LITMIR.BIZ

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man with curly brown hair and a composure that implied this wasn’t his first crisis. Under any other circumstances she would’ve laughed.

      “No, I’m a cop.” She pulled her badge out and pushed it in front of his face. “You are?”

      “Aidan. I’m the center for Third Line.”

      So, the hockey equivalent of a third-string quarterback then.

      “Okay, Aidan. I’m going to crawl around to the other side of this platform, and you four are going to meet me there. We’re all going to stay really low and head down the hallway. Once I give the word, you’re going to jump to your feet and sprint to the exit as fast as you can. Nice and simple. Got it? Now let’s go.”

      She turned to crawl away but felt a hand grab her ankle. It had to be Lucy’s brother, Brandon. Dark hair falling over an angular face, his earnest eyes were deep with worry. “I have to find my sister, miss. She works at the coffee counter.”

      Being called “miss” grated. She preferred Detective or Officer. But she couldn’t begin to imagine how he must be feeling and now was no time to quibble. “You’re Brandon, right?”

      He nodded. “Brandon. Brandon Butler.”

      She blinked. Frank Butler’s grandson? She vaguely remembered seeing his grandchildren from a distance at their grandmother’s funeral. “Your sister’s okay. She made it out safely.”

      “Thank you.” He let out a long breath and closed his eyes for a split second as he whispered a prayer. But the anxiety in his face didn’t fade. “What about Coach Henri?”

      He pronounced the French version of “Henry” like the letter H was silent, so it almost sounded like “Enry.” Seemed Trent hadn’t strayed too far from his real last name on this cover. But as Trent liked to say the best covers always contained a hint of truth.

      “Don’t worry. Your coach is going to be okay.” Now, to hurry up and get them all out of there before they noticed just how okay he was doing.

      Trent was still battling two Gulos at once. He was such a strong fighter he seemed almost invincible, except that she happened to know he’d dislocated his shoulder once or twice in the past. She prayed it wouldn’t happen this time, and would come back to assist him once she got the civilians out.

      She crawled flat on her stomach around the side of the stage, where the students were already making their way out from under the platform. The second-floor Gulo was nowhere to be seen. She waved a hand at the hockey players and started toward the wall, her body low as she moved across the floor on her forearms. The players followed. They reached the wall and she waved them on, putting herself between the young men and the gang members, praying the Gulos wouldn’t see them.

      The sport center’s main hallway lay long and empty ahead of them in a maze of destruction and broken glass. The doors shone at the end as headlights blazed in the darkened parking lot, sending a blinding white glow against the glass, punctuated by dashes of moving red and blue. Emergency services had arrived.

      Gunfire and vile shouts sounded from above. A huge decorative snowflake crashed to the floor ahead of them and shattered. They’d been spotted.

      “Run!” She leaped to her feet and ran forward, pausing just long enough to make sure each and every member of the team had made it to their feet and was moving. Bullets rang behind her. The youths sprinted down the hallway. Chloe ran behind them, taking up the rear and urging the boys on.

      The doors in front of them opened. Cops leaned in, reaching out for them. The young men ran through, guided by police. One by one they disappeared into the parking lot. Thank You, God! They were going to make it. Every single civilian Trent had been protecting was going to be okay.

      Footsteps pounded down the hall behind her as the last player tumbled through the door. A hand grabbed her neck and yanked her backward so suddenly she felt her feet slip out from under her. A plastic mask pressed against her cheek. A rough voice barked past her ear, “Stay back! This pretty little thing is mine!”

      The cops stepped back. The door closed. For one quick moment her eyes searched the hallway behind her. Two Gulos lay on the floor where Trent had been fighting just moments before. Trent was gone. Her body was pulled backward into an office. She looked up into the cold, plastic stare of an old-fashioned goalie mask.

      She’d been taken hostage and Trent had left her to fight for her life alone.

      * * *

      Trent watched through the eyeholes of the vintage goalie mask as fear filled Chloe’s face. A gasp slipped through her lips. He winced. Didn’t she know it was him? Didn’t she understand that he just needed to grab one quick moment to tell her what she needed to know about his undercover investigation before she ran into a mob of local cops? The security cameras in the center might be so bad they were practically nonexistent, but that didn’t mean he wanted a phalanx of officers—let alone Butler—seeing the local hockey coach yanking a provincial detective away for a private chat.

      “Hey, it’s okay.” He let go of her body and reached up to pull his mask off. He didn’t get the opportunity. Chloe’s strikes came hard and fast, beating him around the head and sending the mask spinning until he could barely see through the eyeholes. “Chloe! Stop! It’s me—”

      A strong, precise and determined kick caught him in the gut and sent him flying back against the wall. She’d knocked the air right out of his lungs. He could barely make himself heard in this stupid mask. Or she was so determined to fight she wasn’t even listening.

      Her fists flew toward him again. Enough! He could hardly get this stupid mask off if she kept attacking him. He ducked her blow, swung her around and pressed her back up against the wall. He braced his forearm across her chest, pinning her, and yanked the mask off his face. “Chloe! Stop! It’s me!”

      “Trent?” The fear and the fight fell from her face. Her eyes went wide.

      They were standing so close his arm was the only thing keeping her chest from touching his, and he could feel her heartbeat radiating through it. For a moment he couldn’t tell if she was tempted to slap him or to hug him. He stepped back and raised both hands in front of him before either could happen. “I can’t believe you didn’t know it was me! Don’t you remember when we first worked together undercover, I called you a ‘pretty little thing’ and then you pretended to be mad at me.”

      “That wasn’t pretend.” She blew out a long breath. “Not that I expect you to understand that.”

      He didn’t know what she meant by that, but now was hardly the time for arguments. “Are there any casualties?”

      “Not that I know of,” she said. “There are two college students in the upstairs exercise room—a young woman named Poppy and a hockey player from Haliburton named Johnny. They’re on the phone with 9-1-1 and barricaded themselves in. I also helped Brandon’s sister, Lucy, escape. She told me the security guard had gotten out, too.”

      “And hostiles?” he asked. “I disarmed three.”

      “I only saw three, too.” She touched her right sweatshirt pocket with the back of her hand, like she was checking to make sure something was still there. “Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, Henry, but you have exactly sixty seconds to explain what’s going on. Because now, thanks to you, there’s probably a whole parking lot full of cops thinking that one of their own is being held hostage by a goof in a goalie mask.”

      A goof?

      “What are you even doing here?” he asked. Trust Chloe to barge into the middle of his undercover investigation and start demanding answers. “You just happened to be hanging out in a random, small-town sports center when gang violence broke out?”

      “I’ve been popping by here to work out,” she said, without meeting his eyes. “I have the week off work, and I own a house in the country about half an hour from here. This is the closest gym that has a pool and equipment room.”

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