Page 111 of Target Acquired
“They should be here soon. In the meantime, I know you’ve gone over every inch of this place. Any luck finding a way out?”
“Maybe. The bars are old, but the window is stuck. I tried to break it, but you wouldn’t believe how thick that glass is.”
“If he was planning to keep you—or me—here, he might have replaced the original.”
“Maybe, then dirtied it up so it wouldn’t stand out or look too clean.” He shuddered. “I hate to think of the people locked in this room with no way out. What if a fire happened?”
“It did in some places,” she murmured.
“Yeah.”
She went to the window. “Where are they?”
A chopper zipped overhead, and Cole breathed a little easier. “They’re coming.”
“I’m going to look for a weapon while I fill you in on everything Harold told me in the car. He’s responsible for the car wreck that killed my mother.”
“What!”
“Yeah, and somehow the guy from the warehouse and Harold know each other—”
“They were both residents of the home.”
“Oh . . . well, that makes more sense then.”
“And there is nothing to use as a weapon unless you can find a sharp piece of tile or something. I even tried pulling the toilet out of the floor, but no go. You’d think the floor would be rotted enough and it would come right up. Apparently concrete doesn’t rot like that.” He couldn’t help the petulance in his tone. He was peeved he hadn’t found something that could be used to defend himself. And Kenzie.
She huffed a short laugh. “You think?”
The door slammed open and Harold stepped inside, his weapon held in front of him, eyes hard and slightly frantic. “How?” He glared at Kenzie. “You tipped them off. How?”
“It doesn’t really matter at this point, does it?” she asked. “Come on, Harold, it’s over. The chopper is here and the others are seconds behind. You’re not getting out of here.”
“Then neither are you two.”
Cole stepped forward, wishing the returning weakness would go away. The mint hadn’t been enough. “What do you want me to do, Harold? Let’s get this over with.”
The man tossed Cole a phone. “It has one number in there. The mayor. Call him and tell him that Oscar is to have the next position on the SWAT team.”
“Harold . . .” Cole almost felt sorry for the man. He was defeated and refused to admit it.
“Call him!”
“You know this isn’t going to work! Even if I tell him and he agrees, it’s not going to hold up after all of this is finished!”
The weapon shook and tears slid down the man’s cheeks. “It will! We came up with a plan. He failed. I won’t. Make the call!”
“What plan?” Cole asked.
“Matthews and I. We planned it down to the last detail to get justice for our sons. Charlie and Oscar.”
“Let me guess. You two got to talking and hatched this whole plan.”
“Yes. And when he told me what happened to his son, I told him what happened to mine, and we came up with a plan.”
“Get rid of me,” Kenzie said, “and Oscar would have a very good chance of replacing me.”
“So simple,” Harold said, confusion in his eyes. “But nothing went according to plan. And I didn’t want to kill Eric”—he jabbed the weapon at her—“but you just wouldn’t die!”