Redemption (38 page)

“Hey, come on! How often do you get a chance to save the Big Guy himself?”

Roy’s gaze faltered as he focused on Matt. “Who are you?”

“Why, don’t you know? You’ve been after me for years. You just haven’t seen me up close and personal—until now.” Matt gave him an evil leer Jack Nicholson would have been proud of.

Roy Porter took the hint. His eyes lit with an unearthly light. “Get thee from me, Satan!” he implored, his voice stark.

Matt laughed. “You really think I’m gonna fall for a cliché line like that? Come on, Roy,” he sneered. “You can do better than that!”

Roy turned a wavering hand in his direction, the one that held the gun, muttering the cant of religious fervor all the while.

Matt smiled. He felt all powerful, as if his shirt were made of Kevlar instead of rayon, capable of stopping a speeding bullet.

“Come on,” he taunted. “You can’t even hold that thing steady, can you? I always knew you’d be terrrr-rified in my presence!” His laugh was pure evil and pure Hollywood.

“No! I won’t let you interfere with the Lord’s work! This one is mine! I raised her! The Lord led me here; he ordered me to do this, don’t you see?” Roy’s eyes glowed with fanatical logic, sweat beading in the furrows of his forehead.

“How you gonna stop me? With that little popgun you got there?” Matt came in closer and closer. From the corner of his eye, he saw Claire twist, yanking the plug of hair still held firm in Roy Porter’s grip.

“Go away, Matt,” she pleaded. “Please, go away. Let me handle this!”

He ignored her, only praying she would take the opportunity to run when Roy Porter became fully occupied with his newest target. “Come on,” he taunted. “Give it your best shot!”

In his peripheral vision, he saw her move an instant before Roy reacted, knocking the arm that held the gun just enough to throw off his aim.

Matt was already lunging. He barely felt the sting in his shoulder as he tackled the man, bringing him to the ground and knocking the gun away as if it were a football—he only hoped Claire recovered the fumble.

With Roy Porter underneath him, Matt somehow resisted the urge to pummel his face into the marble floor. Instead, he grabbed him by the collar and looked him square in the eye, dead serious now. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch,” he growled, shaking Roy Porter’s scrawny neck. “You think you know what hell is like? You touch her again—you so much as think of her—and you’ll go there, I promise. First-class ticket, no stops—courtesy of me.”

He glared at Roy Porter, no trace of Hollywood in his eyes. Then he watched as blood dripped onto Roy Porter’s face, splattering onto his wire-framed glasses.

“
Oh God
, you’ve been shot! Oh God, Matt!” Claire’s voice came from somewhere behind his shoulder.

“I’m okay, honey,” he said, breathing heavy. “Just a flesh wound.”

Damn, he’d always wanted to say that
.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

B
Y
T
HE
T
IME
C
LAIRE
L
EFT
the police station, it was midnight and she was ready to collapse. She had answered question after question, her voice sounding rusty even to her ears. It had been so long since she had even uttered the names of Roy and Deborah Porter, since she had even allowed herself to think of their brick house in Paradise.

She had been shocked when the police had asked her questions about the attack in Oklahoma City. Somehow they knew more than Claire herself did, more even than she wanted to know. When they asked her to confirm that Roy Porter was the man who had attacked her ten years ago, she shook her head. “I have no memory of what happened that day,” she told them, and it was the truth. Her mind had covered up the worst of the ordeal.

The odd thing was, she remembered every detail of the last five hours. Every minute since Roy Porter had walked into her office, like a figure from hell. She had known he would reappear eventually, once the publicity about her reached the outskirts of Paradise. But unlike those times in the past, when sheer terror had caused her mind to go blank, a self-protective cocoon of emptiness, she had remained in control the whole time, aware of the situation and capable of reasoning, even fighting for her life. There had been no need for Gram to come charging to her rescue, bearing a borrowed rifle. And there certainly had been no need for Matt to risk his life.

She leaned toward the front seat of the car and spoke to the driver. A guard had shown up from somewhere, the same one who had provided escort a few weeks earlier. She had been too grateful for his presence, amidst the gathering media attention, to ask any questions. Now that the police had been satisfied with enough information to ensure Roy Porter remained in jail until he was tried, convicted, and locked in prison indefinitely, uppermost on her mind was the need to get to Matt. She had to see for herself that he was all right.

“The front entrance of Philadelphia General is on Spruce Street. I don’t know how long I’ll be there,” she told him, then settled back in the seat and rehearsed what she planned to say to Matt.

She found his room with no trouble. Apparently someone had thought to leave her name on the official visitor list, along with the names of his immediate family. She knew from the information the police had given her that the bullet had exited his shoulder. With no surgery necessary, Matt should make a full recovery, in plenty of time to begin filming his next picture.

It was sheer luck that the bullet hadn’t pierced a vital organ. When she thought how close he had come to being killed, she shuddered.

What had possessed him to take a bullet for her? Was he living out his fantasy of live-action hero? Saving the endangered heroine despite the fact the gun was real, not a prop?

She pushed open the door to his room. A dim glow from the street lights outside came through the window. On a bed that seemed too narrow for him, Matt lay asleep, an IV connected to his arm. His tan seemed to have faded, washed away by the loss of blood.

She approached the bed quietly, her legs shaking. A white bandage encased his left shoulder, disappearing underneath the sheet. She drew up a chair, prepared to wait until the morning when he woke, grateful that she had made arrangements for Estelle to stay the night with Tripper.

Matt stirred, and for a moment, she was afraid he would awaken. She wasn’t sure yet what she would say to him.

Part of her wanted to read him the riot act—what was he thinking, walking into the path of a bullet with no protection? But another part of her wanted to hug him to her breast, smooth his hair back from his face, and tell him she loved him, more than life itself.

