Jenna shouted. “Stop!”
Clint whirled, saw Jenna holding her weapon on Gibson, and actually laughed. Then he raised his hand with the pistol, aimed, and shot Gibson. He shoved Andre out the exit without looking back.
Gibson staggered, grabbing his arm. Morgan was surprised Clint had hit him at all, given the distance and distractions. Gibson shouted Clint’s name. But it was too late. Clint and Andre were gone.
Jenna ran toward the exit, following Clint and Andre.
“Jenna, no!”
“It should have been you,” Jenna shouted back, her voice choked with smoke and fury.
Morgan kept her sights on Gibson. She couldn’t shoot him, not if he still had his own dead man’s switch. Besides, there were too many people on the lower level, most of them wounded. He jerked his head up at Jenna’s sudden departure, glanced around in surprise as if not sure what to do next.
Still clutching his arm, Gibson scuttled to a spot immediately below Morgan, crossing into her blind spot.
Suddenly she knew where he was headed—the last place anyone would look for a mad bomber while the place was being evacuated and the one place where he had control of everything, from the alarms to the locks to the sprinkler system: the security office.
Exactly where she’d sent Micah to wait.
Chapter 26
MORGAN WAS TORN. Gibson was heading right toward Micah, but Clint was escaping with Andre. Trusting Jenna to follow Clint and Andre—as much as she hated that option, she knew Jenna would never endanger Andre—Morgan raced down the stairs.
As she arrived on the lower floor, the fire sprinklers finally activated, adding the pounding water to the smoke and confusion. She turned away from the atrium and headed back beneath the stairs to the security office. The door was ajar, although the keypad was blinking red. Pistol in hand, she burst into the office.
It was empty. Except for Micah, his face cast in stark shadow by the glow of the monitors surrounding him, standing over Gibson. Micah’s hand was raised, fist ready to strike, as he whirled to face Morgan. Gibson cowered beneath the monitors, both hands trying to stop his nose from bleeding, his one arm also smeared with blood.
“Clint shot me,” he moaned. “He left me behind.” His cocky smile was gone; he seemed shaken as much by Clint’s betrayal as from his wounds.
Her gaze went from one to the other then back to Micah. “Nice work.”
“He had this—I think he was going to blow up Andre and Clint.” He handed her a cell phone. “Or maybe more bombs.”
“He deserved it. He betrayed me,” Gibson muttered, his eyes glazed, the whites showing all around.
Micah crouched and quickly searched Gibson, removing everything from his pockets. Morgan didn’t help, she was too busy scanning the monitors for signs of Clint and Andre.
“I saw what you did,” Micah said, his tone tentative. “Were you really going to wear that vest? Go with your father to save Andre?”
“Yes.” She spotted Jenna weaving through the crowd streaming out of the mall, followed her through the cameras as she left the throng behind and began to make her way through the parked cars. Emergency response vehicles were rolling in, their lights strobing in the grainy security footage, making it difficult to see.
“Why? Was it because you knew your father wouldn’t actually hurt you?”
She understood that he needed to make sense of everything that happened today. It would be quicker to give him a lie that served as an easy answer. But she couldn’t. “No. Clint would hurt me. He would kill me. But he’ll do worse to Andre if I can’t stop him.”
Micah stood at her side, flipping through more of the cameras. “Why does he hate Andre so much?”
“He doesn’t.” She spotted movement at the far end of the employee lot. “He doesn’t even know Andre. He’d hurt him to hurt me.”
“Because he hates you that much?” Confusion clouded his voice. Micah had two loving mothers, was wanted and cherished. Her world was as foreign as life on Mars to someone like him.
She zoomed in on the camera. Two men skirting the shadows. Had to be Clint and Andre. “No. Because he wants me that much. To Clint that’s the same as love. And hate.” She shrugged. “Don’t try to make sense of it.” She noted the parking row Clint turned down and turned to leave. “You okay watching Gibson? The cops will be here soon, and the fire doesn’t seem to be spreading.”
Micah nodded. “Go. I have this.” Before she could move he startled her by grasping her elbows. Then he did something she totally did not understand—but wished with all her might that she did. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. “When this is over, come find me.”
No idea how to respond, she did what came natural. She shoved her confusion aside, turned, and ran.
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