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I helped the pregnant woman to the ground. “How far along are you?”
“Eight months,” she whispered.
I helped the woman shift so that her back was resting against the counter behind us. Greg squatted down and pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. Without even looking at it, he started fiddling with it.
“Get their phones,” green jacket guy snapped at black jacket man, and he nodded before he started coming around and collecting the phones. Greg’s screen went dark right before the guy reached him, and he hesitated as he stared up at the guy.
“Give me your phone!” the guy said, and Greg’s chin went up higher like he was challenging him. Was he crazy? Black jacket guy seemed confused that Greg wasn’t doing as he asked and frowned. “I said, give me your phone.”
Green jacket guy appeared at his side, his gun pointed at Greg’s head, and my stomach turned upside down. “Give him your phone, now!”
Greg held the phone out, and the man snatched it. “Don’t be a fucking hero here, you got it? I’ll put a bullet in you before you could even see it coming.”
Greg didn’t say a word, and outside sirens approached the area. Black jacket man peeked around one of the window shades that were in place now. “The cops are here! What are we gonna do, Len?”
“Shut up, you fucking idiot!” green jacket man snapped. “Of course the cops are here! We just robbed a jewelry store. Did you think they would just let us go?”
“Let’s just go out the back door. Can’t we do that?”
“No, they will have cops everywhere,” he said. “We are staying here where we have hostages.”
“You aren’t going to kill them, are you?” Black jacket man looked around, his eyes wide.
“I’m not going to kill them as long as they don’t do something stupid.”
Greg glanced back at me, lifted a brow at me as if to ask if I were alright, and I nodded slightly to him. He glanced at the pregnant woman’s face, her belly, and then sighed as he turned back to the two men.
The woman was rubbing her stomach, and I squeezed her arm. “Are you doing okay?”
The woman nodded as Len turned toward me. “Shut up!” He came toward us with long strides, and Greg tensed. “There is no talking; you got that, lady!”
“I was just checking on her,” I said, and Greg put his hand behind his back on my ankle. Was he trying to tell me to shut up too?
The guy pointed the gun at me, and I cringed, every muscle in my body tensing in fear. The guy glanced at the woman beside me, frowned at her swollen stomach, and then growled at me, “Shut up, woman!”
I swallowed the retort I wanted to lash out at him. Holy crap, I’d never had a gun pointed at me before, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a panic attack or go all sorts of female hysterical on him.
More sirens filled the air, and you could hear people yelling outside. Greg shifted slowly backward, and I scooted to the side so he could slide in between the pregnant woman and me. I saw him looking at the mother-to-be, and then he took hold of her hand and squeezed for a moment.
He sat with his leg straight out in front of him, his hands flat on his thighs. I leaned slightly toward him as the two men talked in a whisper at the side of the room. Everyone was quiet, nervously looking around at each other as if searching for someone who would end this situation. Strangely, most of the people kept bringing their attention back to Greg. Did they all think he was a cop like I had once thought?
He had that look about him, but I guess after twenty years in the military, he would have that look. Greg was watching them through his lashes, and I wished that I had a window into his brain. I would love to see what he was thinking right now, what he was planning. What had he done on his phone before they had taken it? I was dying to ask but knew that now was not the time.
The guy in the black jacket kept looking at me, and it was making me nervous. Suddenly, his mouth dropped. “I know who you are!” Greg tensed beside me as I shifted as far back against the counter as I could.
Oh, my god! He knew that I’d seen them without masks! They knew I was the one that had removed their car keys. Would they kill me now? I was ready to jump to my feet and apologize for taking the keys out. If I had just left it alone, they would be long gone. This was all my fault! If anyone died, it was going to be my fault! I was ready to hyperventilate.
The black jacket guy stared down at me from a few feet away, his blue eyes bright behind the black mask. “You’re that lady that writes about romance! My girlfriend loves you; what’s your name? Something Valor, right?”
I wanted to melt into the floor. He knew me from the paper, not the sidewalk. Holy smokes. Len, his very angry cohort, came to stand next to him. He opened his mouth to talk, but just then a loudspeaker called out from the street, and he dismissed me.
Chapter Three
Gregory
Before shit could get too out of control, I pulled my cellphone out and sent a message to the last person I’d spoken too. Luckily, that was Trevor. In my training, I’d learned how to send messages without looking at the keyboard too much. The one I sent Trevor was:in deep, 911, java, listen.
Hopefully, he would figure it out quickly that there was trouble at the coffee shop. I was pretty sure that by now, Trevor and Alex were already on the street watching what was going down and letting the cops listen to the open line I had given them.
