The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9 Page 20

He couldn’t live without her anymore.

  He wept while he waited.

  Chapter 41

  Aaron woke up and jumped to his feet. His head swam and he clutched it where the pain resonated.

  “What the …”

  The building around him shook in his vision, then slowly, calmed and became still. His stomach rolled around. He needed to rest. Maybe he had a concussion.

  Sarah.

  He snapped his head up. The room swam again.

  Gotta help Sarah.

  He started for the door, putting everything together as he went. The explosion. The TV remote in the woman’s hand outside had been a detonator. Martin had had one too.

  But now Martin was dead.

  Aaron jumped outside. The sirens had stopped, emergency vehicle lights filled the night. Men in uniform ran toward him. It was dark enough beside the building that he couldn’t tell if they were police or paramedics.

  “Hands up!” the man closest to him shouted.

  Aaron leaned against the side of the building and raised his hands.

  “You guys got Sarah?” he asked.

  “That’s Aaron Stevens,” a familiar voice said.

  Detective Alan Lyson.

  Aaron lowered his hands.

  “Look what you’ve done,” Lyson shouted.

  “What are you talking about?” Aaron knew he’d fucked up. But he had tried and if it wasn’t for that other guy, Sarah would be fine right now. He had succeeded—sort of. “I stopped the woman and put her in your cruiser. I even handcuffed her for you.”

  “You attacked a police officer when things weren’t going your way. Then you dealt with the situation your way and look what happened. This building is destroyed and I don’t see Sarah with you. Or the medical examiner.”

  “The medical examiner is dead. When he hit the detonator, flying concrete cut him down.”

  “Where’s Sarah?” Lyson asked.

  Aaron wiped at the blood that had trickled down his face. “I thought you guys had her.” Men ran past them and into the building, flashlights in hand. “She came out with a guy a few minutes ago,” Aaron added. “The same guy who hit me.”

  “What guy?” Lyson asked, veins popping on his forehead and neck. He turned to a man on his right. “Your guys were the first responders. Did anyone leave this building?”

  “We didn’t see a soul. There was a car, but it was near the end of the street going the other way when we saw it.”

  “There was a car,” Lyson repeated. He looked back at Aaron. “Well then. That about wraps this case up. The serial killer is dead. His sister is under arrest and Sarah Roberts is in a car going who knows where.”

  “We have to do something,” Aaron said as he pushed off the wall.

  “Where’s my gun?” Lyson asked.

  Aaron reached around and felt nothing in his belt line. “Shit.”

  Lyson leaned in close to Aaron. “I’m supposed to retire next month. And now my police issue sidearm has been stolen. If it’s used to commit a crime …” He left it unfinished.

  “We have to do something—”

  “We aren’t going to do anything. Aaron Stevens, you’re under arrest.”

  “What? You can’t do that,” Aaron shouted.

  “Take him away and read him his rights. Now!”

  Chapter 42

  Sarah sat squished up against the door, Death’s hips pushing into hers. He gripped his knife with the blade parallel to his forearm, the tip of the blade resting against her crotch. When the car hit bumps, the tip snagged her jeans.

  “Is that really necessary?” she asked.

  “Try anything and you get fucked with a knife.”

  “Thanks for that image. Where are we going?”

  “How did you know all that shit was going to happen at the warehouse?” Death asked. “Is that why you wanted me to use it? So some of my crew would be killed?”

  “I had no idea what was going to happen.”

  “But you knew something.”

  “Do you realize the shit storm coming after you?” Sarah asked.

  “What happened to the men I left behind with you?” Death asked, the knife edging closer, pushing slightly on the denim near her crotch. “How is it you are not chained to a wall? Those men would die before they betrayed me.”

  “They are dead.”

  Death moaned and ground his teeth together. Sarah waited for her move. The driver slowed for a right turn.

  Death moved in his seat beside her. His hip came away from hers as the knife slipped away slightly.

  Sarah drove her right hand down, using her open palm in a tiger fist, and smashed into Death’s knife hand so hard the knife dislodged from his grip, tumbling to the floor mat.

  He was already reaching for her hair, but she brought her arm up and drove her elbow toward his face.

  His speed surprised her as his face was no longer there. In that second pause, a sharp pain coursed through her ribs. Then another.

  She shouted as the car turned the corner, her weight pushed into the car door.

  Death shouted with her, a screeching wail.

