Rancher's Hostage Rescue Read online

  “Why?”

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  He swallowed hard. “She’s dead.”

  Lilly’s mouth puckered a bit, and she glanced away. But not before he saw the sparkle of tears that filled her eyes.

  Dave poked his fingers in his jeans pockets, shifted his weight...then shifted it back when his bad leg protested with a dull throb. “Lilly, I’m sorry.”

  Her gaze darted briefly to him.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She drew a slow tremulous breath. “Thank you. And... I’m sorry...for your loss, too.”

  She caught him off guard with that, and he had to work to suppress the rise of emotion in his throat. “Why, um, why are you in town?”

  “I’m in Boyd Valley to close her house and put it on the market, if that’s what you mean.” She gave him a matter-of-fact look, and her tone had regained its sharp edge. “I’m at the bank to empty her safe-deposit box.” She raised both eyebrows now in a way that said, “Satisfied, Mr. Nosy?”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond. He hadn’t even known Helen had a safe-deposit box. And knowing that Lilly was preparing to sell Helen’s house, was getting rid of all the things that represented the life of the woman he’d loved, gave him a sick feeling in his gut. After a beat too long, he finally managed a flat “Oh.”

  She snorted a wry laugh. “You have such a way with words.”

  He gritted his back teeth, then took a moment to push aside her biting comment. Rather than answer her quip with one of his own, he said, “If you need any help with the house—”

  She shook her head. “No. I can do it by myself.”

  “Are you sure? ’Cause I can—”

  She shot him a hard look, so he dropped the matter.

  “Was that it? You just wanted to tell me you had a ring? You thought I needed to know you had feelings enough to plan a proposal that never happened?”

  Okay, now her mocking was starting to tick him off. He had to take a couple breaths to swallow the snide reply that frustration, annoyance and his own grief pushed onto his tongue.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. Cornering her was probably a bad idea. He should have waited, gone to Helen’s house and taken the time to think about what he wanted to say. Waving his hand in dismissal, he mumbled, “More or less.”

  Lilly hiked the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder and jerked a nod. “Goodbye then.” She took three stiff strides before turning back toward him. “I did find some men’s clothes at her house that I assume are yours. If you want them back, and anything else of yours you left there, you can come by later today. Anything still there on Saturday goes to charity.”

  With that, she marched toward the front door of the bank...just as a man wearing a dark hoodie and wielding a gun stormed through the entrance and shouted, “Everybody on the ground! You try something heroic, you die!”

  Chapter 2

  Lilly froze when she saw the gun wielded a scant few feet from her. Her brain blanked for a couple of stumbling heartbeats as she tried to process the horror. Was this really happening?

  In the next second, the man in the black hoodie grabbed her arm and swung her around. He snaked his arm around her throat and held her against him as a human shield. The truth of the situation slammed into her like a fist to the gut. Bank robbery. Hostage. Gunfire?

  Gunfire! Her ears rang from the loud shots the robber fired, as well as from the screams of the other women in the bank.

  “I said no heroics!” the robber shouted, his arm aiming off to her right.

  Fresh terror washed through her. She registered the movement of people dropping to the floor and covering their heads, as though watching through water. Someone to her left sobbed.

  The robber pushed her forward, and she stumbled, her feet as heavy as concrete blocks.

  “You, behind the counter,” he shouted, waving the gun toward the tellers. “Let me see your hands! No alarms or I shoot you. Got it?”

  The two tellers gaped at him, their hands shaking as they lifted them over their heads.

  “Got it?” he asked again in a roar.

  Their heads bobbed, and the younger teller whimpered, “Please, don’t shoot. I have babies at home. They need me.”

  The gunman swung his weapon toward the young mother behind the counter. “Do what I say, and you’ll live to see those kids again. Start filling bags from the drawers. Make it quick!” He turned slowly, dragging Lilly in a 360-degree pivot with him as he checked the room. He paused when he spotted a man on the floor with his cell phone out, pointed toward the robber. He fired his weapon two more times, shattering the phone and wounding the man’s hand. “Really, asshole? Is a video for your Twitter feed really worth dying over?”

