Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (43 page)

The woman shook her dark head.  “She’s in psychological shock, not circulatory, and her blood pressure seems to be stabilizing a little.”  She gestured to the cuff.  “She needs to be looked at, definitely, but I wouldn’t classify it as urgent.”

“Good.”  Declan squeezed Sadie’s fingers.  “Until they figure out where Marshall went, I don’t want her out of my sight.”  He looked up then, saw Kim and Rogan approaching, his dad not far behind.  Rogan wore a worried expression, which intensified when he saw his face.

“Sadie?” he asked, gaze falling on the stretcher, where Sadie’d squeezed her eyes closed once again.

“She’s hanging in.  For now.  But it looks like Marshall pulled one over.  He’s gone.”

“What?” Kim radiated shock.  “I thought the young cop shot him.”

“You and everyone else.  The bastard’s a freaking Houdini.  I want Sadie far, far away from here,” he expounded.  “We’ll drive out, hire a plane, I don’t care what we have to do, but I want her well out of Marshall’s sights before he decides to try his luck again.  You’ve got pull,” he growled at Kim.  “Do something.”

“Hey.”  Rogan started to protest, but Kim stopped him with an outthrust palm.  “You’d feel the same,” she told him succinctly.

“So are we taking her into the ER or not?” the EMT demanded.

“Not.”  Dec looked at his father, whose weathered face was pallid and drawn. “It’s dark, so how about if Kim drives Sadie and I in your car and Rogan can take you home in his.”

Rogan looked like he wanted to protest again, lips thinning when he realized it was futile.  Declan felt bad about hijacking the woman he loved, but she was the only one of them currently carrying a weapon. And he was not about to move Sadie anywhere unless it was under some kind of armed guard.

“Where’s Kathleen?” Patrick asked, anxious eyes moving to scan the crowd.

“She went to rally the troops.”

“Which is exactly why the best place for Sadie, and you for that matter, is right where you are.”

Dec turned to glare at Kim.

“Think about it, Declan.  Dial down the emotion for just one moment, and look at this using your head. They’re going to be locking the hospital down – no one in, no one out – setting up roadblocks, creating a net.  If this guy is still around, well, you’re surrounded by most of the law enforcement firepower in the county.”

Declan swallowed hard and looked at Sadie.  Saw their past.  The future he wanted.  “I want to take her away from this. I… need her to be safe.”

“I know.” Kim laid a hand on his arm.  “How about we get her set up in the back of one of the ambulances.  I’m sure one of these fine technicians would be willing to wait there with you, keep an eye on Sadie’s vitals?”

“Looks like I’ve got nothin’ better to do for a while,” the woman said in response to the implied question.

“Okay.” Declan reached up to rub his stinging cheek, embarrassed at the dampness he found there.  When the hell had he started crying?  “And, uh, you guys will stick around too?” 

Thank God they seemed to understand that he was almost overcome with the need to circle the family wagons.

“Like glue,” Rogan promised while Kim stretched up on her toes to press a kiss to his embarrassingly wet face.

Then Kim seemed to fly against his chest with unexpected force, propelling him backwards on his still-unsteady legs.  They landed on the gurney, which went toppling over just as all hell broke loose around them. 

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

BRADY
Marshall watched the redhead drop, taking Murphy with her.  Two for the price of one.  Then he leveled the cop’s gun at the overturned gurney.  Ms. Mayhew had obviously shaken off the drug just enough to tell them all about his switch-a-roo.

Little bitch.

He should have just killed her and been done with it.  But he’d figured it would provide more of a distraction, leaving at least one of the two alive.  That in the rush to get her into the ER, he’d have plenty of time to sneak out of there. 

But now the cops were right on his tail.

He’d barely outmaneuvered one in the corridor.

So he aimed toward those messy blonde curls and calmly squeezed the trigger.

