Deep in the Heart (29 page)

Doc Baker waited patiently for his “other patient” to calm down. If this one had as much consideration for a busy, overworked doctor as that little lady in the bed back there, he’d get a whole lot more accomplished.
She
hadn’t argued with a thing he’d done. Of course,
she
still wasn’t awake. Knowing women the way he did, the arguments would probably come later when she was given her restrictions.

“You ready to listen?” Doc Baker asked.

“I’m sorry,” John Thomas said, and went limp against the wall, unaware of the curious gazes from the inhabitants in the room across the hall. “I’m listening.”

“That’ll be a first,” the doctor said.

He’d delivered Johnny Knight. Seeing him grow from a troublemaker to a respected member of the community was satisfying. But there were obviously some personality traits that time would never change, and impatience was definitely one of them. But it was time to put him out of his misery.

“She’s going to be fine,” Doc Baker said. “All signs point toward a complete recovery.”

“Thank God,” John Thomas said, and hugged the doctor with unusual abandon.

“You save that stuff for the lady in there,” Doc Baker said, grinning at the smile he put on the sheriff’s face. “Now I’m not saying there won’t be some tough days ahead for her. Even after the laser surgery we did on her knee, she’s still got some rehabilitation to go through. And when she finally wakes up, she’ll have a hell of a headache. But all in all, for someone who fell down a well, she’s in real good shape.”

“She didn’t fall,” John Thomas reminded him, his voice sharp, his eyes hard with anger. “Remember the shoe print in the middle of her shirt?”

The doctor nodded. He already knew that she’d been kicked in the stomach, and had in all probability fallen backward from the impact. It made him cringe. It was a wonder she’d survived.

“You can go back in,” Doc Baker told him. “But you have to promise not to cause trouble. You sit and be quiet. Let the lady come back to you on her own.”

The door was already swinging shut when Doc Baker realized he was standing in the hall talking to himself. He grinned and wiped a weary hand across his face as he saw his nurse down the hall, waiting for him outside the door of his next patient’s room.

The curtains were shut. The room was cool and dark. John Thomas sank down in the chair by Samantha’s bedside, resuming his post as diligently as a soldier on guard, and slipped his fingers across her hand, satisfied with the fact that he could actually reach out and touch her any time he chose. Twenty-four hours ago he wouldn’t have given a plug nickel for the chances he’d have of ever being able to do that again.

He stared at a point just above her chin where her upper and lower lip met, and remembered how soft and sweet it was to the touch, and how urgently she’d clung to his kisses when they made love. Now it was swollen and bruised. A cut was slowly healing on her lower lip as was a large scrape beneath her chin.

She sighed. He sat upright, expecting at any minute to see her eyes open. Then he’d know that she’d come back to him. But the sigh was premature. And slowly he sank back into the chair and resumed his watch. He could wait. Right now, as long as he had Sam, he had all the time in the world. And time passed.

She knew he was there long before she opened her eyes. But she felt heavy, as if the blood in her body was flowing at a slower rate than normal, and the idea of moving came and went so quickly it might never have been.

There was pain. But nothing like before. And the bone-chilling cold and the smell of dank water were also missing. That had to mean something.

Finally there was nothing between her and daylight but the will to find it. She opened her eyes. It was then that she saw him, sitting in the chair beside her bed and staring out the window above it. Her fingers twitched and then clutched at his hand.

He jerked and looked down. He saw her slow, steady smile, and then after that everything was a blur.

She took a deep breath. “You came.”

He couldn’t resist leaning over her bed and placing a soft, baby kiss on her cheek. “I promised you, darlin’, remember?” he said, and sank back into his chair.

A tear slid out of the corner of her eye. She inhaled slowly, and then moved her other hand tenderly across her rib cage.

“Everything hurts,” she said, and looked to him for answers.

“Two broken ribs, and they fixed your knee,” he said, and patted her hand, afraid to touch anything else that mattered.

She closed her eyes to signify she understood, and then they snapped open.

“Johnny.”

