Extreme Measures Read online

  “I don’t live here, man. The shooter picked the building, said he could set up across the street and have a clean view. So, no, I don’t know jack shit about this place.”

  The urge to kick him returned. “Fine. You’re on your own.”

  “Hold on a second.” Billy’s meaty hand went around Stuart’s arm, fingers digging in so tightly, Stuart grimaced. “You got your sister, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Ain’t no way I’m going down because I helped you out.”

  “You didn’t help me out, dumb-ass. You helped yourself out because you were too scared I’d called the Marshalls.” Stuart risked the use of the nickname again, figuring Billy was too worried about his chances of going back to the joint to smack him.

  “Don’t make no difference. You and me, we’re a team now.” Billy looked like he meant business. Hard business.

  “Well, all right, partner. Tell me how we’re going to get out of here without getting our heads blown off.” Stuart figured he could get the guy to working on an escape plan while he made his way back to Erin. She had to be close to unconsciousness by now, and he’d rather chew off his right arm than let her die without suffering.

  Billy folded his arms, swung his gaze around the lower floor like he was going to see something Stuart hadn’t.

  The downstairs boasted little more than a maintenance room and a row of lockers. Not much they could use except maybe a few tools. Still, it was better to have Billy on his side than against him. At the very least, the guy would make one hell of a shield against the cops, and he’d likely take out a few of them before they took him down, maybe even providing an opening for Stuart to break free.

  Not that he had a whole lot of reasons to escape. His days were so short now he could almost see the finish line in sight. The headaches had gotten worse. Not even the blow was taking his mind off of them. Which was exactly why he needed to finish what he’d started.

  Once he killed Erin, maybe even Matt, he could waltz out of this world whistling.

  “I say we go out a window,” Billy announced proudly, like he’d just discovered water in the midst of a barren thirst land.

  “Go out a window.” Stuart enunciated each word. “You think the cops won’t see our asses waving in the wind when we dive out a window?” He bit his tongue to keep from adding dumb-ass again. But there was no way Billy could deny the moniker anyway. The guy had brawn on his side, but he ran short when it came to brains.

  Billy scowled at him. “That’s not what I meant, dumb-ass.” He used the name with a great deal of smugness. “We use one of the lower floor windows after we create a diversion.”

  “What kind of diversion?”

  “Have you ever heard a water heater explode?”

  Stuart grinned back. “Now you’re talking. I know just where to find one. Let’s get out of here. Those cops won’t know what hit ‘em.” He scurried toward the door, freezing in place when the cool, smooth edge of a pistol touched his forehead. His palms icy, he shifted his gaze upwards, staring into the grim face of his ex-brother-in-law.

  “How about handing me that gun, Stuart, while you back up very slowly so I don’t accidentally pull the trigger on this Beretta I’m holding.”

  Damn. Stuart could almost see his plans crumbling. Erin would still die, but he wouldn’t get the opportunity to kill her, to watch her suffer. That was important to him, necessary for him to attain some semblance of peace before the tumor in his head took away his life.

  “I’m not going to ask again.” Matt pressed the steel a little harder against Stuart’s skin.

  He held up both hands in a gesture of surrender while his mind spun with possibilities. From behind him, he could hear Billy’s mumbled curses and wondered if the dumb-ass was going to make a move. He could only hope so.

  “Hold on there, Matt. Ain’t no need to get physical.” Stuart pasted an amiable grin on his face. “It’s been a while. You look like you’re still keeping in shape.”

  Matt retrieved the gun from the waistband of Stuart’s pants and gave him a little shove backwards. He waved two fingers over his shoulder, and cops armed to the teeth swarmed into the room.

  “Guess you’re not up for conversation then.” Stuart drawled out each syllable while the last puzzle piece of his plan slid into place.

  “Where’s Erin?” Matt still hadn’t lowered his weapon.

