“I said stop!”
“What is it?” Maddy stood, gripping the wooden surface of her desk with both hands.
“Call Security. Now.”
Her face turned white, but she picked up her cell phone and pressed the keys.
Kaleb turned back to the door, just as the man planted a hand on either side of the small rectangular window. Something glinted in one of those hands.
Things moved in slow motion. Maddy’s voice asking someone to send help. The man staring into the office. Crazed eyes zeroing in on Kaleb and then something behind him. Kaleb’s head swiveled to look and found Maddy. The phone fell from her fingers onto the desk, her face filled with fear.
And recognition.
* * *
“Oh, my God! Matthew!”
Maddy couldn’t believe what she was seeing, even as her ex-husband’s mouth tightened into a straight line.
“Open this goddamn door, Madeleine!” The rage in his voice made her take a quick step back. Her calf caught the chair behind her and she stumbled, falling into the seat.
Matthew raised his hand, pointing something—oh, God, a gun!—and then she was hit with a force that felt like a truck, knocking her sideways out of the chair. Every bit of breath left her body as she slammed to the ground. The glass in Chloe’s picture frame shattered into a thousand pieces as it landed beside her.
Pressure against her chest made it hard to breathe and impossible to move. It took her a second to realize it wasn’t from taking a hit from a bullet, but from the man who was on top of her, his body over hers as he kept her pinned down behind her desk.
Matthew was here. In the hospital. And he had a gun.
Chloe! Where was Chloe?
She struggled against Kaleb’s weight, needing to get up.
Her phone! It was about ten feet away from the desk. She scrabbled for it, trying to turn sideways so she could drag herself toward it.
“Kaleb, oh, God, please, get off me!” The need to get to her daughter and make sure her ex-husband hadn’t somehow found her gave her almost superhuman strength.
“Wait. Just wait.” He pinned her wrists and held her down, even as she wrenched against him with all her strength.
A loud bang sounded and the glass in her office door sprayed everywhere, stinging her cheek, the noise a thousand times louder than the glass in the picture frame had been.
The muted shouts she’d heard earlier amplified, becoming horrifyingly real.
Matthew was trying to get into her office. Screaming obscenities, demanding she open the door.
A second or two later, a sharp report reverberated the air around her, the echo seeming to go on forever.
Kaleb stiffened.
Had he been hit?
Then it stopped. All of it. Matthew’s voice was silent, although she heard screaming and crying in the distance. She lay there, still struggling to breathe, a familiar band tightening across her lungs. She tried to say something to Kaleb, to ask him if he was okay, but the words came out as a strangled cough.
She tried again. Another hoarse cough.
Not now. Oh, please, not now.
Kaleb lifted off her—very much alive—but she was too involved in her current struggle to breathe to let him know how glad she was.
“Stay here.”
No. She had to get to Chloe. As Kaleb went to the door, she crawled toward her phone, sucking down what little air she could as she went.
She turned the phone over. Broken. The cracked screen was dark and empty. Panicked tears formed, and she tried to get up, but she still couldn’t catch her breath.
Then Kaleb was back beside her. “Where’s your inhaler?”
She pointed at the bottom drawer of her desk. She couldn’t do this. Not now, when Matthew could be anywhere. She had to get to Chloe.
“Don’t move.” Keeping his eyes on her, Kaleb found her canister and handed it to her. She pumped the medicine into her mouth, pulling it into her aching lungs.
It took a few seconds for the bronchodilator to work its magic.
“Where...where is he? Is—is he gone?”
Oh, God, even now he could be heading to her daughter’s preschool. That gun—
Another knock at the door had Maddy tensing all over again.
“Dr. McBride? Are you and Dr. Grimes okay?”
Kaleb unlocked the door, letting the hospital security guard in. “We’re fine.” He glanced outside. “Oh, hell.”
Maddy forced her feet underneath her, but Kaleb held up a hand.
“Don’t come over here. Not yet.”
The guard glanced her way. “We have the hospital on lockdown, and the police are en route. Do you know the man who did this?”
“Yes. Is he still here?” Something about the look on his face...
An eerie premonition set in. She didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to go over there, but of course she had to. Had to see what had happened.
In the background, Maddy heard sirens. Glass crunched under her feet as she made her way toward the door. The window still held jagged fragments of glass, and blood stained the bottom section. There was more blood along the door as if Matthew had reached through and tried to find the lock.
Maddy shuddered.
With a swallow, she started for the hallway, feeling Kaleb’s hand on her shoulder as she came even with him. He gave a slight squeeze, stopping her from going any farther. It was then that she saw why.
Matthew lay sprawled on the ground, eyes staring upward at the ceiling. Only he wasn’t staring. The gaze was unfocused. Unknowing. A gun was clutched in his hand. A few medical staff were gathered around him, but they weren’t trying to resuscitate him or administer aid.
Because he was dead.
Bile rose to her throat. Even though it was useless, Maddy fell to her knees beside him. Forced herself to reach for his neck to see if there was a pulse, but there was too much blood and her fingers slipped off. The hole in his left temple told her all she needed to know.
Kaleb helped her to her feet. “He’s gone.”
The security guard repeated his question. “Do you know him?”
“He...he’s my husband.”
Kaleb visibly stiffened, and she realized what she’d said. “My ex-husband. He...he...” She stopped and tried to collect her thoughts. “He was in Nebraska. He wasn’t supposed to find out where I was.”
She glanced up at the guard. “Did anyone else get hurt?”
“No.” The older man looked as pale as she felt. “He shot himself just as I drew my weapon. I would have shot him. I had no choice.”
She took a step toward him, shock still muddying her thoughts. “It’s okay. I’m glad he didn’t hurt anyone else.”
Kaleb handed her a paper towel, and she wiped the blood from her hands. Her cheek still stung, but not as much as her heart.
Chloe’s father was dead. She still couldn’t believe what he’d done. He’d hurt her in the past, but he’d never pulled a knife or a gun. He’d always claimed to hate her—to be glad she and Chloe were out of his life. And yet here he was. Dead. A gun on the floor beside him.
The police appeared seconds later, saying something