"I can"t!"
"You can. And I"ll be right behind you. Up you go!"
She wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted him into the ceiling. He grabbed the beam and worked his way on top of it.
Thank goodness.
Jimmy wasn"t the most coordinated kid. Now if he could just keep going without falling and crashing through the ceiling ...
Gla.s.s shattered behind her. The man was in her studio.
Kendra jumped off the chair, opened the door to the hallway, then turned back around and lifted herself up.
She grabbed the beam and pushed the ceiling tile back over the opening. No time to line it up perfectly ...
The man kicked open the door. Silence. Kendra held her breath.
Take the bait, a.s.shole ...
His footsteps pounded in the hallway.
He was gone. But how long did they have before he realized what happened and came back?
Fifteen seconds, maybe thirty?
"Move, Jimmy," she whispered. "We need to get to the next office."
"I can"t see!"
"Shhh. Crawl forward, and be careful."
He hesitated, then moved down the beam that would take them toward the sports-medicine practice next door.
She hoped.
If there was a firewall between suites that jutted to the roofline, their journey would come to an abrupt halt. She looked ahead, trying to see in the darkness. "Hurry, Jimmy."
"I can"t go any faster!"
Those footsteps again. Coming back toward her.
s.h.i.t.
"Be still, Jimmy! Be quiet."
He stopped, but she could now hear him whimpering.
After another few seconds, the footsteps stopped.
Silence.
What in the h.e.l.l was he doing? If only she could steal a glance through the gap in the ceiling tile behind her ...
Not an option.
She was depending on her vision. Stop it, she told herself.
Close your eyes.
Put yourself down in the room.
Rustling clothes. Sleeves of that cheap polyester-blend jacket being pulled taut as both arms were extended before him. Holding that gun, no doubt.
More rustling. His crisp shirt stretching from his belt-line. He was turning at the waist, looking for their hiding place ...
She heard his wiry hair bristling against the back of his shirt collar. He was looking up.
Another set of footsteps, from the studio. A partner?
No, she realized.
"Stop!"
Lynch!
Blam-blam-blam-blam.
Gunshots rang out from seemingly all directions, and at least three bullets pierced the ceiling just feet from where she and Jimmy were crouched. She instinctively threw her body in front of the boy.
The window shattered between the studio and the observation room.
s.h.i.t. If those shots continued, it was only a matter of time before one of the bullets tore into her, Jimmy, or both.
She was glancing around for a safe haven when, suddenly, the gunshots stopped. Footsteps pounded into the hallway.
There was a long moment of silence, then the sound of footsteps grinding against gla.s.s on the floor.
She tensed.
"Kendra?" Lynch"s voice. "Kendra, are you there?"
She let her breath out. "Yes!" She turned back toward Jimmy. "Are you okay, honey?"
Jimmy angled his head away, trying to hide the tears streaming down his face. "I"m scared."
"I know. But everything is okay now. The man down there is a friend of mine, and he"s not going to let anything happen to us."
"Two-HXW-100," Jimmy whispered.
Those numbers and letters again.
The ceiling tile moved aside, and Lynch"s head appeared in the opening. "Kendra?"
"Where is he? Did you get him?"
"No. He took off."
"Then why are you wasting time here with us? Get him!"
"He"s gone."
"What in the h.e.l.l are you doing here? You could have caught him."
Lynch shook his head. "Call me crazy, but I thought it was important to see if you were all right."
"We"re fine." She tried to hide the annoyance in her voice, but she knew it was a lost cause. Dammit, he should have gone after that son of a b.i.t.c.h.
"We?"
"Jimmy"s up here with me. He"s one of my students."
Lynch craned his neck to see around her. "I remember. Hey, buddy." He smiled at the boy. "You"re a brave guy, you know that?"
She wanted to tell him that his words would have no effect on Jimmy, and that it took serious time for anyone to win his trust.
Jimmy hesitated, then smiled at Lynch. "Thanks."
Dammit.
She levered herself down. "Call the Bureau and the police, Lynch." She helped Jimmy out of the opening and down to the floor. "Let"s you and me call your mom and make sure she"s on her way. We need to give her a little preparation. We don"t want to scare her."
That was closing the proverbial barn door, she thought ruefully. His mom, Tina, was going to be terrified. When you had a special kid, you had to struggle to allow him to take chances and try to become independent. It was against every maternal instinct not to protect him from the world. But this episode was over-the-top and Tina was going to have to handle it.
She glanced at Lynch, who had taken out his phone. She wanted to fire questions at him.
Smother the anger. Don"t disturb Jimmy any more than he was already.
Don"t show the kid that she was mad as h.e.l.l and wanted to kill that b.a.s.t.a.r.d herself.
CHAPTER.
7.
"TWO-HXW-100," JIMMY SAID again, glancing around the parking lot.
It had been over two hours since the attack, and the police and now FBI agents Bill Santini and Michael Griffin had permitted Kendra to take the lead in giving the account of the event. But after Jimmy"s mother arrived, the boy was uncharacteristically verbal. Kendra was impressed with his detailed recollections about the gunman"s attire and facial features. And something else, she realized.
"Two-HXW-100," Jimmy repeated.
Kendra turned toward Jimmy"s mother, Tina. "Do you know what that means?"
"Probably just a license plate he saw. He calls them out all the time."
Kendra shot a quick glance at Lynch before turning back to Jimmy. "Where did you see that?"
He pointed to an empty parking spot about thirty feet away. "There."
"There was a car there?"
Jimmy nodded. "A big one."
Griffin leaned toward him. "Hey, son, are you trying to tell us-"
He was crowding the boy. Kendra swiftly cut him off. "Let me do this, Griffin."
Annoyance flashed across his face, but he nodded and moved back slightly.
Kendra knelt beside Jimmy and took a moment to choose her words. She knew from her months of working with Jimmy that he was extremely suggestible and might be quick to respond with whatever answer he thought would please them, whether it was true or not. "Jimmy, that"s great you remembered the plate on that big car. What made you think of it?"
"It was him."
"Who?"
"The bad man. The man with the gun."
"What do you mean it was him?"
Jimmy looked away as if he were losing interest in the conversation. "Can I play the drums?"
"Not right now." Kendra clasped her hands over his. Make him focus. "Why do you say it was him?"
"He was in the big car. He was talking on the phone."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I saw him when Mommy and I were going inside to see you."