Conviction of the Heart (32 page)

“And for you, my lady?” Nick said, handing Suzanne a small jewelry box.

Alarms went off in her head as she guessed it was an engagement ring of some sort.
No! It’s not time for that yet!
But he winked as she looked up at him. He’d read her panic. “It’s an awesome California thing, dude,” he said.

She smiled and opened the box to find a mood ring. “Wow. I haven’t had one of these since high school,” she said.

“Put it on, Mom. Let’s see what kind of mood you’re in,” Hope said.

“Should have done that half an hour ago,” Riviera said in a stage whisper. Hope, standing next to her, quelled her sister’s enthusiasm with a controlled elbow to the ribs.

Suzanne placed the ring on her right hand ring finger, and they all waited, watching, as the ring changed from black to amber to green, and finally blue. “What does blue mean?”

Hope read from the card in the box. “’Content and happy.’”

“Well, then, it’s right.” She gave Nick a hug and kiss, and the girls joined in for a group hug.

“Me, too,” Nick said. “I really missed all of you.”

Once they finally let go of each other, they sat around the table, sharing stories of the time they’d spent apart. As the evening wore on, Suzanne realized she was perfectly content. Her objections to a permanent relationship with Nick receded to a place far back in her mind. For tonight, at least, she didn’t intend to be separated from her lover and friend.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Two weeks later, Suzanne stood on the doorstep of Maddie Morgan’s home, impatiently tapping her foot, the signed divorce decree in an envelope in her hand. The nightmare had ended, saved by the agreement of her husband’s lawyer to bifurcate the divorce. That meant they could put off the contested division of the property and proceed with the legal divorce immediately. Maddie had jumped at the chance to finally terminate her relationship with Greg Morgan, who’d been acting even more erratic of late. She’d even called that morning to invite Suzanne for a cup of coffee to celebrate after Katie had gone to school.

But if Maddie was expecting her, what was the hold-up? Suzanne looked at her watch. She had appointments scheduled with clients just after noon, and she couldn’t be out here all day. Maybe Maddie was upstairs and hadn’t heard the bell. She pushed the amber-lit button twice more.

Suddenly the door opened and someone grabbed Suzanne’s wrist. She dropped her purse and the papers she was holding as she was yanked inside the darkened house and unceremoniously thrown to the couch.

“Well, look what we have here,” said a caustic male voice Suzanne recognized immediately as that of Greg Morgan. “If it isn’t Miz Taylor, attorney extraordinaire. Come to celebrate with my dear ex-wife?”

Suzanne’s eyes, blinded at first, took some time adjusting to the difference in light levels from the sunlit street to the Morgan living room, with its heavy drapes pulled closed. The shadowy figure pacing before the coffee table had to be Greg. A survey of her surroundings gradually showed her Maddie and her daughter on the loveseat six feet away, wrapped tight in each other’s arms. Maddie’s dress was torn, and the little girl’s hair was unkempt. She still wore her pajamas.

“Suzanne, I’m so sorry,” Maddie said quickly. “He made me call, then pulled the phone out of the wall—”

“Shut up!” Greg shouted. He moved his arm to point at Maddie, and Suzanne caught a glint of light off a handgun with a long barrel similar in appearance to Nick’s .357. Maddie whimpered and clutched her child closer.

“Mr. Morgan, this isn’t the answer to your situation,” Suzanne said as calmly as she could.

“Oh, yeah? What do you know about ‘my situation’? Hmmm?” The man came close to her, leaning over her shoulder from behind. The smell of alcohol was almost overpowered by his body odor. He was sweating up a storm. “You think I can just go on about my business, now that you’ve helped my wife—my
ex
-wife—steal half of everything I own?”

He staggered around to sit next to her on the couch. Suzanne fought every impulse not to pull away from him as he brought the gun up close to her head. “I’ll lose my council seat, you know. Divorce doesn’t appeal to the voters.” What light there was showed her the fire in his eyes which never failed to frighten her. He stared at her for a long few moments, then he shoved himself to his feet, stumbling across the room.

