and Cal dragged a swollen and bleeding Austin into the open.

  Again, Melody’s voice was shrill. “Maybe I should send out one of these girls looking like that.”

  Flynn tried to peer into the bus, but he couldn’t see much. The driver, a gun in a woman’s hand, one blue-jeaned leg. Tess’s, if he wasn’t mistaken. Just the sight of that leg calmed him, somewhat. “He’s fair game,” Flynn called out, “and so am I. So are you. They’re not, and you know it. Let’s get this over with.”

  “The car’s ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  A getaway vehicle—the one Austin had directed them to—was parked close by with the keys in the ignition, a tank full of gas…and a tracking device attached to the back bumper.

  The driver exited the bus first, meaty hands in the air. Melody was next. She held a gun to the driver’s head, and used his large body as a shield. Beside and slightly behind her, Bev Martin was all but dragged down the steps. Melody had a tight grip on the girl’s wrist. Tess and Laura brought up the rear, clinging to one another in fear, but neither of them panicking.

  When he saw them, alive and unhurt, Flynn could finally breathe right again.

  “This is what’s going to happen,” Melody called, barely peeking over the bus driver’s shoulder. “You send my partner over, and I’ll let a couple of these hostages go.”

  “You let ’em all go,” Flynn responded.

  “Do you think I’m stupid? The bus driver and the kid are coming with us, until we’re sure you’re not going to try anything sneaky.”

  “No kids,” Flynn said. “That’s not negotiable.”

  “Everything is negotiable, Benning.”

  He signaled Cal to release Austin, and the wounded man stumbled toward his partner. When he was almost there, Melody said something to Tess, in a lowered voice. Tess took Laura’s arm and tried to lead her away from the bus…but Laura fought.

  “I’m not leaving Bev with her.” Laura planted her feet as Tess tried to drag her away from danger.

  “You want to come along?” Melody snapped. “We can always make room for one more.”

  Tess looked desperate, and so did Laura. Tess was frantic to protect her child, and the kid was determined not to leave her friend behind, which was admirable and brave and incredibly stupid. Was he the only one who saw how much she was like her mother?

  Flynn holstered his weapon, lifted his hands to show Melody that he wasn’t armed, and took long, quick steps toward the redheads. When he reached them he lifted Laura off her feet and carried her toward Murphy. She fought for a while, kicking and yelling at him to put her down, until he said in a lowered voice, “Trust me, kid.” Then she went still. The noise that escaped from her throat was one of sheer terror. Not for herself, but for her friend.

  When he placed Laura on her on her feet, Tess took charge of the girl and together they ran into the main building. When they were out of sight, safe behind brick walls, Flynn was able to take a deep breath and concentrate on the problem at hand.

  The bus driver, Austin, Melody and Bev were on one side of the parking lot, and Flynn and his three men spread across the other. If not for Bev, this could be over very quickly.

  “Don’t take the kid,” Flynn said. “If you want a hostage in addition to the bus driver, take me.”

  “Like anyone’s going to care if we rough you up,” Melody answered cynically. She and the man they’d always called Austin, along with their two hostages, began to edge toward the getaway car. With the tracking device they could keep up with where the car was headed, but anything could happen once they were out of sight. They could have another car waiting a short way down the road. In fact, they’d be stupid not to. No way could he allow Austin and his partner to get in that car with Bev.

  “Taking me’s forgivable,” Flynn argued. “Kidnapping her isn’t. The whole world is going to come down on you if you hurt that kid.”

  “Let it come down,” Melody replied.

  The bus driver stumbled, falling to his knees, and in response Melody yanked Bev in front of her, to replace the shield she’d lost. She didn’t notice the bus driver reaching for his ankle, as he tried clumsily to stand. Austin was more concerned with the injuries to his face than anything else, so he only spared the driver a disgusted glance. As far as he was concerned, his partner had everything under control…as under control as a situation like this one could be.

  Cal focused his attention on Bev, shouting sharply, “From behind, number three,” and then several things happened at once.

  The normally quiet Bev screamed at the top of her lungs, surprising Melody as she twisted sharply to escape her kidnapper’s grip, using her body weight and her elbows as Cal had taught her. Then she dropped, rolled and jumped up to run away from the immediate danger, taking shelter around the front side of the bus. The driver came up holding a small pistol that had been concealed in an ankle holster, and he rolled onto his back to fire up at a surprised Melody. And as Austin realized what was happening and went for the gun Melody had dropped, Flynn fired.

  With the sounds of gunfire still reverberating in the air, Cal and Murphy closed in on the wounded assassins. Flynn holstered his gun and ran toward Bev. She saw him, and ran. Toward him, not away. When she was just a few feet from him, she started to cry.

