Blind Trust (23 page)

His knuckle was turning white again, about to squeeze the trigger, and something inside Sherry snapped. Clamping her hands together, she summoned all her might and swung her arms up, knocking Paul’s stiff aim skyward.

Instantly, Clint’s hands clamped over Paul’s wrist, wrestling for the gun above their heads, and Paul lost his hold on Sherry. A cry tore from her throat as strength foiled intention, and she scrambled for the door in horror when she saw both hands clamped over the pistol, muscles straining, cords throbbing, fingers clawing. The gun was descending, regaining its aim on Clint, pointing just over his shoulder, turning toward his head …

She heard herself scream, and as if in slow motion, she turned back and started toward them in a desperate attempt to stop them.

But suddenly the gun went off, and she was hurled back against the wall in a blinding burst of pain, and she heard Clint scream, “She-e-r-r-y!” And she felt herself falling … falling … falling into an abyss of herself, until there was nothing left but blackness and the cruel, cold chill of loss.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

S
he-e-e-r-r-y!” Clint’s voice rang out like death, skipping over the water and reaching the ears of everyone within a mile. Sherry lay motionless on the floor, a widening ring of blood painting her arm.

The door burst open, and Sam shouted, “Police! Freeze!”

The gun suddenly came free of Paul’s hand. Clutching it, Clint grabbed the man’s collar and slammed him against the wall, the pistol shaking in his hand. “I’ll kill you!”

“Cl … Clint!” Sherry’s weak voice came like the answer to a prayer, melting his immediate intent. She was not dead. Oh thank God, she was not dead.

He dropped Paul to his knees and rushed to her just as Sam stepped inside, his gun in his hand, the others at his heels. Scooping her up in his arms, he held her helplessly.

Eric Grayson barreled in and fell to his knees beside his daughter. “Oh, my soul! We’ve got to get her to a hospital!”

Clint nodded blindly. “Take her. Hurry!”

With the help of another officer, Grayson pried Clint’s arms loose and gathered her into his arms. When they had darted out of the boat house, Clint stood up and stalked over to Paul, who knelt in a shiver at the guns trained on him. “Get up!” he gritted, holding his gun to the man’s temple.

Clint’s eyes were as dark as death. He cocked the pistol.

Perspiration dripped from his brow and burned his eyes, and Paul squeezed his eyes shut. He was a kid, still a kid, as mean and vicious as the most hardened criminal. And as scared as a boy faced with a mad dog. He looked at that boy and saw through the hatred and recalled the first day he had met him. He had come to the youth group as a scruffy high school senior, for the sole purpose of getting the attention of a girl he was pursuing. Clint had befriended him to keep him coming. What had happened to him?

Slowly, as if it took every ounce of strength he had left, Clint dropped the gun to his side and stepped out of Sam’s way.

Sam dashed forward, but before he reached him, Paul dove between the two boats and began to swim underwater. Quickly, Sam fell to one knee and opened fire.

Someone drove the eighteen-wheeler to the bank, shining its headlights over the rippling surface of the reservoir. And finally they saw Paul, the life gone out of his body.

Clint only stared dully at him as some of the men waded out to bring him back. Paul Calloway was really dead, but somehow the knowledge didn’t hold much joy.

Turning his back on the sight, Clint ran back toward the house to find what they had done with Sherry. “Where is she?”

“In the car,” Madeline cried. “They’re about to take her to the—”

Clint didn’t hear the rest. The car was turning around on the grass, about to leave, and Clint dashed after it. “Stop! I’m coming with you!”

The car stopped, and Clint got in. Grayson was holding Sherry in the backseat, and Clint leaned over her as the car lurched forward. “Sherry?” His voice was on the edge of tears, and Sherry opened her eyes.

“Is it over?” she whispered.

He took her hand. “Yes, baby. It’s over. It’s all over.”

Sherry closed her eyes again.

“We’ll be all right,” Clint said hoarsely, pushing her hair back from her face. “We’ll be all right now.”

A
n hour later, Clint sat helplessly in the hospital waiting room with Wes and Laney, staring at the wall, waiting to hear yet another verdict that would determine the course of the rest of his life. Would Sherry die? Would that be the tragic ending to this tragic production his life had become?

He closed his eyes and thought back to the day he had chased her in his Bronco and run her off the road. Why had he done that? Why hadn’t he just left things alone, until he was safe? Why hadn’t he been more patient? Why hadn’t he known that Paul wasn’t really dead? If he’d just left her alone, he wouldn’t have had to bring her with him. And her life would never have been in danger.

He searched the farthest corners of his mind and tried to find some clue that she would be all right. She had not completely lost consciousness all the way to the hospital. Maybe that was good. And she had spoken. And just before they wheeled her away in the emergency room, she had smiled at him. He had leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. Oh, did he dare hope that she would be all right? He looked over his fingertips to the door where they had taken her. If only they had let him stay with her. If only he could be there …

The door swung open, and the emergency room doctor came out. Clint, Madeline, Sam, and Sherry’s father all stood at the same time, none of them asking anything for fear the answer was not what they wanted to hear.

“She’s going to be fine,” the doctor said. “The bullet didn’t even touch the bone. She also has a slight concussion from hitting her head when she fell. Besides some pretty fierce pain, she’s going to be completely well soon. We’d like to keep her for a couple of days for observation, though.”

