Tearing Down Walls (Love Under Construction Series Book 2) (22 page)

There was nothing but silence. Laura wasn’t afraid anymore. She felt light as a whisper, carefree and warm like a spring day. When she opened her eyes, she saw Vic and Tony, and then Peyton joined them. She was trying to see what they were doing, and then she realized: The person lying on the ground was her. Like a reconnaissance drone hovering over a Taliban stronghold, she could see what was going on from overhead. She saw Vic pounding like a madman on her chest, and Tony and Peyton doodling with some kind of funny box.

While they were occupied with the box, she could tell Vic was saying something, and she could hear it, hear him telling her to come back, and how sorry he was that he’d promised to keep her safe and hadn’t. She was surprised – it looked like he was crying, but she couldn’t tell, and she didn’t want to go back there. It was peaceful and quiet where she was; any threat she’d felt, any anxiety or worry, had evaporated.

Then Tony took out a knife and cut her shirt open. Damn, she didn’t like that. They could see everything. Not nice. She saw Vic say something to him, and Tony took the knife and cut her bra right in the center.
Hey, that was my favorite bra!
, she thought. He pulled her bra apart, and there they were – her greatest shame, exposed to the daylight, the air, and the scrutiny of three men. She watched as Tony and Peyton’s mouths fell open.

But not Vic’s.

A tear trailed down his cheek, but he kept pumping on her chest and yelled something at Tony and Peyton. They started pressing buttons, then she saw Vic snatch his hands away and her body jumped, but nothing else happened.

Vic went back to pumping on her chest while Tony punched the buttons again and Peyton sat there like he was stoned. She saw Vic yank his hands back once more and Tony pushed the button again. There was a buzzing sound – what was that? – and Laura felt herself being pulled like she was being drawn down through a funnel.
No! I don’t want this! Leave me be!
, she wanted to scream. Then everything went black.

“I’ve got a pulse!” Vic yelled. Peyton shook off his shock and called for an ambulance while Tony sprinted to his wrecked truck and got a tarp out, then drew it over Laura. “Fairly even,” he mumbled, and Tony put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder.

“Vic, you couldn’t possibly . . .”

“I failed her. I promised her I’d keep her safe but . . .”

“You couldn’t. We can’t be everywhere at once,” Tony said.

Peyton hung up the phone and rejoined them. “Yeah, man. You got here as fast as you could. What did he do to her?”

“Taser.” Vic pointed to two burn marks on her chest just above her left breast. “Bastard tased her right above her heart. Cardiac arrest. Why didn’t he just kill her? What was he planning to do, torture her? Like she hasn’t been tortured enough?” And just like that, he fell apart. Before Tony could do or say anything, Vic dropped to his hands and knees, chest heaving, sobbing so hard he couldn’t speak. Tony moved over beside him and put an arm around him.

“Bud, it’s gonna be all right. You saved her life, right now, this minute. We’ve got to get her to the hospital, and I’m betting she’ll be fine.”

“How long was she out?” Vic asked between sobs.

“I don’t know, but it seemed like longer than it really was. How’s her pulse?” he asked, trying to think of something to keep Vic busy.

Vic checked again, looking at his watch and counting. “About seventy beats per minute.”

“That’s about normal. Just keep her warm.” Until that moment, none of them had noticed the thirty-three degree weather and the overcast sky. They heard voices and looked up to see Steve and José running toward them, followed by Doug.

“What the hell?” Steve yelled. “What did that fuckstick do to her?” he screamed, his hands on his head. José had a sad, scared look that made Peyton’s stomach knot.

“He tased her, threw her into cardiac arrest. We used Vic’s AED and got her heart started. Peyton called for a bus. God, where is the damn thing?” Tony asked nobody. A tear trickled down José’s face, and Doug’s expression was blank.

Vic sat on the pavement beside her, holding her hand and rocking to and fro. He was still sitting there with her, just like that, minutes later when the EMTs came to take her away.

“B
utler?” the physician called out as he came into the waiting area.

“That’s us!” Vic yelled out, and all six men, plus Nikki and Kelly, jumped up and headed for the door. “How is she?”

The doctor looked around at their anxious faces, and then he smiled. “She’s going to be fine. I don’t know who had the AED, but it saved her life. Whoever of you it was, you should be commended for your quick thinking.” He stopped, then asked, “Can anyone tell me about the scars she has?”

“IED exploded on her in Bosnia years back,” Steve said. “And she’s very sensitive about it too, so we’d ask that everyone involved in her care please be very kind and discreet. If she knew the three of them” he said, pointing at Tony, Peyton, and Vic, “had seen them, she’d be very upset.”

“As I can well understand,” the doctor said. “But I had to ask. I’ve never seen anything quite like that.” When two detectives walked into the room, the doctor told the little group to feel free to ask questions of any of the staff and excused himself to get back to work.

The detectives had no more introduced themselves than Bryson Hawkins walked through the door. Tony, Vic, and Steve stood and shook his hand, then Bryson looked at the two detectives and said, “I’ve got this, guys,” and the two men turned and left.

“Thanks for coming,” Tony told him. Not only was Bryson a childhood friend of Tony’s, but the Louisville homicide detective had worked tirelessly to help clear Tony the year before when he’d been accused of murdering his ex-wife. “It’s good of you to step in on this. We could use some help.”

“That’s my job,” Bryson said, “seeing as it was an attempted homicide. But I’d like to see you sometime when something’s not going wrong! Maybe we could have drinks sometime?”

