The Crush

by Sandra Brown

  “But if that’s the way you want it, Ricky Roy, fine by me,” he said easily. “When I fire, Oren will, too. See, we’ve been practicing all day. Ever since we staged that little scene for your pal Weenie. Messy as hell, all that fake blood and all, but obviously convincing.

  “Now, here’s what’ll happen. Our bullets will enter your skull. His may be a thousandth of a second behind mine. But pretty damn near simultaneous, wouldn’t you say, Oren?”

  “That’s what I’d say.”

  “They might even intersect at some point, Ricky Roy, but in any case, your brains will spatter like shit from a tall goose.”

  “She’ll be dead by then,” Lozada said.

  “Let her go, Lozada.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “What do you think, Oren?” Wick said. “Are you tired of this crap?”

  “I’m tired of this crap.”

  “Me too.” And with his left hand, Wick fired a small pistol into Lozada’s right elbow, point blank. Bone shattered. Nerves and blood vessels were severed. The switchblade fell from useless fingers. Rennie dropped to the floor, as she had been instructed to do. Lozada spun around, left hand raised, thumb extended, jabbing toward Wick’s eye socket. Wick fired the .357 directly into his chest.

  Lozada’s eyes widened with astonishment. Then Wick said, “This is for Joe,” and fired a second time.

  Lozada fell backward onto the floor.

  Rennie crawled over to him and immediately checked his neck for a pulse.

  “His heart’s still beating.” She ripped open his shirt.

  “Leave him.”

  She looked up at Wick. “I can’t.”

  Then she turned back to Lozada and set about trying to save his life.

  Chapter 34

  It was eight o’clock the following morning before Rennie left the hospital. Wick was outside waiting for her in his pickup truck with the engine running. He leaned over and opened the passenger door for her.

  They had timed her departure to coincide with Oren’s press conference so the media would be occupied and she could make a clean getaway. As they pulled away from the hospital, they saw news vans lining the street and a cluster of reporters and cameramen surrounding the lobby entrance.

  “What’s he telling them?” she asked.

  “That the FWPD pulled off a flawless sting operation, with the cooperation of Tarrant General Hospital personnel. One of the city’s most notorious criminals, one Ricky Roy Lozada, died from gunshot wounds he received while resisting arrest.”

  Before turning him over to paramedics, Rennie had heroically worked to keep his heart beating. She had ridden in the ambulance with him to the emergency room, but upon their arrival he was pronounced dead. Wick had personally escorted his body to the morgue.

  Rennie had then insisted on examining Wick, even ordering a CAT scan to check for internal bleeding. He’d told Oren not to hold back, to make their fight look authentic. Oren had taken him at his word. He felt like a punching bag, but Rennie’s examination had turned up nothing worrisome.

  “Oren’s going to try and keep your name out of the story,” Wick told her.

  “I will appreciate that.”

  “But it might be unavoidable, Rennie.”

  “If it’s unavoidable, then I’ll deal with it.”

  Their destination had been predetermined. She wouldn’t be returning to the house in which Lozada had died. Once they were headed west on the interstate, Wick reached for her hand. “I died a thousand deaths while he was holding that knife on you.”

  “I was afraid that something had happened to detain you, that you and Oren wouldn’t be in place. When I got home I was tempted to look in the kitchen pantry and under the bed to make sure you were there.”

  “Hell couldn’t have kept me away.”

  “It was a daring plan, Wick.”

  “I just thank God it worked.”

  He had resolved that he and Rennie had no hope of a future until the problem of Lozada was resolved. In other words, until he was taken out of the picture. And that had been the key phrase: out of the picture. His mind had snagged on those four words. It occurred to him that if Lozada thought he was out of the picture, and Oren was out of the picture, he would make a move on Rennie.

  “The toughest part of the plan for me was the necessity of placing you in danger.”

  “But I was already in danger.”

  “That’s the conclusion I finally drew. And you were going to remain in danger unless and until I forced Lozada’s hand.” Yesterday morning, he had got up well before dawn, called Oren, and outlined the plan. Oren had liked the idea, made a few suggestions of his own, and put things into motion.

  “How did you convince Oren that I wasn’t the femme fatale he believed me to be?” Rennie asked.

  “I didn’t have to. Lozada did that when he killed your horses. Actually I think Oren had made up his mind long before that and was just being mule-headed. Believe me, Rennie. If he hadn’t been totally convinced of your innocence and his misjudgment, he would never have pulled this sting. And by the way, he sends his apology for all the ugly things he had to say about you in order to convince Weenie Sawyer.

  “Who, by the way, was a lucky break for us. If not for him, we might have had to wait for days, me in jail, Oren in the hospital pretending to be gravely wounded, before Lozada got the news and acted on it.