The thought almost knocked her over, arriving with a tidal wave of feeling she hadn’t expected, hadn’t guarded herself from. It was an ache, deep in her heart, deep in her soul, a joyous, tender pain. Like a fever that burned while it healed.

The last remaining drops of adrenaline drained from her, leaving her weak and shaking. She suddenly realized how close she had come to losing him. As he had walked confidently forward, arms spread in a challenge to Roy Porter to take his life—in order to spare hers—her life had seemed worthless.

She didn’t notice as the first tears slipped from her eyes, the first real tears she had shed since she was a young girl, alone in a house that smelled like fear.

But while she had been locked in the dark closet for hours on end, her mind had spun fantasies. Fantasies that she once thought would never become reality. A white knight on a steed would never come crashing through the piney woods of Paradise to save Mary Claire Porter.

Through her tears she gazed at Matt, lying still as death, bandaged and dosed with painkillers. He was no fantasy knight, but a real, flesh-and-blood hero. It was real blood that he had shed, for her.

And real love he offered, if only she had the guts to take it.

Matt woke slowly. It had been thundering before he fell asleep. The nurse had said something about a storm…The thunder was louder now. Shaking his bed…

If he knew where the damn light switch was, he might be able to see. Fumbling around, he finally found the button the nurse had shown him earlier. Florescent light shuddered on.

The first thing he saw was Claire’s dark head, bent over his bed, her shoulders shaking as soft sobs poured from her throat.

His heart leapt into his throat. Claire was crying! Something must have happened to Tripper. But he’d talked to Tripper just before he’d arrived at the store, hadn’t he? The damn drugs were making his mind fuzzy.

“Claire, honey—” He reached out to stroke her hair. But she was so lost in grief, she didn’t hear him, didn’t feel his hand on her head, smoothing back the hair that fell over her face. He wished he could summon the strength to pull her into his arms, but they didn’t seem to be working just now. If he could get her attention, maybe she could climb up here herself.

Her sobs became great heaving shudders as she struggled for breath. Alarmed, Matt searched for the button to call the nurse. Claire could be in shock—

And then it all came back to him—all that had happened today, all that he had learned. All that he had seen.

His hand gently gripped her chin, tilting her head up. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, wishing he could erase all the hurt she had felt, wishing he could undo the damage.

She opened her eyes and gazed wetly at him, her face taut with anguish. “What were you thinking?” she accused him through her tears. “You could have been killed!”

He gave her a weak smile, glad to see her spunk. “Nah, I’m a lot tougher than that.”

She raked her soggy hair back from her face, her mouth set in a furious line. Eyes glowing like rain, she vented her fury. “In case you weren’t aware, those were real bullets in that gun. A real gun, not some stage prop. You may get paid to face fabricated danger at every turn, but in real life, you aren’t invincible. Goddamn it, Matt, you could have…you could have been—” But then her face screwed up and another sob rushed out.

Matt tried to soothe her, wiping a tear with his finger. “It’s okay, honey. I wasn’t hurt too bad. It was just a little bullet, not even the size of a marble.”

But she batted his hand away. “I could have handled it! Don’t you think I know how to handle my own father? How do you think I survived so many years? I didn’t need you to save me then, and I don’t need you now!”

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Great throat-tearing sobs that ripped at his heart and gave lie to her words. “Sweetheart, I know it was hard for you—”

She shook her head behind her hands. “No, you don’t know anything!”

“Yes, I do know. I talked to your mother. To Deborah. In Texas.”

Her breath caught on a sob as she listened.

“I went there from Angola. I had to find out—” He took a breath, then started over. “There was a reporter at the prison when I got out. He told me about…what happened in Oklahoma. The attack. He also told me about Roy Porter. Apparently this guy had talked to him—in fact, he was the reason Porter took off for here. God, when I think how close…” He raked his hand over his face, still stubby with beard. “Jesus, Claire, I couldn’t get here fast enough.”

“Did it ever occur to you to simply call the police? It
is
their job.”

“Yeah, I did. I got the royal runaround. I even called the mayor’s office. He was out of town. I tried to call you, but your cell wasn’t working and I didn’t want to leave a message.”

“The battery was dead. My secretary forgot to recharge it before I left.” She sighed. “But that doesn’t mean you had to risk your stupid life! My God, Matt—”

“Claire, sweetheart, don’t you get it? If anything had happened to you…do you think my life would have been worth a goddamn breath? If he had used that gun on you—”

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t have.” With a bitter laugh, she added, “And lose my soul to hell? His ego’s too great. I could have convinced him, eventually, that I was the penitent soul he wanted to see.” Closing her eyes, she took a shaky breath. A wave of sorrow passed over her face. “God knows I have enough sins to be forgiven for.”

“What sins are those, Claire?”

She shook her head, frowning. “It’s over, Matt. I don’t want—”

“The sin of omission maybe? The fact that you didn’t tell me about Tripper? Is that the sin you’re talking about?”

She didn’t say anything.

“I know, Claire. I know about the rape.”

Her eyes widened.

“It was Roy Porter, wasn’t it? He raped you in Oklahoma City.”

She shook her head. “No. He never raped me.”

“Claire, the report said—”

“I don’t care what the report said! It wasn’t rape!” Her hands fisted the corner of his bedsheet. “Don’t you see? He did the same thing then he always did. He stripped my clothes off and forced me into the water. To cleanse me. If the River Jordan wasn’t handy, or the church baptismal, he’d use whatever he could find. A bathtub. A fountain.” She shuddered. “He’s insane, but he managed to hide it from most of the town. He preyed on the weak, the weak in spirit.” The tears were coming again, mingling with her words. “The sinners, people like my mother. My real mother. She must have been so ashamed!” A great sob racked her body.