Bobby POV


Alex and I waited and ticked off the seconds, neither of us speaking them aloud but both of us perfectly in sync.

I wanted to go through the door first, but I didn't say it.

Because that wasn't how we did things.

She was short enough to give me a clear line of sight, even from behind her, so it only made sense to let her be first. Otherwise, her view would be completely blocked by my body.

We didn't have to talk about it.

That's just how it was.

I would kick in the door and she would rush through.

I wish we had vests.

The best thing about this scenario was that Valero wouldn't be expecting us.

There was no way that he'd be anticipating that Kara had been followed. Not with the orchestrated explosion, and the change of cars prior to the kidnapping, and the current location that was not in any of his gang members' files.

In fact, we had no idea who the house even belonged to. We hadn't bothered to look, because it didn't really matter.

The car was here, so we were here.

Twenty-seven.

I held my eyes locked onto Alex's.

Twenty-eight.

Be careful.

Twenty-nine.

I love you.

Thirty.

I kicked in the front door and in we went. Our timing with Mary and Talbert was impeccable, as they came rushing through the back door simultaneously.

There was John, on his knees in front of Valero, with a gun against his head. One man was behind John and two others stood nearby. They all pulled guns from their waistbands.

"Drop your weapon! Drop it now!" Alex shouted as she circled around to the right.

"Federal agent, drop your weapon!" I heard Mary yell.

The four of us spread like wildfire around the four men in the room. Our entry had caused Valero to shift his focus off of John and onto us.

But none of the men complied with our commands.

Instead, the one nearest Alex brought his gun up quickly, but before he could squeeze off a round, I shot him.

He dropped like a rock and then the pandemonium began.

The next two minutes were a haze of gun fire and shouts and cries of pain, until finally the last of the shots were fired and a cloud of smoke settled over the room.


Mary POV

Sometimes time goes quickly and sometimes it crawls. And then sometimes it seems to do both, although I'm not exactly sure how that works.

But as I burst into the kitchen with Talbert on my heels, that's how it felt.

Amazingly fast and yet slow enough that I felt as though I was watching the scene unfold frame by frame.

Alex and Bobby were across from us.

John was on his knees in the middle of the room and Valero was standing over him.

At our combined shouts for the suspects to drop their weapons, Valero moved the aim of his weapon from John to Bobby.

John, being unarmed, got down on the floor and covered his head.

I'd have to kiss him for that later.

One suspect pointed his weapon at Alex, ready to fire, but Bobby was quicker and took him out.

While that was happening, Valero raised his gun a little higher so that he was sighted in on Bobby's head.

That's when I fired. Valero's head exploded from the force of my 10mm Glock. I don't normally go for a head shot, but the situation warranted the use of deadly force. I sure as hell wasn't going to risk him still being able to pull the trigger.

The remaining two suspects were split, one shooting toward the kitchen and the other shooting toward the living room. I saw Alex duck behind a recliner, and then pop up to return fire.

Another suspect went down.

Talbert and I dropped behind the island counter for cover from the remaining gunman.

Or so I thought.

But Talbert went all the way down to the floor, and I felt the splatter of wetness along my arm that had been closest to him.

I worked my way around to the end of the counter, preparing to come at the suspect from an unexpected angle, but then I heard a loud thud as he fell to the floor.

I paused for a moment as the sound of gunfire ceased.

For a split second, the room was in complete silence.

And then it was as if someone hit the fast-forward button.

I jumped up and looked across the room.

Kara started screaming.

"Bobby? Alex?" I yelled over the din.

"We're good," Bobby answered as he hurried toward the fallen suspects, his gun still at the ready.

Pulses had to be checked, weapons confiscated, first aid administered if necessary…

"We need a bus here," I told them as I bent down to check the suspect on the ground in front of me. "Talbert's down. John, you okay?"

"Yeah," he called back.

"This guy's DOA," I concluded, and then I turned to Kara. "Hey, shut up!"

"Two DOAs in here," Alex said. "One is still breathing. Throw me your cuffs."

I tossed her my cuffs and she slapped them roughly on the bleeding man who was lying at her feet.

Then I threw my phone at John who, even though he appeared bloody and slightly unsteady, looked like he needed something to do.

"Call 9-1-1," I instructed. I rattled off the address as I dropped to my knees to check on Talbert.

"You weren't supposed to get yourself shot," I told him as I tugged on his shirt.

"It wasn't exactly the plan," he ground out.

Alex came around the counter and got down on the other side of him.

"Where's he hit?" she asked.

"What?"

I couldn't hear her because Kara was still screaming.

"You!" Alex yelled, pointing her gun at the hysterical woman. "Shut the hell up or you're next!"

Kara promptly closed her mouth. I didn't blame the girl. I knew damn well that Alex would never shoot her, but still…she could be pretty scary when she wanted to be.

"Looks like a through and through to the right lower quadrant," I told Alex after checking out Talbert's injury. "I guess we'll have matching scars, Talbert."

"Your civilian?" he asked me.

"He looks okay," I said.

"What about Valero?"

"Hey, what do you know? You asked about my civilian first. Maybe you aren't such a dickhead after all."

He chuckled lightly, but then took in a sharp breath at the pain that action had caused.

"Valero?" he asked again, only this time looking at Alex.

"He's dead," she confirmed. "Only one guy is left alive. Bobby's got him in custody."

"Good," he replied.