“What, darlin’?” he asked, and wished with all his soul that he could pick her up and hold her.

“Desiree Adonis. Tell Pulaski. He’ll know what to do.”

John Thomas jumped. He’d been so focused on her survival that he’d completely forgotten that with her consciousness would come answers.

“I will, Sam. I promise.”

“Tell him now,” she said, and then sighed, as if she’d used up all her strength. “You go. I want to sleep. Come back later and tell me it’s done.” She drifted back into semiconsciousness.

The hard look on his face was never more evident than when he exited the hospital room and started down the hall. She’d asked him for something he
could
fulfill. He looked down at his watch and realized that in California it was only 5
A.M
. Somehow he didn’t think Pulaski would mind.

Pulaski rolled over in bed, cursing the loud, persistent ringing that had pulled him awake. But when he answered the phone, the frown on his face disappeared in seconds. He sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he listened to Knight’s story.

“Hell, yes, I know who she is,” he said, looking around the room for his pants. “Thanks for the information, John Thomas. I’ll let you know when the deed is done.”

He was referring to the imminent arrest of one Desiree Adonis, currently residing in Los Angeles, California.

“Who would have thought?” he muttered as the phone went dead in his ear. He shook the rest of the sleep from his brain and went to make some coffee. He had a long day ahead of him, but if all went well, for the first time since John Thomas Knight had entered his office, tonight he should be able to sleep without a guilty conscience.

The sun beamed down on the clay court as brown-skinned couples in white-bright, fashionably correct tennis attire volleyed in perfect form. The fuzzy white and fluorescent yellow balls flew back and forth across the nets like a swarm of giant bees. The steady thwack of the rackets as they connected on target, and the occasional grunt of a player as extra effort was added to the swing, made the scene picture perfect.

Mike Pulaski, escorted by club security and four other plainclothes detectives, made his way across the grounds toward the court at the far end.

Even from here she stood out in the crowd, her red hair a beacon against the stark white clothing, the vivid greens, and dark, clay red of the courts. Tanned to perfection, trim to the point of emaciation, she stretched up on her tiptoes as her arm shot up and out and caught the serve just before it sailed beyond reach. She sent the ball back across the net with a surge of elation.

“Ha!” she shouted, and then bounced back and forth on her toes as her opponent dashed to make the return.

The ball hit just inside the line.

“Game!” she shouted, and then laughed, and thrust her arms into the air, jubilant from the surge of pleasure that always came with winning.

The smile was still on her face when she saw the men coming across the grounds. The surge of panic and then anger that swept throughout her system was swiftly masked. There’s no way, she kept telling herself. There’s no way they can know.

Stifling whatever emotions their arrival brought, she waited, cool and composed for them to make the first serve. After all, she was the ultimate athlete, willing to give a lesser opponent first shot, but still a player who played to win.

“Desiree Adonis?”

Mike Pulaski’s voice rumbled across her nerves. She noticed the man had a greasy spot on his tie. She frowned. Donny would never have gone out in public like that.

“Yes,” she said, and smiled, offering her hand for the handshake that never came.

The gasp that came up her throat was as unexpected as the handcuffs that locked around her wrists.

“Desiree Adonis, you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Samantha Carlyle. You have the right to remain silent. If you…”

Everything he was saying faded except one word.
Attempted.
She couldn’t have heard him right. There had to be a mistake.

But the look on the rumpled man’s face was too fixed to ignore. She tried to smile, lifting her arms up and waving the cuffs around as if this were all a joke.

“I’m being arrested,” she said, as her opponent stood transfixed on the opposite side of the net, watching the entire proceedings. “Can you believe it? They think I murdered someone.

“Who did you say I’m supposed to have killed?” she asked, flashing her eyes at Pulaski and smiling in a way that had proved quite effective in the past. “And when did I do it? Between the bankruptcy proceedings, or my appointment at the hair dressers?”

Pulaski resisted the urge to put his fist in her mouth. And there was something about the look in her eyes that told him he had the right woman. The laughter was a little too hard and off-center. The glitter in those bright green eyes was too sharp, and the muscle jerking at the side of her mouth gave away her lie.

