True Vision (37 page)

He rushed forward to brace her, support her, whatever she needed, realizing belatedly that he hadn’t thought to try to get Ativan from the medics. A hard shudder racked her body, and then her knees gave way. He lowered her carefully to the floor, and her head lolled over his arm. He waited for the moment when she’d look up at him, no longer senseless.

When she relaxed this time, though, she didn’t gasp in air as though surfacing from the deep end of a pool. And she didn’t open her eyes. It took him a moment to realize she’d lost consciousness.

Logan walked into the kitchen talking: “We need to secure the crime scene—”

Noah looked up at the stricken police detective, fear closing his throat. “We need another ambulance.”

CHAPTER
SIXTY-SEVEN

N
oah paced the ER waiting room, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, but the double swinging doors through which the paramedics had rushed with Charlie. He’d shouted at them in the ambulance to give her a tranquilizer. While one medic questioned why when she was already unresponsive, the other commented that her heart rate was off the charts and her blood pressure was rising. Then a horrible beeping alarm had gone off, and the next thing Noah knew, the medics were diving for defibrillator paddles.

Shuddering at the memory of Charlie’s heart being shocked back into rhythm, he flipped open his cell phone and started to call information to get AnnaCoreen’s number before he realized he couldn’t remember her last name.
Shit.

Logan pushed through the double doors then, and Noah met him halfway, the sober look on the other cop’s face stirring terror he had to struggle to contain.

“How’s she doing?” Noah asked.

“They don’t know what’s wrong with her.” Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re doing blood work.”

“Can I see her?”

“I doubt it. They’ve got her in one of the back rooms. They just chased me out.”

Noah wanted to scream at the way he’d been shut out, but Logan knew these people, and he didn’t. “Have they given her anything? She needs a tranquilizer.”

“Yeah, yeah, they gave her something to get her heart rate stabilized and blood pressure down. An alpha-blocker something or other. It seemed to be working when they made me leave.”

Noah’s shoulders sagged. “Okay, then. She’ll be fine now.” She had to be.

Logan cleared his throat. “They’re thinking it was an epinephrine overdose, but it doesn’t make sense. She’s not taking anything like that, and they didn’t give her any.”

“Epinephrine is a form of adrenaline,” Noah said.

“But where’d it come from?”

Her own body, Noah thought, feeling sick. The combination of flash fatigue and the attack on Hunter had overdosed her. Or, rather, she’d overdosed herself by insisting on touching the guy when she knew she was already in a vulnerable position. That’s what you did when you loved someone. You put yourself at risk, blind to the consequences.

Noah sank down onto a nearby chair, seeing again the kiss she’d given the man who’d said he loved her. He hung his head, fighting down the despair gathering inside him. He was going to lose her. He knew it in his gut.

“Alteen’s in surgery,” Logan said, probably talking just to talk. “Ruptured testicles.” He winced and paled further as he said it. “Sounds like Charlie defended herself pretty well.”

“Good for her,” Noah growled. He wouldn’t have minded rupturing some testicles himself, but Charlie had obviously taken the fuckwad down all on her own.

The ER doors swung outward and a hulking man in blue scrubs sauntered through, one hand under his scrubs shirt lazily scratching his belly. Logan approached with his hand outstretched. “Dr. Henderson, hi. How is she?”

Henderson’s bushy salt-and-pepper brows drew together as he shook the detective’s hand, but he wasn’t scowling. He was smiling. “Good, really good. Remarkable, really. I expect a full, though puzzling, recovery. In fact, she’s already awake and asking for . . .” He trailed off, as though trying to remember the name.

Noah rose, buoyed by hope.

Dr. Henderson snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes, a fellow named Mac.”

Noah felt his world deflate, his heart break.

Logan said, “Mac is the other patient back there.”

“Oh, is he? Dr. Phillips is working on him. Severe head trauma. Very serious. It’s been a bit touch and go, I’m afraid.”

Noah turned away without hearing the rest. Charlie had regained consciousness and asked for Mac Hunter. And, really, that made sense. Hunter was the better man. Untainted by sins of the past. Worthy in a way that Noah could never be.

