Free Guilty by Karen Robards Page A

admired her for that. Under the circumstances, the majority of people would have been blathering blobs of terror by now. Maybe even himself included.
    "We heard—" he began, but she cut him off.
    "A shot," she said. "I know." He could hear her taking a deep breath. Then she stunned him. "I shot him. He's dead."
    For a moment Tom wasn't sure he had heard her right.
    "What?" He must have sounded astonished, because the others leaned in again, all ears.
    "He's dead. It's all over." She drew in another long, shaky breath, then let it out slowly. He heard the sigh of it through the line. "I'm coming out."
    "How did—" Tom began, stupefied, but again she cut him off, this time by hanging up.
    Just like that.
    Tom listened to the hum of the dial tone in his ear for only a few seconds before hanging up himself and then staring down at the phone in bemusement.
    "What?" The question pulled his head up. Roughly a dozen pairs of questioning eyes pinned him.
    "She said Rodriguez is dead." Tom couldn't quite bend his mind around it. "She said she shot him. And she's coming out."
    "Alone?" Linnig asked.
    "I guess. She didn't really say, but if Rodriguez is dead, I'd say that's the logical assumption."
    "You mean that shot we heard was him biting the big one?" Davis sounded as gobsmacked as Tom felt. "And she did it?"
    Tom shrugged.
    "I don't know. This don't sound right." Cooney, the veteran, shook his head. He was frowning hard at the closed metal door as if he could somehow divine what could have happened behind it if he tried hard enough.
    Tom saw the same thought that had already occurred to him hit Cooney and the rest of them at just about the same time: Was it a trick? Was Rodriguez setting them up for something?
    That seemed a hell of a lot more likely than the possibility that Rodriguez had been shot dead by Kate White.
    With that thought in mind, they scrambled to isolate the door to the secure corridor from the rest of the courtroom, which fortunately, except for the corpses that had been left in place for the coroner's office, and a few people—medics, he hoped—working on the wounded, was nearly empty now. Two of their number—a pair of deputies whose names Tom didn't know—rushed to clear the courtroom completely except for the casualties and essential medical personnel, in case Rodriguez came out shooting or a gunfight should erupt. The rest of them, weapons drawn, took cover behind galleries and chairs and flattened themselves back against the wall, anything to keep out of sight while still permitting them to take a shot if necessary.
    When the knob first started to turn, they were ready. The door was surrounded. Whoever emerged would be instantly covered by a host of guns.
    Tom was the only one positioned to be immediately visible. He stood about ten feet back in the well, near the defense table, facing the opening door as if he had taken Kate White at her word and was waiting for her to walk out of there alone. His Glock was in his hand—he didn't have quite that much of a death wish—but his hand rested unthreateningly at his side.
    Ready to snap off a shot in just about a second, if need be. Although that should not be apparent at first glance to anybody he needed to shoot.
    The knob stopped turning. The door didn't open. Nothing happened.
    Jesus H. Christ.
    Every muscle in his body had gone taut with tension. His heart pounded. His jaw clenched. A knot of wary anticipation tightened in his chest. His right hand itched to jerk the Glock up into firing position.
    Not yet...
    The waiting was killing him. The thing was, he'd been shot at before, and he hadn't liked it. He figured the chances were at least fifty-fifty that it was getting ready to happen again, and he wasn't going to like it any better this time than the last.
    No matter how you sliced it, playing dodge-the-bullet just wasn't any fun. Especially if you lost, like he had.
    Finally, the knob turned again.
    He held his breath, waiting.
    This time, when the