  As the robber continued turning, Lilly’s gaze darted toward where Dave had been standing. Some part of her brain knew he was her best chance of assistance. But he was no longer standing where she’d left him. Her breath sawed in panicked gulps as she scanned the lobby. She spotted him hovering over the security guard, who was lying on his side, blood staining the front of his uniform shirt. Blood. Lilly’s gut swooped.

  The robber noticed Dave, too. He swung the handgun in his direction and yelled, “Hey, cowboy! I said no heroics. On the ground, hands where I can see ’em. Now!”

  Dave lifted both hands, which were smeared with red. “Whoa. Easy, man. The old guy is bleeding out from where you shot him. I’m just trying to help him.” Dave put his hands back on the guard’s wound, clearly trying to staunch the bleeding. “You could say I’m helping you, too. You don’t want a dead security guard added to your rap sheet.”

  The gunman glared at Dave, then whipped his attention back to the tellers. “Where’s that money? Let’s go! Let’s go!”

  The older woman behind the counter shoved a stack of bills toward him along with a bank bag full of cash. The robber, obviously needing to free the arm he had around her neck, released Lilly, shoving her toward the floor. “You get down and don’t move.”

  She obeyed, and when she glanced up at him, he waved his hand toward her large hobo-style purse. “Give me the bag.”

  Again, fear and disbelief rendered her motionless.

  “Do it!” He kicked at her and grabbed the strap of the bag, snatching it off her shoulder with force. Jerking open the snap closure, he jammed handfuls of bundled bills into the purse.

  Frowning, he paused in his frenzy and waved a banded stack of cash at the older teller. “Ones?” He leaned across the counter and smacked the woman’s face with the money.

  The woman gasped and pressed her hand to her cheek as she staggered back from the counter. Lilly tensed, hot anger flaring in her gut.

  “Do you think this is a game?” he shouted at the teller. “That I did all this for ones?” Then a movement or noise must have caught his attention, because he whirled around, swinging his weapon toward the lobby. “Stay down! Hands out where I can see ’em!”

  A ripple of murmurs and gasps rose from the customers and employees hunkered on the floor. Lilly cut a glance toward Dave.

  Helen’s ex had a glacial stare pinned on the robber. Although he was mostly flat on the floor, one hand was still out of sight, under the injured security guard, presumably tending to the man’s wound.

  Then Dave’s gaze flicked to Lilly’s and locked. Softened with concern and questions. Her heart gave a soft bump, and an odd warmth spread inside her. Dave’s concern for her made her feel less alone, less frightened.

  But a moment later, Dave returned a steely glare to the robber, who’d finished grabbing up the bagged money and stuffing her purse with bills. The thug backed toward the door, making his getaway.

  Knowing that some punk was able to come in here, shoot people and take what wasn’t his, then waltz out again, offended Lilly on a deep, cellular level. Rage flared in her core like a
blacksmith’s furnace. She wanted to launch herself at the man and claw his eyes. Wanted to scream in his face the way he’d—

  A man from the street entered the bank, walking blindly into the robbery. The thief spun around. Panicked. Fired toward the new customer. Lilly jolted, stunned.

  The man from the street grabbed his side, then turned and ran out.

  Screams filled the bank lobby as the robber fired again toward a desk where a secretary had crawled to hide. When the robber aimed his weapon at the front counter of the bank, Lilly rolled toward a stuffed chair in the waiting area outside the loan offices.

  Two more shots rang out. Different weapon. Different pitch to the blasts.

  Shaking, she peered out from behind the chair. The robber was hunched forward, his shooting arm limp. Spitting out a curse, his booty clutched in his left hand, the robber scuttled toward the exit. Another shot boomed from the new weapon, shattering a glass partition at the bank entrance. And then...silence. As if everyone in the bank was holding their breath, uncertain. Was it over?

  Lilly sat up slowly, trembling, her mind reeling, her heart slamming against her ribs. A groan, a sudden movement near the fallen guard, drew her attention. Dave had surged to his feet, a gun in his hand, and he jogged, limping, toward the door where the robber had fled. The expression he wore was determined. Murderous.