  “Yeah, figured you’d want to know about her. Guess that puts the ball in my court, doesn’t it?” He snickered. “You won’t kill me without knowing where your beloved is, and if I give her up, well, I lose my bargaining chip. That would be a bitch for me. So it looks like we’ve got ourselves a stalemate.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong, Stuart. I will drill a hole through your head even if you don’t tell me where Erin is. She has to be in this building, and we’ll just search it from top to bottom. So come on. Give me a reason.”

  The smile slid off Stuart’s face, but he refused to show his nerves. He’d faced down bigger men than Matt Giles in the joint, and he’d taken them down. The only difference between them and Matt was the gun his ex-brother-in-law held. Without that, Matt could fall. He hoped he got the chance to see how hard.

  “Yeah, you probably would find her,” he agreed with a shake of his head. “’Course, she’ll be dead by then.” He lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a careless shrug. “So I guess that’s up to you if that’s the route you want to go.”

  Seconds ticked by, each one a little slower than the one before. Matt was assessing him, searching through the words to reach the truth. Stuart maintained his position, giving nothing.

  Let the bastard fret. It’s about time.

  Matt lowered his gun a fraction of an inch. “If you’ve got something to say, make it quick. Then you’re going to take me to Erin.”

  Stuart cackled then shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’m going to do that, Matt. Actually, here’s what I think needs to happen. You’re going to tell that team of yours to back the hell up out of here, and you and me, we’re going to see Erin together. No guns. No weapons. Just a little family reunion with the three of us.” He tapped the face of his watch. “And I’d suggest you make the decision pretty quick. My sweet sister doesn’t have a whole lot of time left.”

  The headache had arrived, the first symptom she’d been expecting. Erin worked faster, twisting and turning to slip her fingers into the front pocket of her jeans. She could feel the serrated edge of a key, and her heart lifted. But just as quickly as she touched it, it slid away.

  Frustrated tears raining down her cheeks, she allowed herself the briefest of moments of self-pity before getting back to work. Concentrating solely on wrapping her fingers around the alarm, she closed her mind to thoughts of failure and death. She was going to survive this.

  Her breath caught on a hiccup as the silent tears turned to sobs. Her hand and wrist ached from the pinch of the rope and the awkward stretch. Leaning to one side caused her shoulders to cramp, and the temperature in the room had spiked high enough to dampen the back of her neck.

  “I’m not giving up. I’m not.” She repeated the positive affirmation silently while her fingers searched desperately for the key ring again.

  A wave of nausea momentarily stilled her movements, and she went down the list of symptoms for carbon monoxide poisoning. She didn’t know how much she was being exposed to, but with the onset of the both the headache and nausea so soon after Stuart’s departure, it had to be high enough to kill her within the next hour or so. If she was lucky, she might have a little more time than that.

  She leaned over when another swell of nausea hit. The posture forced her hand further into her pocket, bending her index finger into an unnatural position. She gasped with the pain at the same time her other fingers curled around a smooth, cool ring.

  She had the alarm!

  “Not a good idea, Agent Giles.”

  The officer next to him wasn’t telling Matt anyth
ing he didn’t already know. He could be walking into a trap. Erin could already be dead. His heart seized at the possibility. No, he wouldn’t accept that.

  Stuart wouldn’t have killed her so quickly. He’d want to take his time with her, make her suffer. Blaming her for his incarceration, he’d need to exact his revenge slowly. Precisely. Which meant Erin was still alive.

  “So what do you say, Matt?” Stuart’s sneering question snapped Matt’s attention back to his face.

  “I never liked you, Stuart. Or trusted you for that matter. So don’t think for one second I believe a word that comes out of your mouth, but I’ll play your game for now.”

  “Agent.” The officer’s warning tone had Matt holding up one hand.

  “I already know. Just continue searching the building and get the remaining occupants out.”

  “No guns.” Stuart hadn’t taken a step forward, and he jutted his chin out with the challenge of his words.

  Matt gave him the once over then lowered his weapon. “If you’d rather have an ass-kicking than a bullet, I’m all for that, too.” He jerked his head toward the stairs. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Chambers lumbered forward until an officer’s rifle poked him in the stomach. He glared at the intrusion. “I’m coming, too.”

