SEIZED, A Romantic Suspense Novella by Suzanne Ferrell Read Free Book Online Page B

Brush’s eyes narrowed and his gaze swung to the corner where several men in dark suits hovered around Senator Klein and his wife. “The senator’s people?”
    “No, sir.” Jake studied the other man a moment. Brush had a lot on his plate with the evacuation and no known backup coming. He was holding his own at being in charge, but there were details he didn’t know and that could get someone, especially those held hostage, killed. The other man returned his steady gaze and Jake made a quick decision to trust him. “I’m going to be straight with you, Lieutenant. I’m not here in an official capacity.”
    “Then why are you here?” Brush asked, head cocked slightly sideways.
    “One of the hostages in the OR is married to a member of my team. She has been in contact with us from the beginning.”
    Brush looked around and behind Jake. “Your team? All I see is you.”
    “Currently, four members are stationed just outside the OR backdoor. The last member of my team will be meeting me here momentarily.”
    “Damn. You can’t go in there. Whoever is behind this has the place wired to blow if anyone tries to open any of the doors to that suite.” Brush wiped his hands through his thinning gray hair.
    “We understand that. One of our team members is a bomb expert. We have a marksman with them, too.”
    “Do you know how many bad guys are we looking at?”
    “Our person inside the OR managed to get the information to us that we’re looking at one gunman, who has indeed wired all the doors to blow.”
    Brush narrowed his focus on him once more. “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “He has a timer set to blow. The original time was—”
    “Ninety minutes.” Brush let out a long breath, once again running his hands through his hair, then looking at his watch. “By my calculations we have maybe twenty minutes left to clear the building.”
    “That’s not the only problem we have.” Jake leaned a little closer and nodded towards the senator’s entourage.
    “I’m not going to like this, am I?” Brush said.
    “Our gunman has an agenda. He’s already killed a surgeon and he wants the senator brought up to the main OR doorway.” Jake glanced at his watch. “We have about five minutes to make that happen.”
    “That’s what the big ruckus was all about,” Brush said, shaking his head.
    “Ruckus?”
    “Yeah, about five minutes ago, one of the nurses rushed over to the senator’s group and spoke. There was some yelling and hand waving, but I was too busy trying to get people out of here to try to put out that fire, too.”
    “Can you get me a vest?”
    “Don’t need to do that.”
    Jake turned to see Luke standing right behind him, holding a police vest and his laptop. “Had Wilson outside get me one. And I have some information for you guys. Can you patch into Matt’s phone, so I only have to tell it once?”
    ***
    “You’re on speakerphone, Luke,” Dave said as Matt held the phone out between the quartet.
    They’d made their way to the stairwell just outside the side entrance into the Operating Room unit. Judy was less than fifty yards away and he still couldn’t get to her. Frustration warred with the fear and anger surging through his veins. The woman he loved was in danger and he was as useless as a eunuch in a whorehouse.
    “I did some digging into Wilkes. It took me a while and I had to hack into some databases that aren’t supposed to be hackable, but I found something.” Luke paused as if waiting for accolades.
    “What? You want a pat on the back? Judy’s life is in danger. Just spit out the info, little brother.” He felt the others’ eyes on him as he ground out the words, but couldn’t help feeling like taking the hide off of someone, even if it was Luke.
    “Seems our gunman and the senator’s lives have crossed once before. Six months ago, the senator’s son was involved in a DUI, details of which were buried deep in both the media and the internet. Both victims were