  * * *

  He’d kill the sonofabitch, Dave swore, gritting his back teeth in pain as he rushed out of the bank. Given a clear shot, he would stop that bank-robbing cretin from maiming innocent bystanders, assaulting old ladies and killing security guards ever again. But his bum leg slowed him down. He didn’t make it to the parking lot before the robber had climbed into a rusty sedan and was racing onto the main road through town. Dave knew better than to fire at a moving vehicle on a city street. Too many drivers shared the road, too many people had poked their heads out of nearby businesses, likely having heard the gunfire.

  Growling under his breath, he lowered the revolver he’d taken off Deputy Hanover, and raised a hand to rub his face. He stopped when the blood on his palm caught his eye. A sick feeling swelled in his gut. He’d tried to help the fallen guard, but the older man had died even as Dave tended him. He’d had his hand on the man’s chest and felt the slow drub of his heart stop.

  “Dave!”

  He faced Lilly as she stepped out of the bank, warily eyeing the parking lot and the gun still in his hand. He sighed heavily. “He got away.”

  Even to his own ears, he sounded defeated. Could he have stopped the robbery? He’d known Deputy Hanover had a revolver on his belt, but for better or worse, he’d made aiding the wounded man his priority.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked Lilly.

  She shook her head. “Just scared me.” She blew out a tremulous breath. “I’ve never had a gun pointed at my head before. So not fun.”

  He twisted his mouth in wry agreement. “No.”

  Her gaze dipped to the red staining his hands. “Is any of that blood yours?”

  “No. It’s Deputy Hanover’s.” Dave furrowed his brow, felt a knot of emotion tighten his throat. “He didn’t make it.” The answer scraped from his throat, as rough as sandpaper.

  “No, he didn’t,” she said. “I checked on him before I came out here. I’m sorry.”

  Regret poured through him. He’d weighed his options, tried to balance the risk of agitating the robber and drawing more fire on innocents against the possibility of putting an end to the crime in progress. When the scumbag had shot at Gill Carver and his cell phone, he’d made his choice to act. But he’d had to work to get the weapon out from under the dead security guard’s hip without drawing attention.

  Too little, too late.

  That had become a theme with him. Forget roads. He was paving entire interstates to hell with all his useless good intentions.

  The whine of a siren filtered through the rattling thoughts and recriminations in his brain.

  “We should go back inside.” Lilly touched his arm. “You don’t want to be standing out here with that gun when the cops arrive.”

  His cheek twitched in a weak grin. “True that.”

  Dave followed Lilly back into the bank, his leg throbbing from the recent abuse of diving to the floor, crawling around and attempting to run with his full weight on it. Inside, the other customers and personnel of the bank were huddled in clusters. One group tended to Gill Carver, the man whose hand had been shot, and that was the direction Lilly went first. Another group surrounded the branch manager, who held a phone to his ear, and a few women were comforting the younger teller, who seemed to be hyperventilating. Someone had draped their coat over the fallen security guard, covering his wound and face.

  Dave laid the revolver on the ground next to Hanover, nudging the weapon out of sight with his toe. He grabbed a bunch of facial tissues from a box on a secretary’s desk, along with a squirt of hand sanitizer, and cleaned as much blood from his hands as he could. Drying his palms on the seat of his jeans, he headed over to Rose Charmand, who sat in one of the lobby chairs with another woman crouched beside her.

  She gave him a wobbly smile as he approached. “Well, that was a bit more excitement than I’d expected for today.”

  Dave kneeled, grunting in pain, and took Rose’s hand. “Are you all right? I saw him hit you.”

  “With a stack of money,” she added and gave a hooting laugh. “That’s one I can cross off my bucket list!” She held up a finger, gnarled with arthritis, and added, “No, wait. Not getting slapped with money. Rolling naked in money. That’s what’s on my bucket list.”