“All she had to do was take care of the house and raise the children. I didn’t ask her for a Goddamned dime. I paid for everything.” He gestured broadly around the room, almost falling as he waved his arm. “I worked ten hours a day, sometimes fourteen, to keep her in our nice house. And she left it! For this piece of crap! Did you think we had a bad house?” he demanded of Suzanne, the gun vaguely pointing in her direction.

“It was a wonderful house,” she said, sharply aware of Maddie crying behind her. Funny how law school never taught some of the skills that might really be useful. Investigating police conspiracies. How to get out of hostage situations. Ridding one’s life of a crazy man…

“
See, Maddie, even the bitch thinks the house is great. So I hit you a couple of times. I got a temper. So I’m sorry.” He lurched forward in a mock bow, nearly fell. Maddie burst into tears. “That’s it!” Morgan yelled. “I’m so tired of listening to all the whining and crying. It’s going to stop now!” He stalked over to where Maddie sat.

Is he going to kill her?
Suzanne wondered, heart racing.
Would he kill his child? What was he up to before she came in? Had her arrival changed his plan?
She strained to see what he was doing, trying to guess if she could do anything to stop him. She was fifteen feet from the door. In his present frame of mind, Morgan wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her if she ran. Or Maddie and her child. Or all of the above.
Keep thinking, Suzanne...

“
Where’s Joshua?” she asked. Maybe a new train of thought would divert him from whatever plan he had. “Figured you’d bring him along to show him how clever you are.”

“What do you care?” Morgan sneered. A slow grin came to him. “Did you like his little messages? He thought your girls were real hot chicks, you know. Too bad the one was as stubborn as her mother. She needs to be taught a lesson in how to treat her man.”

Suzanne growled and got to her feet.”Yeah? I should teach you a lesson in—”

Drunk as he was, Greg was across the distance between them in a split second. He backhanded her, knocking her onto the couch. Her face felt like it had exploded, from her cheek right up into her eye. She moaned as the pain echoed through the nerves and rattled back.

“He’s at school,” Greg said. “Thanks for your concern. Now shut the hell up.”

Maddie gasped. “Greg, please, don’t do this.”

“I don’t take orders from you!” Morgan set the gun down behind him, still well within reach. He picked up a roll of duct tape from the coffee table. Maddie’s eyes widened and she whimpered as he came closer to her. He grabbed his daughter’s arm and yanked her away from her mother. “Go sit over there with the bitch lawyer.”

Katie ducked away from her father and came to sit in Suzanne’s lap. She was trembling so hard she could barely sit still. Greg pulled a length of tape from the roll and ripped it off, using it to cover the lower half of Maddie’s face. He added two more pieces, securing them on top of the first, then ripped another long piece he used to secure her wrists behind her.

Nursing her swelling face, Suzanne realized Morgan had moved out of range of his weapon. It might be their only chance. “Katie,” she whispered breathlessly in the child’s ear, “can you run to the door and get out? I can keep him from getting the gun before you get there. Run fast like a jackrabbit to the neighbor’s house. Ask your neighbor to call the police, so someone will come help us.”

The child continued to tremble, but she finally nodded.

“Okay. One, two, three-go!” Suzanne pushed the child off her lap and heard the pattering feet run to the door. As Morgan realized the child was moving, he started to turn, but Suzanne stood up, blocking his line of sight. She was on the wrong side of him, so there was no way she could get between him and the gun, but she could delay him in reaching it.

“You little whore! Katherine Marie, you get back here now, or I’m going to shoot your mother!”

“Katie, keep going!” Suzanne called to her, reaching out toward Morgan. “Run fast! Get help!” She heard the lock turn and the door flew open, flooding the room with light. She was face to face with a madman. Morgan was livid. His eyes had taken on such a burning intensity she thought they’d explode. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, snapping her neck back and forward, then threw her to the couch and leapt for the gun. In the few moments before he’d closed the door again, Suzanne had seen Maddie’s terror-filled eyes watching Greg’s every move.

We’re going to die
.

Morgan went to the window, peering out from behind the drape in search of his daughter. He was cursing and tapping the gun barrel on the windowsill. Suzanne ached from the tip of her head to the kneecap that had hit the coffee table when he tossed her down. Only the knowledge that he could shoot her if she didn’t pay close attention forced her to sit up. The act of coming upright set her head spinning. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, as he turned slowly toward her.

