Safe Harbor (37 page)

* * * *

Dan heard noises from the Dilly Dally’s slip, and not good ones.

Mac screaming, crashes, and another man’s enraged voice.

He didn’t have a weapon, but he yelled at his wife to call 911 as he raced off their boat. As he ran up the dock so he could circle back to the Dilly, he saw a man bent over, raining punches on someone crumpled on the deck.

“Hey! What the hell’s going on?”

The man looked up, startled, then dropped a hammer and bolted for the dock. Dan didn’t have time to go after him because he spotted Mac, still and bloodied, lying on the deck.

“Shit!” Elise had stuck her head above deck. “Mac’s hurt bad!

Have them send a cop and ambulance!” he screamed.

Heads popped up from boats around the marina, but the guy had already disappeared among the dry-docked boats. Dan didn’t get a good look at him.

He jumped onto the Dilly’s deck to help Mac. Next to him lay a bloody hammer.

Mac moaned. Dan grabbed his hand. “Hey, buddy, hang on.

Please, Jesus, hang on.”

His face battered almost beyond recognition, Mac turned toward the sound of Dan’s voice. “…Jackson.”

“It’s Dan, Mac. Stay with me.” He screamed over his shoulder.

“Where’s the goddamned ambulance?”

Mac spit up blood. “Bryan Jackson…did it. Tell them I love them.”

“Jesus, Mac, don’t you fucking die on me!” In the distance, he heard the wail of a siren.

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* * * *

Mac’s world began and ended with pain. He remembered feeling the boat rock, the sound of someone jumping onto the deck, assumed it was Clarisse. He had time to catch a glimpse of the man’s face as he sucker punched him, enough to recognize Bryan Jackson.

As his vision greyed, he tried to focus on Dan one more time.

“Sully…Risse…I love them.”

“You can tell them yourself, buddy. The ambulance is almost here.”

His world went black.

* * * *

Clarisse spent some time talking with Uncle Tad and the nurses.

“You have no idea how cool this is,” she said as she handed Bart over to her uncle.

One of the nurses laughed. “We love Bart. He’s so cute and no trouble. The residents love him. This works out great for everyone, seriously.”

She kissed Bart and her uncle and headed for her car. She’d spent more time there than she’d meant to. It’d been over an hour since she’d left the marina. When she pulled in and saw the deputy cruisers and yellow crime scene tape, her heart hit her feet.

Dan and Elise intercepted her, looking grim.

“What happened? What’s wrong? Where’s Mac?”

Dan tried to hold her back. “Honey, he’s not here. They already took him to Harborside.”

“What happened?” she screamed.

Elise had been crying and looked like she’d start again any moment.

A deputy and a detective approached her. She recognized the detective as Jason Callahan. From his equally grim look, it couldn’t

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be good.

“Jason, please, what’s going on?”

He pulled her to the side and nodded to the deputy. “We’re going to take you to him.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my god. It was Bryan, wasn’t it?”

Dan took her hands. “He told me Bryan Jackson did it.”

She sobbed as Dan and Elise hugged her. “Is he going to die?”

“They airlifted him to Harborside,” Jason said. “I don’t have an update on his condition.”

Dan kept her on her feet as her knees gave out. He guided her to a bench. Elise flanked her on her other side. “He told me to tell you and Sully he loves you.”

Numb, she nodded.

“Give me your keys. Elise and I will drive your car, meet you there, okay? Where’s your cell?”

“My purse. Car.”

Dan had to cup her hand in his to take the keys from her trembling fingers. Elise brought Clarisse’s purse, and Dan and Jason Callahan carefully guided her to the passenger seat of Jason’s unmarked car.

With the deputy leading the way in his marked cruiser, lights and sirens blaring, they left for Harborside Hospital in St. Pete.

Emotional numbness had set in. “We’ve got to call Sully,” she said as they pulled out of the marina parking lot. “His plane leaves in an hour.”

“Do you want me to do it?”

“Please.” She broke down crying again.

* * * *

Sully sat at the gate, reading, when he felt his BlackBerry vibrate.

He pulled it from the holster and answered without looking at the screen. “Nicoletto.”

“Sul, it’s Jayce.”

