Chapter Twenty-Four #3
“Hang on, Grace,” McBride called to her. “I’m almost there.”
“Grace?”
Worth? She angled her head so that she could see his profile. He blinked repeatedly as if trying to clear his vision. “SAC?”
His arms flopped uselessly as if he were trying to grab on to something but couldn’t make his limbs work.
“Take it easy, Worth,” McBride urged. “We’ve got you. Just stay calm.”
Worth cried out . . . the sound pure terror.
“Don’t look down,” Grace pleaded. “Don’t look down. McBride’s coming to help us.”
Her heart jolted against her ribs, floundering into a frantic rhythm. Dragging in air was impossible. All she could do was hang on. If that pulley gave way . . . She forced the thought away.
“What the . . . hell?” Worth looked from Vivian to McBride. He swallowed with difficulty, gave his head a shake. “It’s Fincher,” he said to McBride, his voice hoarse. “Martin Fincher.”
“We know,” McBride assured. He had reached the rungs now. “We’re going to get him. Right now, let’s just focus on getting you and Grace to safety.”
Worth’s attention shifted back to Vivian. “He wanted me to call McBride . . .” Worth’s next breath hitched like a sob. “I thought we had it under control. The kid died.”
“We know what happened.” Vivian gave him the most reassuring look she could under the circumstances. “You did all you could.”
“No,” Worth argued. “I should’ve listened.” He looked to McBride again. “But you couldn’t have saved them all.”
“Listen up, Worth,” McBride ordered, “we’ll talk about this later. Right now, I need you to reach out to me.”
Worth closed his eyes. “This is my fault . . .”
“Sir, you—”
“Grace!”
Her attention jerked back to McBride.
“We don’t have time for this shit.” He extended his hand. “If he won’t listen, I need you to. Take hold of my hand.”
One by one, the fingers of Vivian’s left hand unknotted from Worth’s trousers. Trembling, she reached toward McBride. She concentrated hard at keeping the fingers of her right hand gripped tightly around the harness. Don’t let go.
Her fingers tangled with McBride’s for an instant, and then he reached past her hand and got a grip on her wrist.
“Wrap your fingers around my arm,” he told her. “I’m going to pull you toward me. Once I’ve got you back on the ledge, I’ll get Worth.”
McBride pulled her toward him. Worth swayed in that direction with her.
“All right now,” McBride said when her face was only inches from his chest. “Get a hold on the waistband of my jeans with your other hand.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let go of him.”
“You have to if—”
“Do what he says, Grace,” Worth ordered.
“But what if—”
The sensation of falling sucked the air out of her lungs.
Her body jerked to a stop . . . Worth’s weight tore at her shoulder. The fingers clamped around the harness started to sweat.
The only thing preventing her from falling was McBride’s hold on her wrist.
The only thing preventing Worth from falling was her hold on the harness.
The line had fallen free of the pulley. It dangled from the harness . . . plunging straight down.
It took every molecule of determination she possessed to hold on.
“Don’t you let go of me,” McBride commanded. “Look at me, Grace.”
She blinked, fixed her gaze on his.
That was when she knew just how bad the situation was. Fear glittered in his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, his voice ragged. “I want you to grab on to my waistband with your left hand.”
Since he was clutching her left wrist, she didn’t see a problem with that. She only needed to be close enough.
“When you’ve got a good hold on me, I’m going to let go of your wrist and get a grip on Worth’s harness. Then I want you to let go of him and climb your way around me and over to the ledge.”
She nodded. She wasn’t exactly sure she could do it, but she would try like hell.
“Here we go.”
McBride’s arm trembled as he pulled her upward the few inches necessary for her to grab on to his waistband. “Got it?”
She moistened her lips. “Got it.”
“Now, try to find a rung with your feet.”
He held on to her wrist while she did so. She nodded to let him know mission accomplished. She couldn’t speak now. All her energy was focused on holding on to Worth. Her arm felt numb and tingly. The nylon strap had burned into her fingers. Her shoulder felt as if it would slip from its socket.
“Hang on while I reach for Worth.”
McBride reached out, leaning over her as best he could. “Take my hand, Worth.”
When Worth moved even slightly, the strain on her fingers increased. She cried out.
McBride leaned farther away from the rung that he held on to with his other hand. “Come on, Worth. You gotta reach higher.”
“I can’t,” he said, dropping his arm. The shift in his weight made Vivian’s body quake. Though her arm was numb, pain radiated from her shoulder across her back.
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold on,” she warned McBride.
His fingers went back around her wrist. “I’ve got you.” A moment of dead silence passed while McBride considered the situation. “Can you swing him toward the rungs?”
“I can try.”
“Worth,” McBride shouted past her. “When she swings you toward the wall, try and grab on to a rung.”
“I’ll . . . try,” Worth mumbled.
McBride locked his gaze with hers. “Easy does it, just a little swing.”
Vivian squeezed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and commanded her throbbing arm to react.
Her fingers started to slip.
Her eyes snapped open. She tried to tighten her grip. Couldn’t.
