Текст книги "Kill Shot"

Автор книги: Lani Lynn Vale

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Chapter 18

I’m a right bitch until I have my coffee.

-True Story

Lennox

Four weeks later

“They found a paper trail?” I asked Michael.

He’d found me in the maze of a hospital where I was eating lunch in the break room that nobody used.

Michael nodded. “Yep. The judge’s already put in her resignation, effective immediately. All cases that the judge has heard in the past eighteen months have been put on review.”

I took a deep breath.

“Thank God,” I whispered shakily. “I’ve been racking my brain for the last four weeks. I’ve had my dad using his resources and his PI to help. He had nothing, though.”

I picked at my salad, still unable to eat.

I’d lost fifteen pounds that I really shouldn’t have lost in the four weeks since Bennett had literally dropped off the face of the earth.

I’d had to change phones again, just yesterday. Now I didn’t even bother calling him.

Michael nodded. “Yeah, he’s been delivering information to us. All of it useless, but efficient nonetheless.”

I nodded. “Good.”

“You don’t look good,” he said softly.

I shrugged, avoiding his eye.

“I have to go back to work,” I said, standing and throwing my untouched salad in the trash.

I could see Michael frown as he watched my movements out of the corner of my eye.

“I tried to come by and see you yesterday, but your house was empty,” Michael said.

I grimaced.

“I had a few…people show up. They were looking for me and I felt it prudent to move before it got worse,” I told him.

“What kind of people?” He asked, standing now too.

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

Michael frowned.

“Did you file a report?” He asked me as my hand met the doorknob to the break room.

How had he found me, anyway? I ate back here so nobody could find me.

Somebody would’ve had to tell him where I was.

Fucking Paxton and Melissa.

Nosy fuckers.

“Nope. What would be the point?” I remarked sadly, letting the door shut softly behind me as I left.

Not looking back, because if I did, he’d see.

He’d know my heart was broken.

***

Using the brand new key I’d just picked up from my landlord, I opened the door to the apartment I’d rented a few days ago, looking at Cola and smiling for the first time since I’d left for work.

She had three balls in her mouth, and she was shaking her big booty to the tune of the commercial playing on the TV.

“Hey baby,” I said, running my fingers through her long fur as I shut the door firmly behind me.

She whined low in her throat at the attention I was giving her, leaning on me enough that I stumbled.

“Oy,” I said laughingly. “Get your butt off me and let’s go outside.”

At the mention of outside, she started to turn around in circles, losing one of the balls from her mouth, and trying frantically to pick it up once again.

Laughing, I walked into the bedroom and slipped my clothes off as I went.

Changing into a pair of short shorts and a tank top, I walked to my closet, slipped my feet into my tennis shoes, sockless, and went back out to the living room.

I didn’t bother walking anywhere else.

Had I, I would’ve seen that I wasn’t alone.

I would’ve seen Corrinne sitting at the table with a gun in her hands.

I’d nearly made it to my front door when the first bullet tore through my belly.

It played out about like the movies.

I instantly placed my hands over my belly.

And blood started to slip between my fingers.

I looked down and moved my hand up to my face, looking at the blood on my hands like it was a delusion.

I’d felt blood before.

Lots of times.

Never my own blood, though.

It felt like warm syrup.

Sticky like it, too.

Then the pain hit me, dropping me to my knees.

Then further to my back.

That’s when I saw Corrinne standing over me, a proverbial smoking gun in her hand.

“Why?” I rasped.

She didn’t answer, instead bending down with a packet of something in her hand, and pouring it over my wound.

“Don’t want you to die on me too fast. That wouldn’t work out well for either of us. I’m gonna need you,” she said cheerfully.

I blinked. Then blinked again.

“What?” I rasped, belly stinging from whatever she’d poured on it.

Then I was unceremoniously kicked to my belly where the same burning sensation started on my back.

What was she pouring on my wound, salt?