  Dave flashed her a grin while trying fervently not to picture the septuagenarian doing anything naked. He squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Lilly approach and squat beside Rose’s chair, next to the other woman. Rose acknowledged Lilly with a smile. “Oh, good. You made it. I called this meeting today to discuss the future of the kingdom. Who will reign when I’m gone?”

  Dave arched an eyebrow. “How hard did he hit your head?”

  The woman next to her chuckled. “Can’t blame a concussion for that craziness. That’s typical Rose. Best evidence yet that she’s fine.”

  “Are you fine? Both of you? Any injuries or shortness of breath?” Lilly asked, giving both of the women a close look.

  Dave regarded Lilly, remembering vaguely that Helen had said her sister was an ER nurse in Denver.

  Rose and the other woman both shook their heads.

  “How is Gill’s hand?” Dave asked, nodding toward the injured man.

  “Mostly just cut up as the phone busted in pieces. Someone wrapped it in a shirt. He’ll be fine until he gets to the ER for stitches.” She drew a deep breath and added, “The bullet is lodged in the floor, mere inches from where his head was.”

  Dave bit his bottom lip to catch the curse word he refused to say in front of Rose.

  “Hmph,” Rose said, her expression pinched with distaste. “Too bad the bullet didn’t get Gill in the ass, so he’d know what we feel whenever he’s around shootin’ off his mouth.”

  The teller beside Rose covered a laugh, and Dave bit the inside of his cheek to contain his amusement. Gill might be a pain in the butt, but he didn’t want to appear insensitive in front of Lilly, who frowned at Rose’s harsh remark.

  “I’m going to check on Shelly. Don’t give away my claim to the throne,” the other woman told Rose. With a wink, she stood and moved to the group comforting the sobbing younger teller.

  Dave and Lilly locked gazes for a moment before Rose said, “You two do know each other through Helen, right? I saw you talking before that—that...jackass came in waving his gun.”

  He wasn’t sure why, but hearing Rose curse after he’d censored his own reaction brought a brief grin to Dave’s face. Lilly’s countenance remained grim
, however, and he sobered quickly, remembering Deputy Hanover...and the subject of his previous conversation with Lilly.

  “Yes,” Lilly said, her tone subdued. “We know each other.” She held his gaze and said, “You’re limping.” A statement, not a question.

  “Yeah. Broke my leg and had a rod put in back in December. Helen didn’t tell you?”

  Her expression reflected a moment of realization, then sadness. “Oh, right. She did mention it. In all this confusion, I just...” She waved her hand vaguely and didn’t finish the thought.

  The memory of Helen hovering at his side after he’d broken his leg made his heart squeeze, and he tore his gaze from Lilly’s before she read too much in his eyes.

  A sound at the front door and new voices drew his attention as deputies from the sheriff’s department entered the building. Within minutes, the tense process of questioning and evidence-gathering began.

  * * *

  Lilly twisted her fingers in the hem of her shirt, trying her best to answer the deputy’s questions. The loan office and the branch manager’s office had been commandeered for interviews, and after two tedious hours of waiting, she’d been called in to give her statement.

  She’d finished recounting the events, up to the point where the robber was making his getaway and Dave had returned fire.

  “Where did Mr. Giblan get the gun?” the officer asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. I assume he used the security guard’s gun.”

  “Did you see a weapon on Mr. Giblan when you spoke to him before the robbery?”

  Lilly shook her head. “No. But I wasn’t looking for one.”

  “How many shots did Mr. Giblan fire?” the deputy asked.

  “I don’t—” Remembering the deputy’s previous request to think hard when she’d voiced her uncertainty, she closed her eyes and let the terrifying moments replay in her head, working to recall specifics of something she’d rather blank from her mind. One bang. Two. The robber jerking, then his arm going limp.

  “Maybe two? I think at least one shot hit the guy. He hunched forward, and his gun arm seemed to go slack.” She reviewed the scene again, and a chill raced down her back. “I think he fired again as the robber ran out. The glass by the main door shattered.” What she knew for certain was that Dave had stopped the gunman from firing any more random shots at the bank customers. His actions had probably saved lives.