Please God, let this be the right one. Let me be thinking clearly, logically. No emotion.
Hawthorn and McCormick pulled in behind them. Under a fire escape Matt laced his fingers together and braced himself. Sorenson put her foot in his cupped palms, her hands on his shoulders. On her count he boosted her to shoulder height. She pulled herself through the hole in the bottom of the fire escape, then reached down for the M4. With the carbine slung across her body she swarmed up the second flight of rusting iron stairs and disappeared onto the roof. Moving very lightly for such a bulky guy, McCormick jumped for the fire escape on the next building down, hauled himself through the opening, and took the stairs two at a time before hoisting himself over the wall, onto the roof.
Steadying his breathing, Matt waited with Hawthorn for Sorenson’s voice over the radio.
“I’m in position,” she said, low and calm. “Looks like just Jenkins and Murphy. Pastor Webber’s on the floor, Eve’s about ten feet away from him, possibly unconscious.”
“Weapons?”
Matt heard the click as Sorenson scanned the building through the high-powered scope. “Jenkins has a gun in his waistband. Murphy’s holding a semiautomatic. No sign of anyone else.”
“Confirmed,” McCormick said.
“Do either of you have a shot?”
Through the connection to Eve’s phone, Matt could hear footsteps. “No,” Sorenson said, frustration obvious in her voice. “They just shifted position.”
“Affirmative. I have the shot on Jenkins,” McCormick said. “Murphy’s pacing in and out of sight behind one of the big cement pillars in the middle of the floor.”
Through the phone Matt heard Eve’s sob as she achieved consciousness. Hawthorn pointed at himself and Matt, then at the front tires of the Escalade.
“You bitch! You were fucking a cop and lying to me!”
Anguish ate like acid at Matt’s chest, but he used Lyle’s raised voice as cover to dash behind the Escalade, Hawthorn close on his heels. They skidded to a halt on their knees in the dirt by the passenger-side wheel. The scent of heated rubber and grease seared into Matt’s nostrils, the hot wheel burning his arm as he pressed against it.
“He’s a cop?” Eve said in a dazed voice. “Wow. I didn’t know. Good thing you found out when you did.”
Matt had spent a fair share of his professional life crouching in the dust and dirt behind various impenetrable objects—vehicles, walls and berms, sandbag barricades—his mind usually empty except for awareness of the progress of sweat down the length of his spine and whatever snippet of song he had stuck in his head. In this moment, behind this particular tire, one completely out of context phrase from of all things, the Bible, floated to the top of his brain.
You reap what you sow. And he’d sowed nothing but dispassionate deception. He’d doomed any possibility of a real relationship with Eve Webber the moment he walked through the door to Eye Candy as Chad Henderson. For the first time since he met her, the right thing to do was clear.
Save her, then let her go.
“What?” Lyle yelled.
“I’d never work with a cop, Lyle. The Eastern Precinct’s as dirty as the men’s room floor. We all know that.” Matt heard her gasp in pain. She must have sat up, moved her head, all while still trying to find a way to save their operation. They’d underestimated her from the very beginning. “The bastards. They didn’t even ask. Just put someone in undercover. I can’t believe it. Good thing I didn’t let him come upstairs,” she said, delaying, giving Matt time to get to her. Smart, tough woman.
“East Side girl like you? You should have known!”
“I’m new at this, Lyle,” she said, bone-tired. “Cut me some slack, okay?”
Lyle laughed, the noise almost relieved, and for a second Matt thought she’d managed to talk her way out clear. Then his phone went silent for a second, leaving only the echoing noise of the laugh inside the warehouse.
“What happened?” Sorenson’s low voice over the radio.
“McCormick, report,” Hawthorn said soundlessly. “You have line of sight.”
“What’s that noise, Eve?” The audio was back, and Lyle’s voice was menacing again. “Show me your—”
The audio went dead again, and with a sickening flash of clarity, Matt knew what was happening. The battery on Eve’s phone, left uncharged the night before, was beeping the low battery signal. Each time it beeped, he lost audio for a second. Lyle heard the beeps.
“Her phone’s dying,” Matt murmured.
He got one foot under him to start around the end of the Escalade, but Hawthorn gripped his vest and held him back. “Not without the back door cleared!”
“Show me your hands, Eve.”
“Why?”
“He’s aiming at her,” McCormick said urgently. “LT!”