It wouldn’t surprise me if she had.

Cola whined, licking my face, and the tears I hadn’t been aware I was shedding.

I turned my face to see her pace away from me, only able to see the bottom half of her body as she made what I assumed was a phone call.

I was proven right in the next moment when she started to frantically speak into the phone about ‘gunshots’ and ‘a crazy lady shooting.’

She dropped the phone, which I distantly realized was my house phone, and went down on one knee beside my head.

She looked down at me with hate-filled eyes.

“Why?” I asked tiredly.

My mind was sluggish from what I guessed was blood loss, but I wanted to know. No, needed to know.

She smiled savagely.

“You nearly talked him out of it,” she said. “You had him telling me he was leaving me. Had I not convinced him otherwise, you would’ve ruined my life.”

I shook my head in denial. “How is it ruining your life to help someone get away from a psycho like you? You’d have just found another poor soul to do your bidding.”

“Because I was on the fast track to jail. He had money to pay the people off, and I needed it quick. I’d nearly gotten him to propose when you showed up with your high and mighty self. Lucky for me that you weren’t as good as a convincer as you thought you were,” she sneered.

I didn’t say anything, deciding that maybe it’d be best if I just didn’t say anything at all.

“And what are you going to do now? You’ve lost. I just heard that this afternoon,” I said weakly.

Corrinne moved down, placing her face close to mine.

“Yeah, I just heard that, too. From Buck, when he told me he was leaving, and taking all my money with him,” she hissed. “Which is why I’m at plan B.”

Plan B.

Wonderful. Shooting me was Plan B.

“And what now? What’s the play now?” I asked, coughing slightly.

My stomach screamed in protest, only making me cough all the harder.

Which was when I tasted blood.

The coppery taste made my stomach roil, and I knew that I only had an hour, at most, to live.

Coughing blood up was a bad thing.

“Now I just take you both out. Hostage situation means he’ll come. You’ll live long enough for him to get here, then I’ll take you both out. Then there’ll be no one left for Reagan but me,” she declared.

Was this woman insane?

She really had to be.

No sane person would think that something like this would work.

Bennett wasn’t stupid, and anyway, he’d proven just how much I meant to him in the past couple of weeks.

“It won’t work,” I promised.

She was bonkers.

She sneered, and I heard the first siren.

“Watch and learn,” she said, standing up and going to the table.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she went for my phone.

She grinned manically as she came over to me, snapped a picture, and then said, “I’m sending this to your boyfriend. I think the blood pooling around you adds a nice effect.”

I tried to sit up and grab the phone from her, but the minute I put pressure on my belly pain bloomed like an out of control fire, centering in my belly and radiating out so that I felt it in the tips of my toes.

My God, who knew that being shot hurt so fucking much?

“Trouble in paradise? I don’t see him in your phone!” She jeered.

I refused to even answer her.

God, how do I get into these things?

“Now the fun begins,” she smiled widely, and pointed the gun at my face. “Good thing I know the number.”

Bang.

Chapter 19

Grab a straw, because you suck.

-Lennox to Bennett

Bennett

“What do you mean she moved?” I asked in surprise.

Why had she moved?

Probably because you’re a dumbass and have been ignoring her for the last month.

I winced at the course of my thoughts.

I had done that.

But only because I needed time.

Time to figure out this mess. To get that fucked up woman out of my life. To move on with Lennox.

She was probably pissed as hell.

“From what I gather, she had strange men showing up at her house,” Michael said slowly, watching my face.

“What?” I barked, moving to my feet.

He nodded. “Yeah, so I called the chief on the way here and asked him if he could look into it. Apparently, a couple of uniformed officers responded to a call about men not leaving her property when responding to a Craigslist ad.”

My hands went up and spiked through the hair that’d grown back in the month that I hadn’t seen Lennox.

God, what had I done?

“Is she okay?” I asked, coming to a decision.