"Yes it is," I said. "Now quit talking. Save your energy."


Alex POV

An hour after the shoot-out, I sat in the waiting room at Saint Anthony's with Bobby.

John was in the back getting x-rays on his face to confirm that nothing was broken.

Talbert was getting prepped for surgery.

Mary was at the desk talking to a nurse to get updated status reports on both of them.

We still had statements to give, and evidence to turn over, and questions to answer.

But for the moment, I sat in the chair and leaned my head against Bobby's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked me quietly.

"I'm just glad everyone made it out alive."

"Not Valero."

"I don't feel bad about Valero. Please tell me that you don't, either."

"No. We gave him the opportunity to make the right choice, and he didn't. None of them did."

The remaining survivor, the one I'd shot, was getting treatment for his wounds, but there were FBI agents and DEA agents waiting for him. They would probably argue over which agency had jurisdiction, but I didn't care about that.

Kara was currently in the custody of the FBI. Again, there would be bargaining over who got to press charges first, but ultimately she would spend the rest of her days in prison.

She was guilty of the kidnapping of John and the murder of Keyes, not to mention whatever other myriad of crimes she'd committed prior to coming to Denver today.

Bobby still had the taped confession of Keyes on his cell phone. We'd turn that over later. I wasn't completely convinced that there was enough evidence to do any damage to Lovell and that was really bugging me.

"Did Keyes mention him?" I asked Bobby, knowing he'd be following the same train of though. "In his confession?"

"He did, but I'm not sure if it's enough to keep Lovell from slipping out."

"Maybe there will be something at Valero's house. Or Keyes' house. There has to be a paper trail somewhere that can back up Keyes' statement of Lovell's involvement."

Because despite all that we'd accomplished by coming to Denver…unraveling the mystery of Heidi, thwarting a drug ring, exposing crooked cops…I still didn't have a sense of completion until we got them all.

And that included Lovell.

"John should be out in a few more minutes," Mary told us as she flopped heavily into a chair across from us. "And Talbert will be here a few days probably, but he's going to be fine. The nurse called his wife, so she's on her way."

"He has a wife?" I asked sardonically. "Huh. I can't imagine."

"I know," Mary agreed with a smile.

We all sat in quiet for a moment. I don't know about them, but I was rehashing the moment when I'd run through the front door and found John on his knees in front of Valero.

If Lupo's guy hadn't been able to get the location of the car, or even if we'd just been a few minutes later…

I couldn't think like that. No what ifs.

"So I guess your witness is safe now," I said. "Valero's empire is crumbling as we speak."

"She should be," she said. "I'll get her statement and have her decipher Valero's files so that we can work on arresting and prosecuting the remaining participants, but yeah. I'd say that the bulk of the danger has been eradicated. You guys do good work."

"You, too," I told her, and I held her eye for a minute, hoping to convey what I wasn't going to say out loud.

Thank you.

I'd seen the shot she took to keep Valero from firing at Bobby. It hadn't been an easy one, and if she'd hesitated at all…

Again, no what ifs.

But I also wasn't going to say the words, because I knew enough about Mary already to know that she'd deflect any outward offering of appreciation.

But she did give me a subtle nod and a little smile before looking away.

She knew that I knew.

That was enough.

I felt the buzzing of Bobby's phone where it rested in his pocket. I eased away from him so that he could pull it out.

"It's Lupo," he told me.

I'd called Logan on the way to the hospital to give him a very brief update.

We had John back. Everyone was fine. We'd probably fly home tomorrow.

But I hadn't talked to Lupo, and I was curious as to why he was calling Bobby.

Was it something about the hit? I'd nearly forgotten about that amidst everything else that was going on.

"Any luck?" Bobby asked when he answered the phone.

Mary gave me a questioning look, but I just shrugged.

"Really?" Bobby said as a smile slowly spread across his face. "Is he sure? Okay. Yeah, okay. We'll be home tomorrow. We'll all get together."

He hung up the phone and stuck it back in his pocket without saying a word.

"What?" I asked finally when I realized that he wasn't going to tell me.

"I sent Lupo a text on our way over here. I told him to get his guy to look into Lovell to see if he could connect him to anything that we knew about Valero. The cars, the house where we found John, anything."

"I've had my guys run Lovell," Mary said. "We've gotten nothing."

"Your guys should take lessons from our guy," Bobby replied.

"What did he find?" I asked, and the excitement rolled through me.

Because I wanted Lovell.

It was almost like Moran all over again.

A man in a position of power abusing it and stepping on everyone in his path by getting involved with drug dealers and covering up crimes.

What was up with all of these power-hungry people?

"Is it the house? Does that house belong to Lovell?" Mary asked, trying to guess since Bobby was drawing this thing out.

"No, it's better than that," I said as I watched Bobby's face. "He could say they'd broken into his house. That they didn't have permission to be there. He's like Teflon. It must be something really good."

"Lovell backs up his computer with an online storage service."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"No way," Mary said. "Our guys would've found that."

"It's under a pseudonym," Bobby said. "And he routes through several different IP addresses. But Lupo's guy is sure. He compared it with records he accessed through the Denver PD computer system. It's Lovell's files. Incriminating files because he thought they were hack-free. Lupo's sending me an email with the IP tracking information so that you can send it to your tech guys."

"So that they can stumble across it," Mary finished. She sat back in the chair and expelled a deep breath. "So that's it. We got them all."

"We got them all."

TBC...