Wyoming Mountain Hostage
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Juno Rushdan
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Chapter One
This was the last thing Jake Delgado had expected. Or wanted.
On the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming, he had been fantasizing about having a good time with Becca Hammond, a fellow FBI agent and his occasional hookup. Friends-with-benefits was not applicable since they had never quite been friends. So, having the “where do we stand” talk had not been on his agenda tonight.
“Are you listening to me?” Becca asked.
“Yeah, of course, I am. I was just looking at that vehicle again.” Jake gestured through the windshield at the nondescript white van that circled the Laramie Public Library, where they were parked near the rear entrance. “That’s their second time around.”
The van had entered off the side street of Seventh, cutting through the L-shaped parking lot, and was heading toward Grand Avenue, where the other entrance was located.
“Probably someone waiting to pick someone up, the same as us,” she said, frustration sharpening her voice. “I’m trying to talk to you. This is important. Can you at least look at me?”
Becca was wound tighter than he had ever seen her. She hadn’t even glanced at the van. This was a quiet, small community surrounded by breathtaking mountains. An idyllic haven where the violent crime rate was low enough to get a good agent to drop their guard. It was the kind of place where neighbors got to know each other, where help if you needed it during difficult situations could easily be found. Still, he mentally noted the license plate number before giving her his full attention, which only made his predicament worse.
She was stunning. Utterly breathtaking. Curly auburn hair that was as fiery as her spirit. Creamy skin. A heart-shaped face. Pronounced cheekbones. Deep brown eyes burning hot with annoyance rather than the passion he had been hoping for when he’d arranged to take this half day as well as tomorrow off for a long weekend with her. The least she could’ve done was given him a heads-up about this instead of blindsiding him.
His gaze dipped to her sexy attire. She had changed from the usual stiff suit she wore to work into a short, flowy dress with vibrant flowers that he wanted to pluck. It showed the perfect amount of skin, highlighting her curves. To top it off, she wore a Stetson and those cowboy boots that she knew drove him wild.
The entire outfit was one giant come-hither, setting him up for the take.
“My eyes are up here,” she said, the words yanking his gaze from the tempting swell of her breasts to her lovely face.
Stifling a groan, he shook off the desire flaring through him. “You were saying.”
“Do you have any interest in something real with me?”
Sex was real. And spectacular on the occasions when they’d had it, but he’d thought they had both kept things compartmentalized and delineated. Until now.
Jake squirmed in the passenger’s seat of her SUV, which was parked alongside several other vehicles with parents also waiting in them to pick up their kids. The teens were inside working on a high school project or something. Becca seemed familiar with the parents and had given the obligatory wave hello when they had arrived. Not that she was a mom. She was a hard-charging, fast burner at work like him, with no time for the hassle of kids. But she was a fantastic aunt, who often pitched in to help her family when she could. Somehow, she had roped Jake into tagging along with her to pick up her nephew.
“I thought we were on the same page,” Jake said. “This is just supposed to be fun. Easy. Our current arrangement works.” No complications. No pressure. No expectations. No one disappointed. “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, right?” He grinned, aiming for a subtle mix of charming and honest.
His expression fell flat, failing to elicit the barest hint of a smile from her. Rolling her eyes, she sighed. He rubbed at the outline of his handy-dandy Swiss Army knife in his pocket. It had brought him luck on many occasions. He could use a little with the way this conversation was going.
Becca glanced away at the double doors of the library. “Mason hasn’t responded to my text telling him that I’m here. I’ll go in. See how much longer he’s going to be. His Battle of the Books club should’ve wrapped up by now.” She opened her door. “We can talk about this later.”
Later?
He wanted to be done with it now. Then they could put the subject in a proverbial box, bury it and have fun, which was the point of him coming here.
Jake put a hand on her arm, stopping her. The single touch made his nerves tingle. “What’s going on?”
Staying seated, she held on to the door handle. “I thought this thing with you might grow. Evolve into something real.”
There was that dirty four-letter word again. He was starting to hate it.
He released a deep, weary sigh. “You don’t even like me.”
“I don’t like how you constantly underestimate me, questioning the way I handle cases.”