He also knew who killed Laurette and why, and the murderer’s balls were under the knife. His work here was done.

While Logan and Henderson continued their conversation, Noah turned and walked out of the ER.

CHAPTER
SIXTY-EIGHT

One week later

T
he afternoon sun warmed the back of Charlie’s neck as she broke up clumps of dirt and sand with her gloved hands, smoothing out the topsoil in Nana’s garden. Several small clay pots and seed packets were lined up along the edge of the garden. She planned to start seedlings in the pots, then transfer them to the garden once they’d sprouted some leaves. She’d learned from books she’d gotten from the library that she was starting her herb garden about a month late, but maybe summer would start cool this year. You never knew.

Besides, it felt good to work in the garden, good for her soul, just as Nana had professed so often when she’d been alive. When Charlie had her hands buried in the dirt, she didn’t think about the ache that resided so deep inside her that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to dig it out. The ache for Noah.

If Alex had her way, Charlie would have been in Chicago three days ago. But Charlie held back, sensing Noah needed time to work something out. She didn’t know what, but she could be patient. For a while.

In the meantime, she focused on helping Alex deal with healing. She wasn’t alone: Logan had been sticking to Alex like Velcro. So far, Alex had given no further indication that she was empathic, as Charlie had suspected after her sister had come to talking about the dead woman under the stairs. Just as well, Charlie thought. One of them with turbo empathy was enough.

Mac’s recovery also was progressing nicely. He and Charlie had made their peace with each other, and though awkwardness still intruded, she knew they’d get through it. At first, he’d vowed to win her heart back from the Chicago cop. He said it shouldn’t be too difficult since the dirtbag had bolted on her. She hadn’t been able to argue with that. Noah
had
bolted. And at times, when she was feeling especially raw and hurt, she thought “dirtbag” was too kind a word for the man who’d stolen her vulnerable heart and shredded it.

Regardless, she and Mac had talked a lot over the past week, and he’d come to the realization that he’d been so desperate to get her back because everything else in his life had fallen apart. He’d tried to cling to her, convinced she could make things right again. That job fell to him and only him.

Now if only she could figure out what was up with Noah . . .

“I hope you’re wearing sunscreen.”

She looked up into the sun, her heart leaping. She had to shield her eyes to put a face on the hulking shape standing before her. Even then, his eyes were hidden by mirrored sunglasses.

“Noah,” she breathed. She had to fight the simultaneous urges to jump him and scream at him. Instead, she rose gracefully, shedding the mud-caked gardening gloves, taking her time checking him out. He wore olive safari shorts and a white T-shirt that adhered so nicely to his chest that she could make out each tantalizing bulge and ripple.

She sensed him checking her out in return, sensed his gaze as it traveled from her head, where her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, over her face tanned from hours of working in Nana’s garden, down her white, dirt-smeared tank top to the short-short navy cotton shorts she would wear only in the privacy of her own backyard.

While she couldn’t see his eyes, she imagined she could feel their heat touching her. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Maybe he’d come to tell her it was over, that he’d given it some thought and decided the best thing to do was go their separate ways. After all, he lived in Chicago. She lived in Lake Avalon. They’d fallen for each other during a stressful time. Relationships like that never lasted. But why come all this way to say something he could have said on the phone?

Hope curled in the pit of her stomach. Please, please,
please
.

He gave her an uncertain smile, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his shorts and rocking back on his heels before breaking the tense silence. “So, how’s it going?”

How’s it going? How’s it
going
? She wanted to kick him. And then kiss him. No,
kicking
him would be so much more satisfying. But then she remembered his kisses. Now
those
were satisfying. “It’s going well,” she said, hating the telltale rasp in her voice. “And with you?”

He looked past her shoulder at the garden, his expression ambiguous. “You’ve been busy.”

She turned to look at the square area that she’d completely cleared of weeds. “I promised my grandmother I’d keep up her garden. And with another week before I go back to work, I should be able to get it in good shape.”

“You’re going back to work at the newspaper?”

