Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(7)

They were ushering any nonessentials down the stairs of the subway entrance at 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. All press and any onlookers were getting the hook, even the uniformed cops who weren’t part of the investigation. Elizabeth watched for a moment before spotting Evan Pritchard moving against the flow like a salmon swimming upstream. He was talking on a satellite phone, oblivious to anyone and anything. It figured.

Elizabeth shook her head and began walking toward the medical tents when she stopped on a dime. The sound was faint. A sort of revving. Like a tiny lawn mower that wouldn’t start.

Her eyes darted, searching for what was making the noise. She kept looking and looking until—there, in the middle of Broadway—she spotted one of the drones that had been shot down. The bomb it was holding was still intact. It was live.

The rush of adrenaline pushed away the pain as Elizabeth started running. Not away from the bomb but toward it.

“Pritchard!” she yelled. He was walking straight for the damn thing and had no idea. “PRITCHARD!”

Others could hear Elizabeth. They could see her waving her arms frantically for everyone still in the street to get back. The SWAT team was now running for cover, corralling the last of the civilians down the stairs to the subway.

For Christ’s sake, Pritchard!

Elizabeth ran past the drone, picking up as much speed as she could before barreling into her boss. Never mind that he was built like a brick house. She knocked him clean off his feet, wrapping her arms around him as they rolled toward the curb. He didn’t know what the hell was happening, only that he was severely ticked off.

But there was no time for her to explain. Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, pulling Pritchard toward the subway entrance and literally pushing him down the stairs with her.

“What the hell are you doing, Needham?” barked Pritchard as they slammed into the concrete landing ten feet below. He was grabbing Elizabeth with both hands. He was practically shaking her. “Are you insane? You could’ve killed me. You could’ve goddamn ki—”

BOOM!





CHAPTER 8


I FRANTICALLY tried again to reach Tracy on his cell. There was still no service.

Pacing back and forth alone in the apartment just made the pain worse. I had to do something, and the worst part was that I knew exactly what I had to do.

Still, I stalled. I turned on the TV to watch the news coverage as if, what? I forgot where Times Square was?

Wait. Hold on. A second-wave attack? When? How? Christ …

The image of Lobby Bobby downstairs came flooding back to me in an instant. I had spoken over him in my haste to get answers. I couldn’t help it—I was so desperate to know where Tracy and Annabelle were.

Before the first, he’d said before I cut him off. Before the first attack, he’d been trying to tell me.

There was no thinking as I turned away from the TV. One step, then another toward the door. Down the hall. Into the elevator.

If I’d been thinking, I would’ve known that going to Times Square, or however close I could get to it, wouldn’t change anything. I’d be no closer to knowing if Tracy and Annabelle were okay. I’d just be closer to the actual place they might have perished.

The elevator door opened to the lobby. I was looking down, before my head immediately shot up—all because of the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing word I’d ever heard spoken in my entire life.

“Da-da!”

It was Annabelle. She was in her stroller with Tracy behind her. Our little girl was smiling, her baby teeth looking like little white Tic Tacs. I was overcome.

“Anna-banana!”

I took one step out of the elevator and dropped to my knees so I could kiss her and kiss her some more. Then I popped up to hug Tracy. I mean, a real bear hug. God knows the scene I was making, not that anyone could see us around the corner in the elevator bank.

“Where were you two?” I asked. But all that really mattered was where they weren’t.

I was so relieved to see them alive that I hadn’t taken a good look at Tracy. As much as he was happy to see me, there was something not quite right. He seemed to be in a daze. As it turned out, he was still shaken up.

“We were supposed to be there,” he said. “We would’ve been right in Times Square at the moment those bombs went off.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Tracy shook his head. He still couldn’t believe it himself. “I forgot my wallet.”

He said it so softly I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “Your wallet?”

“We took an Uber and were almost at the Disney Store when I realized I’d left it in the apartment.” He peeked over the hood of the stroller to glance at Annabelle digging into her little baggie of Cheerios. “And you just know you can’t escape a Disney Store without buying something. So I told the driver to turn around. A few minutes later, probably right when we would’ve been walking into the store, we heard the explosions. I’m still in shock.”

He looked it, all right. “You went to the Needle, didn’t you?”

That’s where Tracy always goes to clear his head—the obelisk in Central Park, otherwise known as Cleopatra’s Needle. By staring up at the city’s oldest outdoor monument, originally built in ancient Egypt, he’s able to remind himself that whatever’s bothering him, this is just a blip in time. Or, as a Persian Sufi poet once wrote, this too shall pass.