“It wasn’t me. It was my partner.”
Now Joel did tense.
“You realized I had a partner, of course, when you found Chloe stuffed in the vault. It took two of us to seal her in. My partner got the bombs. He set them here, and then he gave me the trigger device. Happy now? You’ve pulled the truth from me. I think Chloe would be impressed.”
Nothing about this nightmare made Joel happy.
Morgan waved the fob. “Give me the fucking gun, or I will blow us all to hell.”
He studied Morgan. Tried to see…was this the kind of man who would kill himself? From what Joel knew, Morgan was an arrogant, manipulative, controlling SOB who liked to play with other people’s lives.
“My finger is twitchy. Give me the gun, now.”
Joel heard the elevator ding. He’d been staring straight at Morgan, Morgan had been smirking back, and the air had been so still and silent. The ding of the elevator seemed incredibly loud.
“Who could that be?” Morgan mused. “You sent Wendy downstairs—how very chivalrous of you, by the way. So now who do we have coming to join our party? It won’t be the cops. Wendy will have told them about the bombs, so they will be staying back. Who. Could. It. Be?”
It was obvious by his confident air that the jerk figured his partner would be coming in to help him. “You’re going to kill me and Gordo,” Joel said as he realized the plan. “Then trigger the bombs. You’ll be long gone when you trigger them—guessing you can be a pretty good distance away from the building to get them to explode, but the cops won’t realize that. To them, it will look like you’re dead.” Disgusted, Joel shook his head. “Another fucking fake death? Don’t you get tired of repeating yourself? Someone needs to learn new tricks.”
“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
Why the hell—
“He’s almost here,” Morgan proclaimed. “I hear his steps. Don’t you? You know, my partner could just shoot you in the back. How would that be for fun—”
“I don’t think it would be fun at all,” Chloe announced.
Joel’s spine snapped straight. “You heard the phone ring, didn’t you?” Joel asked without looking back. “Dammit, I thought your breathing seemed a little too steady.”
“No.” Her steps tapped across the floor. “I didn’t hear the phone ring. I had a nightmare.” She’d moved to his side.
Morgan’s hungry gaze was on her. “Dream of being with the dead, did you, Chloe?”
“No, I dreamed that I never woke up. That I’d stayed with you all this time. The images were so terrifying that I jerked awake just as Joel was slipping away. Couldn’t very well leave my partner to face all of…” She looked around and motioned vaguely with one hand. “All of this on his own, now could I?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Morgan seethed. “You don’t know what you’ve walked into. You don’t know—”
“I know that you’ve been played, Morgan. Not a situation that happens often, but it did occur this time. The man you have bound on that table isn’t the one who set up the murders in this town. He’s not the one who hurt Joel.”
Morgan’s brow scrunched. “Oh, no?”
“No.” A definite reply.
“Then who the hell did?”
***
“You can’t go in,” Wendy Hyde said tearfully as she wrapped her arms around her body and rocked back and forth. “There are bombs on the first floor. He’ll trigger them as soon as you go in the front doors. If you want that man—J-Joel—to live, then you will stay out here. You’ll wait—”
“She is a fantastic actress,” Marie announced to Reese as they strolled up on the scene. “Look at those tears. That emotion. She should be in a movie or something. She gets to me, you know?”
Reese nodded. “Um, me, too. I want to believe her.”
Cedric frowned at them. “What in the hell are you two doing here?”
“Chloe sent us. She wanted you to be distracted so she could get into that building.” Reese waved his hand to said building. “But you were already distracted by this sobbing woman.”
Wendy rocked back and forth, harder now.
“Chloe is in the building?” Cedric thundered. “With Joel? Jesus, I need to—”
“Chloe wants you to call the FBI Brass,” Marie chimed in.
Cedric put his hands on his hips. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Why, indeed…”
***
“Morgan, don’t you see what happened? Your partner thought you would kill Gordon. That was his plan. He gave you enough rope so that you’d think Gordon was guilty of the crimes, and then he figured you would rush in to eliminate him…especially if you thought Gordon had been planning to kill me,” Chloe added as she continued to stand at Joel’s side. “Spoiler alert, he wasn’t, by the way.”
Behind the tape, Gordon groaned.
The muzzle of the gun still pressed to Morgan’s shirtfront.
Chloe continued, “I know you like to think that you are a master manipulator, but in this case, you have been played.”
“The hell I have!” Morgan threw back. “I have the power here, Chloe. Now get your boyfriend to drop the gun before I trigger the bomb—”
“Trigger it,” Chloe advised him. “Go right ahead.”
What? Joel’s head whipped toward her. “Uh, Chloe…”
“You can squeeze the trigger and put on a lovely show for us all, but nothing will happen. Because the building isn’t wired. There are no bombs stashed on the first floor. I checked before I came up to this level. Your partner lied to you. As I said, he wanted you to kill Gordon, but after you did that, then he thought that Joel would kill you. Everything would be tied up nicely, and he’d be free. But that’s not what happened. And you don’t get to—”
“He’s going to pull the trigger, Chloe,” Joel snarled. He could see the truth in Morgan’s eyes.
Shit. He was—
Morgan squeezed the device in his hand. Joel automatically whirled and grabbed Chloe. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close as he waited for the explosion—
Nothing happened.
“Like I said,” Chloe murmured, as cool as could be. “There were no bombs on the first floor. How many times must I tell you? Your partner lied to you, Morgan. He set you up—”
Joel glanced back at Morgan. Morgan threw the trigger to the floor. He grabbed the scalpel from the table and lunged for Joel.
Gordo grunted frantically.
Joel lifted the gun Cedric had given him—and he fired.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morgan jerked when the bullet sank into his shoulder. He didn’t let go of the scalpel, but he stumbled back, and his face was twisted with such rage and hate—
Joel fired a second time. Morgan staggered. Slipped. He fell onto his side even as Gordon grunted and struggled frenziedly against his straps.
Chloe’s hand had reached for Joel as he fired. Her fingers hung in the air.
“FBI!” Agent Richardson burst through the open doorway. “Everyone freeze!”