She smiled. “Yes. Simon Walker is buying it.” She still couldn’t believe how generous he’d been about bailing the paper and her father out of a very deep financial pit. When she’d made the audacious suggestion to the billionaire that he make the
LAG
the test site for a new kind of journalism—the kind not hampered by advertisers or politics—she’d promised to make sure it was worth every penny to him. He’d laughed his belly laugh and agreed, saying he loved a challenge.

“That’s good news.” He smiled, clearly pleased for her. “And you’re doing okay? Last time I saw you . . .”

“I’m fine. I have alpha-blockers for the next time flash fatigue sets in. We won’t know whether they’ll work until it happens, but they seemed to work in the ER. In the meantime, I’ve been careful. No flashes for the past three days.” She realized she was babbling but couldn’t stop herself. “AnnaCoreen’s doctor has been a godsend. According to her brain scan, I’m not in any danger of my head exploding.” She paused, then added ruefully, “At the moment, anyway.”

“Good, that’s good.” He tilted his head back, and the expanse of his long throat and corded neck muscles made her mouth water. She noticed he gazed up at the sky as though he’d never get enough of its bright blue vastness. He was stalling, she realized, and waited for him to say what he wanted to say. God help him, it had better be what she wanted to hear.

He drew in a breath, let it out. “I got your messages,” he said.

All forty million of them? But instead of succumbing to sarcasm, she said, as blandly as possible, “I didn’t get any of yours.”

His face reddened, and he squinted behind the mirrored lenses. She wanted to rip those damn things off his face so she could see his incredible, green eyes. It’d been too long since she’d gotten to submerge in them. Her hands shook with the need.

“How’s Mac?” he asked.

She arched a brow at his flat tone. Was he just being polite because he knew how deeply she cared for Mac? “He’s doing well. No brain damage, and he should be good as new in a matter of months. Skip Alteen has pleaded guilty to a whole bunch of charges.”

“I heard about that,” he said, nodding. “Logan has kept me informed. About Alex, too. I’m glad she’s doing well.”

Charlie sighed, tired of the game they were playing. “What’s going on, Noah? I came to in the hospital, and Logan said you took off. Now I find out he’s been keeping you informed when I can’t even get you to return one phone call?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I didn’t want to get in the way.”

“The way of what?”

“You and Mac.”

She stared up at him, shocked. “What did Logan tell you?”

“Nothing. I . . . I saw it for myself.”

“Saw what?”

“He said he loved you, and you kissed him.” He paused, scowled. “Like you love him back. And then you asked for him instead of . . . well, me. I thought maybe . . . crap, Charlie. I thought maybe you might want him back. He’s a good man, a
better
man. And I didn’t want to get in the way of that, in case that’s what you wanted. He’s . . . damn it, he’s better for you.”

She glared at him for a full minute, fighting the urge to shove him back with both hands and tell him he was an idiot for making such a huge, asinine assumption.

Noah made a low growling sound. “So are you going to say something or what?”

“You’re a nitwit.”

His brows arched above his glasses. “What?”

“Mac is a dear friend. Yes, I love him. And, yes, we have a history. But that’s it.
History.
Yeah, I asked for him in the ER. Last time I saw him, he looked like he was
dying
. And what’s this business about him being a better man? I don’t even know what you mean by that.”

“He’s got a clean slate, Charlie. I’m . . . flawed.”

“We’re
all
flawed.”

“Some of us more than others.”

She sighed, shook her head. “This isn’t about me being able to accept what you did. I do accept it. I accept
you
. This is about you being able to forgive yourself, and I don’t appreciate you pretending that it’s about me and Mac when it’s about your own insecurity. I mean, that’s what this week has been about, isn’t it? You’re trying to give me an easy out. Well, I’m not taking it. I love you, Noah.
You.
Accept it or don’t.” She dragged a hand back through her hair and squinted into the sun, giving her eyes another excuse to water. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. Not this time. But, hell, the ball of emotion climbing up from her stomach into her throat expanded, making breathing evenly a challenge. Desperate to get away before she crumbled at his feet, she turned to walk away. Idiotic, insecure man.