“Nina.”
“It’s a bar. I need to see some ID.”
I nod, grateful I have an actual document to back it up. “You have my purse.” Malone and the other one had made another pass after gathering phones, taking purses and patting us all down for anything that could be a weapon.
“Chuck,” he shouts to the thug who’d emptied the gunfire into the restroom, and who, thank God, hadn’t killed Damien.
“It says Nina Stanfield,” Chuck says, striding over, my ID in his hand. “But I think Barclay’s right. That’s not who she really is.”
“I agree. But who is she? We need to figure it out, because the little bitch won’t tell us, will you, Nina?”
I sit, frozen, and he scoffs.
“In the meantime,” Malone continues, “Mr. Aubert. Could I speak to you, please.” Malone’s voice drips syrup. “Unless you want today to be the last day of your life, that is.”
Trembling, Reginald Aubert walks slowly toward us.
“Now, my dear sir. You have something in your vault that I want. Something a buyer I know is prepared to pay a great deal of money for. Enough that I can retire. And I do so very much want to retire. You wouldn’t want to interfere with my retirement plans, would you?”
“N-n-n-o.”
“Good. Now, we’d intended to blow your vault open, but that’s such a messy proposition. Much easier for you to just give me the combination.”
“And then you’ll let us go?”
“Of course.” Malone smiles, thin and terrifying. “I don’t want murder on my conscience. Tell me the combination, and we’ll all go home.”
Auber looks around the room, but it’s obvious he has no choice. “I—”
“The combination, Mr. Aubert.”
The jeweler nods, then rattles off six digits.
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Chuck, be a good boy and go get our stone. Tell Barclay to join you, just in case, after he takes care of our other little problem. I’ll watch our guests.”
“Yes, sir. But sir?”
Malone glances over his shoulder at Chuck. “Yes?”
“The girl. I sent you a text.” He looks right at me and grins, as malicious as I’ve ever seen. “You’re gonna want to read it soon.”
“Will I? Thank you, Chuck. Go on now.”
Chuck salutes and scurries off, leaving us hostages with Malone. We could take him, I’m certain of it.
But I’m equally certain that there would be casualties. I meet Red’s eyes and see that he’s thinking the same thing. His eyes dip to the fork still on the table, and I shake my head. Try it, and we might all die. Damien is still out there. The police are outside. If we can just hold out a little longer…
“Nina Stanfield,” Malone says, peering at his phone. “Funny. I’d say you look more like a Nichole. Or a Nikki. For that matter, you look remarkably like Nikki Stark. Honestly, I’m embarrassed I didn’t recognize you myself. Out of context, I suppose.”
“How—”
“Google reverse image, apparently. Chuck took a picture of you and put it out on to the wonderful world of the web. And back came the truth. Poetic, don’t you think?”
I don’t, but I keep my opinion to myself.
“Your husband stole our guns and explosives, and snatched one of our radios. He killed two of my men. You better hope he’s still listening in.”
I glance at Red, whose expression is as tense as I am.
“What do you want me to do?”
“What do you think, you fucking bitch? I want you to shut your husband down. Get him to come here without a fight, and I promise you—my word as a gentleman—that he’ll get out of here safe.”
“Really?”
“All I want is the stone.”
Aubert sits on the other side of the booth, and he looks at me, his eyes dead and flat. Defeated. Red squeezes my hand.
“You promise?” I press.
“Yes. I promise.”
I swallow, then nod. “Then give me a radio.”
Chapter Thirteen
The radio crackled, and Damien frowned, surprised that he was able to get any reception at all in the elevator shaft. Then he heard Nikki—just a quick clearing of her throat, but Christ, he knew it was her—and he stopped wondering about the reception.
He tried to shift his weight, teetering on the small ledge beneath the elevator doors as he prayed she’d come back on the air. Had she gotten away? Had she managed to get her hands on a radio?
“Damien,” she finally said, and her voice—strong and clear—made his soul ache. It felt as though they’d been apart for years, and he wanted nothing more than to have her in his arms. “Damien, they have a message for you.”
“Nikki—”
But she was gone and when the radio came back to life, he heard the voice of the man in charge. “We have your wife, Mr. Stark. We have several people. They’re safe now, but if you keep pulling the shit that you’re pulling, that won’t last for long. Come to the bar. Hold your wife. And soon enough, we’ll be gone and you both will still be breathing. Continue this nonsense, and I assure you that won’t be the case much longer.”
Damien started to respond, but his fingers froze when Nikki’s voice came back through the speakers. “Listen, I know you’re acting like John McClane,” she said, her words slow and clear. “But sweetheart, if you’ll just stop, they promise they won’t hurt me. Please, please, Damien. You know what’s going on here. If you don’t listen to me, we can all forget riding off into the sunset once this is over.”
The line turned to static, and Damien closed his eyes, overcome by both relief and fear. Relief that she was alive and—for now at least—unharmed.
Fear because she was telling him to press on. To not stop. He was absolutely certain. The reference to Die Hard, one of their favorite movies, in which the hero did everything he could to save his wife. And, more than that, the specific message to not listen to her. To not stop. A hidden message, sure, but one designed specifically for him. Because by saying that he should forget the sunset … well, that meant forgetting—or rather, not—stopping. Because sunset was their safe word. An absolute, no questions, demand to stop.
And she’d just told him to ignore it.
He knew why, and that certainty was what terrified him. Because she was telling him that she knew for certain what he already suspected—that if he didn’t succeed, everyone in that bar was dead.
He had to succeed. There was simply no other option.
With intense concentration, he managed to get in a position where he could balance on the ledge while forcing the fourth-floor elevator doors open. Without a tool it wasn’t easy, but he managed, getting his fingers into the gap, then applying opposite pressure.
Soon, he had an opening wide enough to squeeze his shoulders through.
He did, balancing precariously on the ledge so that he wouldn’t fall backward into the void.
There.
He breathed a sigh of relief, but it came too soon. Because just as he was hoisting his body up, the sharp impact of a kicking foot caught him in the chest—and before he knew it, he was tumbling backward into the shaft’s void, falling and falling toward the floor below.