“I can’t hang on!” Fear exploded inside her.
“Concentrate on holding on,” McBride urged, his tone frantic.
“Just let go, Grace,” Worth said softly. “Just let go.”
“Grab on to my legs,” she screamed at him. “Do something!”
“I . . . can’t. My arms won’t work . . . they’re . . . they’re numb.”
“Dammit, McBride,” she shouted at him now. “Help him!”
“Let go, Agent Grace!” Worth ordered.
She looked past her shoulder and downward, could just see his face. “I can’t do that, sir.”
“Let me go,” he begged, “or we’ll both end up dead.” She tried to manipulate her fingers . . . tried to get a firmer grip.
“Let go, Grace,” he repeated.
“I . . . can’t.”
Then her fingers failed her.
The harness strap slipped out of her hold.
Worth’s weight ripped from her grasp.
She watched him fall into the darkness. Heard him hit bottom.
He didn’t even scream.
She hadn’t been strong enough . . . hadn’t been able to hang on.
“Reach for me with your other hand, Grace!”
She couldn’t. Couldn’t move.
“Reach for me, dammit! How the hell are we going to catch the son of a bitch who did this if we’re both dead?”
Somehow her trembling hand moved upward . . . She watched in morbid fascination as his fingers grabbed on to hers.
He pulled her upward. Her feet found a perch on a rung beneath his.
“Let’s just hold still a moment,” he whispered against her hair. He held her tight against him with one arm. “Catch our breath.”
She started to tremble . . . couldn’t stop.
Worth was dead.
Oh God.
She hadn’t been able to hang on to him.
“Pull it together, Grace,” he urged. “This wasn’t your fault. Right now we have to concentrate on getting out of this shaft before that car starts moving.”
Fury whipped through her. He was right. She couldn’t get Fincher if she didn’t get out of here alive. And she wanted to nail that son of a bitch.
She nodded. “Okay.”
“No looking down,” McBride reminded as he helped her onto that narrow, narrow ledge.
Slowly, she made her way back to the door. He stayed right next to her. Ready to go down trying to save her if she slipped.
He had saved her life.
But Worth was dead.
She had failed.
8:30 a.m.
Worth’s body had been taken away.
Vivian felt numb.
SAC was dead.
As soon as she and McBride had gotten out of that shaft, he had rushed down to the first floor and pulled Worth’s body out of the shaft in case the elevator moved before forensics arrived. Vivian couldn’t bear to look.
How could this have happened?
Why did some sick bastard have to do this?
For his dead son? His dead wife?
Was Worth’s death going to bring either one of them back?
No!
Raised voices dragged her attention to the far side of the lobby. McBride and Pierce were going at each other like two slobbering dogs.
McBride had done all he could.
Even if they had risked calling in backup, there had been a problem with the rope that held Worth. Even before her weight had been added to his, the rope had given somehow. There was nothing else they could have done. It wasn’t like either of them had had a free hand to phone a friend.
But, God, she wished there had been.
McBride stormed out, a Marlboro landing between his lips as he hit the door.
She should go after him. She could only imagine how he was feeling. He would see this as his failure.
But it wasn’t . . . it was hers.
“Grace, we need to talk.”
She turned to Pierce. She was too exhausted physically and emotionally to deal with him right now. “Later,” she said wearily.
“Now. We’ve put this off long enough.”
Before she could put up a fuss, he ushered her to one of the offices on that floor. The light was already on from where she and McBride had searched the place. Pierce closed the door.
“We have to get McBride off this case,” he warned. “We’re going to get this guy my way now. The line has been crossed. Randall Worth should not have had to die.”
She shook her head, held up her hands in a back-off gesture.
“McBride did everything he could. I’m the one who couldn’t hold on.
” Frustration bolted through her. “Besides, why are we even having this conversation? You don’t think I have what it takes to do the job.
What just happened only confirms what you already thought.
Why would what I think matter to you?” He just wanted her to take his side against McBride. She got it.
“You’re wrong.”
What the hell did that mean? She searched his eyes, tried to read that pained look on his face.
“I didn’t ask you to be assigned here because I didn’t think you could hack the pressure. That was an excuse,” he confessed. “I did it”—he exhaled a mighty breath—“because I needed you off the East Coast. Away from me.”
That couldn’t be right. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He nodded, closed his eyes for a beat. “I know you don’t. To you, I was your mentor, your friend.”
She started to inform him that that was before he had butted in to her assignment, but he went on before she could string the words together with the necessary oomph.
“That wasn’t the case for me. I wanted more. I was wrong to feel that way. Not only was I your teacher, but I was married. Still am.”
He couldn’t be saying . . . Impossible. Surely she would have noticed. “You wanted me away from you . . . because you were attracted to me?”
“I’m sorry, Grace. I didn’t want you to ever know the truth, but I couldn’t let you keep believing that this was about your ability to be a damned good agent. I’m proud of the agent you are.”
She couldn’t deal with this right now.
“I have to go.”
McBride would need her.
She would need him.
It was going to take the very best of both of them to get this son of a bitch Martin Fincher.