I slowed down and listened. The hall was dark. Either Griffen hadn’t bothered with the lights, or he’d turned them off. The windows high in the wall of the kitchen filled the room with light, even at this early hour. I stayed in the shadows of the hall, inching toward the open doorway of the kitchen.
I had to smother a squeak of terror when I heard Griffen say, “Put the gun down and we can talk.” His voice was solid and calm. Almost conversational. But he’d said gun.
Gun? What now?
I knew what Griffen would tell me to do. Run and not stop until I found either West or Hawk.
I wasn’t doing that. Not exactly. Not if it meant leaving Griffen. There wasn’t time to wander all over the estate trying to find Hawk. I didn’t have my phone. I’d left it on my bedside table. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d need it for a trip to the kitchens.
There was a house phone in the gym. I just had to pray it was still hooked up. I tried to remember where else I’d seen the house phones. Some of the bedrooms had them. Savannah’s for one.
Savannah. Nicky. They were trapped in their rooms tucked behind the kitchens, unaware of the danger. I had to warn her.
Flattening myself against the far wall of the corridor, I sent a silent thanks to the heavens that Griffen’s sweater was dark gray and my jeans a blue so deep it was almost black. I blended into the shadows of the dark hall, almost impossible to see from the far brighter kitchen.
Griffen stood with his back to the door, weapon drawn and pointed at a man, thin and tall, his hair in greasy strings around a gaunt face, a wild look in his eyes. The man held Miss Stiles in front of him like a shield, her ample frame providing his lean one plenty of cover. With a shaking hand, the stranger pressed the barrel of a revolver to her temple.
I crept past the open doorway, seeing a small plate of toast beside three cans of ginger beer. Despite the armed standoff only feet away, my heart warmed. He’d been making me toast. My husband had been making me toast.
“How did you get in?” Griffen demanded as I cleared the open doorway and moved further down the hall.
“You don’t put that gun down, I’m gonna shoot you.”
“I’ll put it down,” Griffen promised, “I just want to know how you got in.”
“Climbed in the back of this here’s car. Bitch never knew I was there ’til I made ‘er open the door for me.”
I didn’t hear Griffen’s answer. The second I was all the way past the door I raced down the hall for the gym.
The house phone hung on the far wall, a chart of rooms and numbers beside it. Jackpot. Heart racing, I fumbled for the receiver and dialed the number of the housekeeper’s room, praying the sound didn’t carry to the armed men in the kitchen.
She answered after three rings with a distracted, “Hello?” I could hear Nicky saying something in the background and Savannah’s exasperated, “I don’t know, honey, I just handed it to you.”
“Savannah?”
“Hope. Is everything all right?”
“No. Stay where you are and be quiet. Tell Nicky to be quiet. I’m in the gym. Someone broke in and he’s holding Miss Stiles hostage in the kitchens. Griffen is there, and they both have guns. They don’t know I’m down here. You need to call Hawk and then West.”
“All right, okay. Hold on.” Silence for an endless minute. Then she was back, her voice breathless. “I locked the door to my rooms and hid Nicky in the bathroom. You go back upstairs and stay there, Hope. Get out of the gym.”
“I’m okay. I’m safe. Just stay in your room and call Hawk and West.”
“Hope! Don’t do anything dangerous. Just go up to your room and I’ll send Hawk straight to Griffen, I promise.”
I hung up. I wasn’t going to do anything stupid, but I wasn’t running away, either.
I left the receiver hanging from the cord. If Savannah called back I didn’t want the ring to echo down the hall to the kitchen, and I wasn’t going to waste time arguing.
Savannah was calling Hawk and West. Help was on the way.
I looked around the gym for anything I could use. Not a weapon. I wasn’t dumb enough to go running into the middle of the standoff between two men holding guns.
All I needed was a way to give Griffen an edge. Given what he’d spent the last fifteen years doing, he had to be good with that gun. If I could distract the intruder, maybe…
My eyes landed on the medicine balls stacked in the corner. Ignoring the pain in my injured arm, I grabbed two, one the size of a soccer ball, the other small enough to fit in my hand. Moving in silence, I made my way back down the hall to the kitchens, hugging the shadows.