KATHLEEN
felt the vibration of the bullet leaving the chamber all the way up to her shoulder.  Center mass.  Perfect shot.  The bastard’s black heart probably exploded.

But she fired again for insurance even as Marshall was going down.

DECLAN
felt almost detached from his body as he and Kim went cartwheeling backward.  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.  Sound was muffled, his vision blurred. Something whizzed over his head.  There were shouts, more screams and by the time they hit the ground, three gunshots in rapid succession.

His bones jarred as they impacted the pavement.

Rogan vaulted over the fallen gurney, pulling Kim off Dec’s chest.  Declan sucked in a much-needed breath while she groaned, then let forth with a blistering blasphemy.

“Are you hit?  Are you hit?”  His brother was ten kinds of frantic, and Declan realized that what had knocked them on their asses was the impact from a bullet. 

“It hit the vest,” Dec heard Kim say, talking about her body armor.  “Hurts like a bitch, but I’ll live through it.”

Declan sat up, shook his head to clear it, and then joined his brother in panic.  He crawled toward Sadie, who was still strapped awkwardly to the gurney, relieved when those baby blues blinked his direction.

“You okay?”  He ran shaking fingers over every part he could reach.  “Dammit, did a bullet hit you?”

“
N-no.”

Declan looked for signs of fresh blood nonetheless.

“B-Brady?” she quietly asked, just as his dad came around to help them.

“Kathleen
got him.”  Patrick’s voice shook, too much emotion making it unsteady.  He helped Declan and the EMT get the gurney righted.

Declan looked over toward his sister, and the group of cops ringing what had to be Marshall.  Then swung his gaze toward Kim. “He was aiming for me, but you stepped into the line of fire.”

Kim looked up from where Rogan cradled her and winced.  “Purely by accident, so don’t go getting all mushy.”

He felt the surprising beginnings of a smile.  “You okay?”

She nodded, and Rogan kissed her.  Then Kathleen came trotting up.  “Everybody in one piece?”

“Seems like.”  Their eyes met, and he could see the relief that flooded through hers. 

“Marshall’s dead,” she summed up, and Declan could feel the fine tremors in the hand she laid over his.  He knew that taking a life had cost her, even if the life she’d taken hadn’t been worth much.  He’d experienced the very same thing. 

“He was hiding in the supply closet and apparently decided to break out when he realized the hospital was going into lockdown.  I guess he just couldn’t resist taking a final shot at you when he saw I was right on him.” 

Their dad wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“You want us to take your girlfriend in now?” the EMT asked Declan.

“Definitely.”

“This one, too,” Rogan added, even though Kim was rolling her eyes.

“I have to get back over there,” Kathleen said with emotion.  “Love you.  All.”

And when she headed off, Declan’s eyes met Sadie’s, and he leaned down close to her ear.  “I love you.  All.”

And kissed her as the gurney started moving.

EPILOGUE

“AFTER
an extensive search of Edward Cooper’s former residence, authorities have determined…”

There was a snort from somewhere beneath the covers, probably a commentary on the fact that Declan had been less than thrilled with all the people – authorities and otherwise – climbing all over her house and around the property, a few of whom had been audacious enough to actually set foot in his yard, but Sadie ignored his bad temper and continued reading aloud from the Sunday paper.

“…authorities have determined that the stolen necklace believed to be at the center of the three month crime spree which cost at least seven people their lives, and possibly one Mount Pleasant police detective his livelihood, may have disappeared once again, after having been lost for almost two centuries.  Family members of Nora Beth Dennison, the eighty-five year old Beaufort resident murdered in the original theft, expressed their disappointment at the investigation’s outcome.  “It’s a loss,” claimed Marcus Fanning, Dennison’s great nephew.  “Nora Beth planned on donating the necklace to the Museum of Southern History, and it would have been a fitting memorial if we’d been able to recover it. As it stands, I guess we’ll never…”

Sadie’s voice trailed off as t
he grief, the anxiety and the guilt which had been her constant companions these past few weeks, grabbed her by the throat and choked off her voice, tears burning her eyes. 

