Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE DARK
Declan did not move.
That frightened Sarah more than if he had reached for a gun.
She had worked beside him long enough to understand the difference between Declan Hayes angry and Declan Hayes dangerous.
Anger made his jaw tighten.
Danger made him quiet.
Thomas’s footsteps stopped somewhere beyond the reception desk.
“Come on, Dec,” he called. “Don’t make this uglier than it needs to be.”
Declan leaned toward Sarah.
His mouth was inches from her ear.
“When I tell you to run, you run.”
“There’s nowhere to—”
“There is.”
He reached beneath her desk and pressed a hidden switch.
A section of dark wood behind the filing cabinets released with a soft click.
Sarah stared.
“Service corridor. Goes to the freight stairwell.”
“You have a secret passage behind my desk?”
“This building belonged to my father.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Despite everything, something almost resembling a smile touched Declan’s mouth.
Then glass shattered.
Declan shoved Sarah down.
A suppressed shot buried itself in the wall where her head had been.
“Now.”
Sarah crawled toward the hidden opening.
Declan drew a pistol from beneath his jacket.
Another shot.
He returned fire.
A man cursed in the darkness.
Sarah reached the passage but turned.
“Declan.”
“Go!”
She disappeared inside.
Declan fired twice more before following and pulling the panel shut.
They descended a narrow concrete staircase illuminated only by the emergency light on Declan’s phone.
Sarah’s breathing became uneven by the third floor.
By the fifth, she stumbled.
Declan caught her around the waist.
Her body felt frighteningly light.
“You’re done walking.”
“I can walk.”
“You can argue while I carry you.”
Before she could protest, he lifted her.
Sarah instinctively wrapped an arm around his neck.
The gesture hit him harder than the gunfire had.
Miami flashed through his mind.
Rain hammering the safe-house roof.
Sarah laughing because the power had failed while she was trying to make coffee.
The way she had looked at him when neither of them could pretend their attraction was merely professional anymore.
Then the morning afterward.
Her careful distance.
His cowardly acceptance of it.
Sixteen weeks.
He had spent sixteen weeks believing silence was what she wanted.
All while she carried his child.
They reached the underground garage.
Declan’s driver was gone.
Two security guards lay unconscious beside the booth.
Thomas had planned everything.
Declan lowered Sarah behind a concrete pillar.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Sarah.”
“The last time you told me to stay somewhere safe, we spent three days trapped in Miami.”
“That was a hurricane.”
“And this is your family. I’m not convinced the hurricane was worse.”
He stared at her.
Then, impossibly, he almost laughed.
A black sedan sat twenty yards away.
Declan took the keys from an emergency lockbox.
They were halfway to the car when Sarah froze.
“What?”
“My bag.”
“Forget the bag.”
“The thermos is inside.”
Declan understood immediately.
Evidence.
“Stay.”
This time Sarah obeyed.
Declan disappeared toward the stairwell.
He returned four minutes later carrying her tote.
Blood darkened his shoulder.
Sarah’s eyes widened.
“You’re hurt.”
“Not mine.”
He opened the passenger door.
She did not move.
“What did Thomas mean?”
Declan looked toward her.
“When?”
“When he said you should have fired me.”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
He shut the door after her and walked around the vehicle.
Only once they were moving through the underground exit did he answer.
“Thomas told me six months ago you were becoming a liability.”
Sarah stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“I told him to mind his own business.”
“Why was I a liability?”
Declan’s hands tightened around the wheel.
“He noticed how I looked at you.”
Sarah went silent.
Boston blurred beyond the rain-streaked windshield.
Declan drove not toward his Beacon Hill house but south.
“Where are we going?”
“A place Thomas doesn’t know exists.”
“You have one of those?”
“I have several.”
“Of course you do.”
Twenty minutes later, Sarah pressed a hand against her stomach.
Declan noticed.
“Pain?”
“Just tightness.”
He accelerated.
“Declan, speeding is not going to make me less stressed.”
He immediately slowed.
Sarah looked sideways at him.
For the first time that night, his fear was visible.
Not fear of Thomas.
Fear for her.
“You really didn’t know?” she whispered.
“About the baby?”
She nodded.
“No.”
“I tried to tell you.”
“When?”
“The morning after I found out.”
Declan remembered it.
A Tuesday.
Sarah had entered his office pale and nervous.
Before she could speak, Thomas had arrived with news that Bishop representatives were downstairs.
Declan had left for Chicago that afternoon.
“When I came back,” he said, “you told me it wasn’t important.”
“You came back with Catherine Bishop.”
“She was part of the negotiation.”
“The newspapers called her your future wife.”
“The newspapers also call me a philanthropist.”
Sarah almost smiled.
Then pain crossed her face.
This time it did not disappear.
“Sarah?”
Her hand tightened over her belly.
“I need a hospital.”
Declan changed direction instantly.
“No.”
Sarah grabbed his wrist.
“No hospital.”
“You’re poisoned and pregnant.”
“And Thomas knows every hospital you would use.”
Declan looked at her.
She was right.
“Dr. Weaver,” she said. “Call him.”
Declan dialed.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Sarah’s phone vibrated inside her bag.
An unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Dr. Weaver was tied to a chair.
Underneath it were six words.
BRING THE GIRL OR HE DIES.
Declan’s expression hardened.
Sarah stared at the photograph.
“Thomas has him.”
“No.”
She looked up.
“No?”
Declan enlarged the image.
“Look at the clock behind Weaver.”
Sarah did.
11:42.
More than an hour before Declan had discovered her.
“He was taken before Thomas entered the building,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Declan zoomed farther.
A reflection appeared in the stainless-steel cabinet behind the doctor.
A woman.
Tall.
Blonde.
Wearing a camel-colored coat.
Sarah stopped breathing.
She had seen that woman before.
At charity dinners.
At the Hayes estate.
Standing beside Declan in photographs.
“Catherine Bishop.”
Declan stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
Ask Sarah who really ordered the toxicology test.
Declan slowly turned toward her.
Sarah’s face had gone white.
May you like
Because the answer was not Dr. Weaver.
And for the first time that night, Declan realized Sarah had been hiding something too.