“Yeah, she’s fine,” he answered, watching me shove my feet into my boots and lace them up with a knowing smile on his face.

As I stood, I offered him my hand. “Thanks man. I don’t think I would’ve pulled my head out sooner if you hadn’t said something.”

He took my hand. “That’s what a partner is for. To have our backs.”

I’d just stepped over the threshold of the door to my house when our pagers started going off, causing me to curse.

“Fuck!” I roared, pulling the pager off my belt loop and looking at it in disgust. “You could’ve gone off anytime, but you choose now?”

Just as I was pulling my phone out to confirm I was on my way, a text message came through that dropped me literally to my knees.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, looking at the sight of my future lying on the ground, her lifeblood spread all around her.

“No, no, no, no, no…” I repeated over and over, my eyes not conveying to my brain to get the lead out and get to her.

Michael, who was down on one knee beside me now, snatched the phone from my hand and looked at it, studying it quickly.

Pulling his own phone out, he dialed, and then barked into the receiver. “We need to trace a photo that just came to Bennett’s phone. Lennox has been shot.”

I took the phone back away from him and pressed the green phone button that would connect me automatically to the sender of the text message.

It rang three times before Corrinne answered, turning my blood to ice.

“You think that I would just take it lying down? You’ve got another think coming,” she laughed.

My eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Where are you?”

“Oh,” she sneered. “You haven’t gotten the call out yet? Give it a moment and I’m sure you’ll get it.”

With that she hung up, and I was running to my truck.

“The callout,” I said when Michael caught up to me and hopped into the passenger seat. “It’s for Lennox.”

Ten minutes later found me in a standoff with my boss.

“Bennett, I don’t give a fuck if you think you can handle it or not,” Luke growled into my face. “You’re. Not. Fucking. Coming.”

I shoved him. “Like hell I’m not. I’ll be coming whether you fucking want me to or not.”

“Lock him up,” Luke barked to the man at my side.

I turned to study Nico and shook my head.

“Goddammit,” I growled in frustration, sitting down on the nearest chair. “Just fucking go. And don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die.”

My eyes conveyed every emotion I was feeling right then, and Luke flinched back at the sight.

“I won’t let anything more happen to her,” he lied.

We both knew it was a lie, but it was a lie we let happen because we both needed to think the best. To hope for the best.

When they left, I made it all of fifteen minutes before I walked out of the office, not sparing a single cop a look. Knowing if I had, they’d somehow try to stop me.

But there was no way I was leaving her there alone and hurt. I may not be in on the call, but I’d be there. Waiting.

I drove to the new place where Lennox was staying, which surprisingly was only minutes away from my place. And somewhere I ran past on a daily basis.

The duplex that she was staying in was easy to figure out by the people that were surrounding it.

Stomach doing summersaults the closer I got to her, I parallel parked behind a blue and white and in front of a white sedan, and started walking to the command tent I saw erected, with Downy at the helm.

Downy was a good talker, so it came as no surprise when Luke had sent him to school to become the team’s hostage negotiator.

He was damn good at what he did, and I was happy to have him where he was at that moment in time.

Downy clocked me almost immediately, and just shook his head, not surprised in the least that I was there.

He pointed to a chair, and I sat, my elbows on my knees.

“This is Officer Downy with the Kilgore Police Department. I’m a negotiator here to…yes ma’am. No ma’am,” Downy said, all the while watching the first floor window where I could see the curtains twitch as if someone was there, watching the festivities.

Then Downy barked, “Fuck!”

I blinked and turned to him, half standing.

“Sit!” He growled.

I sat.

“What is it?” I asked.

He ignored me and got on his mic.

“She doesn’t want to talk to anyone but Bennett, or she says she’ll shoot Lennox again,” Downy relayed.

I leaned over taking in deep gulps of air.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “Please.”

I prayed.

I could do nothing less.

Then I heard a gunshot, and my stomach plummeted.

