“I can’t jump that far!”
Just then, a bullet whizzed past Lucas’s head and plugged into the siding. Looking toward the street, he saw a car and a driver with a gun. He couldn’t see the driver clearly, but raised his gun and fired back. The driver got a few more shots off before he backed into the car.
Rachel staggered.
Lucas saw blood soaking her shirt, up high and to the left. “Rachel!”
He reached for her but she’d already begun to fall. She landed on her hip on the roof and slid to the edge, grabbing hold of the gutter as she fell over.
Lucas went down onto his stomach and reached again for her. With her hand outstretched for him, she fell.
“Rachel!” He watched in horror as she landed on a bush and rolled onto the ground.
The roof was getting hot. Soon flames would burn through. Bullets hit the shingles next to him. He fired several shots at the driver, making him duck.
Swinging himself over the side of the roof, Lucas hung down and then dropped to the ground, going into a roll and coming back up to fire again at the driver, heading right for him and putting himself between the driver and Rachel.
The driver sped off. Lucas kept firing until he ran out of bullets.
He rushed back to Rachel. Blood soaked most of her shirt now. She was losing a lot of blood.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Lucas slid his arms under her and lifted her.
“Lucas.” She sounded weak.
He swore as he carried her away from the burning house. Neighbors had begun to come outside. One of them ran toward him, a fortysomething woman.
“Are you okay?” Her breasts and stomach jiggled as she ran, eyes frantic and holding a cell phone. “I called 911!”
As soon as she finished, he heard the sirens.
At the edge of the grass, he put Rachel down and pressed his hand to her gunshot wound. Her eyes had lost some focus. She was going into shock.
“Stay with me!” Dear God, she couldn’t die. “Rachel.” He put his other hand on her cheek.
“Lucas.” As she finished the whisper, her eyes slid closed.
White-cold anxiety shot through him. “No.”
Sirens grew louder as a fire truck rushed to them. Lucas kept his hand over her wound and moved his fingers to her pulse. She had one.
The woman who’d called for help knelt beside Rachel, opposite Lucas. “Is she dead? What happened?”
The fire truck came to a stop on the street. Firemen hurried to get the hose out while two others came to Rachel. An ambulance turned onto the street.
“What happened?” one fireman asked.
“She was shot.”
“We’ll take her from here.”
Lucas reluctantly removed his bloody hand, sick with worry as more blood oozed from the wound. The fireman applied pressure.
Lucas stepped back as the paramedics brought over a gurney. His neighbor, whom he’d never met before, came to stand beside him.
“I saw what happened,” she said.
Lucas turned to her and saw that she offered him a sticky note.
“That’s the license plate number.”
Lucas took it from her, amazed and grateful. “Thank you. Did you get a good look at the driver?”
“No. I couldn’t sleep and was sitting at my kitchen table when I saw flames. I went to the front window and saw that car parked in front of my house with a man inside. I thought that was pretty strange, especially since he just sat there watching the house catch on fire. That’s when I went to get my phone and a piece of paper.”
“Your quick thinking may lead to the capture of the gunman,” he said.
“Why was he shooting at her?”
“He shot at both of us.” And Lucas would give anything to change places with Rachel.
Seeing the paramedics were ready to load Rachel into the ambulance, he said, “I can’t thank you enough.”
“I hope she’s going to be all right.”
Lucas did, too, more than he ever thought he would. Somewhere along the way, Rachel had become incredibly important to him, more important than an instrumental player in the search for his sister’s killer.
* * *
Sitting in the hospital room on an uncomfortable chair, Lucas watched Rachel lay unconscious with tubes sprouting from her and a bandage on her upper left chest. The doctor said the bullet missed her heart by an inch, and she’d have been dead if she had arrived at the hospital much later.
Lucas kept wondering what he’d have done if she had died. Unable to catch his sister’s killer, he’d have lost another woman who meant something to him. Never mind his doubts about her; he cared about her. No, he was falling for her. Maybe he’d already fallen.
Her fire when he kissed her, her perseverance despite the bad turn life had handed her, her determination to make a better life for herself, all touched him in some intangible, uncontrollable way. She had a loving, sensitive heart, but also a strong one. Yes, she’d withheld important information about his sister’s case, but could he hold that against her? She’d been blackmailed. And after the danger had subsided, she’d been ridden by a moral dilemma. Until her blackmailer had decided threats were no longer enough. Now he’d kill her.
Hearing someone at the door, Lucas turned from Rachel’s beautiful face. No one was there. Who had peered into the room and walked on?
He stood and went to the door, looking one way down the hall and then the other. A man in a suit walked away. It was Jared.
Lucas ran after him.
Jared glanced back and saw him. Rather than run, he stopped and faced him.
“Did you hope to finish her off?” Lucas asked.
“I heard about what happened on the news.”
“Disappointed she isn’t dead?”
Jared sighed hard and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he looked at Lucas. “I know you won’t believe me, but I had nothing to do with this.”
How could he say that? They both knew he was involved in fraud, and all that kept him from jail was the right evidence.
