“It’s ten thirty now.” Turner said.
“Exactly. I knew you were on your way over here. Figured I’d stop, check on everyone myself before I headed home to Gabby. Make certain everything is ok.”
“Buchanan’s not answering,” Jake said, looking back through the side window. “And he should be.”
“We were just about ready to use the key.”
125
Elliot swore. He had been in this job long enough that when his intuition flared, he was going to listen to it.
Jake and Turner had been shooting the shit on Carl Buchanan’s porch long enough for the man to have answered by now. “We certain he’s in there?”
“I saw movement,” Jake said, peering into the window one more time. “At least two bodies. I’m assuming from the size differences that they are Buchanan and Annie.”
“But that’s not a guarantee,” Turner said, a note of clear panic in his voice. Elliot got it. He’d panicked over Gabby a time or two, as well. It was hard not to when you loved a woman like that. “It could have been Carl and anyone else. Or Annie and someone else. But I don’t know who.”
“We haven’t been able to find Dennis Lee Arnold,” Elliot pointed out. That was what had truly had him tracking down Turner.
Everyone else had been accounted for. Except for Councilman Arnold. The one man with the most obvious connection to Collin Eugent.
Callum had made it clear that Collin Eugent had been financially sponsored by Dennis Lee Arnold from the age of nine.
That had told its own story.
“But I don’t think he’s the kind to do his own dirty work,” Turner said.
“Ambush, dynamite, shooting of Reggie Henedy—I can only assume at this point that Henedy was involved in this, along with Dennis Lee—it’s sounding like a final showdown,” Jake stepped away from the door, his hand tightening on his weapon. Elliot pulled his own. They were going in there tonight. He had no doubt about that.
Neither of the two men with him were going to walk away. Not with Annie in there. “And if the asshole responsible is going after Carl tonight, too…then we’ve sent Annie right into the fire with him.”
“Then let’s get in there and get her back,” Turner said, reaching for the doorknob. “I’m not leaving her in there a moment longer.”
“I agree with Barratt,” Jake said. “Let’s get Annie out.”
“Hold on. We have nothing solid to go on here. We’re not about to enter Carl Buchanan’s house without a warrant,” Elliot said. “Even if it is exigent circumstances.”
“I’ll make it right. No matter what. Carl will understand. And I’ve had keys to his place for a decade now. I’m going in there.” Turner looked him dead on. “Annie’s in there. I can’t just stand out here, doing nothing. What would you do? If it was Gabby in there?”
Elliot sighed. He knew exactly what he would do. What he had done. “I’d go right in there.”
“Then that is exactly what I am going to do.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” He looked at Jake. “Keep him behind us. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a civilian. I’m not about to lose the mayor on my watch.”
Hell, all he’d wanted to do was go home to Gabby and talk about making a few kids of their own.
This was not a part of his plan.
126
Annie knew who was outside. She just almost felt Turner’s presence. Carl had stopped talking, stopped protesting. She knew he was bleeding out, right there on the floor.
She didn’t know if she’d be able to help him, even if Councilman Arnold let her go.
He wasn’t exactly insane; not like she’d imagined Wallace Henedy had to have been when he shot Izzie. There just wasn’t exactly anything normal about him.
He was…cold. Like it was all a game to him. Izzie had told her that Wallace had rambled the whole time he’d had her and Nikkie Jean hostage.
Not like Councilman Arnold.
When the first sound of the doorbell had interrupted him standing over her with the gun, he’d yanked her closer. Then started dragging her from the den.
Toward what had to be a basement.
Most houses in Texas didn’t include basements. It was too hard to blast through the limestone, if the floodplain even allowed it.
Would Turner even think to search for her in the basement?
“Just let me go. Run. You know Turner will find Carl. Carl will tell Turner who shot him. The TSP will catch you. Jake MacNamara and Daniel McKellen and Elliot Marshall are friends of mine, friends of Turner’s. They will stop you.” Annie grabbed the handrail when he started down the first step.
He was going to have to yank her down the stairs if he wanted her in that basement.
Annie wasn’t about to make any of this easy for him. She also wasn’t going to just wait around for someone else to rescue her either.
Annie was just going to get through.
And then she was going to grab her man and have the life she wanted. Deserved.
Her, Turner, and the three little boys she loved so much.
Some deranged city councilman wasn’t going to stop that from happening. She was tired of someone else trying to control her life. Not anymore.
The man could shoot her, but that meant he’d be giving his position away. No doubt he wanted to escape detection more than he wanted her dead.
She was going to slow him down as much as possible.
Turner wouldn’t have come alone. Not with the ambush damaging his Lincoln. Turner was up there, with at least one other person. That would mean help. And that help was most likely TSP. “Turner’s coming for me!”
“Turner’s dead. I had Eugent take care of him already. Heard on the radio, the mayor was listed as DOA while you were cozying up to Carl.” He yanked her hand free from the rail. Annie wrapped the other arm around the top step, ignoring how the carpet stapled to it abraded her inner elbow. She could deal with carpet burn. But she was not going down those stairs. “Get moving, or I’ll shoot you right here.”
