Cavanaugh Judgement. Marie Ferrarella

going on next. There was the sound of terror, of people yelling and running and ducking for cover. And then there was the sound of a gun being discharged again—one round. Whether the gun belonged to the other bailiff or was the one that Munro had seized from the first bailiff she had no idea.

      At this point, everything was registering somewhere on the outer perimeter of her consciousness.

      What she was acutely aware of was that she was lying spread-eagle over the judge, that he was on his back and she was on his front. And that all the parts that counted were up close and personal.

      The infusion of adrenaline sailing in triple time through her body had her heart racing so hard she was certain that some kind of a record was being set. Greer felt hot and cold and light-headed all at the same time, a reaction definitely not typical of her. She struggled to regain control over herself and her surroundings.

      Her eyes met Kincannon’s. As if suddenly pulled into the belly of an industrial vacuum cleaner, all the noise and chaos surrounding them seemed to have faded into oblivion for just the slightest increment of a second.

      And then she blinked.

      “How long have you been under the illusion that you’re bulletproof, Detective O’Brien?” Kincannon asked her gruffly.

      The question instantly pulled her back into the eye of the courtroom hurricane. “I’m not,” she heard herself answering.

      “Then what are you doing on top of me?”

      “Saving your life, Your Honor,” she snapped.

      Her heart slowed down to a mere double time. There was a criminal to subdue. The thought telegraphed itself through her brain. Greer scrambled up to her feet. As did the judge.

      “Stay down!” she ordered sharply, circumventing his desk.

      Kincannon clearly had no intention of being ordered around or of staying down, cowering behind his desk. His court had just been disrespected. The judge stood directly behind her, his robe billowing out on the sides like some fantasy superhero’s cape.

      “My courtroom,” Kincannon informed her, raising his voice above the din, “my rules.”

      His courtroom, Greer noted as she swiftly scanned the area, taking everything in, was in utter chaos. It was also apparently missing one felon. The second gunshot that had rung out had come from the purloined weapon, and the bullet—whether intentionally or not—had hit the bailiff whose weapon had been stolen by Munro. The latter, on the job all of six months, was on the floor, clutching his shoulder. Blood was seeping out between his fingers.

      Munro was nowhere to be seen.

      Inside a secured courtroom with law enforcement officers throughout the building, Munro had done the impossible. The drug dealer had escaped.

      A glance to the left told her the chief of detectives was missing, as well.

      For one terrifying moment, an utterly unacceptable scenario suggested itself to her, but she dismissed it. Brian Cavanaugh was too much of a policeman to have ever allowed himself to be taken hostage. If Munro had even attempted it, she was certain the dealer would have been lying on the floor in several disjointed pieces.

      The man would have instinctively known that avoiding the chief at all costs was the only way he was going to make it out of the courthouse alive.

      Greer refused to believe that Munro had already gotten out of the building. Not enough time had gone by.

      She ran through the double doors that led out of the courtroom into the hallway. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know Kincannon was right behind her. Did the man have a death wish? she wondered, annoyed.

      There was more chaos beyond the leather padded doors. People, fleeing for their lives, were hiding in alcoves, pressed as far against the beige walls as humanly possible in an attempt to avoid the escaping criminal’s attention.

      Damn it, things like this just don’t happen, Greer thought angrily.

      Except that it just had.

      She scanned the hallway again, hoping that she’d missed something. Hoping that Munro was trying to hide in plain sight. But he wasn’t.

      At first glance, it appeared that Eddie Munro had turned out to be far cleverer than she’d initially thought. The drug dealer had managed to disappear.

      She saw the chief. He was standing a few feet away and had taken charge of the bailiffs who had come running in response to the gunshot. On the phone, he’d already put in a call for reinforcements.

      “I want everything shut down,” he ordered the uniformed men and women gathered around him. “Except for my people, nobody leaves, nobody comes in. Understand?”

      Acquiescing murmurs responded to his words.

      He looked at the bailiffs. “I want every courtroom, every office, every closet on every floor gone through.” His penetrating look swept over the collective. “Do it in teams. I don’t want anyone caught off guard. One damn surprise is enough for the day. You—” he singled out the closest bailiff “—call for an ambulance. I want that bailiff who got shot attended to.”

      The man rushed off to place the call. As the other men and women he’d just addressed scattered, Brian turned his attention to Greer. His eyes swept over her, taking full measure. Looking for a wound. Finding none, he still asked, “Are you all right, Greer?”

      Self-conscious at being singled out this way—did he think she couldn’t take care of herself?—Greer dismissed the concern she heard in her superior’s voice. “I’m fine, Chief.” And then she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. “Why are you asking?”

      He laughed shortly, shaking his head. “Well, for one thing,” he began wryly, “I saw you take that half-gainer over the judge’s desk—”

      “She had a soft landing,” Kincannon told him as he came up to the chief.

      Greer shifted slightly. “Not so soft,” she muttered under her breath. She’d been acutely aware of every single contour she’d come in contact with and soft was not the word that readily came to mind.

      Calling out to Janelle, who he saw hurrying out of the courtroom and looking around, Brian didn’t appear to have heard Greer’s comment.

      But the judge did.

       Chapter Two

      Greer turned around. The moment she did, her eyes met Kincannon’s.

      He’d heard her. She was certain of it.

      What she didn’t know was how he’d received the offhand comment that had just slipped out. Was that a hint of amusement she saw on his face, or was it something else? She’d never been around the man in one of his lighter moments—didn’t even know if he had lighter moments—so she couldn’t gauge what was going on in his head right now.

      Talk about awkward, she thought. And it was of her own making. Someday, she was going to learn to think before she spoke, or at least that was what her brothers were always saying to her.

      “Someday, that mouth of yours is going to get you in a whole lot of trouble,” Ethan had warned her more than once.

      She could take that kind of a comment from Ethan far more easily than she could from Kyle. From Kyle, it sounded more like criticism. Besides, she was closer to Ethan than to Kyle, which was odd, given that the three of them had drawn their first breaths less than seven minutes apart. According to birth order, Kyle was technically the “oldest,” then her, then Ethan. “The baby,” their mother used to fondly call him.

      Kyle had called him that, as well, until Ethan had given Kyle his first black eye. The word baby hadn’t come up again in approximately sixteen years.

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