Celia’s hand clenched on Mark’s arm.
He glanced sharply at her. “What—”
He didn’t have time to ask. A hand closed around her throat and hauled her away from him. The steel nose of a gun pressed against her temple. She dropped her champagne glass, which shattered.
An irrational part of her complained, Not tonight, of all nights.
In moments, it was over. A couple of women screamed. A large space, in which Celia and her captor formed the center, cleared. Mayor Paulson’s voice demanded over the PA, “What is this?”
The other gunmen surrounded the string quartet and their priceless instruments.
“Nobody move, nobody make a sound, or she gets it!” shouted her captor. He held her in a headlock, pinning her against his body. She gripped his arm for balance, and couldn’t move without his assistance. “Hand over the instruments!”
Before the musicians could comply, the assailants took them out of their hands. The cello player started to resist; he held both hands on the cello’s neck and glared. Celia’s captor made a noise and gestured with the gun for emphasis. The cellist let go.
She was insurance. Somebody might launch into heroics at the risk of destroying a chunk of wood and string. But not when someone had a gun pointed at her head.
Not for a minute did she believe that their choice of hostage was random.
With the instruments taken captive, the gang made its way to the back of the hall and the service entrance. The leader dragged Celia along. They weren’t going to let her go.
Mark broke from the stricken crowd to intercept the gang. Celia had no idea what he thought he could do. Flash his badge and intimidate them? He ought to know better than that.
He said, “Let her go. Take me instead.”
“Mark, no!” said the mayor, still speaking into his microphone. That’d lose him points in the polls, she bet.
Mark continued. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll do anything you ask, just don’t hurt her.”
God, it was touching. If only he had a clue. “Mark, don’t,” she said. “It’ll be okay. I’m used to this.” I’m a pro by now.
“Please,” Mark said, ignoring her.
“Okay,” the gunman said. Celia groaned to herself.
Still dragging her alongside, he inched over to Mark to make the switch. He wasn’t going to take chances, and he wasn’t going to take his gun off both of them. She sincerely hoped Mark didn’t have some kind of rough-and-tumble police kung-fu trick planned. She liked him, but she didn’t trust him to rescue her.
In one movement, the gunman shoved her away and trained his weapon at Mark, who held his hands up and stayed still. Celia hugged her shawl tight around her shoulders and met Mark’s gaze as the gunman grabbed his arm, pushed the gun to his neck, and hauled him away. He seemed calm and determined. Very heroic.
The moment they were all gone, the room burst into motion and conversation. A hundred cell phones came out of clutches and jacket pockets. The first violinist burst into tears. Celia closed her eyes, hugged herself, and sighed. She needed another drink; she’d suddenly sobered up.
“Ms. West! My God, are you all right?” The mayor, cutting through the crowd like an arrow, strode toward her. Mrs. Paulson flanked him, looking interested for the first time all evening. Paulson touched Celia’s arm and studied her like he expected her to faint.
“Yes. Except for Mark being an idiot.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Andrea Paulson said.
Sternly, Paulson said, “He probably saved your life.”
That was how everyone was going to read the situation, she realized. Handsome young cop puts his life on the line. “I’d have been okay.”
“You’re taking this very well.”
“I’ve done it before. Several times.”
There it was, that look of morbid curiosity, though to his credit the mayor repressed it quickly. Mrs. Paulson wasn’t so circumspect. She gaped. “You’re that Celia West?”
Celia looked away, repressing a wry smile. “I’m assuming the police are after them already?”
“They should have the block surrounded by now,” Mayor Paulson said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have business. Obviously. One of my people can take you home. Andrea, you should go home, too.”
“No, I’m staying until Mark is safe.”
“Fine.” He pointed at an aide, then continued on, his entourage trailing in a wake behind him. Andrea went with him. Celia let them go. She’d done the polite thing and left her cell phone at home, but now she needed to make a call.
The mayor had left her staring up at a bulky, bodyguard-looking man in a suit, who stared back, expressionless. He gave the impression that he’d pick her up and sling her over his shoulder if she argued.
She tried anyway. “I think I can make my own way home. I appreciate the thought, though.”
“I think the mayor would prefer that I see you safely home.”
He was probably one who prided himself on following orders. Not quite clever enough for her to be able to talk into letting her go. Too bad she didn’t want to go home just yet.
“Then do you mind if I go find a phone to call my folks? Tell them I’m okay? If they hear there’s been a kidnapping, they’ll assume it was me who was kidnapped and I don’t want them to worry.”
He considered a moment, nodded coolly, and followed her to the coat-check desk. She asked the clerk there if she could use the phone.
She dialed, the phone rang; a stern, accusing voice answered. “This is a secure line, how did you get this number?”
The bodyguard watched her, listening in, she assumed. She turned her back to him and spoke softly. “Hi, Robbie. It’s Celia.”
His tone changed from suspicious to amiable. Off guard duty and talking to a friend, now. “Oh, hey, kid! What’s wrong?”
Such a vote of confidence. “You guys hear anything about an attack at the symphony tonight?”