  Stuart lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “Sorry, Billy, but you’re not family.”

  “What the hell? I didn’t come this far to go back to prison now.” Chambers tried moving, but the barrel of the rifle indented his gut further, forcing him to stop.

  “If you’d prefer to leave here in a body bag, take another step,” the SWAT officer snapped. “I’m sure the warden at Attica could give a shit either way.”

  Matt decided he liked that cop. “Take him out, guys, and by take him out, I mean escort him out of the building.”

  Two of the team members chuckled, but all laughter stopped when Chambers swung his meaty hand, connecting with the side of the cop’s face. The snap echoed off the walls.

  Matt gave Stuart a shove hard enough to plant him on his ass on the concrete floor and leveled his gun, but the rest of SWAT had already converged on the double-wide inmate, taking him down with grunts and curses.

  Stuart took the opportunity to lunge, his arms going around Matt’s legs. The concrete loomed upwards, and Matt barely had a tenth of a second to twist so that only his shoulder connected with the unyielding surface.

  Snatching his arms back, Stuart bounded to his feet and made a dash for the stairs. Matt saw the flash of a rifle and shouted, “Don’t shoot!” Back on his feet, he took the stairs two at a time, catching his ex-brother-in-law on the landing.

  When Stuart whirled with his hand on the door knob, Matt stopped. “Guess you couldn’t wait for that ass-kicking, could you?” Every cell in his body hummed with anticipation, but he didn’t have time to do a proper job of beating Stuart to a bloody mess. God only knew what he’d done to Erin. At that moment, she could be dying.

  He met Stuart’s gaze, saw the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “You weren’t really trying to escape.” When Stuart grinned, Matt’s hands clenched into fists. “Just a diversionary tactic, wasn’t it? Something to buy you a little more time until whatever you did to Erin took effect.”

  Matt leaped, his forearm hitting Stuart across the throat as he took him to the corner. Eyes bulging, Stuart fought for breath.

  “What have you done with Erin?”

  Clawing against the arm obstructing his breathing, Stuart silently pleaded for release.

  Matt eased the pressure marginally. The pounding of the blood in his ears made it difficult to hear. That, combined with his tenuous hold on self-control had him gritting his teeth, pushed to the edge of reason. “Where. Is. She?”

  Stuart used the little oxygen provided to laugh. “Go ahead. Kill me. Come on. You know you want to. Oh, wait. You want to find Erin more.” His voice hardened. “Then we’re still playing by my rules, Mr. Agent Man. Now get the hell off me.”

  No way was he taking this son-of-a-bitch back to Attica. Once Erin was safe, Matt had other plans for Stuart O’Malley, and he’d gladly hand over his badge afterwards.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Erin’s head bumped against the pipe in front of her. She’d had the key ring, had felt the coolness of the metal against her fingers. Then she’d lost the sensation in her hands, and the alarm had dropped with a quiet clatter to the floor. She might be able to reach it, but she couldn’t count on her hands working for her.

  Maybe Stuart had been right. She was going to die here. Alone. Her body would be found within a few hours, but, by then, it would be too late. Too late for her to see Matt again. Too late to hear his voice, talk to him, hold him.

  She cried quietly while her thoughts took her on a journey of their marriage, the first time they’d met—jogging in Central Park, and the last day she’d seen him in her attorney’s office. Mixed in among the memories were the good times—sleeping in late on the weekends, reading the paper in bed together, cooking dinner with each other, stopping in between trips to the refrigerator to kiss and laugh.

  The bad times hadn’t really come until after Stuart had killed her parents. Sure, they’d fought before, but there’d never really been any lingering damage. Once Stuart had been arrested, Erin had lost all sense of reality, and instead of turning to Matt, she’d turned away from him, forgetting all those wonderful moments that had kept them married and happy.

