Page 68 of 72 Hours

“So?” I stared at Junk suspiciously.

“I took the fuckin’ steps away,” he said cheerfully. “I said your trailer was a box o’ crap, didn’t I? Those steps ain’t been fastened properly for months, you can kick ’em back ’n forth, easy as pie. Dylan knows it well, he’s been nosin’ around ’em the last couple o’ days, seekin’ any more shit left behind by that kid. So I just whipped ’em off to the side, and when that bastard came out front, he took a runnin’ step into fresh air. Never saw it comin’. And once he was down, he never had a chance against kick-arse princess here.”

“Call me Judith,” she said, a little tightly. I smirked and stored Junk’s nickname away for future reference. From the glint in her eye, she knew I had.

“And Niall....” I said, slowly. I’d been biting my lip, trying not to gabble on about him, trying surreptitiously to read Judith’s expression. “I mean, if he were hurt badly or something, you’d have told me by now, right? If he had to go to hospital... if there were any kind of serious problem at all.”

“Well, of course.” Judith looked genuinely startled. “I thought it’d be the first thing you asked, but I didn’t know what you remembered, how you were feeling, so I didn’t say anything directly. Surely you knew he was all right?”

I breathed a little more deeply. “Yes, I knew. You see, no one does a bandage quite like Niall Sutherland.” I smiled pityingly at her confusion. “I saw his handiwork on Sheri. So I knew at once he was okay, more or less. But now that’s enough of the chat and the update on Greg’s capture, and I just want to know that Niall’s more okay, not less, and I’d appreciate being put out of my suspense as soon as fucking possible.”

Another body pushed through the people by the door, and then Niall was beside me. I stared at him—no, much more than that! I drank in the sight of him. My eyes ranged up and down him, checking him for injury and finding nothing. No searing stab wounds; no bloodstained shirt; no cold, gasping breath and tortured gaze. He looked tired and messed up, but his eyes were steady and warm and welcoming like some kind of human hot chocolate, and he was offering the whole damned sweetness to me.

“Sheri says you saved her life.” He smiled. I was watching his smile, reading the meanings behind the words, just enjoying the low timbre of his voice in my ears. “And then, dammit, you saved mine too.”

“He didn’t...? The knife?” I didn’t seem to be able to make a decent sentence. I reached out a hand, and he moved quickly to crouch beside me. He held my hand and let it rest in his own. His movements nudged Judith to one side, but she didn’t protest. I wasn’t about to, either. I only had eyes for him.

“No, he didn’t get me. You got to him just as he tried to stab me. You took the back edge of the knife on your injured arm, and it re-opened your wound. That’s what your pain was. I was winded, and I couldn’t get up fast enough to stop him escaping. All I could see was you on the floor, and blood all over your chest....”

I looked down at my shirt then and saw the mess for myself. Someone had ripped the material apart at my upper arm, and I was sporting another of Niall’s professional bandaging efforts. I was in considerably more pain this time around. Guess my body was getting well and truly pissed at being target of the day, every day.

“But you’re okay,” I said, a little stupidly.

“Yes. Thanks to you.”

We continued to stare at each other for a while, until Judith coughed for our attention. “Did you see Greg carrying anything other than the gun and the knife?” she asked. “We’ve searched the trailer and the path from his van to here, but we can’t see any more evidence of explosives or hidden weapons.”

Niall shook his head. ”I think he was at the end of both his resources and his imagination. His whole vendetta was folding up around him. That just made him all the more desperate.”

Sheri appeared at Junk’s shoulder, holding the rope I’d thrown. “But you got the other guy out as well, right?” she said, looking from us to Judith, then up at her father. “The cute blond? Greg had a pile of this rope, and much thinner stuff, and he’d wrapped it all around him, along with some electrical-looking gadgets like Phil has in his trailer. I didn’t know what it was all for, but then he dragged me out into his car and we set off for here, so I never got a chance to say anything to the poor bastard.”

Much thinner stuff... electrical-looking gadgets.

Niall’s eyes met mine, wide and shocked. “Fuses,” he said. “Detonator.” He didn’t need any more in the way of explanation.

The other guy....

I lurched up, feeling the pull on my wound all over again. “Simon!”

How the fuck could we have forgotten the danger he could be in?

“Brad’s on his way to find him. Brad’s going to walk right into whatever booby trap Greg set up.” I was babbling, I knew, but it didn’t matter because Niall was already reaching for the battered radio, and Judith grabbed a cell phone from Junk’s hand. She spoke rapidly and sharply and then clipped it shut.

I met her horrified eyes.

“There are people on their way now to that hideout,” she said. “Believe me, they’ll be there in minutes.”

“Call Brad!” Greg was in custody and no longer a threat to us. But his legacy still held one of our Team members in captivity—our friend—and it sounded like he’d still had some of those explosives left to play with.

He’d left one hell of a calling card.

​​​Chapter 25 – Thursday 02:20

We all waited for the call. I’d never felt so tense in my life. Phil hunkered down with Niall and got the radio working well enough for us all to listen in. Judith stood at their side, trying desperately not to look as fraught as she obviously was. Now and then the cell would ring and she’d go off to answer the call in privacy by the kitchen alcove. At one point, I could see the anger in the set of her shoulders, and she seemed to be bawling someone out. Seconds later she was obviously more satisfied with the response, and was nodding firmly.

Sheri tried to get me to rest, but I batted her away and went to sit on the floor beside Niall. She didn’t complain. In fact, she brought a cushion to me and tried to get me as comfortable as possible. Then she went to stand beside Junk as our small group clung to whatever hope and prayers we had to call on.

When Brad’s voice came through, there was a collective sigh throughout the room.