Skydiving off most manmade structures was illegal, for valid reasons. The proximity of buildings changed the expected air patterns, made them fluky, hard to predict the right heading for the chute gear when it opened. She’d had only a couple opportunities to practice it, and both times it was off bridges, one in India, one in Malaysia. Never in close quarters with other buildings like this. And never with less than fifteen minutes in her car to repack one chute for the type of jump that typically demanded a careful half hour of gear preparation.

Her father’s weight on her arm flipped Marguerite forward, ruined the twisting dive that would have set her up better.

When she practiced Atmonauti maneuvers, she focused on the number of flips and turns and calculated their speed so she could release the chute at the right moment.

Jumping from a plane at ten thousand feet, she would deploy her chute around three thousand feet to handle any unexpected incidents. From the top of this building, she had eight hundred feet, which meant she needed to deploy her chute immediately.

With one of her arms wrapped hard around Natalie’s back, her other hand captured by the person doing his best to kill both of them, she had no hands free.

There was no wind resistance between the buildings, just dead air for the free fall drop. But then they rolled over and that quick moment threw Natalie full against her.

Marguerite blessed gravity as the child wrapped her arms and legs around Marguerite’s body. Not giving herself a moment to think about the fact she was relying totally on the little girl’s survival instinct to hold on to her, she let go of her to release the chute.

The violent jerk upward yanked her father’s weight against her. A scream tore from her as he broke two fingers of her left hand. Reaching across Natalie’s back under her own arm, she pulled her rigging knife from its holster and flipped out the marlinspike with a touch of the spring. She saw a flash in her father’s eye, his struggle to do something in the space of a heartbeat, but this was her element. She pulled, turning her body, praying for Natalie to hold on as she strained to reach him. She jammed the spike into his hand. Blood sprayed and she did it again. He let go of her with a feral snarl. The sudden loss of connection spun Natalie in the air as their struggle dislodged the child, but Marguerite let go of the knife, caught her forearm and yanked her back against her.

Natalie regained her clutch on her with all four limbs, just as Marguerite had held on to David so many years ago.

She was too late to set them up for a good landing. The chute had twisted at the beginning, then righted itself out. That and her struggle with her father had wasted seconds they needed for Marguerite’s skill to slow them down and save their lives. And the heading was taking them straight toward the opposite high-rise, a wall of glass and metal.

Tyler brought the car to a hundred and eighty degree stop next to Mac at the same moment Violet’s husband shut down the motorcycle. Leaping out of the car, he looked up to see three figures go over the edge of the bank building, the child’s thin screams reaching them like innocuous bird calls.

No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. He saw the tumbling, watched Marguerite, saw…

“She’s wearing her chute!” He looked around, his mind rapidly gauging their descent and bolted across the street. When he reached the storefront he found Mac beside him, already understanding. Tyler blessed the keen mind of a good cop.

This section of downtown Tampa was a ghost town on weekends, having no shopping or hotels in the immediate area. However, the nearby office building had an ice cream shop on the ground level that, when open for business, had an awning that covered the fifty-foot spread of sidewalk. Both men yanked on it, swearing against the mechanical lock. The clasps burst loose and they were backpedaling, taking it out, putting down the retractable poles, each man taking a corner to hold it steady against the impact that could quite conceivably split the fabric. But it was commercial-strength, heavy. If she could just slow them down… She had the skills, if she’d just look down and see the awning in time…

She got the chute open, yanking them back up. One figure broke away from the tangle. The sun emerged abruptly from the clouds, blinding Tyler a moment before he saw the twisted strands of the chute resolve themselves, the spread of nylon open up.

They were coming down much too fast, with none of the steady control and direction he’d seen in that video. She was holding on to a frightened child and had wasted precious seconds dislodging her attacker. It was going to take a miracle to save her.

Tyler started praying for one.

If you need me, want me, I’m there for you.

It was a ludicrous time to think of Tyler’s promise, but there it was. Marguerite felt the chute start to slow their descent, but it was too late. They were going to land hard.

She looked down again, trying to scope her best landing point for Natalie.

The blue and white stripes of an awning that she was sure had not been there a moment ago spread below her like a beacon. She angled her body, feeling the pull of the sheets, the air, the manner of their descent. Shutting out all else, she focused on just getting them to the ground, getting Natalie home. As the child’s nervous gasping made her neck moist, she raised her legs, twisted, trying to position them as well as possible for the inevitable impact with the opposite building. Keeping tight hold of Natalie with one arm, she quickly snapped the buckles on the chute. The glass wall of the fourth-story level filled her vision. Curling her arm around Natalie’s head and shoulders, she ducked her face into the child’s hair.