  Somehow he had pulled away far enough to use his other hand and punch her twice in the side of the ribs. Each breath became a labor of pain. He had to have cracked a rib for sure. Maybe two.

  But she had to fight through the pain because she was sure his wrist was either sprained or broken. Getting out of this car was the only way to survive.

  She shut her mouth, gritted her teeth and turned to him, ready to go for his eyes.

  But Death held a gun now. Where it came from so fast she had no idea. Instinctively, she backed away from the weapon until her head touched the window behind her.

  “You jammed my wrist up,” Death screamed. “That fucking hurts. It might be broken.”

  “You broke my ribs—”

  “Shut up.” Death shouted so loud, the driver turned around in his seat. “Drive the car. Get us there. I want to watch this bitch fly. Then I’ll take a photo of the bloody corpse. If we had more time, I would fuck your corpse, but you’re not worth it.”

  He spit at her, his phlegm landing on her shoulder. “I don’t care how this ends,” Death said. “But it ends tonight. No one attacks the Angels of Violence and lives.” He pushed the gun against her chin. “You’ve fucked up my plan, big time.”

  “Everyone has a plan until I break one of their bones,” she said. “Things always change after that.”

  She glimpsed the weapon’s safety was still on and he only had the use of his one hand.

  He followed her glimpse to the safety and then body checked her into the door. While using his weight to hold her still, her ribs screaming at the pain, he flicked the safety to the off position.

  Then the pressure was gone. He sat on the other side of the backseat and held the gun with his good hand, resting it on the back of the front seat.

  “Get us there fast,” he yelled at the driver. “Or I will shoot this bitch in the face.”

  “We’re almost there,” the driver said.

  “Drive faster!” Death shouted.

  Chapter 43

  Russell waited.

  He had stopped crying and began to meditate. Thoughts of his daughter ran through his mind. How he yearned to be with her again. His life had gone from one disaster to another. He had spent the few years since her death losing everything he owned in a bid to locate the family denied to him by a mother who lied about his existence.

  Even Sarah didn’t know they were cousins until six months ago. When Sarah had called her mother and asked, the truth was denied again.

  His credit cards were maxed out, his line of credit on his bank account covered the hotel, but collections letters were coming to his apartment in Vegas.

  With no job, no desire to get one and nothing to live for, family had been his last remaining straw to grasp.

  Sarah lived a life too dangerous for him. He didn’t like getting involved. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Th
ere was enough pain in the world, and he didn’t want to add to it.

  But if family was in trouble and he could do something about it, he had to. Penny was family and no one helped her.

  Knowing he could see Penny when this was all over was all he needed. Deep in his soul, he knew what that meant. There was really only one way to see Penny.

  The cruel world had left him with no other option.

  A door banged down the hallway. A moment later, footsteps came toward him.

  Then a man dressed in the hotel uniform stepped through the door in front of him and pulled keys out. He flipped through the key ring that held at least twenty keys, found the one he was searching for and inserted it in the door.

  Wind from the roof rushed through, opening the door faster than the man had intended. When it banged against the wall, he glimpsed Russell hiding in the corner.

  “Hey, what you doing here?”

  Russell got up, holding one of the garbage can lids like a shield.

  “I’m sorry.” He pulled out his room key to calm the guy down. “I got lost. Don’t know my way around. My mom always said I shouldn’t wander.”

  He stepped closer, lowering the shield to his side.

  “Well, you have to go back to your room.”

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

  Russell turned to go through the door that led into the hotel, stopped and slammed it shut.

  “Hey, what are you—”

  His words were cut off as the garbage can lid connected with his jaw. The blow had the desired effect, knocking the employee down and out.

  Penny had told Russell that the man was helping death. The employee on the floor understood that opening the door to the roof for Death was supposed to get him a free pass to come to a street gang’s clubhouse as payment.

  The man on the floor didn’t have a future. Hitting him hard enough to knock him out and possibly break his jaw might just give him the future that would have been denied him had he joined a street gang.

  Russell set the shield down and grabbed the man’s arms. He dragged him out onto the roof and then went back for his shields. Once he had everything he needed outside, he left the key in the roof access door, shut it, and got into position.

  According to Penny, Death would be walking through that door and he would have Sarah with him.

  Russell waited around the corner from the roof access door in the cold wind.

  He waited for Sarah to come out.

  He waited to deal with Death.

  But most of all, he waited to see Penny.

