Free Hunted by Karen Robards Page B

them go,” Ware promised.
    “I’m going to hold you to that,” Caroline said. The accompanying sinking feeling she experienced was because she knew in her gut that even if he lived up to his promise, it wasn’t goingto be enough to save him. Nothing short of his all-out surrender would do it.
    “You do that. Come through the front door. From the way people were scooting out of it, I’m pretty sure it’s unlocked. When you get inside, close the door behind you, lock it, and bring Bayard up to the library. Straight up the stairs, first door at the top. I’ll be waiting. Oh, and Caroline? Come unarmed. Understand?”
    “I understand.”
    “Good. I’m not talking on the phone anymore. This is it. I’m out.”
    “Reed—” Before Caroline could say anything more, the sound of a click was followed by the hum of a dial tone: Ware had hung up.

CHAPTER SIX
    D IXON WAS ALREADY MOVING purposefully toward the door. Uncomfortably conscious of the increased drumming of her heart, Caroline followed him.
    “Ware seems mighty friendly with you.” Dixon waited for her as she descended the steps. “You got some history with him I should know about?”
    Caroline looked across the sea of official activity at the beleaguered mansion and shrugged. “I’ve seen him around. He is—was—with the NOPD.” Her tone implied that Ware’s employment with their sister department said it all. It was not a lie. It was, in fact, the absolute truth.
    Just not the whole truth.
    “He’s probably seen you around, too.” Dixon’s gaze slid over her, assessing her slender figure, her shapely bare legs. “Yeah. A womanizer like Ware—he would have noticed.”
    “Hey,” Caroline protested as she followed him. “Think that might be a little sexist?”
    “What? I can’t tell the truth? You’re hot stuff, Wallace, and that’s a fact. Sometimes it’s a pain in the butt. Sometimes, like tonight, we might be able to work it to our advantage. If it means Ware’s willing to let you get close to him, that’s a good thing. Come on.”
    Caroline opened her mouth to say something, anything, that would sum up her feelings at being assessed in such a way, but wasn’t able to immediately come up with a retort with enough zing to it. Instead, she said, “What about you? Ware recognized your voice. You got some history with him I should know about?”
    Dixon scowled at her. “We’ve worked together before. Guy’s a prick.”
    She let the subject drop—for now—as they caught up with Villard, who was beckoning to them.
    A few minutes later—standing in the middle of a semicircle composed of Dixon, Villard, and Jim Wasserman, who it turned out was one of the strangers she had noticed earlier and was also the EMP guy Villard had been talking about—she was shaking her head vigorously no .
    “I think it’s a bad idea,” she said, though the words that had first crowded to the tip of her tongue, only to be immediately repressed, were, Hell , no . I won’t do it .
    “Here’s the way this is going to go down,” Dixon told her, blatantly disregarding her protest. She used the too-bright glow of the klieg lights as an excuse to pull her cap lower over her eyes for fear her expression would reveal too much, as in, her instinctive,complete disinclination to do what Dixon was suggesting. “We’re going to give you the EMP device. As soon as you’re within ten feet of Ware, all you have to do is push the button. Wasserman will be watching his monitor and will know instantly whether or not it worked to disable the dead man’s switch.”
    “And then you’ll—what? Have a sniper blow Ware’s head off?” Caroline couldn’t help the accusatory note in her voice.
    “Or SWAT will burst in and take him out.” Dixon gave her a hard look. “Whatever seems most likely to succeed at that time. Our mission is to rescue the hostages unharmed. That’s the goal.”
    “We should be trying to save Ware’s life, too, if we can,” she