“Yeah. We’re monitoring. The police say they have it under control.”
Surprised, her brow furrowed. The situation didn’t look under control. She hunkered closer to the phone. “Really? Because the attackers took Mark Paulson hostage.”
Robbie hesitated a moment, then said, “Detective Paulson? Not you?” There was a laugh behind the voice. She supposed it sounded funny on his end.
“They took me first. Then Mark decided he had to be a hero.”
“That must be a nice switch.”
“I’d have preferred it if they’d taken me. I wouldn’t do something brave and stupid that would get me killed. My first real date in months and he gets kidnapped right off my arm.”
“Aw, kid, I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely sympathetic.
“Can you let me know if you hear anything? I’m getting to like the guy and I’d hate for something to happen to him.”
“Will do. I’ll pass on the news about Paulson. The cops didn’t tell us that part.”
Which was weird. Mayor’s son gets kidnapped and the cops didn’t mention it? They probably wanted to save Mark themselves and get brownie points with the mayor, rather than letting the Olympiad have all the glory, again.
“Thanks.”
She gave the phone back to the coat-check clerk. The bodyguard was still lurking nearby. Had to be a way around him. Maybe if she didn’t hate being chaperoned so much she wouldn’t get kidnapped. Go live at West Plaza like her mother wanted.
For a moment she thought about claiming that she needed to use the restroom, then sneaking out the window, or an emergency exit, or—
On the other hand, this could save her cab fare.
She turned to him and smiled. “All right. I’m ready.”
The police were interviewing everyone in the place; they weren’t letting anyone leave until they’d recorded contact information and followed every lead. Celia’s chaperone cut right through the chaos and left the symphony hall in minutes.
He drove her in an unmarked government sedan. She gave him an
address that wasn’t her apartment, and helpfully offered directions when they neared the location.
“Here,” she said finally. “You can let me out here.”
The guy leaned forward to peer through the windshield. “You live at the police station?”
“No, but thanks for the ride anyway. Bye!” She hopped out of the car and darted up the building’s steps before he could argue. She wondered what he’d tell Paulson.
She walked through the front doors and the smell of the tired, ancient, sweaty waiting room hit her. It had been a while, and she hadn’t missed it at all.
The place buzzed with far more than the usual late-night police station energy. The evening round of drunks and prostitutes had stalled out in the lobby, waiting on plastic chairs until someone remembered that they’d been arrested. The front desk was missing its clerk. Behind the desk, in the back, voices shouted, phones rang, uniformed people scurried back and forth with files in hand and cell phones stuck to ears.
A large, booming man appeared in a doorway and called out. “All right, people, I’m looking for black-market contacts. They won’t be able to unload these things in the open, so we need to go to ground. If I see another auction house phone number on the fact list I’m going punch somebody!”
That was Chief Gene Appleton. Head of the force for ten years. Fifteen years as a cop before that. Celia smiled. If Appleton was knocking heads, things couldn’t be too bad. She’d always liked him. He never talked down to her.
The liking wasn’t mutual, at least not as of seven or so years ago. He’d sealed her juvenile record personally. If he saw Celia here he’d be livid. She slunk away to lean on a wall.
A girl sat in the chair next to her. Magenta hair, black plastic miniskirt, and fishnet shirt over a green bra. She looked about fifteen. Might have been seventeen. Her sullen air made her seem young.
“What’s going on?” Celia asked her.
The girl looked her up and down. Celia wasn’t dressed for the lobby of a police station at eleven P.M., but leaning on the wall, arms crossed, gazing vaguely out, she acted like she belonged. Made all the difference.
“Dunno. Something big went down.”
“Big. Like Destructor big? Like Olympiad showing up big?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. Heard that a cop got hurt.”
Celia’s stomach lurched. She had to remind herself this was only street gossip. Didn’t mean anything. She looked toward the back offices, working herself up to go and ask someone.
The front door opened, ringing the old-fashioned brass bell that no one had the heart to take down. In walked Mark Paulson, his collar unbuttoned and his jacket hanging from his hand.
Celia pushed off from the wall. “Mark!”
His tired eyes brightened. “Celia! What are you doing here?”
In a couple of strides they met, gripping each other’s arms. Not an embrace—they needed to look at each other.
“I wanted to be here in case there was news.”
“Paulson! God, Paulson, what the hell happened?” Appleton stormed around the front desk, his gaze piercing like bullets.
The detective shrugged. “They just let me go. Dumped me out of their car down the block.”
Appleton noticed Celia, even though she’d stepped aside. “You. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was worried about Mark. Nice to see you again, Chief.”
“Huh. Right.”
Mark put his arm protectively around her shoulders. Appleton took in the gesture and gave his head a frustrated shake. “Whatever. You.” He pointed at Mark. “In the back. Tell me what happened.”
“I’d like to take my date home first, sir.”
“Call her a cab.”
Mark glared at him.
As much as she enjoyed the scene, she recognized when she’d been shown the door.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ll call my own cab.”
“Celia … are you sure you’ll be okay? It’s no trouble, I’d really like to make sure you get home safely.”
