Chapter Sixteen: How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?
Stepping through the lobby doors, crutches forgotten, Don headed for the elevators.
"She's on her way down, Don. Central elevator. She's armed."
"Okay, we'll be………."
"Don…."
He knew before Megan had said it.
"Charlie's with her. One of the girls too."
David's authoritative voice rang out into the plush lobby, cutting through Don's mental replay of the phone conversation.
"FBI………WE NEED THIS ROOM CLEAR!"
The uniformed staff behind the desk stared at David as if he were speaking a foreign language.
Grateful that he had given in to Charlie's suggestion and slit the leg of his jeans so he could get them over his cast, Don put his hand on the butt of the pistol that was now holstered on the waist of his sturdy denim pants.
He lifted his badge high into the air and shouted at a group of Hollywood socialites in the corner.
"LADIES, WE ARE FEDERAL AGENTS AND WE ARE ABOUT TO APREHEND AN ARMED SUSPECT. YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE WHEN WE DO!"
A man in a blue security guard uniform stepped up. Glancing at their badges, he gestured to the rooms occupants.
"Come on; let's give these men the room."
He began to usher the staff and the group of offended looking women who had been lounging on the posh furniture toward a back room and Don glanced at the gun on the guard's belt. The last thing they needed was a trigger happy rent-a-cop involved in this. But the guard took Don's comment to mean him to, and he exited the room along with everyone else.
David stopped next to Don about twenty feet away from the center elevator's doors and the two agents exchanged a quick glance. Lifting his eyes to the old fashioned dial above the sliding double doors, Don began the countdown of the floors as the arrow passed each number.
Ten.
Both agents pulled their weapons from their holsters.
Nine.
Grasping his right wrist with his left hand to steady his aim, Don tried not to dwell on who he was going to see when those doors opened.
Eight.
David's phone rang and he flipped it open.
Seven.
Listening without speaking, David slammed his phone shut.
Six.
"Colby is on his way back down, Megan is holding in the penthouse in case they go back up."
Five.
Don nodded without taking his eyes off the dial.
Four.
David turned back toward the elevator and readjusted the weapon that was firmly grasped in his left hand.
Three.
Hoping he could remain calm seeing his brother held at gun point, Don took a deep breath and held it.
Two.
Slowly exhaling, Don flipped the safety off on his weapon.
One.
The chime that signaled the elevator's arrival rang through the lobby and the doors slid open.
The first thing Don saw was Charlie. His brother was standing directly centered in front of the doors. The Whitney's middle child had her arms wrapped around his neck and her face buried in the front of his shirt. The chestnut brown hair of Tabitha Karney was visible just over Charlie's shoulder.
Don met his brother's eyes and to his surprise they were much calmer than he had expected. But a flash of fear and panic were revealed when the woman jammed the gun into his ribs, prompting him to move forward.
Charlie would never have been able to describe the relief he felt when he initially saw Don standing between them and the door to the building. He tried to focus on his brother's face as Tabitha crammed the gun into his side as he walked forward. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could almost hear Don's voice. Just trust me, Charlie.
Don let them clear the elevator, waiting until the doors began to slide shut before he opened his mouth.
"Ms. Karney….back away and put your hands where I can see them."
When Don spoke, Charlie stopped their slow progression forward. This time when Tabitha shoved the gun into his ribs, Charlie didn't move.
"WALK!"
Charlie was focused on his brother's face and he didn't miss the subtle shake of Don's head. Swallowing hard and hoping he wasn't about to find out what it felt like to be shot, Charlie shifted the child to his side so she was resting on his left hip. He didn't want the bullet to pass through him and hit the girl. Putting his faith in his brother's judgment and pushing back the terror that was coursing through him, Charlie shook his head.
"No."
"I SAID MOVE, DAMN IT."
The woman's voice had crossed the border of hysterical and Charlie couldn't help but suck in a deep breath, gasping as the gun was crammed even further into his back.
He didn't take his eyes off his brother.
Watching Don's face for any sign of self doubt and finding none, Charlie kept his feet firmly planted in one place. Now Don was openly shaking his head. Charlie watched as Don's gaze flitted toward the stairwell door, then back at him.
Determined to follow his brother's instruction, Charlie gritted his teeth.
"NO."
"TABITHA!"
Don's voice was confident and clear; his words spoken as a command.
"Put the weapon down and let them go."
The woman stepped around Charlie's side, and shifted the gun so it was visible to the two agents.
"Get out of our way. I have to leave now."
David remained silent, but Charlie noticed the agent take several swift steps in their direction, his eyes moving to the stairwell door opposite his position, just as Don had done.
Don took two quick steps forward to keep the woman's attention on him.
It worked.
She shoved the gun into Charlie's back again, this time making him wince as the cold steel was pressed into his kidney.
