by Layla Reyne
“Get up,” Wallace said.
“You don’t want to do this, Wally,” she tried coaxing.
His face contorted in anger. “Don’t call me that.” He leaned forward, brandishing the knife. “Only Annie gets to call me that.”
Charlie shifted and swept out her legs, bound as they were, toward Wallace’s shins. He stumbled, and for a second, Charlie thought she might get the upper hand, but Wallace regained his balance and brought his gun down in a pistol-whip to her broken arm. Charlie cried out and lost her balance, falling to her other side, away from Annie.
By the time the blinding pain and blackness receded and Charlie managed to right herself again, Wallace was standing over Annie’s prone body with a gun. She hadn’t heard a gunshot and saw no more blood than was previously on Annie’s head. She was still pretending to be passed out, thankfully not inserting herself into the scuffle.
“Please don’t hurt her.” Charlie would have pled with her hands up if her right arm wasn’t broken and tied to the other behind her back.
“I don’t want to hurt Annie,” Wallace said. “I’m doing this for Annie. But if you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you, but let me say goodbye first. Please.”
He hesitated but then retreated a few steps, keeping the gun trained on them. “No funny business. I’m a trained officer too. I can hit either of you from here.”
Inching over to her sister, Charlie bent forward and kissed her forehead. “Please stay here,” she whispered. “By now, HPD is tracking the boat. They’ll be here soon. Whatever happens, I love you, Annie, and I’m so sorry for any pain I ever caused you. I never meant to. You are the best sister I could have ever had. I’m the lucky one. Take care of Abel, and Trevor, and Sean.”
A single tear escaped the corner of Annie’s eye, and Charlie wiped it away with her cheek, hiding it with a kiss. Turning, she discreetly pulled the phone out of her back pocket and dropped it next to Annie’s hip before Wallace cut the bindings on Charlie’s feet and hauled her up and over the side of the boat.
On the sandy shore, he yanked her up by her injured arm and pushed her toward the incline, gun at her back.
“Wally—”
“I told you not to call me that. Now go.”
Charlie dragged her feet as they climbed the embankment, stumbling a few times as waves of pain crashed through her. “Why are you doing this?” she asked between pants, in agony and out of breath once they crested the ridge.
“Because you’re guilty.”
“Of what?”
Wallace shoved her out onto the buckled wooden slats of the bridge. “You’re power hungry, ambitious, and worst of all, you ruin the lives of good men.”
“Lady Macbeth.”
“One after another.” Wallace kicked Charlie’s legs out from under her, sending her crashing to her knees. “You call Cal to rescue you from that party, and he races to you in the middle of a storm because he’d do anything for you, and he kills your mother. Leaves Annie without a mom.”
Charlie gulped. “How did you find out?”
“Cal told me. I was his friend, his partner, he needed someone to talk to, and he didn’t want to hurt you. He never forgave himself for what happened to Alice or for sending Sean away. He sent his best friend away because he was protecting you. Always you,” he spat as he paced back and forth on the bridge, armed and looking increasingly agitated. “And let’s not forget your case—your determination to prove yourself to the FBI—got my partner and my chief killed.”
“Wallace, please.” Her voice cracked, that particular wound tearing open. “You have to know I didn’t want that to happen. I never wanted them to get hurt.”
Wallace charged, pointing the gun directly at Charlie’s forehead. “But they wouldn’t have been there if not for you. They wouldn’t have died.”
Charlie hung her head, unable to stare down the barrel of the gun or the truth. “I’m so sorry.”
The gun safety clicked back on, and Charlie looked up as Wallace tucked the weapon into his waistband at the small of his back and resumed pacing. “You know, I ran into Sean at the funeral. I saw how he looked at you and Trevor. The way Trevor looked at you. They still love you. I thought maybe Cal’s letter would do the trick, would expose the truth and tarnish the Charlie shine, but nope, they still fucking do your bidding.”
“You knew about the letter?”