“In my experience, underestimating a woman, especially an attractive one who carries a badge and a gun, is a bad idea. They’re usually the kind who’ll ruin a man.” In good ways and bad. And Becca Hammond was most certainly that kind of woman.
“You can also be a sexist jerk,” she added.
“Thank you for proving my point that you don’t like me,” he said, and she didn’t refute it, which wasn’t the surprising part of this conversation.
The two of them had butted heads since they had gone through the FBI Academy together. This was not the first occasion she had called him a sexist jerk. While he was guilty of being an arrogant one at times, he certainly wasn’t sexist. He respected Becca. Admired her for being one of the best. She was smart and sharp, no denying that, but she was also rash and tended to take unnecessary risks that could get her killed.
“You seemed satisfied with the way things were,” he continued. “That’s why I thought you called me.” The last time they’d seen each other had been about two months ago. They’d had a great time, in bed, when they hadn’t been fighting. “Whatever this is between us, I don’t want it to change.”
Their arrangement gave him a much-needed escape from the grind of his life. He’d been up-front from the beginning about what he wanted and his limitations, in the hopes to avoid this.
“I’m thirty-six,” she said. “Almost thirty-seven. I like fun and easy, but I also want more.”
News to him. Not once had she hinted at wanting things to get serious. “More isn’t an option for me. Not right now.” When they’d started hooking up, it hadn’t been one for her, either.
“Figures.” Heaving a breath, she hopped out of the car, slammed the door and made a beeline across the lot headed for the walkway.
Maybe they could still salvage tonight. If not, rather than letting this be a wasted trip, he’d visit his sister and her fiancé. Not that having dinner with Lynn’s soon-to-be husband was his first choice. To be honest, he’d prefer to stick toothpicks in his own eyes than play nice with Nash Garner.
Jake jumped out of the SUV. “Becca, hold on a second.” He hurried up beside her on the sidewalk, catching her elbow. “Are we good?”
Despite how much she got under his skin sometimes, he’d been looking forward to spending time with her.
“No.” Pulling away from his grasp, Becca folded her arms, her stance turning defensive, as if she was ready for battle. “We are not good.”
Jake scratched his chin in bewilderment. “Since when?”
“Since I found out that I’m pregnant.”
The statement hit him like a sucker punch to the solar plexus, stealing his breath.
Becca stared at him, those intelligent eyes assessing every nuance of how he was taking the news. It was impossible for him to hide his shock, even while knowing his reaction might drive a wedge between them.
His gaze dropped reflexively to her stomach. Not that he expected to see a baby bump there. “It’s mine,” he said, half statement, half question, a storm of emotions rolling through him.
They had decided to be exclusive, to be safe while having fun. If the situation changed, they’d agreed to discuss it. Their arrangement had made it easy for them not to risk their hearts with other people who might have expected more than sex.
He was only looking for confirmation. To hear her say it.
Becca squeezed her eyes shut, her mouth thinning into a hard line, as though he’d uttered the worst possible thing. “Yes. It’s yours.”
Running a hand through his hair, he turned away, struggling to come up with the right response. He couldn’t even muster a suitable facial expression.
The white van circled around again, coming into the parking lot from Seventh Street.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Becca snapped from behind him.
The passenger door of the van flew open. A man wearing dark clothes and a dark green camo bandanna covering the lower part of his face knelt at the opening. Jake registered the barrel of a semiautomatic weapon. But it was too late.
“Get down!” he yelled right as gunfire ripped through the air. Spinning, he grabbed Becca and dove to the ground, landing on the lawn. He shielded her with his body from the rain of bullets that followed.
He listened, assessing how many might be injured or killed, how much damage was being done. But no glass shattered. No distinct pings of gunfire striking metal. Only the distant screams from the parents inside their vehicles.
The driver gunned the engine. Tires squealed. The van took off, zooming through the L-shaped parking lot around to the side of the library, headed toward Grand Avenue, where there would be plenty of pedestrians and passing cars.
“Are you all right?” Jake asked, his gaze sweeping over her in search of injuries.
Becca lay with her cheek to the grass, her eyes wide, a grimace tightening her features. “Yeah. Fine.”
