When Silence Falls

Five. Four.

The blonde’s eyes were wide with terror, begging someone, anyone, to stop what was happening. Piper couldn’t ignore the plea. She stepped forward again, praying for wisdom and for help. “Hey, you’re holding her too tight. She can’t breathe. She’s turning blue!”

The hysteria in her voice was real, and the blonde did her part, moaning, dropping her weight against the arm that held her. The gunman glanced down and that was the chance Piper needed. She leaped forward, raising her leg in a roundhouse kick she’d been practicing for months. Hard. Fast. To the wrist. Just the way her other brother, Tristan, had taught her. The gun flew from the man’s hand, landing with a soft thud on the floor a few feet away. Piper dove for it, her fingers brushing against metal just as a hand hooked onto her arm and threw her sideways.

She slammed into a table, her head crashing against the wall, candles spilling onto the table and floor. Stars shot upward in hot, greedy fingers of light.

“Fire!” Gabby’s scream cut through Piper’s daze and she blinked, focusing on the gauzy curtains now being consumed by flames.

All around her the room echoed with noise—women calling to one another, feet pounding on the floor, an alarm screaming to life. Dr. Lillian stood amidst the chaos, calmly speaking on a cell phone.

“Piper! Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.” Gabby grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door.

“Where’s the guy with the gun? The woman?”

“Gone. He let go of her when you kicked the gun out of his hand. I think you might have broken his wrist.”

The thought made Piper light-headed. Or maybe it was the knock on the head she’d gotten. Whatever the case, she felt dizzy and sick. “I wasn’t trying to. I just wanted him to drop the gun.”

“Well, he did. But he picked it up again before he ran. Now stop talking and move faster.”

Outside, daylight had faded to blue-purple dusk, the hazy mid-July heat humid and cloying. People hugged the curb of the parking lot, staring at the smoke billowing from the three-level brownstone that housed Dr. Lillian’s practice. In the distance, sirens wailed and screamed, growing closer with each breath. Soon Lynchburg’s finest would arrive. If God was good, and Piper knew He was, Grayson wouldn’t be with them. The last thing she needed, or wanted, was her oldest brother’s raised eyebrow and overburdened sigh.

What she needed, what she wanted, was to walk away. To leave the burning building and the crying, gasping blonde and shell-shocked, spandex-clad women behind, go home and forget any of this had ever happened. But just as Jude had taught her to be cautious and Tristan had taught her to fight, Grayson had taught her responsibility. She was here for the duration. No matter how fervently she wished otherwise.

She sighed, moved into the crowd of people and waited for help to arrive.

Cade Macalister heard the sirens as he pulled out of Lynchburg Medical Center. He ignored them. Or tried.

“Well?” Sandy Morris didn’t need to say more. Cade knew exactly what she was thinking.

“No.”

“The sirens are close. It won’t take long to get the scoop and shoot a few pictures.” A reporter for the Lynchburg Gazette, Sandy was the wife of Cade’s best friend. She was also seven months pregnant.

“No.”

“Come on, Cade. What can it hurt?”

“It can hurt a lot if your husband finds out.”

“Jim won’t mind.”

Cade snorted and pulled over as an ambulance sped by.

“They’re heading toward the historic district. Something big’s going on. See those police cruisers? You know some of the guys on the force. They’d probably—”

“You need to be home in bed, resting. Jim will never forgive me if you go into preterm labor while he’s away.”

“I’m fine. The doctor just said so.”

“Three hours ago you thought you were in labor.”

“And I was wrong. This is my first, you know. Come on, Cade. You’ve got your camera, right? We’ll get the scoop. Then you can bring me home.”

“Sorry, but I’m on duty tonight. I was supposed to be in Lakeview an hour ago.”

“Why didn’t you say something? I could have found someone else to hang out at the hospital with me.”

“I didn’t want you to have to find someone else. Besides, another officer is filling in for me until I get there.”

“I wish you’d told me. Oh, wait, I get it. Jim talked you into babysitting me while he was out of town, didn’t he?” Her voice was sharp, a frown line between her brows.

“Jim didn’t have to talk me into anything. We’re friends, Sandy. What was I supposed to do? Tell you I had to work and leave you at the hospital alone?”

She shook her head, brown curls sliding against her cheeks. “Ignore me. I’ve been a bear lately. Go ahead and drop me off at home. I’ll miss the story of the century, but I can get the information tomorrow. Better late than never.”

Cade rolled his eyes. He knew the score. He’d been friends with Jim for most of his life and with Sandy for the eight years since she’d met and married his friend. The pout, the pretense of agreeing with Cade’s plan, they were both part of an act designed to get what she wanted. They worked every time. “You’re a pest, you know that?”

“Jim’s been telling me that for years.”

“Well, he’s been right.” But Cade turned left at the next light, following a police cruiser and the high-pitched whine of sirens.

“Look! Something’s burning!” Sandy’s excited cry filled the car, her finger barely missing Cade’s nose as she pointed toward thick black smoke that hung above the buildings a few blocks away. A fire truck screamed a warning and raced by Cade’s SUV. Before he could pull in behind it, an ambulance roared past. Sandy was right. Whatever was happening was big. Cade’s fingers itched to grab his camera, to shoot pictures of the emergency vehicles, the people standing in frozen silence in parking lots and on sidewalks. Fear. Excitement. Cade could read it all in their faces, and he knew he could capture it on film.

Adrenaline pounded through him, urging him to step on the gas and head into the fray. During his years as a crime-scene photographer for the military police, he would have done just that. Time and experience had tempered him. He glanced at Sandy, saw his own urge to move reflected in her face. Too bad. There was no way he was taking her with him.

He pulled into a convenience store parking lot, turned to his passenger. “If you step foot out of this car, I’ll burn any pictures I get at the scene. Stay put and the Gazette gets first dibs on them.”

“Wait a minute—”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Take it.” Sandy huffed back into her seat, a scowl pulling down the corners of her mouth.

Cade ignored the show, parked the car, grabbed his Nikon off the back seat and pushed open the door. The acrid scent of smoke burned his throat and nose as he made his way along the sidewalk. Up ahead, police cars blocked the road and two officers directed the rerouted traffic. Cade recognized one of them and strode toward him. “Matt! What’s up?”

Matt Jenkins turned and glanced at Cade’s camera. “You shooting pictures for one of the newspapers?”

“Lynchburg Gazette.”

“Thought maybe you were here as a cop.”

“I haven’t been a cop in a while.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“What do you hear?” Cade lifted his camera, took a shot of the cruisers blocking the road.