Wallace sneered. “Who did you think convinced him to write it? And who did you think was there helping Annie clean out your dad’s attic when she found the real case file from the night your mother died.” He jabbed himself in the chest. “Me!”
Fuck, so Annie knew already too. And Charlie hadn’t been the one to tell her. Another sin to atone for if she got them out of this alive.
“You know what’s the kicker? She was mad at Cal, not you. Never Charlie. She didn’t want to compromise your life, your career, or your love.” Wallace ranted on, his voice sounding forlorn and broken. “Why do you get all the love—friends, family, colleagues, your exes—but I get none? I just want to love her.”
The pieces began to click. “Annie?”
“I’ve loved her since I set foot in the library as a freshman at HU, and she helped me find the copy of Shakespeare’s Four Tragedies I needed. She introduced me to Cal, and I knew what it was like to have a real friend. I joined the department and got to work with Mitch too, someone I liked and respected. And then you took them all from me.”
Turning her face away, Charlie cursed herself for having missed this. She suspected Wallace had had a crush on Annie, but she thought he’d moved on, especially after Annie had gone public with… Jaylen. Is that what had triggered Wallace? Together with Cal’s death? The two people he was closest to. Gone. Charlie knew something about that sort of loss.
“You don’t get to leave town and get your happily ever after,” he seethed. “You’re guilty. You have to pay for your crimes.”
As Wallace’s misery swung back to anger, he swung her direction with the knife again, and Charlie flailed for anything to stall him. “Why Professor Marshall?”
“To help Annie’s friend. To clear the way so Trevor could stay here. That’s what she would want.”
“And Julian and Craig?”
“Julian because he hurt another of Annie’s friends. And to throw you off the trail.” He grinned, full of malice. “Craig because he was evil and because he gave you the opening to take everything from Annie. You just keep hurting her. The only way I can help her, maybe get away from that man you set her up with, is to get you out of her life for good.”
“Wallace, this isn’t love. This is obsession.”
He closed the distance between them, yanking Charlie up by her hair and holding the knife to her throat. “You do not get to tell me what love is. You, who takes and takes and takes and never gives anything. You don’t know what love is.”
“Yes, she does,” came the last voice Charlie wanted to hear right then.
Wallace released her hair and spun them around to face Annie, who stood at the edge of the bridge.
“Annie, go back to the boat,” Charlie urged, fear straining her voice. “Please.”
Annie ignored her and locked eyes with Wallace as she slowly approached. “Charlie left me in that boat just now because she loves me, because she wanted to protect me. She made sure after Mom’s death, after Dad’s and Cal’s, that I had people to support and love me. She’s stayed here in Hanover and is considering passing up a career-making job and a second chance at love and her own happiness to keep our family together and the truth about our mom from being exposed. To make sure I’m happy. That’s how much she loves me.”
Wallace’s lip trembled, and Annie took a step closer, almost beside them, drawing his attention away from the direction she’d come. On purpose it would seem, as Charlie glimpsed Sean and Trevor cresting the embankment at the end of the bridge.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done fo
r me.” Wallace’s attention focused on her while Sean ducked behind one of the trestle pillars and Trevor inched toward them. “But do you think I’d want you to hurt Charlie? She’s all the family I have left. Please don’t take her away from me. That’s not what I want.”
“How do you know you wouldn’t be happier without her?”
“You don’t have to kill her to make that happen,” Trevor spoke up from a few feet away. “We’ll leave.”
Wallace whipped around, lowering his knife arm. “And you’ll stay away?”
“If that’s what Annie wants.” He took the same path as Annie, keeping Wallace distracted while Sean snuck from one pillar to the next, inching closer. “She’s my family too. I’m on your team. I just want her to be happy.”
Annie extended a hand toward Wallace. “Hand me the weapons and let’s work this out.”