Her giddy feeling was relief. Mark was back safely. He hadn’t been killed in her place. The kidnappers had just … let him go. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t going to argue. All was well with the world. So what if the relief fed into other things?
She stood on tiptoe and pulled his head closer, so she could whisper in his ear. “Don’t think that just because you took me home you’d be getting any gratitude sex for being all brave.”
He drew away and looked properly shocked, blushing, his tongue stumbling over denials. Finally, he noticed that she was grinning. He was a cop; she’d have to train a sense of humor into him.
She kissed him. A nice, cinematic kiss on the lips, warm and tingling, lasting a half-dozen heartbeats. Enough time for him to react and close his arms around her. The officers and staff who’d gathered in the lobby at Mark’s return cheered and catcalled. Even the drunks and hookers cheered. Appleton didn’t cheer.
“I’ll see you later,” she said.
Mark took a breath. “Right. Yeah. Good.”
She separated herself from him, readjusted her shawl, and made a calm, smooth exit.
Out on the sidewalk, she let herself giggle. Damn, that had been fun.
EIGHT
MAYOR Paulson made a public statement the next day at noon. Mark called her at home to tell her about it.
“Celia, turn on the news.”
“What? Why?”
“Dad just gave a statement about last night.”
She grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and curled up on the sofa.
A perfectly manicured reporter at a news anchor desk read off the teleprompter. “—scene a half hour ago at City Hall.”
The picture switched to the marble-lined foyer of City Hall. The camera turned to a podium as Anthony Paulson, flanked by assistants, emerged from a door behind it. Celia recognized some of the flunkies from the concert. Cameras flashed and reporters clustered forward. The mayor, his face set in grim lines, waved them back.
After a moment, he received the silence he needed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming on such short notice. In light of recent attacks and the proliferation of organized criminal elements bent on ruin and anarchy, I am announcing the creation of a task force to deal with these elements. I will hire a hundred new police officers to patrol our streets. Some people will say that I’m overreacting, that I’m taking last night’s theft of priceless musical instruments from the symphony gala personally because it also involved the kidnapping of my son Mark. My answer to them is yes, of course I’m taking it personally. As well I should. Every crime committed against a citizen of Commerce City is committed against someone’s son or daughter. Someone takes each of those crimes personally. It is my sworn duty to protect the safety of every law-abiding man, woman, and child in this city, and so I must take every crime personally.
“And I must apologize for a certain laxness in fulfilling that duty. It has become clear that for too long we have depended on outside, independent forces to defend us. However, it seems that unless those forces are faced with an adversary of the Destructor’s magnitude, they simply can’t be bothered. I will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you for your attention.” He turned and slipped back through the door, followed by his swarm.
“Celia, are you still there?”
Celia had held the phone to her ear silently while watching. When the announcement ended, she had to repeat to herself what the mayor had just said. What she thought he’d just said.
“Yeah, Mark. I talked to Robbie last night and he said the cops told them to stay out of it.”
“Robbie?”
“The Bullet. I don’t know where your dad got his information, but the Olympiad didn’t help last night because the cops asked them not to. I’ll bet the other vigilantes didn’t even know about the theft—they don’t have the level of access the Olympiad does.”
“Are you sure?”
“About Robbie? Why would he lie to me? If it was a miscommunication, then it probably ought to get cleared up before something comes along that the cops can’t handle.”
“You don’t have a whole lot of faith in the cops, do you?”
Whoops. There went her foot into her mouth.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”
“Look. We’re both biased on this. I’ll find out who told the Olympiad what about what happened, okay? You’re right, it was probably a miscommunication and nobody needs to take it personally.”
She was about to argue that she wasn’t taking it personally, then decided against it. “That’d be really cool. Thanks. Wait a minute—Dad’s on. My dad, I mean.”
The anchorwoman said, “We asked Warren West, better known as Captain Olympus of the crime-fighting Olympiad, for his response to the mayor’s comments, a veiled accusation that the Olympiad and other crime fighters have failed to make Commerce City safer.”
The image wobbled after the frame switched to the camera view of a roving reporter. They were in the lobby of West Plaza, focused on Warren West’s back. Celia turned the volume up.
A male reporter chased after him. “Mr. West? Mr. West! What is your response to the mayor’s comments?”
Warren turned on him, glaring. His shoulders were bunched, his fists clenched. He was on the verge of losing his temper. Celia recognized the signs. Then he glanced at the camera and let out a breath and straightened. He had some consideration for his public image, and was able to speak calmly and with heart.
“After more than twenty years of serving this city, is that the kind of gratitude we’ve earned? All I can say is we don’t need the mayor’s good opinion to do what’s right. No more questions, thank you.”
He stalked off, reporters scattering in his wake.
The anchorwoman popped back on screen. “The masked vigilante Breezeway was less offended about the mayor’s conference.”
The image switched to show Breezeway. The reporter had found him—or maybe he’d found the reporter—scaring up wind storms for kite flyers at City Park. A bevy of laughing children crowded behind him after he landed—quite the PR coup.