His voice was devoid of emotion. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? You always gotta meddle in other people’s plans.” He took a couple of steps forward, stopping unsteadily halfway between Suzanne and the door. “We don’t have much time, now, thanks to your damned heroics.” He looked back and forth between Maddie and her attorney. “So, who gets it first?”

Maddie shook her head and moaned, but she was helpless in her tape bonds.

“Now if I really loved you,” he said to his former wife, crossing to sit beside her, “I’d shoot you first and put you out of your misery.” Greg smoothed her hair like he would a child’s, then cuddled her to his side with his left arm. “Come on, honey, you know we had sixteen good years together. Don’t I owe you something?”

The guy was truly sick, and had nothing left to lose. Suzanne prayed that Katie would get help soon. She felt a trickle of liquid run down the side of her face. Could it be blood? Even if she’d been tricked into coming here, she couldn’t accept that this was the end for her.
Come on, Suzanne. Stay focused.

Even as she chastised herself, her vision faded, and her girls’ faces rose up in her mind’s eye, smiling and happy. A stab of pain ran through her at the thought she might never see them again.

And Nick...

The depth of loss that poured into her at the idea that she had been in his arms for the last time overwhelmed her. All the denial she’d carried with her for these past months washed away, leaving only the knowledge that her love and need for him was deep and everlasting. She’d tell him so the next time she saw him, and she’d do everything in her power to make them all a family, together.

If she got the chance.

Please let me have that chance…

Suzanne twitched at the click of a locked gun hammer. Greg Morgan had cocked the weapon and aimed it at Maddie, who he held tightly around the neck.

“This is harder than I thought it would be,” he said, abruptly dropping the barrel of the gun to his lap. “Maybe it just takes practice.”

Suzanne strained to see what he was doing. The closed curtains kept the room drenched in shadows. She rolled just a little sideways, trying to present the narrowest target possible.
What did he mean, “practice?”

The meaning became all too clear as she saw his arm come up and point at her. “Thanks for everything,” he said in a chilling tone. “I really mean that.” There was a click and a flash. A bang reverberated through the room as he pulled the trigger.

****

Nick Sansone, in his office filling out duty assignments for his unit for the next two weeks, stopped when something coming over the police radio in his office caught his attention. The dispatcher gave the code for a hostage situation and sent the negotiating team to an address in an exclusive gated community, and gave the suspect’s name as Morgan.

Say what? I don’t think I heard that right.

He stepped away from his desk and turned up the radio. The dispatcher was sending more units. “Two known hostages, suspect is armed and considered dangerous,” she added in her monotone voice.
Two hostages? Wonder if Suzanne knows...
He was about to pick up the phone and call Suzanne’s office to tell her when there was a knock at his door.

“Nick?” It was Hank, the lines in his face deep as canyons.

Nick had never seen him look so old. He got to his feet slowly. “What is it?”

Hank stepped just inside the door, refusing the seat Nick offered him. “You heard the call to the Morgans’ house?”

“Yeah. Who’s the gunman? The councilman?” He was only half serious, but from the look on Hank’s face as Nick came around his desk, he realized he’d guessed correctly. “Morgan? Really?”

“Nick, about the hostages.” Hank looked at the floor, and Nick could see Hank’s Adam’s apple move as he swallowed several times. Horror washed over him, an icy bath, as he realized what Hank had come to tell him.

“Suzanne’s there, isn’t she?” As Hank nodded, his eyes full of compassion, Nick felt a huge void open around him and a rushing in his ears.
This can’t be happening.

“Hey, Nick? Nick!” In a blur, Hank was next to him, arm around his shoulders. Pain on his cheek told him Hank had slapped him. “Nick, man, get a grip on yourself!”

Nick shook off the dizziness and sat heavily on his desk, taking deep breaths. He put his arm out and grasped Hank’s. “I’m okay. It just wasn’t what I expected to hear.”
Dear God, protect her
, he prayed, the faith of his grandparents and his parents coming to buoy him with a small bit of hope. “All right, let’s go.”