The gap Emmy thought she was going to jump.
See? Crazy.
Ryland had his back to us, his arms wrapped around Gemma, and Alaric was still standing with Ravi by the access door. Not much seemed to have changed during our wild run up the stairs except for the fact that my heart was fast heading for cardiac arrest. Emmy wasn’t even out of breath. If we both survived until morning, I definitely planned to spend more time in the gym.
“Aren’t you just a fountain of positivity tonight?”
“Just sayin’.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“The gap’s, like, six metres? Seven? And the towers are the same height. It’s too far.”
“The wind’s with me.”
And gravity was against her. “It’s not enough.”
Every so often, a snippet of conversation drifted across, and it seemed to me that Ryland was unravelling by the minute. Gemma had gone quiet, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or a bad sign.
“We all want to walk out of here,” Alaric said, his voice calm. “All you have to do is let Gemma go.”
“I want a helicopter!”
Yup, looney tunes.
“I can’t promise a helicopter, but I have a car downstairs.”
“You’ll come after me! I’d rather jump than go to jail!”
“Alaric had better have a tracker in his car,” Emmy muttered.
That sounded hopeful. “Does this mean you’re not jumping?”
“You’re right. It is too far.” I’d never heard Emmy sound so dejected before. “I’d need more height.”
“So should we cover the car? Or do you want me to stay here and keep you updated while you go downstairs?”
“Dammit, I don’t want Ryland getting off that roof. He’s insane. What if he takes another hostage on the way down?”
“Should we clear the way or something? Tell people to stay in their flats?”
“Ravi would need to stay on the roof with Gemma. That only leaves five of us to go after Ryland, and this estate is a maze.”
“Six. What about Beth?”
“If we let Beth ‘help,’ she’ll probably get taken hostage herself. She’s got no street smarts. Zero. But…” Emmy’s gaze settled on something behind me, and a sickening dread poured itself into my stomach. Her smile… It was cunning in a terrifying sort of way. “I have a better idea.”
“Does it involve calling a SWAT team and letting them deal with the problem?”
“SWAT? Depending who’s on duty, you’ll get either ‘Sit, Wait, And Talk’ or ‘Shoot Without Any Thinking.’”
On the other roof, Ryland took a step backwards. How Alaric remained calm, I had no idea. And where was his gun? I couldn’t see it in his hand anymore.
“So what’s your idea?”
Emmy turned me around and pointed at a wooden board, just visible in the darkness among the piles of junk dotted all over the roof. There were flapping bags of building materials, rusty satellite dishes, concrete blocks, even a manky old mattress.
“Simple. You’re gonna give me the extra height I need.”
She wanted a fucking ramp? Oh, hell no. “Maybe I could book you an appointment with a psychiatrist instead? I hear the room next to Lenny’s is free.”
“Sky, Sky… Always so negative.” She picked up one end of the board, careful to keep the ventilation unit between herself and Ryland in case he turned around. “Now, what’s the best way to hold this?”
I took the weight. The good news was that the board wasn’t rotten; the bad news was that it was bloody heavy. If I hooked it over my forearms, I wouldn’t be able to hold it with Emmy’s weight as well. If I knelt on my hands and knees with it on my back, there wouldn’t be enough height. I considered bending forward with my hands on my knees and balancing it on my arse, but that would give us a stability problem. Beside me, Emmy twisted and turned and judging by her sour expression, came to the same conclusion.
“What we need is another volunteer,” she said. “Then we could have one person each side, arms bridged.”
“How about that dude by the lift? He’s big.”
“Too far away.”
She jerked her head at the tower, and I saw Ryland had taken a few steps closer to the edge. The sound of Gemma’s sobs drifted across, and I wanted to take the board and smash it over his deranged head. Shame it wasn’t long enough.
We both looked at each other, and I knew Emmy was thinking the same thing. So near, yet so far. We had to do something, but what?
She spoke first. “Beth. She’s closer.”
“I thought you said she was a liability?”
“Mentally, she’s fragile, but she stayed with us all the way up those stairs, and she rides horses. Physically, she’s tough. See if she’s still there.”
Ryland took another step as I crept back to the stairwell. Whatever we did, it had to be fast.
CHAPTER 45 - ALARIC
RYLAND HAD LOST his damn mind. Alaric saw it in his eyes. He wouldn’t listen to reason, and at this stage, the only option left was to walk away, to let him go and try to catch him downstairs. The blood was running freely down Gemma’s throat now. One wrong move, and he’d nick an artery.
Alaric hated to lose. It felt like being back on the Seaduction, knowing the job was turning to shit but unable to do anything about it. At least he had Ravi at his back rather than a bloodthirsty agent with an itchy trigger finger—that was some small measure of comfort. But where the hell was Emmy? For five long minutes, he’d been asking himself that question, each time Ryland yelled out a crazy demand or took another step backwards.
Then he found out the answer, and suddenly, he didn’t want to know anymore.
What the fuck? Why was she on the other roof? And what was Beth doing there? She was meant to be locked in the car, out of trouble and definitely not carrying… What was that? Some sort of plank?
Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.
If he reacted, if Ryland turned to see what he was looking at, then Gemma was dead. Alaric glanced sideways. Next to him, Ravi had his eyes firmly fixed on Ryland too.
“We can still sort this out. Right now, Gemma isn’t hurt.” More or less. “You won’t go to the police, will you, Gemma?”
“N-n-no.”
“We’re moving away from the door now. See?”
Alaric went left and motioned Ravi to move to the right. Whatever Emmy was planning, he wanted to cover all bases. Then he realised what she was planning and wanted to cover his eyes instead. Fuck, no. Tell him she wasn’t going to… She was. She was going to jump.
He wanted to shout, to tell her to stop, but he knew it was pointless. If Emmy had made up her mind to do something, she’d do it. She’d done exactly the same thing when she leapt the gap between the Seaduction and the scallop boat to rescue Alaric eight years ago. Her single-minded determination was one of the things he both loved and hated about her.
But what about Beth? She appeared to have been roped into this cockamamie plan, and he’d thought she was more sensible than that. What if he yelled at her to put down the plank? Then Emmy couldn’t jump. Except… Except now Emmy was on her run-up, and it was too late.