Cal nodded again. “Yeah. I want to be here.”
“Callum,” Wyatt said, pitching his voice low again. “Don’t say anything to Jules just yet. Like when we arrested him, the task force wants to play this deal with Hamilton real close to the vest. Only a few key players know anything about it.”
“Understood.”
“In fact, when we move him to his holding cell, because of the chatter we’ve picked up on from the drug ring, we’re not goingthe usual route out the back door and around the alley to the transport van. That route is known to anyone who’s ever had a brush with the law and been taken the same path. Even with body armor, keeping Hamilton alive is too important.”
“What then?” Cal asked.
“If you’d help us keep a watch, we’ll have the van pull right up to the front door and hurry him through the lobby.” Wyatt received a text and checked his phone screen. “They’re ready to move now. Will you take a post out front?”
“Sure,” Cal said, taking out his sidearm and moving back into the main lobby.
Matti’s eyes widened when she saw him return with his weapon in his hand. “Cal? What are you doing?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He gave the lobby and front doors a visual sweep. The nondescript van used for inmate transport pulled to a stop at the front curb. “Listen, a prisoner is being moved. Perhaps you and Sam could relocate to another room until—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the door to the back hall opened with a clang, and no fewer than five police officers, surrounding a handcuffed Chase Hamilton, entered the lobby. Cal tugged on Matti’s arm, pulling her out of the main walking path to the front doors.
Hamilton seemed to be jerking against the guiding hands of the officer beside him. He snarled a curse at the officer.
“Settle down!” one of the policemen barked. “Keep him moving—”
A loud blast and the clatter of breaking glass ricocheted through the entry hall. Then another blast and another—
Chaos erupted around him. Shouts and gunshots. Toppling chairs and splintering plaster. Flying debris and whizzing bullets.
Sam let out a high-pitched and terrified scream.
Matti cringed and yelped her own fright.
“Get down!” Cal yanked Matti’s arm, pulling her behind a large potted plant and shoving her down.
His sister fought his grip. “No! Sam!”
The officers in the lobby rushed to take up defensive positions and return fire. A cacophony of voices added to the confusion.
“Where’s the shooter?”
“Anyone have eyes on him?”
“Officer down!”
“He’s hit!”
Sam’s loud wail of distress sounded like a siren, heightening the surreal incongruity of the unfolding tableau. A shooting. At the police station. Cal shook his head to clear the buzz of shock, the ringing in his ears.
His grip tightened on Matti’s arm when she tried to rise. “Stay down!”
“I have to get Sam!” Panic was thick in his baby sister’s voice.
“I’ll go,” he told her, his tone commanding. “Stay here!”
The shooting stopped almost as quickly as it started. Like ants whose hill had been kicked, police officers swarmed in and out of the lobby, taking tactical positions and moving in a crouch into the parking lot in search of the shooter. Others gathered around two fallen bodies.
Chase Hamilton, whose head wound left no doubt he was dead, and the police officer who’d been closest to him. The officer clutched his chest while his colleagues administered first aid.
Broken glass and crumbled plaster and drywall crunched under Cal’s shoes as he scurried to the little boy. He stayed low until he reached the spot where Sam had curled into a ball on the floor, tucked as far under the row of formed plastic chairs as he could. “Hey, Sammy. Come on out. I’ve got you.”