His hand shook around the knife, and he started to reach to Annie, to hand it over, but then the wail of police sirens pierced the air and chaos erupted. Annie surged forward, Trevor pushed her out of the way, and Wallace gripped Charlie by the hair once more, spinning them to face off against Trevor and Annie. Standing behind her, Wallace pressed the knife’s blade against Charlie’s throat.
The sirens instantly died. Sean, who was now behind her and Wallace, must have radioed them to hold.
Annie stepped in front of Trevor. “Wally, please, don’t do this.”
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do.”
“More than you love her?” He jerked Charlie’s neck farther back, the sharpened edge of the knife skating over her skin.
Annie hesitated, and Charlie winced. It was the honest but wrong response.
“I didn’t think so,” Wallace said. “But you will when she’s not here to confuse you, to put others in your path. Don’t you see? She’s Lady Macbeth. And I won’t let her ruin your life anymore.”
“Wally, please,” Annie begged, straining against Trevor’s arm around her waist.
“You’ll see, Annabelle. You’ll be better off without her too. Me, you, and Trevor. Our family will be better off without her. It’s what Cal would’ve wanted.” His words took on a hysterical edge. The end was near. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let her ruin your life anymore.”
Wallace pressed the knife harder against her throat. The fear of imminent death chilled Charlie to the bone. But then Trevor’s eyes shot over her shoulder. When they came back to Charlie, they were hard and focused. He blinked twice in quick succession. Reading his message, she leaned forward and took the sting of the knife’s blade for a split second before ramming her head back into Wallace’s face.
Wallace stumbled, his hold loosening as the knife clattered to the ground. Charlie ripped free, falling forward into Trevor’s arms at the same time Sean captured Wallace from behind. He kicked the knife out of Wallace’s reach and took him down, knees to the ground. Disarming him, he tossed the gun aside with the knife and cuffed Wallace’s wrists behind his back.
“I did it for you,” he cried woefully to Annie. “Shakespeare was your favorite. I just wanted you to see me.”
Annie ripped out of Charlie’s and Trevor’s arms. “Not like this, you didn’t.” Her voice was powerful, confident, and spitting nails. “I love my sister. All my family. And as for Shakespeare, you do not get to use the silent voices of wronged women, fictional or not, to make your fucking point.” She started to turn, then paused and loomed over Wallace again, unleashing all the temper they’d inherited from their mother. “And I owe my sister for my happiness. She introduced me to the man of my dreams, and this baby in my belly will be named Charlie if it’s the last fucking thing I do.”
Charlie didn’t think it was possible to be more in awe of a person than she was of her sister right then, and she held on tight, telling her so, when Annie charged into her and Trevor’s arms. “You are the bravest woman I know.”
“Right back atcha, sis.”
“You okay?” Sean asked as he jerked Wallace up by his cuffed wrists.
“It’s over now,” Charlie said as Trevor used a fishing knife to cut through the ropes around her wrists. She swiped at her neck, coming away with a faint smear of blood. “Just a nick.”
Sean nodded, then led Wallace over to one of the pillars where two officers waited.
Bindings gone, she cradled her broken arm against her chest and relaxed into Trevor’s and Annie’s hold. The lingering knot in Charlie’s gut finally let up when Sean joined them, his arms wrapped around them.
Her family safe.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Trevor was half dozing on one of the waiting room sofas near Charlie’s recovery room, Sean passed out against his side, when a gentle shake of his shoulder roused him back toward awake.
“Charlie’s coming to,” Annie said quietly. “She’s asking for you two.”
Trevor wiped a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes as Sean continued to snore. “What time is it?”
“About eight.”
“It’s only been a couple hours. That was quick.”
“In the morning.” Trevor’s surprised jolt drew a grumble from the man tucked under his arm. “You two were so cute I didn’t have the heart to wake you. And I knew if I did, you wouldn’t leave anyway.”
She laid a hand on her belly, and the concern that shot through Trevor woke him all the way up. “Were you here all night? With the baby, you need—”
“I was in the maternity ward. They wanted to keep me for observation.” Annie ruffled her hair, flashing the bandage at her temple. “All good.”