  Flynn lifted Bev off her feet and carried her toward the main building, while she gripped his neck and sobbed. Her tears fell against his neck and dampened his shirt, and her hold on him was fierce. Bullets were easier than tears. He’d done everything he knew to do, and still he felt helpless.

  “Don’t cry. It’s okay now,” he said, anxious to get the kid to Tess so he could handle more important matters…like getting Max’s men in here and seeing if either of the assassins were going to make it. He didn’t need to ask who the target of the planned assassination had been. Bev hadn’t been chosen at random to be their hostage. “The bad guys are down, and no one else is hurt. That’s all that matters.”

  Dante had backed up a ways, and stood between the excitement and the building where the students had taken cover. Flynn knew why he wasn’t with Cal and Murphy and the federal marshal who had been posing as a bus driver. If he got too close to the woman who’d killed Serena Loomis, he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

  Flynn knew that if Tess hadn’t gotten off that bus he would have felt the same way. As it was, Max wanted at least one of them alive, and that was still possible. They’d want to know who’d hired Austin and his partner.

  Tess met him at the door and took custody of a still-sobbing Bev. Laura was right behind her mother…the woman she had no idea was her mother…and together they comforted the girl who’d been personally threatened by the cold-blooded killer they’d believed to be a student.

  Tess lifted her head and her eyes met his. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Just the bad guys.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded, in obvious relief.

  “The bus driver had a gun,” Bev said, recovering slowly from her panic.

  “Of course he did,” Flynn said. “Do you think I’d put you on that bus without an armed guard?”

  “No,” Tess answered softly.

  He leaned down and kissed her, quick. “Feed the girls, talk to them, tell them everything is okay. But don’t let them out of the building until I tell you the parking lot’s been cleared.” They didn’t need to see even the worst among them wounded.

  “You got it,” she said.

  Flynn looked at Laura and Bev. Laura was comforting her friend, and they both looked at him for explanation he couldn’t give them. Tess had them now, and his job was done. It wasn’t necessary for him to say another word. So why was he so sure handling the details in the parking lot weren’t so freakin’ important, after all?

  “You girls going to be okay?” he asked.

  Bev, who had stopped sobbing but was still badly shaken, nodded and said, “Da-da-damn skippy.”

  Tess sat in her apartment, sipping decaf. It had been such a long day, maybe the longest of her life, and she still shook, now and then.

  Several of the parents had come to the school to collect their children, after learning what had happened this morning. Bev’s father had been one of them, but Laura was still on campus. Jack would be here tomorrow, as planned, and after that…who knew? He might leave Laura here, he might not. If Jack took Laura away, what would she do?

  Another group of men—more of those guys—had descended on the campus for several hours after the shooting. Tess had spoken to more than one of them, telling her story of what had happened on the bus again and again, until they were satisfied. They had been surprisingly gentle with the girls they interviewed, in a way she knew Flynn would have been if it had been his job. He had more gentleness inside him than he would ever admit. She’d seen that tenderness, more than once.

  It was over. The man—and woman—Flynn had come here to catch were no longer a danger to anyone at the Frances Teague Academy, or anywhere else. Both of them were wounded, and if they survived they’d be locked away, as was right and proper.

  Even though the danger was past, Tess still felt restless and uneasy. She’d tried to get her daughter to spend the night here in the apartment above the kitchen, with her, but Laura had been reluctant to leave her own room in the girls’ dorm. Tess hadn’t pushed the matter. After all, Laura didn’t know Tess was her mother. A group of the older girls had taken it upon themselves to sit with the students who had been on the hijacked bus and hadn’t yet been retrieved by their parents, so they wouldn’t have to be alone tonight. That was the only thing that kept Tess from camping outside her daughter’s door, the way Flynn had once camped outside hers.

  Tess placed her coffee cup on the kitchen counter. It was late. She really should just go to bed and try to get some sleep, but at the moment she didn’t feel like she’d ever sleep again.

  She heard his step in the hallway, and that soft sound was met with a rush of pure relief. Tess threw the door open before Flynn had finished knocking, and she didn’t even give him a chance to come inside before she threw herself at him.

  He caught her, carried her into the apartment, and kicked the door shut behind him.

  “I was so worried,” she said, her voice too soft and quick. “I thought you’d be here hours ago, and then when you didn’t show up I decided you weren’t coming back at all.”

  “Did you really?” he asked in a voice that was tired and gruff and beautiful. “Did you really think you’d never see me again?”

  She thought about the question for a minute, and then she remembered the expression she’d seen on his face as she’d walked off the bus this morning. “No.”

  Flynn put her on her feet and kissed her, deep and hard and tasting of recklessness. Her body responded quickly and acutely, as it always did when he touched her. She hadn’t realized how much she needed to hold him, until he kissed her. How could she have missed him so soon?

  The how didn’t matter, not tonight. She kissed him with everything she had, and she touched him. She held on to him as if she’d never let him go.