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Maybe it was instincts, maybe it his cop training, maybe it just recognizing the tone of his friend and former partner’s voice. He sat bolt upright in his seat, his heart freezing into a hard, cold ball. “What happened?”

“The fucker nailed Mac on the boat.”

“How is he? How’s Clarisse?”
Please, please, please let him be
alive! Let her be safe!

“I’ve got her. She’s okay. She wasn’t here when he attacked Mac.

They airlifted Mac to Harborside. We’re on the way there in a cruiser.”

Sully numbly gathered his carry-ons and raced toward the security checkpoint where he’d catch a shuttle to the main terminal. “What happened?” His voice broke.

“Jackson jumped him. Mac ID’d him before he passed out and the EMTs took him.”

“What’d he do to Mac?” Jason didn’t want to answer. “Dammit, tell me!”

Jason’s voice quieted. “It happened quick. He ambushed him on the boat, nailed him in the head with a hammer.” He dropped his voice even lower. “It’s bad, Sul. I know he made it to Harborside alive, but I don’t have any other news.”

Sully felt the tears on his face as he ran for the shuttles. “You find that fucker. You find him before I do, Jayce. Because if I find him first I’m killing the son of a bitch, do you hear me?” He managed to catch a shuttle to the main terminal, pushing through the doors before they could slide shut.

“Calm down, Sul. Don’t say anything—”

“I’m not saying—I’m promising. Put Clarisse on.”

There was a pause as Jason handed the phone over. Sully angrily brushed his tears away on his sleeve, ignoring the other passengers in the shuttle with him. Then Clarisse’s voice, haunting and flat, came on the line.

“Master?”

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Formal meant she wasn’t doing well at all. That she had used formal speech without hesitation in front of someone else told him not only how upset and in shock she was, but how much it comforted her.

He had to stay calm for her. She needed him. Brant needed him.

He forced a strength he didn’t feel. “I’m here, pet. I’m leaving the airport and heading straight for the hospital. I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know, pet. You listen to me, stay with Jason until I get there, do you hear? You do not leave his side, not even to go to the bathroom alone, understand?”

“Yes.”

He hated himself, but said it anyway. “Yes,
what
, pet?”

“Yes, Master.”

“That’s my good girl. You stay with Jason. He’ll keep you safe until I get there. I love you.”

“I love you too, Master.”

“Put Jayce back on, pet.”

There was a pause, then Jason’s voice. “Yeah.”

Sully dropped his voice to an angry growl. “Don’t you
dare
let her out of your sight, do you hear me? That fucker will track her to the hospital. Swear to me you’ll personally stay with her.”

“Jesus, Sul, you know I will.”

He reached the taxi stand and grabbed the first one that would take him to St. Pete. He jumped into the back and let the driver handle his bags. “I’m on the way. Keep her safe for me.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Sully hung up, laid his head back on the seat, and allowed himself to cry. It would be the only luxury of time he’d have. Because once he knew Brant was okay and he could get Clarisse to a safe house, he wouldn’t have any more time to cry.

He’d only have time to kill.

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Jason and the deputy escorted Clarisse into the hospital and handled the talking for her. She clung to Jason’s arm while the deputy carried her purse. Mac was already in surgery, and they couldn’t give her an update because they were still trying to determine the extent of his injuries.

He was alive. That’s all they could say.

“Did they find Bryan yet?” she asked during the walk to the waiting room.

Jason grimly shook his head. “Not yet, sweetie. But we will.”

He’d found her. Worse, he’d hurt Mac. Now Sully would be in danger, too. If Mac died because she’d led Bryan Jackson to them, she’d never forgive herself.

A horrible thought struck her. “What about Uncle Tad?”

“I already sent a deputy there to watch him. The facility has been notified. We’ll keep him safe, I promise.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and slowly rocked back and forth in her chair.
Please be okay…please be okay.
She silently chanted it over and over again. Dan and Elise arrived to sit with her and she barely noticed. She focused on Mac’s sweet face in her mind, praying he’d pull through.

When Sully arrived, he dropped his bags by the waiting room door, raced to her, and engulfed her in his arms as she broke down sobbing. He sank to the floor with her, holding her.

“Shh, pet. I’m here. It’s okay.”