Followed by another, and another.

The phone rang and Downy answered it.

“Give him the phone!” A woman roared.

Downy handed me the phone, and it took everything I had to keep the dinner I’d had only an hour before in my stomach where it belonged.

“Corrinne,” I said brokenly once the phone was in my hand and pressed to my ear.

“I can fucking see you sitting there, acting like your heart is broken. You want to know what broken is? When your parents disown you and kick you out before you’re seventeen. When you’re raped repeatedly on the streets because that’s the only way they’ll let you live. That’s what broken hearted is. Then I caught a break, got into college, lived in the dorm with this stupid cunt, and met Buck. But then this stupid bitch,” she shrieked. “Tried to take that all away from me. Lucky for me, though, that Buck was a dumbass and didn’t take what she’d said to heart. I was living a good life, too, until you fucked everything up by taking all my money!”

My head dropped, and my stomach continued to roil.

I felt it at the base of my throat, threatening to come up with each inhalation.

Swallowing convulsively, I said the only thing I could say. “I’m sorry.”

She laughed humorlessly. “Fuck sorry.”

***

Lennox

I flinched as, once again, she aimed the gun at me, and shot wide.

Bullet holes were spread out along my outstretched body, only inches away from my flesh.

My breath sucked in and I prayed for the four hundred and seventy fifth time.

Not for myself, though. For Bennett.

I didn’t want him to come in here and see me like this.

Because, if I was being honest, I was fairly sure I was about to die.

There was no way she’d let me leave.

Not alive.

And not with how hate filled she was.

Spewing venom was all she’d been doing for the last hour.

How much she hated me. How much she hated Bennett. How that ‘fucking brat’ had ruined her life.

On and on and on.

I felt horrible for her as she relayed what had happened to her to warrant her being the way she was now, but that didn’t give her the right to go around shooting people.

Ears ringing once again, I opened my eyes to see her staring out the window once again.

She wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to the door, which was why when I saw the black plastic tube fit underneath the door frame, I realized that just maybe I’d be getting out of this soon.

Turning my head as if not to draw attention to it, I closed my eyes and prayed that they’d be quick.

And they were.

My guess that it was a camera was proven right in the next moment when the door was kicked in, and black clad figures swarmed the room.

I sighed in relief, thanking God that they’d come.

Who I didn’t see, though, was Bennett.

There were seven figures.

Blue tag. Red tag. Green tag. Purple tag. Orange Tag. Yellow tag. Brown Tag. But no pink tag.

Bennett wasn’t there, and I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that.

“Get down on the ground!” A muffled roar sounded once they entered the room.

“Drop the gun!” From another.

“Down!”

“Get down and drop the gun!”

They all had their guns trained on Corrinne, and Corrinne, unsurprisingly, lifted her gun, took aim, and died.

Because every single man in the room shot her.

I closed my eyes, really not wanting to see her face explode.

It was hard enough to see her body jerk.

I didn’t want to keep my eyes open for the rest.

A hand touched my face, and I opened my eyes to see one of the black clad men leaning over me.

“You’ll be okay,” Nico said.

His voice, slightly hinted with a Spanish accent, poured through me, loosening my taught limbs.

I breathed deeper, surprised when the movement didn’t hurt as much as it had been previously.

“I’m going into shock,” I told him. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Fuck,” he said. “I NEED A MEDIC!”

I watched, as if in a haze, as the room exploded in activity.

All of the men found a job to do, but four of them, as many as they could fit, dropped down to their knees telling me that I’d be okay.

“I’m going to die,” I told them.

“No you are not!” Michael emphasized forcefully. “Do you really want to leave Bennett? Do you know what you leaving will do to him?”

I was so tired.

“I’m tired,” I said simply.

“No. You will stay with me. Think of Reagan and Bennett. They love you. Where will that leave them if you go?”

“He doesn’t want me,” I whispered as fiercely as I could, which happened to be not that much.

