Chapter 12
When the explosion happened, Liliana immediately dropped down, shielding the back of her neck from the expected flying debris.
None came.
Instead, smoke rose up around her, forcing her back to her feet. Her first inclination was to race off the stage into Dax’s arms. He’d get her to safety.
When she turned toward the steps, flames leaped up in front of her, forcing her back.
The MC grabbed her arm. “Out the back. Hurry!” He led her to a door at the back of the stage where he fumbled with a key until he finally unlocked it and threw it open.
Smoke burned Liliana’s lungs and eyes. She held her hand over her nose and mouth as she ran through the door into a room filled with electronic equipment.
The MC closed the door behind them and pushed past her to another door at the end of the narrow room. This door led out into a hallway.
He held the door for Liliana. As soon as she stepped through, the MC followed and closed the door behind them.
A figure in dark clothes and a ski mask appeared from around the corner and swung a heavy pipe at the MC’s head.
The metal impacting with the man’s skull made a loud cracking sound.
The MC slumped to the floor and didn’t move.
Liliana cried out, “What have you done?” She tried to go to the downed man, but the big guy in black grabbed her arm and yanked her away, dragging her down the hallway, away from the MC, the ballroom, Dax and the others. He came to an intersection and turned left, pulling her along with him.
Liliana struggled to break his hold on her arm. Every time she tried to jerk her arm free, he slammed her against the wall. After the third time, he stopped and cocked the arm with the pipe.
Before he could swing, Liliana ducked, pulled out of his grasp and brought her knee up hard on his groin.
The man grunted and doubled over.
She grabbed the hand holding the pipe and twisted it behind his back, pushing it up between his shoulder blades. “Drop it!” she yelled.
When he didn’t, she shoved the arm up higher.
“Drop it, or I’ll break your damned arm,” she warned.
He released his hold on the pipe and it fell to the ground, making a loud clattering sound.
Still holding his arm high up his back, Liliana kicked the pipe down the hallway. Then she shoved the man hard, slamming him into the wall.
When he crumpled to the floor groaning, Liliana turned and ran, hoping she was headed along a corridor, leading toward the front of the ballroom. She glanced back as she rounded a corner and ran into a man coming from the opposite direction.
She hit him so hard it knocked the wind out of her and made the man stagger backward.
He grabbed her around the waist to steady both of them.
“Thank God,” she cried. “A man attacked the MC. You have to help,” she said and looked up into the dull gray eyes of Tate Harris. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Did he hurt the guy?” Harris asked, still holding her around the waist.
“Yes. He knocked him out. We need to get him to a hospital.”
“Show me,” he said.
“But the attacker might come after us.” She pressed her hands against Harris’s chest when he didn’t release his hold on her. “Let me go.”
“I will.” His grip around her tightened. “When I’m good and ready.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Let me go, or I’ll scream.”
“Scream all you want. No one will hear you over the screams of the people in the ballroom.”
“What do you mean?” Her heartbeat fluttered. “They’re evacuating, aren’t they? They have to get out. The stage is on fire and the smoke...”
“It seems your attacker has been busy locking the doors from the outside. No one can get out.”
“No!” Her heart sank to the pit of her belly. Dax was in there, along with Rachel, Kujo, Six and so many others. “We have to help them.” She struggled to free herself from his hold that only grew tighter. “We have to get them out.”
Harris shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do.
He must have tampered with the sprinkler system because it didn’t go off, and he used chains and locks to secure the doors.
We have nothing on us to cut through them.
We can’t get them out in time. All we can do is leave the building before it’s consumed in flame.
” He moved back the way she’d come, dragging Liliana along with him.
“No,” she cried. “We can’t leave them.”
“We have to save ourselves.” He wasn’t leading them out. The exits were in the other direction. Already, smoke was seeping into the hallway, getting thicker with each passing minute.
Then another thought occurred to her. “But you got out.” Liliana dug her heels into the floor. “How did you get out and the others are trapped?”
“It doesn’t matter. If the fire doesn’t kill them, they’ll die of smoke inhalation. It’ll be a terrible tragedy. All out of revenge.”
“What are you talking about?” Liliana fought to free herself from his grasp. “Who wants revenge? You?”
He laughed. “I’ll be the last person they suspect since I donated so much to your campaign. They’ll look and find the real culprits. The accomplice of the man you put behind bars. The news will report they came back for revenge and then committed suicide to keep from going to jail.”
“Jason Monahan’s accomplice?” She felt sick at her stomach. “You were behind him planting those explosives?”
“He was just a punk, looking for his next high. He was easy to convince you were to blame for ruining his life.” Harris snorted.
“They’ll find him swinging from the light fixture in his cell by morning.
” He pulled a gun from beneath his suit jacket and pressed it into her side.
“Either you come with me now, or I end it here.”
“If you’re the only one who survives, you’ll be a prime suspect.” Her stomach roiled at the thought of all those people trapped inside the burning ballroom. She had to get away and help free them before it was too late.
He shoved her forward and around the corner where the man in black was pushing to his feet. He’d removed his mask and held it in his hand, swaying. When he turned around, Liliana gasped.
Though his brown hair was shaggier than when she’d last seen him in court three years ago, she couldn’t forget the thick brows and mean set to his chin.
Nolan Farley straightened to his full six feet four inches. He was the spoiled son of a wealthy ranch owner, who’d joined a white supremacist group when his daddy had cut him off. He’d gone to jail for nearly killing a man of the Shoshone tribe, just for being Shoshone.
He stared at Liliana, his lip curling in a snarl.
“Did you kill the MC?” Harris asked.
“He looked dead,” Nolan answered, his tone belligerent.
“Did you check to make sure?” Harris demanded. “You can’t leave witnesses.”