Jake was up on his feet, drawing his holstered weapon. Racing across the grass toward the other end of the building, he glimpsed the parking lot. None of the parents appeared hurt. Their vehicles were all undamaged. They cringed, looking frightened from the safety of their cars. The absence of visible signs of blood or calls for help left him confident there were no injuries or fatalities.
Before he rounded the corner, from his periphery he caught sight of Becca disappearing into the library.
What was she doing? She should be going back to her car to grab her cell phone and call this in.
Jake bolted through the other section of the parking lot toward Grand Avenue. If he was lucky, he might get a clear shot at one of the tires. At the very least, he’d be able to tell which direction they were headed in, when he did what Becca should be doing right now. He reached the main road as the white van screeched to a halt in front of the library.
Two armed men jumped from the van—one from the back with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and the other from the driver’s seat—leaving the van’s engine running.
The men held semiautomatic weapons, the barrels raised, and pulled their triggers, sending a spray of gunfire up toward the sky as they marched up the walkway of the library.
People screamed. Children cried out. Cars braked in the street. Commotion ensued.
Jake raised his sidearm, taking aim on the assailants. “Stop! FBI!”
Both masked men glanced in his direction as a woman with salt-and-pepper hair walked out of the library. One guy seized her by the collar of her dress and shoved the muzzle of his rifle into her back.
The woman wore a name tag, but she was too far away for him to make it out. She must have been a librarian or a clerk.
Jake ached to put an end to whatever those two men were up to with a bullet in each of them, but the woman was blocking any clean shot he might take. He couldn’t take the chance of hitting her or that the other guy might put a bullet in her.
Instead of firing, he said, “Drop your weapons and let her go!”
They ducked inside the library, out of his sight.
Jake dashed down the sidewalk alongside the building, headed toward the doors. He shouted at pedestrians, waving his hand at them to clear out and get a safe distance away.
At the main entrance, he tugged on one of the glass doors, but they had been chained and padlocked from the inside. The gunmen were backing away through the foyer.
The burly guy with a green camo bandanna covering his nose and mouth slipped the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, drew a 9mm from the holster on his hip and crushed the woman against him, roping an arm around her throat. He pressed the gun to her head, his finger on the trigger, and hauled her with them.
The woman stumbled, nearly falling. The guy caught her and jammed the gun even more tightly against her temple, making her flinch.
A curse slipped from Jake’s mouth as she grimaced in pain. Her assailant dragged her along, using the woman as a human shield. They shoved through another set of doors, chaining those as well. Then they retreated deeper into the library until he no longer had a visual on them.
Jake swore again beneath his breath.
Becca and Mason were somewhere inside. Maybe she was able to get her nephew and the others out. But the library was large, spread over two levels. There was no telling if she had found him yet. Or if she was even aware the armed men had entered the building.
Jake took off, charging back around the library, hoping he could make it to the rear entrance before the armed men did and locked those doors, too.
At a full-blown sprint, he pushed as hard and as fast as possible, still holding his sidearm. He had to make it. He had to reach the other set of doors in time.
Too many innocent lives were on the line.
High school kids.
Unsuspecting citizens.
Becca.
He tore around the corner, his heart hammering his chest. He was barely able to breathe, but the tightness in his lungs wasn’t what made him stop dead in his tracks.
The parents were out of their cars, standing in the lot, crying, staring, pointing—at a second white van that had pulled up in front of the rear entrance. Both van doors hung open. The engine left running.
A second team had entered the library.
No.
Jake raced down the walkway, heading for the back doors, knowing with each frenzied step exactly what he would find.
The rear entrance had also been chained and padlocked.
There was no way for Becca to get out. She was unarmed and trapped inside with at least four gunmen.
And she was pregnant. With his baby.
For a crazed moment, he considered shooting out the glass and storming in. He tamped the impulse down, forcing himself to stay focused. Not only would he be breaking protocol, but he would also be endangering the lives of the hostages and compromising any chance to de-escalate this volatile situation.
As a hostage negotiator, he of all people knew better.
This wasn’t the time to lose it, no matter how tempted he was to do exactly that. It was bad enough that Becca was in such danger.
He pulled his cell phone and called for backup.