“I will repeat,” he said slowly, as the detective beside him grabbed her by the arm and started leading her away. “You are being arrested for the attempted murder of Samantha Carlyle.”

A jumbo jet flew overheard, suddenly drowning out the rest of what the detective was saying. But Desiree didn’t need to hear any more. She’d heard enough to send her over the edge. Everything she’d been through since Donny’s death—everything she’d planned, everything she’d done—it was all for nothing.

Her eyes rolled back in her head. Pulaski shouted and jerked as he grabbed her other arm, expecting her to try to make a break. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The shriek that came up her throat and out of her mouth made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. She started to laugh, and then she began to cry. Sobs traded places with jerky coughs as she tried to talk. But nothing came out that made any sense. Tiny bits of spit frothed at the corner of her lip as they put her in the backseat of the patrol car.

The last sight Pulaski had of her was that bright red mouth, opened as wide as it would go, and the virulent curses and choking laughter spilling out of it and into the interior of the car like filth from a broken sewer.

He shuddered. Samantha Carlyle had endured much at that woman’s hands. A wave of guilt hit him as he realized he’d inadvertently played right into the Adonis woman’s plans. If only he’d believed Samantha Carlyle’s story, some of this might have been averted. But Adonis had almost been too clever for them. And if it hadn’t been for John Thomas Knight, she damned well might have won.

“I never said I was perfect,” he muttered, as he crawled behind the wheel of his own car.

“What did you say, Pulaski?” his partner asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he answered, then put the car in gear and threaded his way back into the mainstream of traffic. It felt good to right a wrong.

“There he goes again,” one of the nurses said, and elbowed her coworker, watching the sheriff exit the elevator and turn down the hallway toward Samantha Carlyle’s room. For the last two weeks, his visits had been as regular as clockwork.

“Uh oh,” the other nurse said. “He’s been made. Weller caught him.” They disappeared before they got caught in the head nurse’s wrath.

“John Thomas!”

Dorothy Weller’s voice was deep and full of authority. She stared long and hard at the small brown sack the sheriff held clutched against his chest, and tried to frown at him. It was hard to be firm with someone who ignored your very best glares.

“Hey there, Dorothy. How’s business?” John Thomas asked, and winked.

“What do you have in that sack?” she asked, fully aware he was sneaking food into a patient’s room, which was against hospital rules. Dorothy Weller was big on rules.

John Thomas got a stubborn look on his face and held the sack a little tighter.

“She doesn’t like the soup,” he said.

Nurse Weller rolled her eyes and then lowered her voice. “None of us likes the soup, John Thomas. But rules are rules. She’s not supposed to have anything that’s not on her diet.”

He didn’t answer and she wouldn’t move. Long moments passed as John Thomas felt the sack in his hands starting to grow damp from the condensation forming on the outside of the cup.

“Are you going to be difficult?” she asked, and folded her arms across her ample bosom.

He sighed. “Yes, ma’am, I guess I am.”

“Someone should have turned you over their knee years ago. Maybe you wouldn’t have been such a menace today if they had.”

“Are you offering?” he asked, and flashed a grin that sent a vivid red flush sweeping up her face. John Thomas decided that he’d probably pushed far enough.

“I’m going inside now,” he said, and started past her.

“I did not see you come in with that, do you hear me?” she hissed, and hustled down the hall without looking back.

“Hey, Dorothy!”

In spite of instinct telling her to keep walking, something made her stop and turn.

John Thomas grinned, knowing this was really going to get her goat. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re real pretty when you’re angry?”

Giggles swept through the hallway as Dorothy Weller turned several shades of a brighter red. And then to everyone’s surprise, she answered.

“Actually, they have,” she said, and smiled to herself as she finished her exit down the hall with a slight swagger.

John Thomas grinned and gave her a low wolf whistle before slipping into Samantha’s room.

Samantha was grinning.

“I heard you,” she said, holding out her hands for the sack in his arms. “You’re shameless.”