Hot Zone (Elite Force #2)(67)
Author: Catherine Mann

She’d known they were heading in that direction, but she’d expected to have time to settle into the notion. Not to dive headfirst into the scary world of relationships again with a guy she’d barely known for a few days.

But oh my, what memorable days they had been.

Her eyes drifted back to where he’d been standing. Except he wasn’t there any longer. His broad shoulders were parting the crowd as he ran toward her. Her heart sped up. Her smile became real and heartfelt as she waved at him.

He waved back, shouting something that got lost in the roar of jet engines warming up and planes overhead. And he wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked intensely serious. His arm shot out and he grabbed the arm of one of the security cops, hauling the man with him as Hugh continued to say something…

The wind rolling in off the ocean carried the hum of words. From the crowd? From Hugh. She could have sworn she heard the name…

“Jocelyn…”

Suddenly Hugh’s waving took on a whole different meaning and she looked behind her just as a gun jammed into her side. She stared straight into the fanatical eyes of Jocelyn Pearson-Stewart.

The woman shouted, “Everyone move back. Do not come near or I’ll shoot her. I swear it.”

Hugh and the security cop stopped in their tracks, the crowd fanning out in retreat. Amelia looked frantically around, making sure Joshua was nowhere near this monster. And thank God, Aiden had tucked his family behind him, already backing them away, his eyes apologizing to Amelia for not being able to help her.

She hoped he could see in her expression that she understood. He was doing what had to be done to guard his child. What should be done for any child, truly, which made her wonder why the military nurse holding that baby wasn’t moving away.

Hugh kept his hands high, in sight, unthreatening. “Jocelyn, you’re not going to get away. Let’s end this standoff now before someone gets hurt, like that baby over there. Can you really allow yourself to be responsible for even one more innocent life put at risk?”

The woman dug the gun deeper into Amelia’s side. “I am saving the children. Don’t you understand?”

And in the span of those few words, Amelia knew what she had to do. She’d heard that same tone in more criminal voices than she could count. Criminals with a zealous agenda. They all possessed a desperate compulsion to share their propaganda. If she could give Jocelyn that opportunity, she might just buy enough time for one of these guards to end this nightmare.

Amelia looked straight at Jocelyn without flinching and asked, “What do I need to understand? Tell me.”

Like a moth drawn to the flame, Jocelyn turned her attention to Amelia. “Without me, do you comprehend the lives they would have led?” Her skeletal fingers were surprisingly strong, banded around Amelia’s arm as she kept her close to her side. “Who knows how long they would have stayed in orphanages? I compacted that time for them. I was their guardian, their savior.”

As appalled as she was by the woman’s God complex, she had to keep her talking. “Do you realize how you’ve endangered them, circumventing the rules? You gave a platform to criminals like Oliver.”

“I took care of Oliver, just as I can take care of anyone who tries to pervert my mission.”

From the corner of her eye, Amelia tried to check her peripheral vision but so far hadn’t seen anyone move. Why the hell wouldn’t that nurse with the baby step away and give cops freer rein to move in? “You killed Oliver?”

“I shot him. He deserved to die. You people don’t understand what you have done in stopping me.” She swung the gun in a wide circle at the dozen or so people remaining. “Those children would be nothing without me.”

Amelia’s heart lurched as the wide arc swept past Hugh’s broad chest. His eyes met hers and held. She could see the steely determination glinting even from far away. She knew he would stop at nothing to be a crusader. What might he sacrifice now? Just the thought of how far he would go terrified her with images of his lifeless body sprawled on the ground.

Fear made her sway—and distracted her. She needed to pull Jocelyn’s focus back to her before she shot someone else. “It’s not about you and how fast you shuttle the most kids around. It’s about them and ensuring their safety. And believe me, speaking as someone who spent some time with Oliver and Tandi, safety was not uppermost in their minds.”

Something flickered in Jocelyn’s face, something like… guilt?

Amelia pressed. “Do you really believe that was the first time Oliver pulled something like that? He was going to sell me as some kind of sex slave. God only knows what he did to children you thought had simply gone missing or weren’t picked up.”

Jocelyn reeked with the scent of a cornered animal. Amelia knew her nose for fanatical criminals, her sense of how to work a defendant, had paid off. She’d hit Jocelyn where she was most vulnerable.

Time to push hard and finish it, to make Jocelyn deliver the damning words that would resonate with any jury. “The only way to save them now is for you to tell us what you did, so we can try to find them. Otherwise you’re every bit the criminal—the monster—Oliver was.”

An agonizing acceptance slid over Jocelyn’s face, and Amelia realized she’d won. The woman wouldn’t have to be taken out by some risky sniper shot. This could end peacefully. Amelia held out her hand, the one with the snakebite bandage. “Please, just give me your gun.”

The woman who’d single-handedly led an entire baby-smuggling ring sighed heavily, her face aging another ten years in the defeated moment. “You’re right. I did become like Oliver, dirty as hell, just like my good-for-nothing family.”

Jocelyn lifted the gun—and placed the barrel into her own mouth.

Chapter 20

Eyes locked on Amelia, Hugh vaulted toward the C-17 load ramp. He heard his fellow PJs in step alongside him but he didn’t waste a second checking. He knew they would back him up as they sprinted toward the madwoman with a gun. Jocelyn might have it pointed at herself, but with Amelia still in her grip and snipers trying to get a clear shot…

He wasn’t stopping until he had Amelia far away from the line of fire.

His heart was in his throat, his pulse hammering harder as he stretched his body to the max. What if the bullet ricocheted, hitting bone? What if Jocelyn reflexively pulled away from the shot at the bitter end, common in suicide shooters. That last minute twitch could have sent a bullet into Amelia.