Clint sank onto the vinyl sofa, a sudden surge of emotion racking his body. Covering his face, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks, while the others around him expressed relief in their own ways. She was okay. She was fine. She was safe.

“She wants to see Mr. Jessup,” the doctor said. “We’ve got her on some pain medication, but she’s pretty alert.”

Clint stood up again. “Can I stay here with her tonight?

I don’t want to leave her.”

“I don’t think she’d let you go if you wanted to,” the doctor said with a smile. “Come on. I’ll take you to her.”

S
am laced his fingers through Madeline’s hand as he pulled her with him across the hospital parking lot, lit only by yellow circles of light from street lamps overhead. He had been quiet since the incident at the boat house, and now that Sherry was fine, that had not changed.

“Guess it’s all over,” Madeline said quietly when they reached his car.

“Yeah. Over.”

He leaned against the car and looked up into the sky. She followed his eyes and wondered what he saw.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

The dead end hurt her. Was the tiny bit of progress they had made toward a relationship going to fizzle out just like that? She looked down at the grimy pavement beneath her feet and frowned. She guessed it was.

Ironic, she thought. All this time she had been afraid of Sam’s getting killed or wounded. She’d almost expected to lose him that way, now that she’d found him. She hadn’t counted on losing him to indifference.

Clearing her throat, she turned toward him. “I think I’ll go on back in. Maybe they’ll let me see Sherry.”

Sam nodded, as if he didn’t care.

Lifting her chin to keep herself brave, Madeline started to walk away.

“Madeline?” Sam’s voice was soft, reluctant, but it stopped her. Slowly, she turned around, bracing herself for an explanation about how it had been nice while it lasted. His eyes were so sad that they wrung her heart and forced her to forgive him even before he sent her on her way. “I don’t deserve to have you stay,” he whispered, “but I don’t want you to go.”

His voice teetered on the edge of emotion, and she went back to him, hands jammed in her pockets, heart jamming her throat. “What do you mean you don’t deserve it?”

He sighed deeply, and reached for her hand. “I mean that I’ve been such a failure throughout this whole thing.”

“A what?” She took his other hand and gazed at him with disbelief in her expression. “How can you say that? We’re alive. We came out of it.”

“Not because of anything I did. In fact, if I’d done my job, Sherry wouldn’t be up in that hospital bed right now.”

“No,” Madeline argued. “If you’d done things differently, she’d be dead. And so would Clint. In fact, they would have died in that barn when it exploded the other day.”

“One accomplishment does not erase a failure,” he said, his eyes full of anguish. “I’m a cop. I shouldn’t have let them go into that boat house alone. I should have suspected …”

“You and the other twenty cops on the grounds thought it was all right. Are you saying that it’s okay for them to make a miscalculation, but it isn’t for you?”

“I was Clint’s friend. I was his guard. And until today I was a better cop than those other guys.”

“Until me,” she said as the real problem became clear to her.

“What?” The question was meant to be innocent, but she sensed that she had hit a nerve. She knew he saw his feelings for her as a new weakness that interfered, and she resented it.

“It all boils down to me. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have gone into the boat house. If you hadn’t been with me, you might never have let them go in.”

Sam was silent for a moment, then he dropped her hand. “I shouldn’t have let my attention be so divided when I was on duty. It almost cost Clint and Sherry their lives.”

“And since you’re virtually always on duty,” she said in a despairing, sullen voice, “I guess that means it’s impossible for you to have any kind of relationship. Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” he whispered. “I don’t think that’s what I’m saying.”

“Wait a minute. Let me try again,” she said, her voice growing louder. “You think you deserve to be punished for not being psychic and not getting to Paul Calloway before he got to Clint and Sherry. So your punishment is to go through life alone, nipping good possibilities for relationships with wonderful women in the bud, is that it?”

“No,” he said, swallowing. “I’m not looking for punishment.”

“Then what are you looking for?” she snapped furiously. Suddenly, he smiled. “Someone to tell me it’s okay,” he whispered. “Someone to hold me and give me focus and tell me I didn’t screw up as bad as I think I did.”

Madeline inclined her head helplessly, and her shoulders slumped in relief. “You’ve got it,” she whispered. She slid her arms around his waist, and he pulled her tightly against him.

“I think what I was trying to say,” he whispered against her hair, “is that since I can’t really divide my attentions between romance and work, maybe it’s time for me to make a change. Maybe it’s time for me to choose.”

Madeline felt him slipping away again, and she clung tighter. “I never put much faith in guarantees,” she assured him, almost desperately. “I don’t need them. Please don’t choose between us. I can live with your job.”

Sam framed her face and pressed his forehead against hers. “You crazy little thing. You think I wouldn’t choose you, don’t you?”

Madeline closed her eyes. “You don’t have to choose,” she whispered again.

“Yes, I do,” he whispered. “Because suddenly staying alive seems pretty important to me.”

His kiss was like molten joy poured over raw nerves, coaxing her to accept the choice he had already made, coaxing her to believe that he was offering guarantees, coaxing her to rejoice in the sacrifice that resulted in so much reward.

And being alive seemed wondrously precious to Madeline, too.

A
little while later, Clint sat on the hospital bed next to Sherry, cradling her against him. They’d have to do surgery if they expected to separate them, he told himself. Because he had no intentions of ever leaving her side again.

The door opened, and Eric Grayson stepped into the softly lit room. Sherry sat up and gave him a grudging look.