Declan
heard the break in her spoken rhythm, felt a similar hitch in his soul.  Well familiar with what she was feeling, what she had yet to feel, he fought off the weight of the down comforter that cocooned them and drew her with tender sympathy into his arms.

“I’m here,
honey.”  He wouldn’t urge her to stop crying, wouldn’t tell her that it would be okay.  She needed to know that what she felt, right this moment, was acceptable, the sting of a wound that had only just begun to heal.  The therapist they’d been seeing, both individually and together, had helped him understand that there was a process that couldn’t be rushed.  Nor simply ignored, as he’d attempted for years.  And as much as he wanted Sadie to be whole and happy, he knew that there were little rips in the fabric of her being that only time could help stitch up.  Time, and a boatload of love unencumbered by conditions. 

Lucky for them both he had a cruise
liner’s worth stored up. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wiping at the wetness she’d transferred to his chest.  “But those poor people.  All those poor people.  And the stupid, stupid necklace wasn’t even here.”

Sadie knew it was irrational to think finding the necklace would have made anything better.  That to recover it tangibly would have made everything somehow… make sense.  Because regardless of whether or not there was an object to hold up to say this was the cause, the fact remained that seven people had died.  That Detective Corelli was on medical leave indefinitely, until they could get his double vision and debilitating migraines under control.  That Rick…

“You called that asshole again, didn’t you?”

Sadie went stiff, a little defensive, and yes, a little guilty, because she knew Declan disapproved of her having continued contact with Rick. For more than the obvious reasons.  Rick hadn’t made things… easy for her since he’d awakened after his life-saving surgery.  The surgery he very nearly hadn’t made it through, as he’d been inclined to remind her.

He’d played her guilt like a masterful musician, plucking delicately on all the right chords.  He had her tangled up between knowing that her decision to end things was sound, and wondering what kind of heartless bitch she was that she could leave her ex-fiancé  in his hospital bed and tumble willingly, even joyfully into Declan’s.  She knew that sense of confusion, of duplicity hung like a veil between them, even now.  She could see happiness, fulfillment on the other side, but it remained clouded by that layer of guilt.  

“Bastard lost part of his lung, not brain stem function.  It’s a damn shame Marshall didn’t aim a little higher, take out his big mouth.”

“Declan.  Stop it.”

“No Sadie, you stop it.”  He untangled himself from her arms, climbed naked from the bed.  Snatched his jeans and sweatshirt from the floor, where they’d landed haphazardly last night.  Went to the closet and picked out his nicest sweater, because he still got a thrill from seeing Sadie in his clothes.  Deposited it and a clean pair of Sadie’s pants on the bed, with the mute suggestion that she get dressed.

“Are you… throwing me out?”  And there was doubt beneath the joking tone.

Declan scrubbed a hand over his beard-roughened face, willing himself to patience.  “I want to show you something.  Outside.”

He turned on his heel and walked out the door, leaving her no recourse but to dress and follow.  She found him outside, under the remains of the old tree house, fingering the frayed rope they’d once used as a sort of pulley.  Momentarily disoriented by the image of Declan, the man, whe
re so many memories stirred from summers past, she catalogued the moment, layered it over images of the messy little boy that remained tucked like snapshots in an album inside her. 

He turned when he heard her behind him, some deep emotion churning the lake
blue of his eyes, and her stomach fluttered with nerves, twisted with regret.  And then settled with the sense of rightness that still surprised the hell out of her.  She knew she’d tried his patience, maybe even hurt him, just a little, but she also knew that what they had was as sturdy and enduring as that centuries-old oak.  The mental snapshot she’d made sharpened into focus.  And just like that, the veil between them seemed to thin, lingering still, but no longer obscuring.  When he extended his hand to draw her toward the ladder, her grip was steady, and sure.