There was a commotion and Luke and Downy moved.

When had they taken off their masks?

Then Bennett was there, and he was bending down over me, placing both hands on my face.

His beautiful eyes were filled with tears, and if there was one thing I could make happen for the rest of my life, it would be to never see that happen again.

He’d done enough, gone through enough, throughout his life. He didn’t deserve to be sad.

“Don’t cry,” I rasped, bringing my hand up.

But it never made it to his face, his beautiful beard, where I’d intended it to go.

It got about three inches off the floor before it fell back down with a small thump.

He took my hand, and placed it on his face for me and said, “I do want you. I want you more than my next breath.”

My eyes closed, and I smiled. “I fucking love you, Bennett. I’ll miss you.”

Then my eyes closed and I was done.

I was so tired, and that white light was trying to take me.

Chapter 20

I have mixed drinks about feelings.

-T-shirt

Bennett

My eyes opened as I heard the sound of tennis shoes on the tiled floor.

Payton was running towards me with Max close on her heels.

And behind them was Lennox’s parents. Both running as well with their white hospital coats flapping behind them.

They reached me at the same time, and I made myself stand and explained what happened.

“Corrinne held her hostage,” I said without preamble. “She shot her in the belly, and they took her straight to surgery. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she coded in the back of the ambulance twice before they got some fluids into her.”

I’d ridden to the hospital, never so thankful in my life that Tai, one of my other good friends with the Fire Department and a paramedic, had been the one to work on her.

I just sat in the front seat and prayed. I’d never prayed so hard in my life.

Tai, never one to bullshit, was the first person to tell me that she was bad. One of the worse cases he’d seen in a very long time.

“Who’s the doctor?” Brock asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. They got her in so fast that they,” I was interrupted by another set of running feet.

This time it was Paxton, followed shortly by Melissa.

“What happened?” Paxton yelled.

I held my hand up for silence as everybody tried to speak at once.

Once I had semi-order, I said, “She was shot.”

“By who?” Melissa cried.

I ran my hands over my eyes roughly as I said, “Corrinne.”

“That…that…that…” Melissa cried.

“…bitch?” Paxton snarled.

Then, suddenly, I wasn’t alone anymore.

Lennox’s family rallied around me, as well as Payton and Max, and they kept me sane throughout the next two hours of nerve wracking waiting.

The men from Free were there, too.

Gabe, Sam, Jack. Their women.

My parents. Reagan. Lennox’s brother and sister.

I was even more surprised when my team came back.

They’d had to go back to debrief, and I didn’t expect them to come, but they did.

Which wasn’t surprising after I thought about it.

They had my back just as I had theirs.

Then the women started coming, further humbling me.

“Thanks for coming,” I said roughly to Shiloh.

She kissed my head. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else, honey.”

So there I sat, family surrounding me, and heart heavy as I waited for news on Lennox.

“This is ridiculous,” Brock snarled, standing up to pace back and forth to the door and back. “I work at this hospital. I should be there.”

“Honey,” Lucinda said gently. “You’re a distraught parent. You’re not going to be any help. Not to mention they need a general surgeon, not a hysterical cardiac doctor.”

Brock shot his wife a look, and continued to stand at the mouth of the hallway, watching the closed door as if he could will it open with his mind.

“Dammit,” Lucinda sighed. “That man can do open heart surgery without a shaky hand, but when it comes to his babies, he’s a mess.”

I looked over at Lennox’s mom, and smiled. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?”

She smiled sadly at me. “I’ve missed you, Bennett. I’m glad y’all have worked it out.”

I wanted to throw up.

“Yeah,” I croaked. “Just wish I’d done it earlier.”

She moved until her knees were facing mine, and I looked up, straight into eyes that reminded me so much of Lennox that it hurt.

“You are a good man,” she said softly. “She told me, repeatedly, over the last month to have faith in you, so that’s what I’ll do. Have faith in you. And you’ll have to have faith in her in return.”

