Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

don’t know this lady. Something happens to her, sure they’ll feel bad but it won’t hurt the way it will if something happens to a friend.” I tapped my chest. “I’m their friend. Let Amy Ann go and take me. Long as they care what happens to me, I’m your passport out of here.”

He laughed. “You must think I’m stupid. By now you got snipers outside, roadblocks, helicopters and shit ready to blow me away.”

“Helicopters don’t fit in the underground parking ramp,” I said. “But my car does.”

“Which means what?”

“I can drive you away from here.”

“Right!”

“Least I’d give you a chance. If we’re followed and cornered, won’t you feel better killing a Black man before you die instead of a white girl you mistook for something else? What’s better for Liberty Storm, dying here or on camera with my blood on your hands?”

He looked at me for several heartbeats. “Taking out the trash.” He grinned. “You make a tempting offer, Rimes, but I know you think you’re setting me up, figuring a way to get the drop on me. Disarm me. Shoot me. But let me tell you how it’s gonna go.” He pressed the tip of his Wasp blade against the flimsy fabric of Zielinski’s dress. “For starters, you’re gonna give me your gun.”

“No!” Mark and Rafael said in unison.

“Yes, or this Polack dies here.” Wally Ray made a quarter-inch of the Wasp tip disappear into the folds of her dress. “You other fuckers are gonna take your guns out first, drop the magazines, and put everything on the floor. Then you’ll step back.” He looked up at Rafael and Travis. “You two, up to the next landing.” He looked at Mark. “You, big man, are gonna kneel on your hands, right on this concrete floor. Once I got his gun, none of you can get to yours before I shoot, so you better be still.” He pressed deeper, his thumb close to the CO2 button on the hilt. Zielinski stifled a scream as a spot of blood appeared.

Travis glared at me as she ejected her magazine and put it and her gun on the step where she stood. As she started backing up the stairs, Rafael popped his own mag and followed suit, as did Mark, who at Wally Ray’s command kicked his gun out of reach under the staircase. Moving away from Duke’s body, he knelt on his own palms and grimaced.

“Time for your gun, Rimes,” Wally Ray said.

I held open my sports coat so he could see the baby Glock under my left armpit. Then I took hold of the stock with my left hand and eased it out of the holster awkwardly. Keeping it upside down with no finger near the trigger guard, I leaned forward to hand it up to him, keeping my right hand behind me as if for balance.

The next move was Wally Ray’s. I knew he would have to release his hostage’s arm to take the gun with his left hand. But he was right-handed. If he was going to handle the gun, to aim and shoot, he would have to drop the Wasp or transfer it to his left hand. Either way, he would have to let go of Zielinski or the knife. For a moment he weighed his options. Then he pulled the knife back to shift it to his left hand, putting it behind Zielinski for the transfer.

Now!

I leaned forward as if falling, dropped the gun to the bottom step, and grabbed Amy Ann Zielinski’s shoulder. I had hoped the gun wouldn’t go off but it did, its bullet ricocheting off the riser and, fortunately, I later learned, into the late Stanley Maxwell. With my gun out of reach, I jerked Zielinski backward, thrusting her toward the stairwell door as Wally Ray returned the Wasp to his right hand.

He lunged down the last few steps, thrusting his blade toward my belly. I pivoted, the tip of the Wasp catching my vest and ripping into Kevlar not designed to stop it but not going into me because I was sideways. I hit his arm with my left fist and heard the CO2 cartridge in the hilt discharge with a long hiss, the gas chilling me even through the Kevlar. At the same time I slid the baton off my belt, flicked it open, and thought of Drea.

I swung it across the left side of Wally Ray’s face. As he cried out, I thought of Bobby. I brought the baton down on his right forearm hard enough to hear a sharp crack. As the Wasp clattered down the steps, I thought of Kayla and Sam and followed through with a Serena Williams backhand to the other side of his face. Howling as he spun away, Wally Ray caught the railing and sank to his butt. Thinking of Lucy Bishop and her family, I was about to hammer his head like a railroad spike when someone grabbed my arm. Behind me, Mark was back on his feet, an arm locked around mine, pulling me away.

“He’s down, man! Out of the game. You got him.”

39

Drea never made it to Niagara Falls or the Underground Railroad Museum in Lewiston. Instead, she spent much of the afternoon at Buffalo Police Headquarters, where she gave her statement, met with ADA Tripp Caster, and later, alongside the mayor, answered reporters’ questions in the press room. After the impromptu press conference, Rafael took Drea and me to the observation room to watch Wally Ray Tucker’s interrogation.

Wally Ray had spent late morning and early afternoon in the Buffalo General ER. Now, handcuffed to a table ring, he looked small and broken. He had a black eye, stitches in one cheek, a gauze bandage on the other, and a cast on his right arm. His wigless head had very short hair dyed unnaturally black.

Drea held my arm, her nails digging into my biceps. “I wish we were here to watch him get an injection.”

“I understand,” I said. “Won’t