Last Girl Standing

by Jackson, Lisa

  “Take her to county. I’ll be right behind you,” Quin directed tautly. “And watch her.”

  “You’d better come with us,” the EMT said to McCrae.

  “McCrae . . . Chris . . . ,” Delta choked, horrified, seeing the thick spike in his shoulder.

  “Can you drive me to the hospital?” he asked her calmly.

  “Yes.”

  It was the longest, and the shortest, ride to Laurelton General. Delta watched McCrae being pulled into Emergency as Ellie, white and unconscious, was taken to the fourth floor. She’d called her mother, who was desperate to come to the hospital, but Delta asked her to stay with Owen. “I’m fine,” she assured her, “but I’m about the only one.”

  “You might want to wash up,” one of the aides, who’d been hovering around, finally had the courage to say.

  Delta found a women’s restroom and looked at her smoke- and tear-streaked face. Her normally dark hair was gray with ash. Her clothes . . . forget about them. She looked like she’d been through a war.

  She rinsed off her face and managed to smear soot into her hair, but at least it was off her skin. She returned to the emergency room and asked if she could see either McCrae or Ellie. They allowed her see McCrae, who was scheduled for an outpatient procedure to remove the jagged stick that had speared him, which was nevertheless going to require some major cleaning out and stitching. Ellie was going in for surgery to repair a broken tibia and fibula; both bones in her right leg had been snapped by the weight of the cart, but it was her head injury that was causing the most concern.

  Though they said she could see McCrae, they asked her to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. By the time she got into his room, he was bandaged from neck to waist along his right shoulder.

  She didn’t stand on ceremony. Just ran right in and clasped his left hand. “You saved Ellie,” she said, her throat raw. “And me.”

  “You were doing okay, as far as I could tell. You darn near took Diabla down.”

  “Diabla? That’s what she called herself?”

  “Her professional name, apparently. You beat the devil, Delta, and you’re still standing.”

  His hand squeezed hers tightly.

  She supposed it was too soon to tell him she loved him . . . but she did it anyway.

  Epilogue

  Three weeks later, Ellie sat on the chair in Russ Niedermeyer’s office, her right leg in a cast over her knee so it stuck out almost straight. The breaks on her shinbones had been close to the knee, so it was difficult to maneuver. Her head was tender. A concussion and a brain contusion that they’d caught before she was seriously affected. She didn’t really remember what happened, but Delta had related the events, creating a deep and abiding hatred for Clarice Billings, aka Diabla, burning within Ellie’s soul.

  “. . . might have been a little hasty about letting you go,” Niedermeyer was saying. “There’s room for more than one reporter. Pauline is considering cutting back her time.”

  Oh, sure. That was just like Pauline to cede airtime to Ellie.

  “I want to anchor the evening news,” Ellie told him. The Diabla case had rocked the area, and the names of high-profile clients the one-time adult entertainment star—currently an academic at a well-respected private college, although that was bound to be over—was giving up, had reached into every level of North-west society and beyond. Good old Diabla had wormed her way into so many executives’ beds, once her years at West Knoll High were behind her, that it was, as they say, a veritable list of who’s whos.

  “You know Alton is the anchor and—”

  “I’ll cohost. I have no problem sharing, for now.”

  “Well, let’s talk some more when you’re ready to come back.”

  “I’ll be here next week,” Ellie told him with a smile as she struggled to her crutches.

  Her star had suddenly risen with her takedown of Diabla, who was currently being charged with the murders of Tanner Stahd, Amanda Forsythe, Zora DeMarco, Brian Timmons, Booker and Harry Crassley, Justin Penske, Bailey Quintar, and Carmen Proffitt. Gale Crassley was charged, right along with her, on many of the counts as well. Though it had been Delta who’d physically fought with the woman, she’d demurred on all the notoriety, and, in fact, she was the one who’d told the media that Ellie had been injured while trying to save her, which was true. In any case, Ellie was happy to be regarded as a hero. Delta had ended up with McCrae, which was kind of a pisser, but she was getting over it.

  And . . . it looked like she was going to be an aunt. Nia was truly pregnant and swore it was Michael’s, or maybe Joey’s, she wasn’t really sure, but it was one of theirs. Maybe. A paternity test would at least say whether it was the child of one of the twins. Currently, the three of them were living together, and nobody wanted advice from Ellie. Gale Crassley was being held in jail, and regardless of the numerous charges already against him, Ellie was going to go after him tooth and nail herself. He’d played with her that day; though there was suspicion that he’d known what was going down with Diabla and hadn’t wanted to be a part of the scene at the Forsythe estate, he had used Ellie as a convenient means of going to jail, no matter what his reasons. She wanted his ass convicted of sexual assault, too.