There went those fuckin’ tears again.

I could feel them filling my eyes, and helpless as fuck, they spilled over.

“Thanks,” I croaked. “I’ll have faith in her.”

I hadn’t been, but I needed to.

Should have from the beginning.

“Jane family,” a tired voice said from beyond the hallway.

I immediately stood, offering my hand to Lucinda, and started forward just as Brock got there.

“Are you her parents?” The haggard doctor asked in surprise.

It made sense that they would know each other. Doctors knew other doctors.

Lucinda wrapped her arm around my waist, pulling me into her side. Instinctually, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me as well.

“That’s us,” Brock said. “This is her husband to be.”

Husband to be.

Fuck me.

I was.

I had the ring.

I’d had it for over two weeks.

Had intended to use it, too, yet I was a dumbass and wanted to wait for this to be finished first.

God, I was a fucking idiot.

The doctor, an older man with salt and pepper hair and brilliant green eyes, nodded and indicated a room.

My stomach dropped as we followed.

Why wouldn’t he just say it right there?

Lucinda started to cry softly at my side, and I knew I wasn’t alone in my fears.

“Jason,” Brock croaked the second the door closed. “Just tell us, please.”

Jason dropped his head and ran his head along the back of his neck.

“She coded three times while we were in the operating room,” he started. “We were able to get her back, but we had to crack her chest open. She sustained a laceration to her uterus that we were able to repair, and the bullet lodged about an inch from her spinal cord.”

Bile started to rise in my throat as I thought about all that she’d had to go through, and I clenched my eyes tightly shut as he continued to speak.

Each thing he expounded on put another nail in my coffin.

“Major blood loss, shock, she had a reaction to the blood we gave her and started to seize. Gave her some epi and she responded well to it, but there’s a lot more hurdles she’ll have to get over before she’ll make it onto the other side. But I have faith that she can do it. I’ve never seen a woman fight like she did. The next twenty four hours will be the major turning point for her, and I think that if she makes it through the night, then she’ll be okay. I’m going to allow the three of you to stay with her tonight in the ICU, because I know you’ll have nothing less, but I want you to take care with her. Talk to her. Tell her about your day. Anything to give her that will to survive. To fight,” Jason explained.

Brock sat down heavily into the chair at my side, and Lucinda dropped.

I caught her, helping her into a chair, and realized that maybe what I heard and what they heard probably weren’t one in the same.

“What…what’s going on?” I asked Brock, no bullshitting from me.

“Give her an hour to get back into her room. She’ll be in 444.”

Jason left, patting Brock on the shoulder as he left, shutting the door softly behind him.

I backed up, putting my back against the wall so I could see them both, and stared until Brock lifted his eyes.

Tears were streaming down his face.

“Tell me,” I pleaded.

“They don’t,” he swallowed. “They don’t think she will make it through the night. They wouldn’t have allowed us to all stay. The ICU has strict rules, and they don’t deviate from them unless they don’t think the patient will make it. Which is one and the same with Lennox.”

“Fuck. That.” I yelled. “Take me to her! She won’t fucking leave me. I don’t care what I have to do.”

Turning around and yanking the door open, I walked straight to my sister.

“Payton, I need you to bring that box on my nightstand. And grab my pillow and blanket off the bed. And one of my t-shirts off the floor. Got it?” I snapped.

She nodded warily. “Of course. I’ll bring it right back, okay?”

I nodded, and turned to look at my friends. “They don’t expect her to make it through the night. So y’all can go home, just…keep her in your prayers, okay?”

Every last one of the people filling the waiting room nodded. My friends and family. New friends. Old friends. Parents and soon to be parents in laws.

They were all here for my Lennox, and I wanted it to be for a much better occasion, but it was what it was.

Hopefully, in a few months, they’d be coming around for a completely different occasion.

Only time would tell.