Every Kind of Wicked (A Gardiner and Renner Novel Book 6)

Whatever had been used to carpet and upholster the main room on the upper floor, it did not seem to be particularly fire-resistant. The feathers combusted at will and the gaping, open wall had instantly become a sheet of flame, licking out from its hole with darting tongues of fire. The speeding tendrils followed their own unpredictable trails. Jack went up the far aisle, next to the outside wall, where the smoke and flames were the thickest. The fire danced along the floor, shadowed by patches on the ceiling, and leapt through areas of the wall where some past residues fed its needs. He bulldozed into this miasma toward the limp form lying underneath one of the windows.

The smoke grew thick. Visibility became a problem, but moving past one smoldering piece of carpeting, his foot landed on something soft. He crouched to feel rather than see a hand, attached to an arm. An arm wet with blood.

His hands moved farther, to a chest clothed in a sweatshirt and bits of blood and gore from the hole in it. Not Riley, then, who had been in his usual shirt and tie. Jack felt a wave of relief he wouldn’t have expected.

He felt the neck for a pulse, found none, and abandoned the man, moving toward another figure on the floor. That had to be Riley, alive or dead—unless another unknown remained in play. Which, given the events to date, would not surprise him in the slightest.

Then he heard Maggie call his name.

* * *

Shanaya also wished she had a gun. Or a knife, or even a ballpoint pen that she might be able to pull out and stab this asshole in the thigh to get him to let go of her as soon as he moved the gun from her face to shoot someone else. But she had nothing. Except—

The boss—she still didn’t even know what his name was—pivoted her toward the receptionist desk, keeping her between himself and the cop. The light drifting down the stairwell from the day care room gave a dim illumination to the foyer, enough that she could see the two people now half-cowering behind the marble desk. The cop emerged, slowly. That forensic chick who had counted all Shanaya’s money peeked over the heavy marble counter, staying safe, the lucky bitch. She looked at Shanaya and not the man with the gun.

“Let’s take a second here,” the officer began.

“We don’t have a second,” the man said. “In case you haven’t noticed, the building’s on fire. So I’m going to get out of here, and if you try to stop me, I’ll—”

The gun that had been grinding into the skin of her right temple slid toward her eye, hovering in front of her brow as the guy couldn’t decide whether to aim it at her or at the cop.

She had had just about enough of this shit.

“You’re not going to get out of here,” she told him. “You might as well let me go and give up.”

“Shut up.”

“They’re cops. There are more of them than there are of you.”

In response, he moved his arm from where it choked her to curl one hand over her mouth, squeezing her face and smashing her skull into his collarbone so hard it hurt.

The cop kept talking, trying to offer the guy some way to let her go that would sound acceptable, trying to couch “give up and go to jail for, like, ever” in appealing terms.

This guy had no intention of giving up or going to jail or doing anything other than killing everyone who got in his way. And that would be her as soon as he no longer needed her.

Shanaya opened her jaw, struggling against his hand, and one of his fingers slipped inside. Then she bit. She clamped down as hard as she could.

He yelped, and she jerked down on his gun hand. It went off but didn’t hit her.

She couldn’t see a lot of options here. He was stronger than her, and even with taking the flesh of his fingers down to the bone didn’t get him to let go of the gun. Even if he let go of her, she’d never make it to the door before he shot her. Bullets remained the biggest threat, so that’s what she dealt with.

Keeping his finger grinding between her teeth, she grasped his other hand with both of hers, snaked her digits around his and pulled. The gun fired and fired again; she kept her elbows locked and didn’t care so long as the bullets didn’t go into any part of her own anatomy. She heard more screams—whether they came from the guy or the cop or the woman, she didn’t know, but hoped to hell she hadn’t hit either of them or the cop might start shooting back while she still provided a warm flack jacket for her captor.

Finally the gun only gave empty clicks and the slide locked back.

Her cue to run. Her jaw released his bloody finger and she spit, the taste making her want to puke even with so much else for her body to think about. With his bleeding hand free he instinctively pulled away from her and she didn’t hesitate, bolting for the door. She felt him snatch at her shirt, but gave up or changed his mind or couldn’t grasp it with his injured hand because she made it to the glass doors and kept going. Hit the second set and found herself on the sidewalk.

The cold bit into her with sharp pricks before she even realized she had made it. Surely the cop back there would grab the guy . . . but to be sure she ducked around the corner. He had no motive to attack her now except for revenge.

One lone car moved slowly up East Ninth, but she heard sirens getting close.

She had made it, once again. Survived. She could melt back into the landscape and by the time the cops got done with that guy in there, they would have forgotten all about Shanaya.

Except that the cops still had her money. Maybe, maybe she could get some or all of it back. They had to return it if they couldn’t prove she had committed fraud, and again, if that guy in there died or the building burned down, especially if the building burned down, they wouldn’t be able to prove it.

The first two cop cars appeared, moving as fast as the roads would allow. As they slid to a shuddering halt in front of the building, she ran to the edge of the sidewalk, waving her arms.

She started to scream the second their doors opened. “Help! Help! There’s a guy in there killing cops! He kidnapped me! He held me at gun—”

The door to her left slammed open, and the man stood there with his bleeding hand, taking in the array of red and blue lights brightening the street.

“Him!” Shanaya pointed.