The injustice built up in Lucas. How much more could he endure, failing his sister and now Rachel?
“If she’d have been with me, this wouldn’t have happened,” Jared said.
And what a wrong thing to say to him. Lucas grabbed ahold of his tie and shoved him against the wall. “You go anywhere near her again and I’ll kill you.”
With round, startled eyes, Jared raised his hands. “Whoa. I didn’t come here to hurt her. I came here to make sure she was all right and tell her I had nothing to do with it. I wouldn’t kill Rachel. I don’t want her dead. I want to marry her.”
Lucas scoffed. “You? Why would any woman want to marry you? Why did my sister marry you? Why would any woman like Rachel want to marry you?” Giving Jared another shove against the wall, he let go of his tie.
Jared appeared contrite. “Look, I know I haven’t been the most chivalrous man, but Rachel made me see my mistakes, especially that multiple women don’t fulfill a man. A good relationship does. I was wrong for the way I treated her. I didn’t appreciate her because I didn’t know what I had until it was too late. Rachel and I were compatible together. I should have been honest with her.”
“Why weren’t you?”
Jared looked away briefly, a man contemplating what a jerk he’d been. Willingly. “My partnership with Eldon changed me. He was so charismatic and sophisticated. He had everything I dreamed of having.”
“Women.”
“That came with it. No, he had money. I followed him, but I shouldn’t have followed his ways with women. I want to have the chance to tell Rachel that. When I heard she was shot and might not live, I nearly fell apart. And in an instant, I realized the magnitude of my mistake.”
“What do you hope telling her that will gain?” Lucas asked. And what about Luella? Had he never cared for her? If what he said was true, maybe he had at first, until Eldon had changed him.
“Her heart. I want her back. I want to ask her to marry me. I’ll quit HealthFirst. I’ll start a new life. Things will be different this time.”
Until the next woman came along to tempt him? Lucas held back the flare of jealousy. Rachel wouldn’t go back to this man.
“That all sounds noble,” he said, “but how will you accomplish that when you’re in jail?”
A flash of anger hardened Jared’s eyes, and he put his hands on his hips. “I’m going to talk to her when she wakes up.”
“Not if I can have you arrested first.”
After a narrow-eyed sizing up, Jared said, “You’re in love with her, too.” His singsong voice mocked, the heartless businessman who drove hard for a high bottom line coming out.
Too?
Lucas rebelled against that.
“I’ve seen you with her,” Jared went on in his condescending tone. “You’re a real cowboy, aren’t you? Just like your boss. Well, capturing a woman like Rachel is going to take more than brawn. You think she’ll be satisfied with mediocre?” He breathed a scornful laugh. “I mean, I know your dad makes a lot of money, and you aren’t lacking, but your ambition in life is tracking down drug addicts. You have no taste for finer things. Rachel loves finer things.” He leaned toward Lucas. “You can’t give her that.”
While he couldn’t argue Rachel had a soft spot for men like Jared—businessmen who made a lot of money—he could argue she did have integrity in that endeavor.
“Is she looking for money to be wined and dined or is she looking for money with a man she can trust?” And love.
Jared’s blink and slight drawback of head gave away how close to the truth Lucas had gotten.
“You want to marry her?”
Unlike Jared, Lucas held back his flinch. Marry her? How terrifying.
In his delayed response, Jared said, “You always did like to one-up me.”
“What?”
“Any woman I wanted, you took.”
What was he talking about? “No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, you weren’t aware of it, but you did. They all wanted you.” The sneer that contorted his face was fueled by years of comparison and resentment.
Lucas began to understand his estranged friend’s discontent, what had driven them apart, and Jared into Eldon’s way of life.
“I never meant to hurt you. I thought you were my friend.” Lucas said the simple truth.
To which Jared instantly deflated. He turned his head away. “I know.”
Lucas waited. He couldn’t believe this change in him. The Jared that had married his sister would never have admitted his insecurities with Lucas.
“Feeling the crunch of the law?” Lucas asked.
A strange, softening, even regretful—deeply so—pause came over Jared. Somber eyes, flat mouth and silent communication with an old friend gave him a glimpse of the real Jared Palmer.
He almost said something, but Jared moved away from the wall. With a terse, “Good luck, Lucas,” Jared walked away, down the hall.
Lucas didn’t follow. He felt at odds with the silent message he’d received, one that contradicted the Jared of HealthFirst, the heartless businessman who’d do anything to stay rich. No, this man seemed more in line with the friend he’d once known. That didn’t change the bad choices Jared had made. Realizing his mistake would only make prison harder.
Chapter 12
Rachel came to slow consciousness and the sound of a woman’s voice talking softly with Lucas’s deeper, gruffer response.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” he said.
Groggy and disoriented, Rachel struggled to get her bearings. Where was she? Why did her chest and arm hurt so much? She moved her head and saw the hospital room, the IV in her arm, and everything rushed back. The fire. The gunshot. Falling...
The USB device—they hadn’t finished going through all the files. Neither of them had time to retrieve it. They’d rushed out of the house onto the roof. She’d fallen, and Lucas had carried her. That was the last she remembered before passing out, thinking she’d died.