  That made him smile for the first time in months.

  Chapter 44

  The driver stopped in an alleyway entrance and cut the lights.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  “Get out.” Death pushed Sarah toward the door.

  The driver jumped out and stood by the door as Sarah exited the vehicle, the pain in her ribs sharp.

  Death got out behind her, the gun steady in his hand. He brought his right wrist up to examine it in the light. After moving it up and down slightly, he declared it not broken.

  “Here, take this and keep it concealed.” Death handed the driver the gun. “Shoot her in the face if she tries anything. And don’t worry about hitting me. Just make sure you shoot her.”

  The driver nodded.

  “Now give me my long knife.”

  The driver handed Death a blade that looked like a small machete.

  “Move.”

  The trio walked toward a side door access to the hotel.

  “How are you going to get past security?” Sarah asked.

  “That’s all worked out.”

  At the door, Death ran a card by a key reader. The door clicked and opened.

  It was at least one in the morning. The hallway was empty and no sounds emitted from any of the rooms. All Sarah had to do was scream, wake people up and run. But she knew she’d get shot for her efforts.

  At the end of the hallway, they waited at an elevator. The custom-made doors opened to a plush elevator car. Sarah entered the elevator. She had to do something, because there was no way she was going out onto the roof just to be thrown off.

  They came on behind her and hit a button.

  “There’s a man who haunts the eighth floor of this hotel,” Death said. “Did you know that?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “There have been sightings of a ghost of a grey-haired man who appears in a jacket and slacks as he moves along the hallway. Some of the staff still refuse to go the eighth floor when working the midnight shift.”

  “Wow,” the driver said.

  “And what about the employee who hung himself off the stairwell railing on the nineteenth floor?”

  “Why the history lesson?” Sarah asked.

  “Just wondering if you’re going to be haunting the building after we leave.”

  The elevator slowed, then stopped, and the doors opened.

  “Go.” Death pushed Sarah hard. The driver led them along the hall. They entered a door to the stairs and climbed.

  At any time she could fight, but the pain in her ribs would slow her down, even if she ignored it. If she went after the driver with the gun, she’d get cut. If she went for Death, she’d get shot. She had to wait for the right moment.

  At the top of the stairs they came to a door that said roof access. She examined the area.

  “There’s a motion sensor in that corner and a camera right there,” Sarah said, pointing at it. “And you still think you’re going to get away with this?”

  “They’re turned off.” He wagged a finger in her face. “I’m not as stupid as you think. I’ve got people.”

  He turned to the access door.

  “See, he even left the key in the door for me.”

  Death opened the door and stepped out onto the roof. The driver pushed Sarah through. The bitter wind hit her first. Then the bright red light from the hotel sign. It cast a red glow onto everything.

  Death turned to the driver. “Aim that gun at Sarah.”

  The driver did.

  “Now check that the safety is off.”

  The driver did.

  “Good. Now, make sure when you shoot her, you don’t miss or I will gut you. Understand?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Now, Sarah, come for a walk with me to the edge. I have something to show you.”

  He lowered his blade to the side and gestured with his arm. Sarah realized her last chance was to put Death between her and the driver and have the driver shoot, using Death’s body as a shield. Or push him over the edge before he could push her and hope the driver ran out of bullets before one of them killed her.

  Her stomach flipped. After all the training Aaron had given her in close quarters combat, fighting with her hands and feet, how could this have gone so far?

  “Aren’t you coming?” Death asked.

  Sarah walked with Death to the edge of the roof.

  Chapter 45

  Russell watched as the two men talked to Sarah. Then they walked to the edge of the roof.

  What the hell are they doing?

  He followed, a garbage can shield in each hand. The man with Sarah looked rugged, like a fighter. In the dark, Russell could barely make out his face.

  Who would tattoo their face?

  He got within four feet of the man holding the gun and slowed. At the edge of the roof, Sarah and the other man were talking. Russell lowered himself to the ground and waited a heartbeat.

  How this played out would be up to Sarah. He didn’t want to interrupt early, but she was in danger.

  He edged closer to the man with the gun, making sure his metal garbage can lids didn’t scrape or touch anything.

  Then the man with Sarah did something crazy. He grabbed her arms and tried to push her over the edge. Sarah reacted like Russell had never seen a woman move.

  The man in front of him aimed at Sarah.

  Russell stood up behind him and swung
the garbage can lid as hard and as fast as he could.