Once Upon A Marriage. Tara Quinn Taylor

known that. Until the Connelly case was settled, tensions around the family were going to be running high with a lot of angry people trying to recover from financial ruin.

      They’d get their money back. Walter was seeing to that—paying them out of arms of his company that were legitimate and fluid. But for some the return would be too late in terms of lost credit and homes.

      Which inevitably led to some broken relationships, substance abuse, lost jobs, lost hope...

      All things that made people desperate.

      And that was where he came in. Protecting his clients from desperate people.

      He’d been sitting outside Marie’s coffee shop just after nine on Friday, having dropped off Liam and Gabrielle at their respective places of work, watching for any replay of the reporter fiasco they’d had two months before the Connelly investment news first hit the airwaves, when his phone rang. A past client of his—an esteemed doctor who’d been threatened by the family of a man who’d died under his care.

      He answered on the first ring.

      And by the time a second could have pealed, he had hung up again. To quickly dial the security guard positioned by Marie’s front door, warning him that he was going to be gone for a bit.

      There was an alleged gunman at the doctor’s son’s elementary school. The place was on lockdown. He wanted Elliott there, to do anything he could to assist in saving the lives of the endangered children. The sum he’d offered was astronomical.

      But having his services hired allowed Elliott to be at the scene.

      He’d worry about money later.

      * * *

      MARIE WAS IN her office with Grace, her eighty-year-old baker, having lunch, when Edith Larkin, a seventy-year-old widow who lived on the fifth floor, came off the elevator. “Do you have your television on?” she asked, clearly agitated as she wiped her hands on the apron she seemed to wear from morning until night.

      The small flat-screen in the corner was off. Grace, who was closest, grabbed the remote and turned it on.

      Certain that she was going to see something to do with Gabi and Liam—or at the very least Liam—Marie braced herself. She’d had the news on in the shop all morning, just in case, so she could warn her friends, but all morning there hadn’t even been a Connelly mention.

      Leave it to fate to blast news during the half hour she took to enjoy a broccoli and cucumber sandwich.

      “There,” Edith proclaimed as soon as Grace had turned to the local channel. “Isn’t that our head security guy?” the woman asked, pointing to the screen.

      Heart pounding, Marie had already noticed Elliott on the screen. But was confused by all the flashing lights coming from the cars and trucks and ambulances surrounding the scene. Where was he?

      “...don’t know any more yet, but stay tuned. We’re on the scene and...” The female announcer’s voice-over could be heard loud and clear.

      “Where are they?” Marie asked. “What’s going on?”

      “There’s a gunman at Heathrow Elementary,” Edith told her. “Why is our security man there?”

      Marie had no idea.

      Jumping up from her seat, she moved closer to the screen, scared to death.

       CHAPTER SIX

      THE FBI HAD been called to the school and was in charge. Police were working the scene with them. Because of the credentials he showed and the fact that his client’s child was inside the building, Elliott was permitted to remain at the scene.

      And do little else. So far no shots had been fired. No injuries reported. Because he had to be of use, Elliott made himself a media guard, keeping reporters at bay so that those who were trying to save lives could do their jobs unimpeded. He didn’t have the authority to move everyone back. Or to stand guard over them, but he did it and they responded.

      He spoke to no one. Didn’t want to be the source of any false alarm or false hope, either. He knew as little as they did.

      And kept his eye out for anyone suspicious. He was licensed to shoot if he was being threatened with a gun. He’d put himself in the perpetrator’s way, if need be, to be able to save innocent people from being hurt. He’d get the first shot off. And make certain that he hit his mark.

      Voices were white noise around him. Clouds blocked blinding sun, making it easier for him to see. Uniformed officers had surrounded the perimeter of the building on foot—and in a larger ring farther out in vehicles, too. He’d heard a description of the alleged gunman. Male. Late teens or adult. In a hooded sweatshirt, a balaclava and baggy jeans. It was sixty-three degrees outside.

      Even warmer in the building.

      Nervous tension, worry, buzzed through the air—electrifying every breath taken. Elliott was aware and yet distant. In a world of his own. Standing tall above the crowd. A world where silence was preeminent, and crystal clear vision the only focus. A world he’d discovered young, having reached six feet in height by junior high.

      A world that gave him the ability to be so good at his job.

      Cars were lining up in the distance—back two blocks—behind the crime scene tape the police were hanging. Parents had been sent to a nearby church to wait for their children. Not all of them had followed orders. He didn’t blame them.

      No one was leaving the building. No buses were transporting kids to safety. A couple of vans with station call letters emblazoned on their sides were inching their way forward. They wouldn’t be allowed through the tape. Only those first responders who’d arrived before the FBI were permitted access to the first block cordoned off area. The area where Elliott now stood.

      Every once in a while he caught the sound of a police radio. From a car, or a belt, he didn’t know. The houses across the street from the school were silent and still. They’d already been evacuated—through their back doors.

      Elliott didn’t think twice when he saw, over the heads of the reporters he was guarding, the blur of gray and denim, running away in the distance. He ran.

      The blur of color had a good head start on him, but with his long legs, Elliott was able to cover twice the distance with half the stride and was closing in when officers exited cars en masse and cornered his suspect.

      A kid. Maybe fifteen. With a loaded hunting pistol. On his knees on the ground, with his gun in front of him, the boy put his hands behind his back. And sobbed.

      He didn’t hurt anyone. He hadn’t been able to hurt anyone. And he wanted his mom.

      As much as Elliott abhorred the terror the boy had caused—as much as he knew that in spite of the fact that the teenager hadn’t been able to follow through on his plan, his intent to kill had to be punished to the fullest extent—Elliott felt sorry for the troubled kid, too.