Nolan nodded toward Liliana. “She’s a witness.”
Harris moved Liliana closer until they were right next to Nolan.
She could smell his sweat, and it made her want to gag.
“Do you want to kill her?” Harris asked, his tone low.
“You know I do,” Nolan said.
Harris shoved Liliana toward him
Nolan caught her, spun her around and clamped his arm around her neck.
Liliana clawed at that arm that felt like steel. He’d probably spend the past three years pumping iron in the prison gym, making it all that much easier to kill her.
He tightened his hold, cutting off her air.
Liliana kicked and scratched but was no match for the big man. Her vision blurred.
“Let her go,” Harris said.
Nolan’s arm loosened enough Liliana caught a breath and filled her starving lungs.
“You said I could kill her,” Nolan ground out.
“I changed my mind. We need to make her death look like an accident.
“No,” Nolan said. “You promised I could kill her.” His arm tightened on her throat.
Harris glared at the man, raised his gun and pointed it at Nolan’s temple. “Let her go.”
Once again, her vision blurred, Liliana was on the verge of blacking out.
“No.” Nolan tightened his hold.
A loud bang pierced the fog of Liliana’s mind. Nolan’s arm slackened, and he fell to the ground, taking Liliana with him. He landed on top of her, trapping her beneath his big frame, crushing the air from her lungs.
Harris planted his foot on the man’s shoulder and shoved hard, pushing him onto his back, freeing Liliana.
He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet.
She stumbled and fell, too weak from lack of oxygen to stand or fight.
He bent, dragged her over his shoulder and carried her down the hallway that was quickly filling with thick black smoke.
Liliana faded in and out of consciousness.
It seemed that Harris stopped at doors and tested the handles.
Liliana blacked out for a moment and came to as Harris found a door that opened.
He shoved her into a storage closet. Once inside, he pulled two zip ties out of his pocket and secured her wrists behind her back. Then he bound her ankles together with the other zip tie. He shined the light from his cell phone around the storage room, found some rags and stuffed one in her mouth.
“I’ve wasted too much time with you already.
If this building doesn’t burn to the ground, at least this room will.
You weren’t supposed to beat Merritt in the polls.
I couldn’t let you win.” He shoved a rag into a can of paint thinner, pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the end of the rag.
He twisted the door lock on the inside as he left the storage room, closing the door behind him.
Liliana stared at the fire burning away at the rag. It was the only light in the room. If it continued to burn, it would kill her. Pushing through the fog of unconsciousness, she shook her head to clear her mind and vision.
She had to stop that fire from reaching the paint thinner. With her hands tied behind her, and her ankles bound together, she managed to scoot across the floor toward the rag burning closer and closer to the open can of accelerant.
Thankfully, she’d worn high heels that had required her to strap them on. They were still on her feet and were her only hope to stop the flame from reaching the fuel inside the can.
She lifted her feet and carefully snagged the rag with one of her pointed heels. The fire licked at the soles of her shoes and her bare toes. She didn’t let go but lifted the rag straight up on the point of her heel. As she did, the can wobbled and rose with the rag.
Gagging on the rag in her mouth, Liliana gently bounced her feet, hoping to work the rag free.
The rag slipped across her heel and caught. The can tipped precariously to one side, liquid sloshing inside.
The fire flared brighter the more rag it burned, getting closer to the mouth of the can.
Knowing she only had seconds to spare, she yanked the rag upward, rolled and slung it toward the door.
The movement made the can tip over. Its contents sloshed over the hem of Liliana’s dress and spilled across the floor toward the burning rag.
Liliana scooted backward, away from the puddle of paint thinner, but her dress dragged in the liquid trailing it after her.
She moved as far away from the burning rag as she could get and held her breath, praying the paint thinner spill didn’t reach the rag before it burned out.
The light from the burning rag reflected off the spilled liquid. The pool spread to within two inches of the rag and stopped.
Liliana let go of the breath she’d been holding. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. She had to get out of the zip ties and back to the ballroom. She hoped it wasn’t too late to save Dax, Rachel and the others.
Using what little light was coming from the still-burning rag, she looked around the storage room for anything she could use to break the zip ties. Her gaze fell on the metal edge of a wire storage rack.
She scooted across the floor, careful not to disturb the pool of paint thinner and backed up to the rack. For the next few minutes, she rubbed the zip tie around her wrist against the metal edge, over and over, until it snapped in two.
Once her hands were free, she yanked the rag out of her mouth, pushed to her feet and dug around in a tool kit until she found a wire cutter.
She had just severed the zip tie around her ankles when the rag fire fizzled out, plunging her into complete darkness with the smell of smoke seeping through the cracks in the door.
Liliana pushed to her feet and felt her way across the small room to the door. She remembered seeing Harris twist the lock on the inside of the door. That would keep people from getting into her, but shouldn’t keep her from getting out.
She gripped the handle and attempted to turn it. It didn’t budge. She tried again and again. No amount of twisting would make the handle turn.
Somehow, Harris had jammed the door, trapping her inside.
Liliana kicked the door and screamed as loud as she could.
No one came. The longer she remained trapped, the less likely she’d get to the other trapped people in the ballroom in time to save them.
Nope.
She wouldn’t believe it was too late to save Dax and the others. She wouldn’t give up without a fight.
She ran her hands across the door to the hinges. Her heart filled with hope. The hinges were on the inside. All she had to do was remove the hinge pin and pull the door off the hinges.
Liliana felt her way back to the toolbox, found a screwdriver and a hammer. She also felt the heavy-duty metal of a pair of bolt cutters.
“I can do this,” she said as she made her way back to the door.
She’d get out of that storage closet if it was the last thing she did. Then she’d find her way back to the ballroom with the bolt cutters to free the people trapped inside.