Crossfire. B.J. Daniels

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       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Dear Reader,

      Being a part of the CODE RED series was a thrill for me—and a little frightening. I’d never imagined what it would be like to be in a hostage situation with dangerous men who had nothing to lose.

      Being in that room with my characters, I found myself just wanting to get them out of there—and me with them.

      I am in awe of SWAT teams everywhere. I admire their commitment and their ability to keep a cool head when everyone around them is losing theirs.

      It was a pleasure to be part of such an interesting series with a great bunch of writers.

      B.J. Daniels

      Many thanks to Twyla Geraci,

       who trained to be a SWAT paramedic.

       Also, Sergeant Jason Becker with the local SWAT team.

      This book is dedicated to you

       and the other men and women who risk their lives

       every day to keep us safe.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      9:40 p.m. Thursday

      LEE HARPER was no longer sure he could trust himself. Sometimes he would be in the living room and call to Francine to come see a show on TV. When she didn’t respond, he would go looking for her.

      And only then would he remember that his wife was dead.

      She’d been killed seven weeks ago at the convenience store where she worked part-time. An aftershock from the earthquake had caused the store to collapse. Help hadn’t arrived until it was too late to save her.

      Knowing all of that, Lee Harper still found himself turning to speak to her and was always shocked and a little disoriented to find her gone. Not that unusual after forty-six years of marriage. No children. Francine had conceived four times, all miscarriages, all heartbreaking. They had stopped trying, stopped talking about children. It was better that way.

      He’d been an English professor until last year, when he retired. He could recite complete Shakespeare plays from memory, knew hundreds of poems, and in all those years had never forgotten even one of his students’ names.

      Until lately.

      “It’s just grief,” friends and colleagues had said. They’d been supportive at first. But as the weeks went by, they suggested he see a doctor.

      No one understood that his mind had started to go when Francine was killed.

      Now sometimes he left the stove on. Sometimes he didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there. His grief felt like a tumor inside him, eating him alive, destroying a mind that had once been “sharp as a tack.”

      For a while the question—when he was thinking straight—had just been what to do. How could he right the terrible wrong of Francine’s death? That question had kept him awake for days and left him feeling impotent. There was no way to fix things. No way.

      Then he’d met Kenny Reese. And for the first time in weeks, he’d no longer felt СКАЧАТЬ