“It’s a bomb, lady,” Hudson snarled. “Now, over to Bella Goodshine with the hostage lunch order.”
40
12:05 p.m., Tuesday, August 18
Nick hated tight places. But he didn’t have much of a choice. He’d shimmied his ass into the air duct that Mrs. Penny had crawled into from the side of the building. He was a man on a mission.
“Don’t freak out, Santiago. So the walls are a little close, and you couldn’t roll over if your life depended on it. So there isn’t any fucking air left in this goddamn tomb. It’s no big deal.” His pep talk wasn’t working. The only thing that kept him moving forward was thinking about Riley somewhere inside, scared out of her wits, waiting for him to save her.
“I’m coming, Thorn. Hang in there,” he muttered.
He elbow-crawled his way to the first T and, after a beat, crawled into the dark on the right.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he nearly dislocated a shoulder digging it out.
“What?”
“Santiago, where the fuck are you?” Weber snarled in his ear.
“I’m a little busy right now,” Nick grunted. He was sweating like a greased-up WWE star.
“If you’re where I think you are, I’m going to add another body to the count, and I won’t even mind the paperwork,” Weber said.
“This is your fault. If you would have let me play delivery guy, I wouldn’t have had to stuff my ass into this duct,” Nick reminded him.
“Get your ass out here now.”
“Climb in here and make me.” Nick hung up and started to crawl again but paused when he heard something up ahead.
It sounded like a fart.
Smelled like one too.
“Mrs. Penny?” he called.
“Pipe down!” an elderly voice hissed.
Nick used his nose to turn on the flashlight on his phone and shined it in the direction of the voice.
A pair of orthopedic shoes clogged up the duct ten feet in front of him.
“Are you stuck?”
“No, I’m not stuck, dingus! I’m listening to our friendly neighborhood murderer’s live broadcast and waiting for my moment.”
“Your moment to what?”
“To jump down onto the news desk, kick him in the face, and then shoot him with my Beretta.”
Maybe a highly trained nineteen-year-old parkour athlete with soft bones could execute a plan like that, but not an octogenarian with a cane. He was trapped in an air duct with a delusional woman with gas and a weapon. This was not the day he’d set out to have.
“How exactly are you going to jump down?”
“Haven’t figured that part out yet. I’m kinda wedged in here around the hips.”
He felt a little lightheaded. “So you’re stuck?”
“It’s not my fault the ducting got smaller.”
