Paula Graves: Major Nanny

Trevor looked at Stacy uncertainly. “You think it’ll work?”

I hope so, she thought.

HARLAN HEARD A LOW THUD, and seconds later, the sound of ripping tape. Lewis must’ve duct-taped Charlotte Manning to a chair in the kitchen earlier “Stacy?” he murmured, needing to hear the sound of her voice. But she didn’t answer.

“She probably put the phone down to unbind Charlotte,” Sheriff Hale said softly, his gaze on the pair of tactical officers he’d just positioned on either side of Zachary’s bedroom window. As long as Charlotte entered alone, they’d draw her and Jeff Appleton’s daughter to the window and help them escape.

“There. Let Charlotte go get Abby.” Stacy’s voice was back in his ear again. He felt the tension in his gut ease.

“Good,” he said. “Keep him from going with them.”

“No, she can do it by herself,” Stacy said, clearly talking to Trevor. “We need to stay here and figure out what we’re going to do when your friend makes his move.”

That’s my girl, he thought. And he was going to do whatever it took to make her see they were right together as soon as he got her out of there.

A rectangle of light appeared in Zachary’s room. The door opened and Harlan spotted Charlotte Manning’s silhouette enter.

The men at the window called softly to her. Following their orders, she handed Abby out the window to one of them and let the other officer help her out. The deputies brought Abby and Charlotte over to where Harlan and the sheriff crouched.

“Where are they?” Harlan asked Charlotte.

“Living room. He’s going to come looking for me if I don’t go back out there.”

Sheriff Hale nodded to another deputy standing nearby. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

Charlotte looked at Harlan. “He’s completely out of it- Stacy’s walking around talking into the phone and it’s like he doesn’t even see it. You’ve got to get her out of there.”

The deputy walked over, carrying an M24 police sniper rifle. He held it out to Harlan.

Harlan stared at the rifle, realizing what Hale intended. “Sheriff, no-”

On the other end of his headset, he heard Stacy’s soft intake of breath.

“Everything’s okay,” he murmured into the microphone.

“You said you were a sniper,” Hale said.

“I have an injury.” He held up his shrapnel-scarred hand.

“What’s taking so long?” Trevor Lewis’s agitated voice was clear over the line. He must be standing close to Stacy.

Harlan realized they were out of time. Lewis seemed to be growing more desperate by the second, and now Stacy was the only remaining target for his madness. He had to end this mess.

Now.

It had been too long since he’d felt as if a sniper rifle was part of his own body, a third arm with which he could deliver justice in a few well-aimed and well-considered shots. But if that was the only way to make sure Stacy got a chance to hold her little boy again, then he’d make it happen.

He held out his hand to the deputy with the rifle. Into the headset, he murmured, “Get him into Zachary’s room, turn on the light, and get the hell out of the way.”

On the other end of the line, Stacy was silent for a long moment. Then, aloud, she said, “We should go check on them.”

Harlan positioned himself for the best possible shot through the open window. His heart was rattling like a snare drum, beating a cadence of fear, but he shook off the doubt and concentrated on the task. Level the sight. Go for center mass.

A silhouette filled the doorway of Zachary’s room, blocking part of the light. Harlan had the shot, but he didn’t know where Stacy was, so he couldn’t take it yet.

“They’re not here.” Trevor’s voice rose with alarm. Harlan could hear him both on the headset and faintly through the open window twenty yards away.

“Are you sure?” Stacy’s voice was strong over the line. “Let me turn on a light.”

Harlan saw her silhouette just behind Trevor’s. Her arm moved, flicking on the light in Zachary’s room.

Illumination flooded the shadowy scene. Harlan saw Trevor Lewis clearly, standing a few feet inside the room. Behind him, Stacy backed out of Zachary’s room at a run.

Trevor turned and ran to the doorway. His gun hand lifted, as if to fire after his escaping captive. Harlan heard a bark of gunfire from the house.

Now or never. Take the shot.

Hoping the short distance would compensate for the unfamiliar rifle and his rusty skills, he squeezed off three shots. Trevor Lewis’s body jerked with each round.

Then he fell out of sight.

For a second, only the sound of the rifle’s echo filled the night air. Then the area erupted in chaos as deputies and agents rushed the guesthouse.

Harlan handed off the rifle and ran to the front of the house, terrified that Lewis’s round had hit its target before Harlan’s shots took him down. He pushed past the deputies in the front room, calling Stacy’s name.

“Harlan!” Her cry swung him in the direction of the kitchen, where she was standing near the sink, tears streaming down her eyes.

Elbowing deputies and agents out of the way, he ran to her, wrapping her in a crushing embrace. Her breath hot and sweet against his cheek, she whispered, “I knew you’d come.”

He kissed her temple. “I always will.”

The silence in Harlan’s apartment was unnerving. Even though Stacy knew there was a guard posted outside to protect her and Zachary, she didn’t feel safe.

Not until Harlan finally came home.

He looked tired when he came through the door. Tired and a little haunted. After Harlan put him in charge of taking her and Zachary back to his apartment and posting a guard while he briefed the other CSI agents at the office, Matt Soarez had told Stacy what Harlan had kept from her: shooting Trevor Lewis had been the shot of a lifetime for Harlan, given the injury to his hand. Doctors had told him he’d never be able to shoot a rifle for accuracy again. It was a big damned deal.

But why hadn’t Harlan told her that? Why did she have to learn everything important about Harlan from other people?

“Zachary asleep?” he asked, shrugging off his overcoat to reveal his rumpled tuxedo. The tie was untied, hanging loose at the collar, and grime marred the snowy surface of his shirt.

“Yeah.” She wanted to be strong, not let her feelings show. Not until she knew he meant those words he’d whispered in her ear when he’d come into the chaotic crime scene to find her. She couldn’t deny she loved him, but she had to be sure she was making the right choices for Zachary and herself.

She’d loved Anthony, and look where that had gotten her.

“Any luck finding the gunman?”

Harlan shook his head. “We think he worked with Trevor Lewis to gain access to the ranch. I think Lewis had already planted the gun days ago so the man could sneak through the metal detector. The caterers had a man call in sick and hired a new guy without time to do much of a background check. We’ve got a description, but it’s pretty vague. But we’re still looking.” He crossed to where she sat curled up on his sofa. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” she asked carefully.

There was almost no furniture in the room besides the sofa, not even a chair to pull up beside her. So he tugged the low coffee table forward and sat in front of her.

“That I had to deal with so much stuff before I could get back here to you.” He reached across the distance between them and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ears, the touch light but warm. He let his fingers slide slowly down the side of her face, until his hand came to rest on her shoulder, his thumb gently stroking her collarbone. “That I left in the middle of the night last night and didn’t get to wake up with you.”