Unshakeable Pursuit (Christian Romantic Suspense)

Chapter 11b

At the sound of the first gunshot, Geoffrey had grabbed at the handle to the door. It was locked. But it was a flimsy doorknob and lock, loosely fitting in the doorframe. He grabbed his wallet and extracted a plastic card, then began working the card between the frame and the lock.

"It won't work," Linc said just as Geoffrey jimmied the door open.

"How do you think I broke into your bedroom all those times?" Geoffrey jammed the card into his back pocket and was about to head inside when Linc put a hand on his arm.

Linc had pulled a pistol from a holster under his jacket.

The sight of the gun made Geoffrey focus. "I hope you got your Conceal and Carry license."

"Last week. And you should be thanking me."

Geoffrey gave his brother a long look. "Thanks, Linc," he said.

"Follow me, okay?"

They headed into the warehouse, which was filled with shipping boxes, both cardboard and wooden, rather than anything to do with steel manufacturing. One strange aspect of the building was a hole in the ceiling at the far end, but then he saw, through the hole, the pulley hanging down from the ceiling on the second floor. Voices carried clearly down through that hole.

A man shouted something in Chinese, and all sounds of movement stopped. Then the sound of shoes against metal steps, and a man's voice saying, "You really thought you could ambush me?"

Geoffrey and Linc crept further into the warehouse. The wooden crates rose toward the ceiling, and above, the steel support beams were exposed. In studying the criss-crossing beams, Geoffrey realized it was like the rock-climbing wall they'd built on their property.

Then they heard Maylin's voice. "Well, I kind of object to being murdered,"

"We have to get up there," Linc whispered.

"They'll hear us if we use those metal stairs." Geoffrey nodded toward the stairs along the wall that went up to the second floor.

"Do you have a better idea?"

Geoffrey nodded toward the hole in the ceiling.

"Are you crazy?" Linc hissed. "That's a twenty-foot drop if you fall."

"No, there are crates stacked underneath. Besides, I don't intend to fall." Geoffrey began searching for the best way to climb the crate to get close enough to climb onto the exposed beams.

"You'll be hanging in mid-air," Linc said.

"The rock-climbing wall has that overhang section where I've hung mid-air lots of times." Geoffrey was the best out of all his siblings and had passed through that section without problems.

"What about the police?" Linc said.

"Linc, I have to get to Maylin." Geoffrey shucked off his shoes. "We don't know when the police will get here, and we don't know what those men will do to her once the cops arrive. I have to be in place so that I can protect her when that happens."

"I have an idea." Linc pointed to the stairs, which were in the opposite direction of the hole in the ceiling. "I'll take cover behind some crates and fire at the stairs. It'll distract them from you when you swing up through that hole."

"Got it."

"Geoff." The skin around Linc's eyes was creased with worry. "Please be careful."

"That's my line." Geoffrey squeezed his brother's shoulder.