The impact was like being thrown against the side of the SUV by the mugger, if his strength had been enhanced tenfold by steroids. She heard Natalie’s scream, the thud of the glass, the chink of a crack. Felt bones break in her shoulder area, the area that had been weakened by a collarbone fracture so many years before.

But no pain, not the fires of hell itself, was going to loosen her grip on the precious bundle in her arms. Chute gone, momentum arrested, they dropped like a stone the last fifty feet into the cup of the awning. It bucked violently at the impact as they shot down it like rocks carried by the power of an avalanche. She wrapped both her arms around Natalie’s back, her right hand and arm bent over the fragile skull. The wire frame jammed into her ribs, taking her breath before they went over.

Her gaze was suddenly filled with white, her parachute landing in the street, the cloud of nylon rolling over and over, bringing the first police car screaming up to the scene to an abrupt halt. Then she was falling. She closed her eyes, anticipating the pavement.

Instead, she collided with warm flesh, a sensation so startling for the sense of déjà vu, her eyes sprang open. It took her a moment to realize she was on the sidewalk with Tyler beneath her, his hard arms around her and the child, his amber eyes seeking hers.

Mac had a firm grip on her legs.

They were on the ground. They’d made it. They…

Marguerite exploded off the ground, Natalie still in her arms. She staggered, fell to one knee, tried for her feet again.

“Angel, angel…” Tyler caught hold of her as she struggled.

“Where? Where is he?”

Mac stopped her forward progress, directed her attention with a nod. A bevy of police were now around the crumpled form of her father. As she looked, the officer on his knee next to the body raised his head, looked toward Mac and shook his head.

Her knees gave out but Tyler caught her, eased her to the ground. His strength was here, all around her and she pressed her face into his shoulder, inhaling him. She was beyond tears, beyond screaming, too overwhelmed to speak. As she held Natalie’s shaking body, stroked her hand over her snarled hair, she felt the wetness on her legs where the child’s bladder had let go and knew deep, shuddering joy at these signs of life. Natalie’s mother would come and hold her through the nightmares, but they would fade in time. She wouldn’t have to figure out how to do it alone. She raised her gaze to Tyler’s face and realized this time she wouldn’t either.

“You said you’d catch me if I fell.” It was barely a whisper, but he heard it, she could tell from the emotion in his eyes. His body was shaking, his hands on her trembling.

“I didn’t think I’d have to prove it quite so literally.” She drew deep breaths of him again, used her teeth on the pounding pulse in his throat. She suddenly, insanely wanted to devour him alive, to bring him into her body and never let go, always feel his strength and power, taking her over.

Saving her before the darkness could take her.

Chapter Seventeen

At length, he and Mac helped her to her feet and got her seated on the hood of his car, a necessity because Natalie refused to let Marguerite go. Tyler had to restrain the urge to physically separate them. While it was obvious that the child might be miraculously unharmed except for a couple scratches, the same could not be said for his angel. Her left hand was tucked around Natalie’s waist, but two of the fingers were swelling, one at an odd angle, suggesting they were broken. Her struggle with her father had torn her shirt, allowing him to see that there was ugly bruising, blood and an alarming bump along the line of the shoulder where she’d taken the brunt of the impact against the building. They’d hit it at a speed that had managed to shatter the tempered glass and shards of it still clung to her side and back. Spots of blood clotted along her bare arm, staining her clothes. He was even more concerned about the matted area just above her left ear that had turned the blonde strands a pale crimson. She’d come down on the awning just as hard and he’d heard her involuntary grunt when she’d bounced over the metal frame. The stiff way she held herself suggested there might be rib damage involved.

He wanted to stay with her, but to keep her and Natalie from having to deal with anything else, he and Mac were drawn into the circle of cops to explain things. When the EMTs arrived, Tyler was relieved to see them immediately directed to Marguerite and her charge.

He kept his peripheral vision on them as he answered questions with brusque impatience. She made them look at Natalie first, of course. As he listened with half an ear to Mac and the other officers, he noted they had to examine her in the protection of Marguerite’s braced legs, because the little girl simply wouldn’t release her. She clung to Marguerite’s pants leg, standing between her knees, silent tears running down her face while Marguerite stroked her.