"DON'T MOVE! I'LL KILL 'EM! I'LL KILL 'EM BOTH!"
Shaking his head at the young woman, Don took one step back. Afraid he may have pushed her too far; he carefully dropped his gun hand to his side, while lifting his left hand into the air.
"Now you don't want to do that, Tabitha."
"YES I DO!"
The words were screamed into the room and the voice barely sounded human. Trying to imagine what level of psychosis this woman was suffering from, Don turned his eyes to his colleague. David had moved forward and slightly closer to the woman's left side, remaining at an angle. As he turned his gaze to his own left, he could see Colby emerging from the stairwell in a low crouch.
It was now or never.
Just as Don opened his mouth, another voice sounded from behind him.
"Tabitha, what the hell have you done?"
"Daddy?"
The little girl raised her head from Charlie's shoulder and twisted to look towards the front of the room.
Taking two steps sideways before he turned so he could keep the suspect in his field of vision, Don could see Robert Whitney standing in the doorway of the lobby.
"WHITNEY! Step back."
The terrified voice of his daughter had pulled him forward, but the ferocity of Don's instructions startled the man and he obeyed. But his presence in the room had already done its damage.
"Bobby?"
"Daddy!"
For the first time since she had gotten off of the elevator, Tabitha Whitney's voice was soft and low.
And Hannah's became high pitched and panic-stricken.
The child began to squirm and Charlie tried to calm her. Working to pull his right arm from the sling that kept his cast close to his body; he began to pat the child gently on the back.
"Shhh… hang on, Honey. It's okay."
It seemed that her experience from the river had instilled a blind faith in Charlie and the child stopped struggling to get down, but she kept her head forward and her eyes on her father.
"Bobby. I'm so sorry."
Tabitha's volume may have decreased, but the underlying hysteria seemed to have actually grown in her voice regardless of her pitch.
"I'm so sorry, Bobby. I just wanted us to be together."
Don turned to the attorney and nodded his head as a new plan to disarm the woman played through his mind.
Taking the hint, Robert Whitney took several tentative steps forward into the room.
"Tabby, I want you to let Doctor Eppes put Hannah down, okay?"
She shook her head in an over exaggerated fashion that clued the whole room in to her current level of hysteria.
"No, no, no. Bobby, I just can't."
"Ms. Karney….you have to."
Praying to God that his intuition was still as sharp as always; Don nodded to Charlie and tilted his head toward David.
"Put her down, Charlie."
Readjusting his grip around Hannah's waist, Charlie whispered something in the girl's ear and leaned forward placing the child's feet on the floor. She ran quickly towards David and he snatched her up into his arms and ducked into an alcove.
The woman had kept the gun planted in Charlie's back while he sat the girl down. As Charlie started to straighten back up, Tabitha began to shake her head slowly. She was almost acting as if she had blinked and missed the whole thing; unsure of how one of her hostages had just vanished. As David stepped slowly back out of the alcove, Hannah safely out of the line of fire, Tabitha tilted her head slightly and moved her eyes to the back of the room where the man who had crushed her fragile psyche was standing.
"It's really over, isn't it Bobby?"
The man shook his head at her and a tear ran down his cheek.
"Yeah, Tabby…it's over."
The young woman began to cry softly and Don took another step forward.
"Put the gun down, Tabitha."
With tears rolling down her cheeks, she made no effort to step away from Charlie. When she looked up at Don, he could see a fire in her eyes that set off every intuitive alarm he had.
"I could have had all of this…..you and your brother…..you took all of this from me."
She had kept her gun planted deep in Charlie's back and as she spoke, her right shoulder tensed up as she twisted the weapon up into his ribs.
It seemed like everyone in the room realized her intentions at the exact same moment in time.
The next few seconds passed in a blur of confusion.
Taking a step forward Charlie jerked his right arm back, shoving the elbow of his cast hard into Tabitha Karney's solar plexus; just as Robert Whitney rushed forward into the room.
"TABBY! NO!"
At the simultaneous moment that Charlie's elbow made contact with Tabitha's stomach, Colby hit him around the middle in a solid linebacker's tackle. In the same instant, Don brought his weapon back up in front of his chest and David dropped into a classic shooters stance.
Then the sound of multiple guns discharging, almost in unison, filled the lobby.
1
1
Authors Notes: Opps. I did it again. And not only did I leave you with a cliffhanger. I'm leaving you here the whole weekend.
I'm dreadfully sorry, but I'm being forced against my will to spend the weekend on the beach.
Yes, my arm is being twisted.
But before you project any envy in my direction, know that I will be there with my in-laws, their two 12 year old Retrievers, my husband, my five year old and my puppy, a 12 month old Corgi.
I really do feel terrible about this.
Really.
I do.
Chapter Seventeen: Kicking for the Surface
