She eased around the corner and behind the cover of a shipping crate, continuing to look for Tabby, or an assailant, or anything that would tell her what the hell was going down. As she slipped around another crate, she suddenly felt fingers on her throat and something cold and hard in the small of her back.
“Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?” Tabby’s voice snarled in her ear. “Somebody said you were an investigator. That’s hard to believe. Put the gun on the ground and kick it away. I’ve got the one at your waist.”
Cally felt the backup weapon slipped from its holster in her back, as she bent and laid her pistol on the pavement, then nudged it away with her toe. Damn, damn, damn, I’m an idiot, she cursed herself out. I trusted the woman that everybody – especially Nick – told me was a bitch. What the hell does this bitch – and she is a bitch, and a liar, and a slut – want with me now?
“‘You’re probably wondering why I called you here,’” Tabby quoted the ancient saying with a cruel laugh. “It’s simple, really. I want Nicky. You’re in the way. You and your bastard brat. Feel this?” She nudged the cold hard object in Cally’s back. “It’s an airgun with expanding projectiles. One good shot will take out your descending aorta, and take the baby with it. And then Nicky is free...for the taking. And I intend to do some taking.” Cally could hear the smirk in her voice. “I thought about using a knife and cutting the baby out of you, then leaving you both to bleed out, but this is faster, and doesn’t run the risk of someone coming along too soon and rescuing you.
“Now come over here,” Tabby said, nudging Cally along with the barrel of the gun and her hand on Cally’s throat. “I’ve got a nice little place prepared for the two of you, where they’ll never find you until the shipping crate is a long way away from this miserable rock.”
“Nick! Nick, honey, help! I’m in trouble! I need your help, bad!” Cally sent the distress call on the special emergency channel she and Ashton had reserved for themselves.
“I hear you, Cal, and I’m already on the way. Maia called me.”
“Oh thank God! She’s nuts or something, Nick! She wants you, and intends to kill me and the baby, to get to you!”
“I know. Where are you?”
“In the mews behind the café. She’s got a gun on me.”
“I’ll be there in two.”
“It’s really dark! Don’t come alone!”
“I have plenty of backup.”
Ashton, Peabody, and Stone arrived at the door of the café just as Adrian Mott exited it. Before they could say anything, the three men were surrounded by The Team.
“She’s not inside,” Mott said. “I saw her go in here, then I hadda duck around a big truck and she was gone. I dunno–”
“She’s behind the café,” Ashton interrupted. “Koch has her at gunpoint.”
“Shit shit shit, and damn, for good measure,” Rassmussen cursed. “I knew that bitch was gonna be trouble for Cal.”
“We all did,” Armbrand replied, “except Cal.”
“She’s your wife, Nick,” Peabody said. “You call it.”
“But hurry,” Jones added.
“Okay. Team, split yourselves into two equal parts. Peabody, you take one half and go around that side of the café. Make it fast.” He pointed to the far end of the eatery. “Stone, you take the rest and come with me. Except I want you lot to stay about ten paces behind me. Tabby wants me? I’ll be there. I’m the decoy. I’ll get her attention off Cal, and that will hopefully give the rest of you a chance to take a shot.”
“You want her dead?” Peabody asked, giving Ashton a sharp look.
“Not necessarily, but if that’s what it takes,” Ashton noted. “Right this very minute she’s holding a gun on Cal, and I gathered from the flashes of imagery, in such a way as to take out the baby, too. I want Koch unable to hurt Cal and the baby. If it takes a killing shot to stop her, it’s on her own head now.”
The others nodded, and split up.
Tabby roughly shoved Cally away from her.
“There!” she exclaimed with a vicious smirk. “I want to watch your eyes as you feel your brat die, as you feel yourself dying. I want to know you’re dead, and Nick is free...to be with me.” She raised the airgun.
“I’ll never be with you, Tabby,” a familiar voice said, and Koch spun.
Nick Ashton stood there, his weapon drawn and leveled at Koch.
“Tabby, put the gun down.”
“Nick, she’s the only thing between you and me being happy together. We can do this, you and me. Get the bitch here out of the way with that bastard brat she’s carrying, and then it’s just us two. Then we can get Carter out of the way, and you’ll be in charge. You can put me in charge of the detectives, and we’ll run the show! That’s what Uncle Bill hoped would happen for us, did you know that?”
“I don’t give a damn what that asshole of an uncle of yours wanted. And don’t you dare call my wife a bitch, or my son a bastard.”
“Nick, she’s a slut. The kid probably isn’t even yours. She trapped you into marrying her by getting pregnant and claiming it was yours.”
“Which shows how much you know. We’ve been married closing on two years now. And Cal’s never once looked at another man, any more than I’ve looked at another woman.”
“Not even me?” She preened.
“Especially not you.”
“But – but I thought...you and me...you were such a passionate lover, Nick...”
“I don’t know who the