“I heard what happened. I couldn’t stay away,” the woman said. “Why is someone shooting at you? Is it your sister?”
“Rachel was shot.”
Rachel pretended to sleep but through a tiny crack of her eyelids, she saw the woman turn to glance at her, a quick dismissal. Blonde, blue-eyed and curvy, she had stunning good looks. She reached out and put her hand on Lucas’s arm, giving him a brief but intimate rub.
“You were lucky you weren’t shot, too.”
Lucas stepped back from her touch. “Why are you here?”
The woman lowered her arm, taking the rejection with disappointment pursing her mouth. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, and you keep avoiding me.”
“I heard all I wanted to hear before I left, Tory.”
Tory Curran. The woman who’d shared his last name. Lucas’s ex-wife. Rachel had not prepared herself for her gorgeousness. She had never possessed that kind of model beauty. Not unattractive, and not average, either, Rachel considered herself beautiful in a real kind of way, not a showcase-quality, hip-on-a-shiny-sports-car, evening-gown-with-big-diamonds way. This woman struck her as that type. Her well-made, wrinkle-free, knee-length pencil dress and crocodile purse and matching shoes gave away her demanding shopping habits and the money to back it.
“I’m a changed woman, Lucas. I won’t hide the fact that I want a second chance with you, but I don’t expect one. All I want is to apologize and ask for your forgiveness. I know how much it meant to you to start a family, how excited you were about it. I was stupid and heartless for lying to you.”
“What’s done is done.”
Rachel shut her eyes and listened. Lucas’s stiff indifference revealed deep pain over losing something he’d thought he’d had with this woman. What astonished Rachel most was that Lucas had wanted to start a family.
He’d been excited to start a family. That differed so greatly from Rachel’s impression that she began to reform her view of him. He’d expertly hidden the desire. He’d homed in on his failure in becoming a SEAL and his job as a cop and now an elite detective when in his heart, he’d have given all of it up for a family. Family held that much importance to him.
The revelation came as a pungent shock to Rachel.
“We had something nice, you and I,” Tory said. “I blew it. I was so afraid of losing you that I thought I had to lie to keep you.”
“You should go now. That’s all in the past, and I have no interest in going over it again.”
“Did you love me?” Tory asked anyway.
“Go, Tory. Rachel is my only concern right now.”
Warmth suffused Rachel at his declaration, but she found his avoidance in acknowledging Tory’s profession of love odd, and his tone said he thought Tory rather rude for coming here at a time like this, while someone he cared about lay on a hospital bed after being shot.
“You loved me.”
The woman’s desperation almost made Rachel feel sorry for her. She and Jared should get together. She opened her eyes. Tory faced Lucas’s indifference with sad hope, a beautiful woman who could have been any of those Rachel had seen and admired in the mall. Except without the joy.
“Rachel.”
Lucas’s urgent voice alerted her to her exposure. He saw that she’d awakened.
He came to her, putting his hand on hers and then leaning over to run his other along the side of her head.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Rachel basked in his care before heeding their company. Tory loo
ked on, those sad, hopeful eyes not so hopeful anymore.
“I’m fine.”
Lucas grinned. “You are not fine. You must be in pain.” He picked up the call button to send for the nurse. “You don’t have to be brave right now.”
Tory moved closer to the bed as though needing to get a closer look at her competition.
“Are you in terrible pain?” Lucas asked. “How are you, really?”
Rachel looked up at the warm concern of his blue-gray eyes and couldn’t help responding to it, relaxing her muscles in the safety of his care.
“How long have you two been seeing each other?” Tory asked.
“We’re not seeing each other.”
“I’m helping him...with his sister’s cold case,” Rachel said, feeling fatigue weigh her down. She didn’t have much energy.
“Aren’t you the one who had an affair with Luella’s husband?”
“Tory, I’ll ask you nicely once more to go,” Lucas said. If he had to ask again, he wouldn’t ask nicely.
“Of course. Now isn’t the time.” Before she moved to leave, Tory said to Rachel, “I’m his ex-wife.”
“Tory,” Rachel said. “I know.”
Tory looked sharply at Lucas, taken aback that he’d revealed so much. Rachel must be someone significant to him. If only that was true.
Recovering, Tory turned to Lucas. “I really just came to apologize. In person. I hope that someday you can forgive me and, even if we can’t be friends, you don’t regard me with anger and resentment. I have changed, Lucas.” She glanced at Rachel. “And I do wish you the best. No matter what.”
Rachel debated that. How far would a woman take her lies? If Tory told the truth, then honor to her, but a woman capable of such a big lie could easily lie again. Rachel believed Tory loved Lucas. She believed Tory wished for a second chance. But had she really changed that much? Or would she say and do anything to get her man back?
“Thank you, Tory. Coming here had to be difficult. I appreciate your effort. I do.”
Rachel heard the but in that just as Tory must have. She gave a slight nod and then turned. At the door she paused, and with a dramatic, “Goodbye, Lucas,” she left.
Justice Hunter Page 16