  Her chest tightened, and she tried to pull in a deep breath through her nose. But the oxygen seemed to be shrinking from the room. As she closed her eyes, she focused on Matt’s face and wondered if he would kill Stuart once they found her body.

  Matt followed Stuart down a narrow passageway and around several corners, his gaze trained on his back, waiting for the escaped convict to make one wrong move. Matt had left his gun behind, but he didn’t need a weapon to snap the bastard’s neck.

  Stuart paused and gave Matt a cheesy grin. He’d rubbed his hands along the walls and transferred the dirt to his face, giving him a grimy look that reminded Matt of old railroad workers. “Not too much further. Probably didn’t know this place is like a maze, huh?”

  “Do I look like I care about that, Stuart?” Matt bit out each word. The tension had mounted within him, and his control slipped with each step. Knowing Erin might be around any corner was the only thing keeping Stuart alive.

  With a shrug, Stuart turned back around. “You know this ain’t gonna end good, right?”

  “That depends on whose point of view you’re in.” Matt didn’t see the loss of Stuart’s life as anything to get too worked up about. Might sound cold, but the bastard had brought nothing but trouble and pain to Erin. For that reason alone, Matt would be doing the world a service by taking him out.

  “Didn’t remember you being such a smart-ass before.” Stuart made a noise that sounded like displeasure. “But one thing I did always like about you, and that was your love for my sister.”

  “Don’t give me that line of bullshit, Stuart. You could care less about Erin.”

  He stopped and turned again. “You didn’t let me finish. Your love for Erin is what I was counting on. See, love makes a man weak, makes him take his eyes off the bigger picture. Can even set him up for failure.”

  Matt gave him a shove which caused Stuart to stumble. “Get your ass moving. If you stop again, you and I are going to have a problem.”

  “Ain’t much you can do to me that God Himself ain’t already done.” Stuart resumed walking. “You’ll probably appreciate knowing I’m dying.”

  “I don’t care enough about you to appreciate your death, Stuart. Once I find Erin and know she’s safe, you could drop dead at my feet, and I’d just step over you.”

  The abrupt tightening of Stuart’s shoulders told Matt he’d sliced a nerve. “You’re a hateful son-of-a-bitch,” Stuart snarled back.

  “I haven’t left a trail of bodies from New York to South Carolina. I thi
nk the general population would disagree with you.”

  Stuart stopped again, and just as Matt took a step toward him, he lifted his hand and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Erin’s in there, and unless I miscalculated, she’s probably already too far gone for you to save her.”

  Erin heard muffled voices, but she couldn’t raise her head, couldn’t speak. Were the people too far away? Had someone found her? She had to let them know she was alive, but the fuzziness inside her mind didn’t allow her to think, and her body refused to cooperate.

  She managed to picture Matt’s face, saw his crooked smile, and the way his eyes warmed when they looked at her. With a low whisper, she mumbled his name. Masked by the shirt still in her mouth, the one word didn’t even sound intelligible.

  Her body jerked, muscles spasming. In her mind, she saw Matt’s face again before the darkness that had been continually beckoning embraced her.

  Running on instinct alone, Matt rammed into Stuart, taking him into the room where Erin was supposed to be. As they both crashed to the floor, he caught a glimpse of hands tied to a pipe, and his heart whispered his wife’s name.

  Stuart grappled for the upper hand, his smiling face proving too much for Matt to tolerate. He popped his ex-brother-in-law with a right hook that had Stuart crying out from the pain. But all too soon, Stuart rebounded, rolling and scrambling to his feet in one awkward movement.

  Blood dripped from his nose, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away. “You want to fight me or save your wife, Matt? You can’t do both.” Stuart lurched backwards.

  Matt swung his gaze toward Erin’s slumped body. She hadn’t moved since they’d fallen into the room, and he couldn’t hear even the faintest hint of breath sounds. He didn’t want to think about the possibility she was too far gone for him to save.

  Stuart took advantage of Matt’s distraction by stumbling towards the door, but instead of trying to escape through it, he pulled it shut then beat at the doorknob until Matt pulled him away.