Page 5 of Inferno
“Just give me themoney, and no one gets hurt.”
“No one is going to get hurt,” Samantha said. “But in order for me to help you, you’ll need to put that gun down.”
“I’ll kill you and everyone in here!” the gunman shouted.
“Don’t make this worse than it is.” Samantha had to diffuse this situation. No one from the servers to the manager, if they were even here, had appeared with money to appease the man. If he left, the people inside the diner would be safe and the police could take up the job of finding him.
With Sam on his tail the guy wouldn’t get far.
She got her gun out of the holster at the small of her back and lifted it at a forty-five in front of her. Held it in a loose grip. Not aimed at the gunman, but he knew who she was now.
The gunman’s expression turned thunderous. They were at the precipice, where they either tumbled down the other side of the steep cliff or she finished this.
“Gun down on the floor,” Samantha ordered. “Face the wall, hands behind your head.”
His expression contorted into an angry rage.
The door to the diner flung open and two uniformed officers came in, guns out. “Down. Weapon down. On the floor. Nice and easy.”
The first officer, an African American woman strode in, all confidence and that command presence every cop needed.
Her partner followed, an older Caucasian guy with stubble on his cheeks and a smudge of ketchup on his uniform shirt.
Samantha moved to the gunman. She saw that he’d relented in his expression and the sudden slump of his shoulders. She took the gun from his hand and passed it off to the officer, then pulled out her cuffs and secured him.
A smattering of applause sounded around the room. Then someone said, “We need help! He’s having a heart attack!”
Sam handed the gunman off to the officers. “Call for an ambulance.” She rushed to an older man across the room, clutching his throat. Not his arm. “Can’t breathe?”
“He’s having a heart attack!” A woman clutched his arm, jostling him. Panicked.
“Let go.” She bent and put her head to the man’s chest. Heard an erratic heartbeat. The man’s panicked gaze met hers, and she saw the fear in his eyes. “Up we go.” Samantha grabbed him around the chest, lifting him with her arms under his armpits.
The woman wailed, “What are you doing?”
She got her hands in position and jerked up hard and fast to his diaphragm. The guy coughed and a chunk of some kind of meat flung across the room. He sputtered and gasped. “Thanks.”
Sam helped him to a chair just as the EMTs ran in. Thankfully.
Bristol grinned across the room, signing,Teach me how to do that.
Samantha rolled her eyes. She went over to her sister, grabbed her coffee, and sat on the edge of the table, finishing it. She shot her sister a look of exasperation and signed,Nice breakfast.
They really needed to get the oven fixed.
A male voice called out, “Jesse!” across the room.
Samantha turned to see her partner ease between two people and move her way through the crowd. Romeo Alvarez stopped by her, took one look at her sister, and sort of froze.
Here we go again.
THREE
Fire Captain Julio Espinoza-Vasquez tipped his coffee cup toward himself and saw just a ring of dry coffee at the bottom of the mug. He straightened it and looked at the clock. After six in the evening—just over halfway through his twenty-four-hour shift. It had been a long day.
No way there would be good coffee in the firehouse kitchen this time of evening. He’d have to boil water in the kitchen kettle and make French press in the tiny bunk room he called an office that was only two feet longer than his lieutenant’s office.
Down the long conference table in the kitchen, two of the shift firefighters were playing chess. At the other end, an older firefighter who’d been here longer than Julio read a battered sci-fi paperback.
