Heath found a door to a stairwell and ran down the steps.
“Harper!” He rushed through a heavy curtain and found a big, spacious room. A small red light caught his attention.
Counting down.
18 seconds.
The oxygen was sucked from him. “Harper, where are you?”
Fear gutted him.
Liam would be absolutely furious with him if he got himself killed. He’d be furious with himself if he let anything happen to Harper. Wasn’t this how it all worked out though?
Didn’t it always end this way? He’d brought her there. Him. He was responsible. And this time, he would lose the woman he loved even if he found her in the next few seconds, because there wasn’t time to get out of the building.
He found him then.
Jerry. The man stared at Heath, his eyes glazed.
“Where is she? What did you do with her?” Heath demanded.
“This way.” Uncle Jerry started walking.
“Wait. Where are we going? Why should I trust you?”
“You have ten seconds to decide.” Jerry kept walking.
“Harper!” Heath called as he followed her uncle. This was nuts.
God, help me. Should I be following this killer?
But he had no idea where to search for Harper. Was she even still in the building?
Jerry took him down a tunnel, then pointed at a blast door. “She’s in there.”
He pounded on the door. “Opening up!” Without waiting for a response, he shoved a lever upward, then pulled the door open.
Harper gasped when she saw Heath and pulled him inside.
“Lock it now!” Jerry shouted as he shut them all in.
Wait!” Heath should open the door and pull Jerry in with them, but it was too late.
A thunderous rumble resounded. He pulled Harper down to sit on the ground and wrapped his arms around her. Oh, Lord, please let us survive.
She pressed her face into his shoulder. The structure felt as if it moved a few centimeters. Harper’s fingernails cut into him.
If the shelter didn’t protect them against the shock wave, they were all dead anyway. Their survival depended on what size bomb Jerry had built and if the shelter had been built to withstand it.
But there was something else.
The incendiary effect. How long could they reasonably stay in there?
Would it outlast a prolonged fire that would suck up all the oxygen? He hoped adequate ventilation had been installed.
After a few seconds, the rumbling died down.
Harper flicked on a flashlight. A wide-eyed James sat on a beanbag in the corner holding a flashlight too, a purple lump on his head. Seeing James there surprised Heath.
“Emily should already be safe. She took Dawson out.” Harper spoke as if to reassure herself as much as James.
“You’re right,” Heath said. “She told me you were still inside, so I came to find you. And that’s when I ran into your uncle.”
“He was the one who set off the fire alarm. He couldn’t stop the bomb. But he could save me. Save us”—she looked at James, then back to Heath—“and now you. After the building was destroyed the last time, the architects put in a bomb shelter when it was rebuilt. Uncle Jerry said it was the only way to survive.”
“Your uncle couldn’t have survived the bomb blast.”
“No. He wanted to die in the bomb instead of from cancer. But he had one last redemptive act, Heath.”
As though that could repair all the damage. The lives he took in the past and more recently. But if that’s what Harper needed to believe, he would give her that.
After a few seconds, he relaxed, if only a little.
“Do you think it’s over?” she asked. “Is it safe to go out now?”
He released her and stood on shaky legs. “I think it’s over. I hope it’s over. But if we open that door, it could be dangerous. The place could be up in flames.”
“He told me that he didn’t have enough time or money to gather the incendiary materials. I think because he was dying and because we were closing in on him. Weird to think he was disappointed about that.”
James cleared his throat. “But there could be secondary fires.”
Heath agreed. “We could have a window of opportunity to get out of here before the building crashes completely down on us, if it’s not already too late. But maybe we should wait for emergency response teams.”
“No,” Harper said. “They won’t even know that we survived unless they know about this blast shelter, and even then, they could take too long. I’m for opening the door.”
“I’m with her,” James said. “I need to make sure Dawson is all right. I don’t want him to think I’m gone. He already lost his mother.”
Heath unlatched the blast door and shoved. It wouldn’t budge.