“That’s good, A,” Sean said from Trevor’s other side, a little groggy but on his way to awareness. “Charlie awake?”
“Yeah, baby,” Trevor dropped a kiss on his temple. “Let’s go see our girl.”
Hand in hand, they followed Annie into Charlie’s room, and Trevor couldn’t help but laugh at the pouty, “Everything hurts,” she leveled at Jaylen.
“They had to reset your arm,” Sean said, and her gaze darted to them.
Trevor tapped his nose as they moved to one side of the bed. “Now you’ve got breaks like the rest of us.”
On the other side of the bed, Annie drummed her fingers on her collarbone. “No more perfect record.”
Charlie, though, only had eyes for Annie’s belly. She lifted her good hand, laying it there. “Did I imagine this part?”
“Nope.” Annie covered Charlie’s hand with both of hers as Jaylen threw an arm over her shoulders. “That’s Charlie 2.0 in there.”
“Everything’s okay?”
“All good. If it stays that way, you’ll be an aunt in seven months.” Annie glanced up, smiling at them across the bed. “And you two fools will be uncles. I’ll be sure to tell Charlie 2.0 all about how you thought I tried to kill their namesake.”
“Annie,” Sean started, but she waved him off.
“We went through this last night. You’re forgiven, but I’m still gonna make you feel guilty about it from time to time.”
Trevor was working up another apology to pick up where Sean’s was cut off, but Charlie beat him to it. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Mom. I’d just gotten you back. I didn’t want to lose you again.”
“Same reason I didn’t tell you when I found those files in the attic.”
“I’m still sorry,” Charlie said. “And for not getting out of your way sooner. You’re amazing, sis.”
“You’re forgiven too.” Annie beamed and gazed up at Jaylen. “You put him in my path.”
He tightened his arm around Annie. “You need to get home and rest. Properly.” Jaylen looked at Annie with such affection, such admiration, that Trevor had no doubt he’d give Annie anything she wanted. He’d do anything for her and their children. It settled any lingering concern he had about leaving Hanover. Annie would be just fine. Better than.
Annie knew the same; they were all just slow to catch up. She leaned over Charlie and kissed her forehead. “I meant what I said
on the bridge yesterday. You go to DC. You worked hard, and you deserve this opportunity.” She straightened and glanced again at Trevor. “Same goes for you. Show HU what a mistake they made letting that windbag Marshall hold up your tenure. And you”—she swung her gaze to Sean—“just make them happy this time. For good.”
Sean blushed handsomely, his chin dipped in deference. “With your blessing.”
She reached across the bed, covering one of each of their hands on the rail with hers. “You have it.”
Charlie caught her hand as it trailed back, squeezing it. “Love you, sis.”
“Love you too.”
Annie and Jaylen slipped out, and Trevor claimed the closest chair. He reached through the rail, fingers brushing her hip, needing the contact but avoiding the stabilized arm that had been reset. “So, DC or bust?”
Sean smirked as he rounded the end of the bed to the chair on the other side. “Your place or mine?”
When Charlie didn’t reply, both their gazes swung to her. “Charlie?” Trevor said, not liking the stormy mix of doubt and fear creeping into her eyes. Eyes that just a couple nights ago burned with hope and lust. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“I could have been killed. If I become an FBI agent, it probably won’t be the last time.”
Sean rose on the other side of the bed, hands curling around the rail. “Charlie, don’t say—”
“No, Sean, you’ve lost someone to the job. We all lost Dad and Cal. You could both lose me.” She looked back and forth between them. “What happens then? Are you willing to risk that?”
Trevor inched closer, placing his hand on her hip more firmly. “Honey, any one of us could be gone tomorrow, but we’ve been given another chance. I don’t want to pass it up.” He cut a glance to Sean. “With either of you.”
Sean rested an elbow on the rail and took her hand with the other. “He’s the romantic. I’m the realist. It could happen.”