“They lied on the radio. Probably Elliot Marshall’s idea. We walked away tonight. I was there with them. It’s how I got this bruise and bandage. Officer Eugent was killed. Turner killed him. Slammed his head into a pile of rocks when Eugent tried to shoot us.”
Annie could only call his bluff. What else was she supposed to do? She had no clue what he intended if he got her to that basement level. Unless there was another door to the outside.
Did he honestly think he was going to be able to hide in Carl’s basement?
She wasn’t going to let him drag her down the stairs. Annie pulled her head back as far away from him and screamed. She kept screaming, even when his open hand slammed across her face.
His hand came at her again, attempting to cover her mouth.
Annie sank her teeth deep into the flesh of his hand.
He yelled and swore, and struck toward her again.
But Annie had cut her teeth avoiding a man’s fist. Dennis Lee Arnold was twenty pounds lighter than she was and only a handful of inches taller.
And she was thirty-five years younger and a whole lot more determined to survive.
As soon as he pulled closer, ready to yank her from the floor, Annie acted.
Using a trick Jake had taught her and Izzie when they were teenagers ready to go on their first dates, Annie slammed her foot into his stomach as hard as she could. She screamed again, yelling Turner’s name.
Then she kicked him one more time. Right between the legs. Her heel connected with his penis, and he jerked back.
He bent over double, his finger squeezing the trigger on the gun.
The echo nearly deafened her, though it was just a .38.
The bullet missed, sending shards from the concrete wall ricocheting everywhere. One sliced through her arm. Another embedded in her leg.
Annie didn’t stop.
She kicked one more time, and sent the man tumbling down the wooden stairs to Carl Buchanan’s basement
floor.
The bellow he made abruptly ended when he landed.
Annie just looked at him for a fraction of a second.
She jumped to her feet and ran.
127
Turner’s heart stopped the instant he heard the gunshot. He didn’t stop to think, he just ran toward where the sound originated from.
Someone tackled him from the side, and he went down. Beneath Elliot.
“Don’t move, Barratt. We don’t need you barreling in there, getting your ass shot, too,” Elliot hissed. “Let Jake and I handle this.”
Turner fought his way out from under the other man. “I have to find her!”
“No kidding. But if you get yourself killed, you won’t be much good for her.”
He knew Elliot was right, but logic and heart weren’t always in agreement. He wanted to yell her name, but didn’t.
“We have a man down!” Jake called quietly from the den off to the left of the main entryway. “It’s Buchanan, and it doesn’t look good. At least two GSWs.”
Turner rushed to the other room. He bit back the nausea when he saw the blood pooling beneath Carl. Jake already had his phone out, calling it in.
“Annie has to be around here somewhere.”
“And so does the shooter,” Elliot said. “You’ll do what I say. That means staying behind me. Better yet, stay with Carl.”
He looked at his old friend. He couldn’t deny that he was torn.
“I have to find her, El. I have to.”
Annie ran up the stairs and back through the house. “Turner!”
She kept running, until she saw the three men in the middle of the living room. Annie didn’t stop to think. She just leapt.
Turner’s arms were there to catch her. She sobbed his name.
He pulled back. “Are you hurt?”
“I’ll live. I have to help Carl!”
Elliot grabbed her arm and turned her. “Who did this to you? Is the house empty?”
“Basement. He’s…dead. I think. He fell. I didn’t go down to check. I just ran.” Annie hugged him one more time, then fell to her knees next to Carl. Jake had already begun first aid. Annie looked at Turner. “Get me some towels from the kitchen or something. We need to stop the blood and get him to the hospital.”
The men did as she instructed while Elliot took off toward the basement, his gun drawn.
Annie could have told him not to bother.
Dennis Lee Arnold wasn’t going anywhere.
128
Elliot leaned over the body of Councilman Dennis Lee Arnold and sighed. They were most likely not going to get their questions answered now. His neck was snapped, no doubt broken in the moment of impact.
But Elliot couldn’t find it in himself to feel much regret.
Arnold would have killed Annie tonight. That it was him at the bottom of these stairs instead was a minor miracle. One he wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon.
The sounds of sirens echoed through the distance.
Elliot secured the .38 that had landed near the man’s open hand, then left him at the bottom of the stairs.
He just hoped to hell that Carl Buchanan pulled through. The older man hadn’t deserved this.
Elliot hurried back up the stairs in time to see Annie pressing a dishtowel to an open wound on Carl’s back.
The older man had always been kind and helpful to Elliot. To Gabby when their paths had crossed.
To see him like this…He hoped to hell that Dennis Lee was the only bastard involved in this tonight. If not…
Elliot wasn’t going to stop hunting.
He was damned tired of his city being the center of so much pain and chaos. There were less than sixty thousand people in his city.
The number of crimes, especially violent ones, shouldn’t be as high as they were.
And it was his job to do something about it.
“How is he doing?”
“I don’t know. He shot him twice,” Annie said, tightly. Elliot took a quick moment to study her.