  When he started to undress her, pulling her sweater over her head and unfastening her jeans, she backed toward the bedroom and reached for his belt buckle, tugging and unfastening and holding on. Her hands trembled, she was so shaken and frenzied. Flynn’s hands shook, too, and she was quite certain that wasn’t normal, for him.

  Maybe he did love her, in the only way he knew how.

  In a matter of minutes they were naked and lying on the bed, arms and legs entangled, mouths joined and frenzied. She arched toward him, bringing his body in alignment with hers, finding the place where they fit, so well. Flynn had come to her prepared, tonight. He’d tossed a handful of condoms onto the bedside table before falling into bed with her, and while he kissed her once again, he opened one foil pack with obvious impatience.

  They had so much to say to one another, so many explanations needed to be made. But not now. Right now she just wanted him to make her feel good and desirable and loved. She wanted to forget everything that had happened today, with her body and Flynn’s joined together.

  She wrapped her legs around him, as he guided himself to her, and swayed up and into him to bring him deeper into her quivering body.

  He loved her fast and hard, without any sweet words or promises about tomorrow. The gentleness she had seen from him in the past wasn’t a part of this, not tonight when gentleness wasn’t called for. This sexual encounter was raw, and basic, and they both needed it to be that way.

  The bed shook, Tess gasped and clung and reached, and the man who loved her lifted her hips and drove deeper than before. She climaxed intensely, and Flynn came with her. She cried out, once, and he whispered her name in a grating voice. Only then did the world slow down, a bit. He ran his fingers through her hair, and kissed her cheek, and she held her palm against his hard, warm jaw. While they lay there, entwined and trying to find a way to breathe deep again, the charged air turned cooler. The bed was still again, as if it waited for what would come next.

  Sex was so much easier than what came after, but tonight she wouldn’t be a coward.

  “I could love you, if you’d let me,” she said as she caressed Flynn’s jaw with trembling fingers.

  “I can’t afford to let you, Red. You’re great, I like you more than I should, and when I’m inside you I can’t imagine not seeing you tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. But outside of this room we don’t want the same things.”

  “I know,” she whispered. She wanted a family; he wanted to be free of any obligations that might threaten his heart.

  “Besides, I’m not all that lovable.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  Flynn left her to go to the bathroom and dispose of the condom, and for a long, lonely moment she wondered if he was going to come back. He very well might not. He could’ve come to her for the release of sex alone, and now he might dress and leave, with a word of good-night or not. She wanted him to return to her, at least for a while. The bed was so big and empty and cold without him in it, and she dreaded the night when she’d once again be sleeping alone in it.

  But tonight was not that night, thank goodness. He came back to her, crawled beneath the covers and pulled her body against his.

  “When are you leaving?” she asked, trying her best to sound as if it didn’t matter…and failing badly.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, probably,” Flynn answered. “There are going to be a lot of questions about what happened here today. I told Dr. Barber I’d stick around and assure the parents that Austin is no longer a concern.”

  She lifted her head to look down at him. “Is there any chance either of them will come back?” she asked.

  Flynn shook his head. “They both survived the shooting, but they’ll be in the hospital for a good long while, and then they’re going away for a very long time.” He drew her head down to his shoulder. “Still, a lot of parents are going to withdraw their kids from the school, and I can’t say that I blame them. I don’t understand why they were sent away from home in the first place. If my kid had survived…” He didn’t say anything more, but then, he didn’t have to.

  Tess wrapped her arms around Flynn and held on tight. But she didn’t clutch at him, as her instincts commanded. The last thing he wanted was a woman who would cling.

  “What are you going to do about Laura?” he asked.

  Tess closed her eyes. “I don’t know. She thinks her mother is dead, that’s what Jack told her. Jack’s mother told me that her lawyer had arranged for a good family to adopt my daughter, that my baby would have a better life than either Jack or I could give her. I believed her. It was years before I knew that she and Jack had kept the baby, that they’d told her that her mother died when she was born.”

  “All the more reason she should know the truth.”

  She’d had this argument with herself a thousand times. “I signed away all my legal rights years ago, so I can’t see how anything good can come of it. All I’ll accomplish by telling is to add upheaval to Laura’s life.”

  “What a load of crap,” Flynn said in a low, dark voice. “She’s your daughter, and she has a right to know.”

  “It’s not that easy.” She had gone over the possible scenarios in her mind so many times, she had them all memorized. None of them ended the way she wanted. She wanted to turn back time. She wanted her baby back. “She’s thirteen years old, Flynn. I can’t just waltz in and turn her reality upside down because I want to be a part of her life.”

  “It would be a shock at first, but her life would be better with you in it.”

  Her heart lurched. She wanted to believe that, she truly did. “I’m not so sure it would be.”

 

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