Strickland stood there, his gaze going back and forth between Carter and Hadley, his expression switching from interest to hunger depending on which one of them he was looking at. When Strickland finally moved, it wasn’t toward Hadley—or Carter. Instead, he turned and ran toward the edge of the roof, jumping off the building.
The supernatural that Carter’s omega had fought looked as shocked as he was by Strickland’s rapid departure. For a moment, Carter thought he would turn and attack in pure desperation, but then the creature was running for the edge of the roof, too.
The wolf inside Carter roared, enraged at the thought of losing his prey—the creature who’d threatened his soul mate—and he sprinted forward to go after him. Wrapped in his murky state of awareness, Carter vaguely heard Karissa yelling for him to stop, but there was nothing he could do to stop his omega.
He was about to go over the edge when he felt someone grab him. He almost went anyway, fine with taking whoever it was with him.
Carter was barely aware of someone humming until the curtain faded and he was back. He looked down to find Hadley kneeling beside him, his hands in hers, the two of them inches from the edge of the roof. She was the one he’d almost taken over the edge with him. Shit, he could have killed her! It felt like his soul was being torn into pieces at the thought.
He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly and refusing to let go, even as the sound of approaching sirens filled the air around them.
When Carter finally pulled away from Hadley long enough to look over the edge of the roof, he realized Strickland was nowhere to be found. But the one who’d followed the serial killer over the side was definitely still there. And from the twisted position of his body, he wouldn’t be getting up again. How had Strickland made it, but the other guy hadn’t?
This high up, Carter liked to think he would have survived the fall himself, but it would have been painful as hell. It seemed Hadley had saved him once again.
* * * * *
“Can someone please explain what the hell is going on here?” Ferguson demanded.
By the time Carter, Hadley, Hale, and Karissa had gotten back down to the second floor, the FBI agent was there along with Marshal Turner, patrol officers from the DPD, and paramedics. According to Dallas Fire and Rescue, the first aid Hadley had given the injured man saved his life.
“Who’s the victim and what’s his connection to the prison escapee sitting cuffed in the back of a DPD patrol car, not to mention the man lying dead outside on the pavement?” Ferguson continued before anyone could answer his first question.
That was fine with Carter since he wasn’t in any shape to be answering any questions yet. His head was still spinning after everything that had happened up on the roof and the fact that his omega had come damn close to killing Hadley.
“His name is Alfred Baker,” Turner said, not bothering to look up as he referred to the notepad in his hand. “And so far, there’s no indication that he has any connection to the men outside.”
Ferguson frowned, clearly pissed to discover that the marshal had beaten him to the scene and knew more about what was going on than he did. “Then why attack him?”
“Initial indications are that he was attacked to lure Officers Nelson and Delaney out of the building, thereby leaving Dr. Delacroix unprotected,” Turner said.
The FBI agent’s dark eyes narrowed as he studied Carter and Hale. “You were both at the briefing I gave to the Dallas PD at the SWAT compound. You’re on the team, right? What are you doing here and what’s your involvement with Dr. Delacroix?”
“Officer Delaney’s fiancée, Karissa Bonifay, and Dr. Delacroix have known each other for years,” Carter said as casually as he could, forcing his fuzzy mind to come up with something rational when he realized there was no getting out of this conversation. “They invited Dr. Delacroix over for dinner, and I happened to stop by. When we heard screams coming from the second floor, we all ran down to investigate and found the door smashed in, Mr. Baker lying on the floor, and the man who attacked him in the process of climbing out the window. Officer Delaney and I followed while Dr. Delacroix and Karissa stayed back to render first aid.”
Carter purposely left Karissa out of the chase, not wanting to draw attention to her Paladin skills any more than necessary.
“There was only one attacker at that point?” Ferguson asked, clearly trying to square that information with the two escaped prisoners currently outside.
“Yes,” Carter continued, glancing at Hadley, who still looked a little shaken. “We didn’t realize it until we were over a quarter mile away, but Marshal Turner’s right. It was all a trick to lure us away from the apartment complex. The escaped con you described during the briefing who was serving a life sentence for human trafficking was toying with us. He’d engage just enough to keep us focused on him but was drawing us further away with every step. When we realized that, I broke off pursuit and returned to the apartment as fast as I could.”
“At that point, the escapee we were fighting ended up running,” Hale added. “I chased him for a few blocks, but he got away.”
Ferguson pulled out his notepad to refer to the names written there. “And that’s when you found the other two escapees from downstairs? Quintin McMahon and Marcel Bray?”
“That’s correct,” Carter said. “The two men had chased Dr. Delacroix and Karissa to the roof. We engaged with them, and in the course of the fight, one of the men was hit on the head and knocked unconscious while the other jumped off the building to avoid being arrested.”
They’d hashed all of this out in those rushed few minutes after Carter had come out of his omega haze and the police had made it to the roof. Hale had arrived and they’d concocted an explanation of everything that had happened. They’d decided to leave Strickland completely out of the conversation since they had no way to explain how he’d jumped off the roof of an eight-story building and survived.
“You’re saying that McMahon leaped to his death voluntarily?” Ferguson asked skeptically.
Carter shrugged. “When Bray went down from that blow to his temple, McMahon must have realized he was on his own against the two of us. I don’t know if he honestly thought he’d survive the jump or simply refused to go back to prison. Either way, he went over the edge of that roof of his own accord without hesitation.”
Ferguson still looked doubtful but didn’t say anything. Turner was also regarding them curiously, but strangely enough, there wasn’t any suspicion on his face.
“He’s telling the truth,” Hadley said. “That man ran right off the roof while Officer Nelson was still ten feet away.”
Turner frowned. “First, they attack the homeless camp, and now, they try to kidnap Dr. Delacroix. What if Strickland has some kind of bizarre hold over them that makes them kill themselves rather than be caught?”
