Takeover - Lisa Black [106]
Brad brightened visibly, and he and Missy moved over to the duffel bags. He picked up the straps to one of them and made for the door. He could lift only half the bag off the floor and dragged the remainder of it. Missy did the same.
Lucas followed them, hugging the wall next to Bobby’s body. “Put them in the backseat, lengthwise, so that half of each duffel is wedged between the two front seats. Don’t leave the car until it’s done. At this range I can’t miss.”
Missy and Brad left without a word, without a backward glance for their fellow captives.
The phone rang.
“That,” Cavanaugh said to Lucas, “would be Laura. You might want to talk to her.”
“I don’t think we’ll be needing another negotiator. You’ll all be going home soon, at least most of you. I can’t fit too many people in that car.”
Cavanaugh muttered something under his breath.
“What?” Theresa asked.
“He’s going to take a hostage with him. I figured he would, but it still sucks.”
“There’s no way to take him down with one of us in the car?”
“A sniper could get him through the window. They’d have to do it before he gets moving, though. It’s risky.”
She watched the two freed hostages through the glass door. Brad shoved his duffel into the backseat and then ran, not directly across the street but down the center of it, south toward Superior. Missy struggled, maneuvering the two bags into place as Lucas had instructed. Then she walked with defiant calm over to the library building, where three young men in fatigues emerged to welcome her.
“All that money could form a barrier between him and the hostage,” Cavanaugh observed.
Lucas surveyed the line. “Eeny, meeny, miney—”
“What happened to letting four people go?”
“That was Bobby’s deal, Chris, not mine, and unfortunately it fell through.”
“You don’t seem real broken up about losing your partner.”
Lucas didn’t glare at him, not exactly; his face just grew still in a way Theresa had come to recognize as equivalent to a glare. “Bobby was the best friend I ever had, so don’t tell me how broken up I am. But I respect his wishes.”
“Him dying was part of the plan?”
“I told him to stay where he’d have some cover. He could have hit Eric through the glass or an open door. Bobby worked on his impulse control in therapy, but apparently not enough. He had to tell Eric why he was about to die.” He took a moment to regroup. Theresa believed him. He hadn’t wanted to lose Bobby.
“How did you know I’d produce Eric for you?”
“We didn’t, but it was worth a try. The trick was to make you think it was your idea.”
Cavanaugh looked as if he’d been slapped.
“Time to go,” Lucas told them briskly. “I need somebody the cops would never shoot at. And could there be anything more beautiful, and more vulnerable, than a mother and child?”
Jessica Ludlow gathered Ethan more tightly in her arms, eyes wide.
“Yes, you, my little southern Madonna. And you, Theresa. You’re both coming with me. The guys can stay here. This is how it’s going to work—”
“No,” Theresa said.
“No,” Cavanaugh said. “Leave them here. You can only make things worse for yourself by adding kidnapping to your list of charges.”
“Chris, you’ll be picking up a pitchfork in hell and still trying to talk St. Peter into opening the gates, I swear. We’re not negotiating. We were never negotiating, get it? We needed you to produce Eric and the money, that’s all. Now shut up. You, Theresa.”
“You don’t need me.” She emphasized every word. “You have a young woman and a little boy. No one will risk hurting them. I’d just be in the way.”
Everyone in the room stared at her as silence flowed in, tamping down the last echo of her voice, pressing on her shoulders like guilt.
“Theresa…” Cavanaugh began.
She couldn’t look at him. “He won’t hurt them. I trust him.”
Lucas muttered, “Of all people…”
“Leave both of them,” Cavanaugh said. “I’ll go.”
“I just might take you up on that, Chris. I’m sure your heroism would do wonders for the sales of your next book. Even if it’s published posthumously.” Lucas still wore that cold, closed-down look that frightened