Baby Jane Doe. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ rained down inside the lobby. The young guard went down. A deadly staccato of semiautomatic gunfire erupted over their heads.

      The older guard’s hand never reached his gun. With a startled gape, he grabbed his chest and sank to the floor, taking Blondie with him. Eli glimpsed the red blooming beneath her hands as she crouched over the fallen guard and tried to staunch his wound.

      “Take cover!” Eli shouted over the screams and chaos, grabbing the startled black man beside him and shoving him to the carpet. Others ducked behind the counter. In one fluid movement, Eli dove and rolled toward Blondie. He rose up on his knees, slung his arm around her shoulders and dragged her to the floor, tucking her beneath his long body as bits of ceiling and light fixtures and bullets crashed down around them. “Eli Masterson.” He ground the words against her ear. “Detective. KCPD.”

      “GET OFF ME!” Shauna Cartwright ordered between tightly clenched teeth. She didn’t know which angered her more—the senseless violence that left a man bleeding to death just beyond her reach, or the tall, muscular detective who’d wrapped himself so thoroughly around her that she could feel his holster jammed against her shoulder blade and smell his love for coffee on his breath.

      His broad shoulders masked her view of the scene and absorbed the brunt of the debris raining down on top of them. Masterson had gone all macho to protect the perceived “little woman” while innocent bystanders cowered unguarded beneath the hail of intimidation shots. As though she couldn’t take care of herself!

      She’d spotted the body armor beneath the trench coat of the man who’d disappeared into the john. She’d alerted the guard, paged 911 and kept her head low when the bullets started flying.

      Shauna squirmed beneath the immovable weight of the determined detective and repeated the command. “Get. Off.”

      But she went still beneath his surrounding warmth when the bullets abruptly stopped. She recognized the sound of the thieves switching out their ammo. Would they fire again? Choose more living targets this time? Could she reach her gun in her purse? Where was her purse? Was there any way to get to the two wounded guards and help them? The eerie silence after the deafening barrage of gunfire made her thoughts seem loud inside her head.

      “Shh.”

      At the whisper against her ear, Shauna caught her breath, thinking for one crazy moment that she’d uttered her thoughts out loud and given herself away. She might have trembled as fear found a chink in the adrenaline charging through her system. And Detective Masterson’s arm might have tightened imperceptibly around her, offering reassurance as well as protection.

      For one deep, controlled breath, Shauna allowed herself to accept Eli Masterson’s comfort. A man’s personalized warmth and strength were a rare treat in her life, and for that one breath, she let herself be a woman who was sheltered and cared for.

      But that wasn’t who she was. With the next inhale, she became a cop again. And not just any cop.

      An acrid cloud of gunpowder, plaster dust and fear stung her nose. But the only thing she reacted to was the shift of hard muscles against her back and bottom.

      The instant she felt Masterson move, Shauna snatched at his arm, silently warning him to stay put. The detective could play cowboy on his own time. But not when there were hostages present. Not when the perps’ intent remained unclear.

      “Easy,” she breathed against the dusty wool of his sleeve. Though he stopped moving, the tension in his body never relaxed. “Assess the situation before we act.”

      “Everybody stay put and no one else gets hurt!” The man in the trench coat took charge. The movement of his voice indicated that he’d gone behind the counter. “Get the documents and whatever cash you can grab.”

      Documents? Shauna frowned. So this wasn’t a straight-out robbery. She should have guessed as much from an assault that had started with a precisely timed explosion.

      As the voices moved farther away, the detective began a succinct report in her ear. “The situation is you’ve got two armed men, possibly three—”

      “—the sweaty banker behind the counter?”

      “Sharp eye.” So Masterson had been suspicious of a possible setup, too. “Those guns were stashed so they could get past the guard. And who knows what’s waiting outside? That could have been an unmanned bomb, a projectile shot—”

      “These guys will have a getaway car waiting. This robbery’s too well planned not to.”

      Masterson nodded agreement. “Early-morning strike. Minimal hostage risk.”

      Shauna wriggled a few inches of freedom from beneath him. “Those hostages should be our first concern. I need to get out and help the guard.”

      She had both arms free and was pushing up before the detective cinched his arm around her waist and pulled her back into the heated curve of his body. “Look who they took out first. I don’t think these men would be too impressed to find out we’re cops.”

      Turning her cheek into the carpet, Shauna looked into Eli Masterson’s cool brown eyes. “You know who I am?”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      She supposed that was the curse of having such a public face. Detective Masterson thought he was earning brownie points. Fat chance. On a more charitable note, maybe he was just being a team player. If that was the case, she wasn’t cutting him any slack. He should be obeying the chain of command.

      Shauna pried his arm from her waist. “Then chances are, they do, too. Keep your sidearm holstered and don’t try to be a hero.” She got her knees beneath her and wrenched free before Masterson could nab her again. “I’m a trained negotiator. I’ve dealt with situations exactly like this one. I’ve already paged—”

      “Backup’s already on the way,” he informed her. His hard exhale matched her own. “Stay put. Let these guys take what they want and walk out of here. They won’t get far.”

      “You two. Shut up.” The antsy thirtysomething, whose street-tough look lacked the bulk of his partner’s Kevlar vest, leveled his Smith & Wesson at Shauna’s forehead, silencing the debate. “Get behind the counter with the others.”

      But Shauna was insistent. She looked up along the gun barrel to his nervous, darting eyes. “That guard needs medical assistance before he bleeds out. I have first-aid training. You don’t want this to turn into a murder scene. Let me help.”

      Without waiting for an answer, Shauna slowly rose to her feet, keeping her eyes on his the entire time.

      “Okay. Hey! Not you, big guy.” Shauna froze as he swung his gun toward Masterson, who deliberately ignored the order and stood up beside her. “Don’t move!”

      Though he held his hands up in surrender, Masterson towered a good four or five inches over the armed man, and the cold mask of his expression didn’t so much as blink at the gun pointed his way. “I can help the other guard,” he offered.

      The man with the gun contradicted his own order and jabbed the gun into Masterson’s chest, knocking him back a step. “Get behind the counter.”

      “Get him back here. Now!” The man in the trench coat appeared to be in charge of the robbery. He left the banker to cram what stacks of СКАЧАТЬ