  She stepped outside and rested on her crutches, surveying the parking lot of the station. A Range Rover pulled in, and Alton stepped out, smoothing his hair. Seeing Ellie, he stopped short. “Hi, partner,” she said with a smile. “Looking forward to Monday.”

  * * *

  Fido circled and circled Owen’s legs, and the little boy giggled and chortled, trying to grab the dog as it weaved in and out. Delta, sitting on McCrae’s couch, cradling a cup of coffee from the pot she’d made, couldn’t help grinning at them.

  McCrae sat beside her, his uninjured left arm draped casually over her shoulders.

  “You said the special investigator is no more?” asked Delta.

  “Tim Hurston has been found to be in Diabla’s black book. Along with Hal Brennan, who has been trying to wriggle his way into Amanda’s parents’ estate, so he may actually be disbarred.”

  “And Amanda’s brother, Thom?”

  “Her parents are running true to form. They’ve ceded his care to a cousin, given him power of attorney.”

  “A better cousin than Brad Sumpter, I hope,” Delta murmured.

  Brad had stated that he’d been trying to atone from the moment Bailey and Penske died. He felt responsible for reporting on them to the Crassleys. He was an abettor, for sure, but he’d also worked against them, whenever he could.

  “Sumpter’ll probably get some leniency,” McCrae said.

  Delta nodded. “So how was today?” she asked after a moment.

  McCrae had put in his first full day of work since his injury. He’d been surprised to find Joyce Quintar Kiefer visiting Quin, but had realized they were sharing a moment of remembrance about the daughter they’d lost. Lill, their surviving daughter, was an elementary school teacher and was moving back from Arizona; they were planning a welcome home party. McCrae had briefly thought of Coach Sutton’s comments about Joyce being unable to take her eyes off Tanner, but had kept it to himself. Was it true, or a fiction from Coach’s possibly jealous mind? Didn’t matter anymore.

  “It was good. Mayor Kathy’s going to swear in Quin as chief.”

  “Good.” She smiled over at him, and they locked eyes.

  “So, what’s going to happen now?” he asked into the silence that followed.

  She looked at him. “You mean . . .” She waved her hand back and forth to include him and her.

  “You’re gonna get married!” Owen suddenly declared. “Or just live together in sin.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Delta asked, startled, as McCrae half-laughed in surprise.

  “That’s what Cara’s mom and D.J.’s dad are doing,” he said wisely.

  “I don’t think ‘living in sin’ is the way I would put it,” Delta told him.

  “Is that even a thing anymore?
” McCrae asked.

  Owen flipped up his palms. “I just know what I heard. And I want to live with Fido, so . . . C’mon, boy.” He opened the door and took Fido into the backyard.

  Delta gazed after him in consternation. “He was devastated about his father. It’s all so soon. I don’t know if I can trust this new Owen. I wonder if a crash is coming.”

  “Maybe.” He paused. “So what do you think?”

  Delta slid another look at him. “About?”

  “Living together, in sin or otherwise.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Owen is planning to move in with Fido. Seems like he knows what he wants.”

  “He wants the dog, but it might not last about you and me.”

  “He’s come a long way with me.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a trial,” she admitted slowly. “Maybe a few nights here, then some at my house? See how Owen does?” She smiled faintly. “He knows you saved me.”

  “You were doing a pretty good job of saving yourself,” he said. “You and Owen could start out here. I’m closer to West Knoll Elementary, unless you’re planning on Englewood Academy.”

  “No, I’m over that. And well, financially, I could really use a roommate. Tanner’s father wants to buy the clinic, get back in the business, but I don’t know. He seems to accept that I didn’t kill his son, but he’s still an arrogant son of a bitch.”

  “Your book’s doing well.”

  “That’s . . . not for me.” She shook her head. “College fund for Owen.”

  Owen came bursting back in, with Fido leaping against him, knocking the back of his knees so that Owen fell over and rolled on the ground, laughing in a way Delta had never heard as the dog barked and jumped and fake-growled.

  “You never answered my question,” McCrae reminded. “What you said at the hospital?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You’re seriously going to make me wait to hear it again?”

  “It’s too soon . . . isn’t it?”

  He looked into her worried face and shook his head.

  She glanced back at her son, leaning her head against his shoulder. “What did I say? I believe it was—”

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “Yeah . . . right . . .” Her mouth curved into a smile. “That was it.”