“Sure! Get the wives together, all that.”

“Yeah, hi Bryson!” Nikki said and rose to shake his hand. Instead, he hugged her, and she hugged him back.

“Hi yourself, missy! Now, how about you guys tell me what the hell happened out there?” Bryson pulled a notepad out of his jacket.

All of the guys started telling Bryson everything they knew. He was writing as fast as he could, and he couldn’t keep up. Nikki felt bad for Vic. He was as nervous as a cat, bouncing his heels on the floor and playing with his keys. He was making Nikki nervous. She watched as he fingered each key, and she heard Tony say, “We just can’t figure out how he’s finding her no matter what we do.”

And Nikki’s heart stopped because, just as Tony said that, Vic’s fingers flipped his Walters Construction key fob around. “Fuck me,” she blurted right out loud. Every head, including those of people they didn’t know in the waiting room, turned to her.

“What, baby?” Tony asked, looking at her funny.

“The key fob.”

“What? What about the key . . .”

“Aw, fuck,” Peyton said and looked at Nikki.

Tony and Vic looked horrified, and Steve’s face turned bright red. “That’s how he’s found her everywhere we dropped her.” Peyton was shaking his head. “He’s got the same technology Steve’s using, and he’s pulled our chip information. He’s been tracking her; he’s been tracking
all
of us. He knows where we are all the time. Everywhere.” Every Walters Construction employee, Walters family members, and all of Steve’s employees carried the key fobs, each outfitted with a microchip transponder that gave their navigational information to Steve’s techs at the touch of a keystroke. And not one of them had thought of it until that moment. For once, Vic’s nervous energy had served a purpose.

“Oh my god. We’ve got to get that key fob away from her,” Vic said.

But Nikki and Steve were thinking something else. “We have the key fob. We can use it,” Nikki said.

“That’s right,” Steve agreed. “We can lure him in. He doesn’t have any way of knowing that we’ve figured it out. Let’s use that to our advantage.”

“Then we need a plan,” Vic said. “And it doesn’t include using her as bait or, so help me god, I’ll kill whichever one of you suggests that.” Tony reached over and put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder to find that Vic was trembling all over.

“Yeah, we need a plan,” Steve said. “I don’t know what, but we’d better come up with something, and we’d better do it fast.”

Tony and Nikki went down to Helene’s room to visit her while everyone waited. Her doctor had announced that she was going home from the hospital the next day, and Tony insisted that she stay at the big house with them until she was released from her physician’s care.

When they got back, nothing had changed. But around four o’clock, a nurse came to the waiting area and told them that Laura was awake. Steve wanted to see her first, but the nurse said she was asking for Vic, Tony, and Peyton, so the three of them let her lead them down the hallway to the cubicle where they were holding Laura until they could get her a room.

Laura looked pale, and her hands shook uncontrollably. “How ya feeling, hon?” Tony asked her. She looked from him to Peyton, who smiled at her, and then to Vic. His usually dark face looked unusually light, and she wondered if he felt okay. And she couldn’t get him to look at her, which she thought was odd.

“I’m tired and I hurt all over,” she said, her voice soft and weak. “But I want to thank all three of you for saving my life – especially you, Vic. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.” He mumbled something she couldn’t understand. “What? I can’t hear you,” she said.

He looked at her, then looked down. “I said, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Wait,” Tony said. “How did you know it was the three of us?”

Laura stopped for a minute. How did she know that? No one had told her. She remembered snippets of something, a warmth and lightness, and she tried to focus on it. Then she remembered it all, everything she’d seen, and she gasped. “What, Laura?” Peyton asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her heart was racing. Images were dancing behind her eyes, all the events in that little slice of time, and she wasn’t sure if it was real. “But thanks for what you did.”

Tony gave her an odd look. “Well, we promised the nurse we wouldn’t stay long, so we’d better go and let you get some rest. I think Steve wants to come back and talk to you. José too; he said something about needing to apologize to you? We’ll see you soon, okay? Nikki and Kelly are out there, and they said to tell you they’ll come to see you tomorrow when you’re stronger.” He took her hand for a moment, then moved to the door.

Peyton took her hand for a minute too. “We’ve got to take better care of you from now on. You get some rest.” He bent and kissed her on the forehead, then tousled her hair and joined Tony at the door. They waited for Vic to say his goodbyes.

“Guys, I’d like to talk to Vic alone if that’s okay,” she said, surprising all three of them.

“Sure. Let’s go, Peyton. You guys have a nice visit.” Peyton gave Tony an odd look as they turned and walked away.

Laura looked at Vic. He was standing in the window, looking out and saying nothing, and for some reason it made her nervous. “Vic?”

He turned around but, instead of looking at her, he looked down at the floor. Pulling up a chair from across the room, he dropped into it beside the bed and rested his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, eyes still on the floor.

Laura didn’t know what to say. “Um, I just wanted to thank you. You’ve been so nice to me, and I haven’t always been nice to you, and I’m so sorry for . . .”

“No. I’m sorry.” His expression was pained and he still wasn’t looking at her. “I promised you I’d keep you safe, and I failed. Epic failure. And I’m so incredibly sorry. I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again.”

She was stunned. This man had raced across town at blinding, unsafe speeds, followed her straight into hell, and saved her life, and he was sorry? He buried his face in his hands, and she reached over and put her hand on his head, the softness and silkiness of that jet-black hair he was so proud of like water under her fingertips. He raised his face to her and said, “I’m just so sorry. You have no idea.”