* * * *

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Time blurred for them. Despite using Sully as an emotional crutch, Clarisse refused to leave the hospital, didn’t want to leave Mac’s side to go home. No masterly orders or husbandly suggestions would change her mind, either.

Sensing this, Sully didn’t force the issue. He stayed with her, getting a room at a hotel a few blocks away where he would force her to go at shift changes so she could take a shower and lie down to sleep. The few times he knew he had to take a nap or risk collapse, Jason would come in and sit with her in the ICU to ensure she was safe. Because of the circumstances of the situation, and that Mac needed twenty-four hour armed protection until Bryan was in custody, they loosened the rules to allow Clarisse and Sully round-the-clock access to the ICU instead of the normal limited visitation.

By the fifth day after the attack, Mac’s condition hadn’t changed.

They’d listed him as critical, but stable. Until the cranial swelling went down, they wouldn’t begin to reduce his medication and bring him out of his coma.

Sully watched Clarisse’s face grow more gaunt. It was hard to stay strong for her when all he wanted to do was lay his head on Mac’s bed and sob himself to sleep. He didn’t dare cry in front of her.

She needed his strength. If this was a fraction of the agonizing grief Mac felt when their positions were reversed, then he felt guilty as hell for putting Mac through that.

Jason stepped into Mac’s ICU cubicle a little before noon and tipped his head at Sully, wanting to talk privately with him. Jason had told the uniformed deputy on duty to take a few minutes to go eat since he was there.

Sully leaned over and kissed Clarisse on the forehead. “Baby, I need to talk with Jayce for a few minutes, okay?”

She nodded, the deep hollows under her eyes adding to his grief.

There was nothing he could do, no comforting words he could offer.

They had to wait and see.

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He tenderly tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “When I come back, we’ll go downstairs and eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” she whispered. Her eyes never strayed from Mac’s face, willing him to wake up, to rise and be healed.

If she’d taken in more than two thousand calories in the past few days, he was Richard Nixon. It was all he could do to get her to drink water. Hating himself, he hardened his voice. “Pet,” he softly said,

“you have to eat. Sir wouldn’t want you making yourself sick, you know he wouldn’t.”

After a long moment, she finally nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Good girl.” He kissed her temple and gently squeezed her shoulder before leaving the cubicle and sliding the door shut behind him.

* * * *

Bryan watched the ICU corridor. Hospital security was amazingly lax, even the uniformed deputy on watch tended to ignore anyone in hospital garb and bearing an ID badge. Walking around wearing a pair of scrubs and a white lab coat while carrying a small tote full of phlebotomy supplies and a clipboard practically guaranteed access to any area without question, especially the hectic ICU wing.

Harborside, being a regional trauma center, wasn’t exactly a quiet place.

He’d snagged an employee’s ID clipped to an unattended sweater left hanging over an office chair in admissions. It hadn’t taken him long to create a bogus ID on his laptop, make a quick stop by a automated photo printer machine at a drugstore, and then glue the fake to the top of the existing badge. A carefully trimmed sheet of laminating film over the top made it good enough for government work and would stall people long enough.

Long enough for him to get Clarisse.

He’d shaved his head bald. A throw pillow belted around his

357

midsection added at least thirty pounds to his appearance, and a careful slouch enhanced the illusion.

Inside the pillow, he stashed the gun.

He slipped inside the cubicle, relieved to find her alone and knew that he wouldn’t have long before the uniformed deputy and the other two men returned. She never glanced at him, why would she? She was used to seeing medical personnel come and go.

He couldn’t deny the satisfied thrill when he pressed the gun’s muzzle to her temple and she stiffened.

“Hello, Clarisse.”

She didn’t speak. He pressed harder. “Aren’t you going to say hello? Where the hell are your manners?”

“Hello, Bryan.”

“Here’s how this works. You come with me, quietly. Otherwise, I kill you and him and that other guy when he shows up. You’ve totally fucked my life. Well, I’m fucking yours. I want my goddamned money.”

“It was my money.”

He enjoyed her hiss of pain as he grabbed her arm with his other hand and squeezed, his fingers digging in. “Wrong. It’s
my
money. I worked hard for it, and I want it, you fucking cunt. With lots of interest. I need it to start over. Then after I have a final goodbye with you, I’ll go and you’ll never see me again.”