Her eye was swelling. Her lip was split. He recognized the signs of someone being struck. Dennis Lee Arnold had hurt her.
No doubt to hurt Turner from some sick sort of revenge. “Why did he do it, Annie?”
He was so damned glad to see her pretty blue eyes looking at him now. She would recover. He had no doubt that Gabby and her friends would help see to that.
He just hoped Carl Buchanan would, as well.
129
Annie took charge. Turner just stayed back out of her way and watched her. Carl was holding on, apparently. Turner refused to consider the alternative. He wasn’t ready to lose his best friend.
After the paramedics loaded Carl onto a gurney and rolled him out to a waiting ambulance, Turner wrapped Annie in his arms, not giving a damn if he was disturbing evidence or not. “I love you. I will always love you. Don’t ever leave me again.”
Big blue eyes stared up at him. “I love you, too. And don’t worry. I won’t.”
She turned hesitant. “But…I don’t come alone. I’m a package deal. With the boys. And I kind of have an Izzie and a Nikkie Jean, too. Sometimes we have Jake. Not to mention my sister. I have a family.”
“I know. And I love how much you love them. I have a family, too. I want to share them with you. If you’ll let me.”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Enough of this,” Jake interrupted. “Let’s get Annie back to the hospital. She has a concussion, and it looks like a damned shiner.”
“I need to know how Carl is doing,” Annie said softly. She wrapped her hand around Turner’s. Her eyes were sad when she looked at him. “I…he…we didn’t even know Councilman Arnold was in the house. He was waiting for us. He said…he was Carl’s brother. And something about Jennifer Henedy.”
“There will be time to tell us everything. At the hospital,” Jake insisted. “Right now. You’re going for a ride.”
He didn’t give her a chance to protest.
Jake scooped her off her feet and carried her outside to the second ambulance that was waiting.
Just as the ME’s van pulled in behind Elliot’s car.
Turner looked at the other men. “You’re not going to take her anywhere. Not without me.”
Jake just looked at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Welcome to the family, Barratt. Now…get your ass in the car.”
Annie shot him a watery smile. “Don’t worry. Everyone gets used to Jake sooner or later.”
Turner leaned over and brushed a kiss against her brow, a mere breath after Jake lowered her to the gurney. “I’m looking forward to it.”
130
Nikkie Jean was just about to clock out and head home to Caine and the six children—seven, if she counted sixteen-year-old Pen—who waited for her.
Well, six of the seven children should be sound asleep, anyway.
The ER doors slid open, and a stretcher rolled in, the paramedic shouting orders. She almost kept going toward the time clock. She already had her bag in her hand. It was just a matter of steps to the time clock. Virat was already on the clock, as was the new guy Rafe had hired.
But Nikkie Jean would never leave the work for someone else to do.
Virat was already at the gurney, evaluating the patient.
There was an awful lot of red.
For a moment, she wasn’t there in the ER any longer. She was across the street with Izzie. Remembering how it had felt seeing her best friend almost die.
And then she was back in the ER where she belonged—as another stretcher came in.
She recognized the woman on it instantly. Annie wasn’t fastened down. She probably could have walked. She was talking and questioning and moving.
But she had blood all over her and obvious signs of trauma.
The mayor walked at her side.
Nikkie Jean ran.
“What happened now?”
The paramedic gave her a quick rundown of Annie’s injuries, just as another tall, ha
ndsome surgeon ran by to assist Virat.
Allen.
She’d thought he had a few more hours on the clock tonight.
Good. Virat and Allen were some of the very best.
“Ann?”
“I’m going to be ok, Nik. I promise.”
“You’d better be.”
Annie shot a look at the man on her left. Turner wrapped his hand around hers. “I will be. All I have to do is get through tonight. I’ve made it through the fire. Now I’m on the other side.”
“I hope to heavens you’re not babbling, chick. Because you’re not making any sense. Let’s get you looked at.”
Nikkie Jean took over. There was work to do now.
Epilogue
Carl was holding on. The man had lost too much blood, and the damage had been extensive. It was just a matter of him waking up or not. No one could give a definitive he would be ok, or he wouldn’t be.
Turner fought the exhaustion.
He’d been the one to go to Jason’s hospital room and explain to the teenage boy what had happened tonight.
It was not an experience he ever wanted to have again.
But Jason would be ok. Turner would see to it. He’d already spoken to a social worker on Jason’s behalf.
Until Carl was out of the woods, Jason was going to go home with Turner.
Annie was in full agreement with the idea. Turner had barely gotten the words out before she was agreeing to it.
She was still a licensed foster parent, after all, she’d pointed out. And she technically had a home with plenty of room.
But she was hoping Turner would be there with her.
She was sleeping now, in the bed in room 403.
Nikkie Jean and a few of the nurses had ganged up on her.
Her concussion had worsened when Dennis Lee Arnold had struck her.
Twice.
He’d struck her twice.
Annie had been fighting for her life while he’d been debating what to do with Jake and Elliot on the damned front porch.
Walk Through the Fire (Finley Creek Book 10) Page 32