  “We had Sawyer tailed to his place in Dallas, and when the stakeout team saw Lozada there, they called in a heads-up. After Lozada left, they moved in and arrested Weenie. He was lying on his bed crying because Lozada had forced him to hammer his computers to bits. He started confessing his complicity even before they got the cuffs on.”

  “Will there be any repercussions for you?”

  “For shooting Lozada? No. Oren had me reinstated before we went in to question Weenie.”

  She turned to him with surprise. “So you’re officially a cop again?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “What’s there to think about?”

  “All the shit that goes with it.”

  “There’s shit with every job, Wick.”

  “Not a very encouraging maxim,” he said wryly.

  “It boils down to one question.” He looked across at her. “Do you love the work more than you hate the shit?”

  He didn’t have to think about it for long. “I love the work.”

  “There’s your answer.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Now that I’m finally able to bury Joe, really bury him, it’ll be different, I think.”

  “I’m sure it will be. It’s your calling.” She laughed softly, “And speaking of callings, Grace may have missed hers. She should have been an actress. She put on quite a performance at the hospital.”

  “I heard you both did.”

  “I don’t know if Lozada saw it or not.”

  “I don’t know either, but every scene had to be staged and played out as though it were real. If Lozada had been watching the hospital and Grace hadn’t rushed to Oren’s bedside, he would have smelled a rat.”

  Noticing her yawn, he said, “You’ve been up all night. Why don’t you try and sleep the rest of the way?”

  “What about you?”

  “I napped between all those unnecessary tests my doctor put me through.”

  Smiling, she closed her eyes. She woke up when he stopped the truck at the gate and got out to open it. After driving through, he parked at the front steps.

  Rennie looked toward the barn. “That was always my first stop.”

  He stroked her cheek. “Try not to think about it.”

  “I’ll always think about it.”

  He got out and came around to open her door, but he blocked her from getting out. “What?” she asked.

  “When I was in your bedroom, waiting to make my move on Lozada…”

  “Yes?”

  “I heard you say something to him that I thought was strange. You said that every day of your
life for the past twenty years had been a bonus.” He removed her sunglasses so he could see into her eyes. “And I just wondered what you meant by that, Rennie.” She lowered her head, but he placed his finger beneath her chin and raised it, forcing her to look at him. “You didn’t finish the story, did you?”

  He could see she wrestled with lying about it, but his will won out. She took a deep breath. “When T. Dan fired?”

  “Yes?”

  “He wasn’t aiming at Raymond.”

  He stared at her for a moment, and then when misapprehension cleared and he understood what she was saying, he expelled his breath slowly. “Jesus.”

  “My father was much angrier at me than he was at Raymond. Raymond had lost interest in their business deal, had lost his edge. When T. Dan saw us together and realized that I was the reason for Raymond’s preoccupation, he regarded me only as an obstacle that had to be eliminated.”

  She paused for a moment and stared vacantly into near space. “He was my father and I had adored him. He’d broken my heart with his infidelity. He had betrayed my mother, our family. He was a selfish, self-serving scoundrel.”

  She laughed bitterly and shook her head. “But, Wick, you know what’s really funny? Or tragic. I still loved him. In spite of everything. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to anger and upset him by doing the very things he did. I wouldn’t have seduced his business partner. I loved him,” she repeated sadly.

  “But his land deal meant more to him than I did. He whipped himself into a froth and was angry enough to kill me. He would have if Raymond hadn’t jumped in front of me just as T. Dan fired. So, you see, I meant it literally when I told you if not for me Raymond wouldn’t have died. He died saving me from my own father.

  “Afterward, I was in shock. I went along with everything T. Dan told me to do, said everything he told me to say. Soon after the incident he sent me away. Maybe the sight of me pricked his conscience, or maybe I was an unhappy reminder of the land deal that got away. I don’t know. But until the day he died, we never spoke of that afternoon again.”

  Wick pulled her toward him and when she resisted he said, “Uh-huh. No way. You’re not going to retreat, withdraw, and pull on your hair shirt.” He tucked her face into his neck and stroked her head. “It happened twenty years ago. It’s long past, you’ve atoned for it a thousand times over, and T. Dan is frying in hell. He can’t hurt you anymore, Rennie. I won’t let him.”

  He held her close for several moments before setting her away. “I’m glad you told me. It explains a lot. The need to be in control. The thumbing your nose at danger because you could have died at sixteen. I just hope that you’ll cut back on some of that daredevil bullshit. I can’t be running around all the time covering your ass. Speaking metaphorically, of course.”

  She laughed. Or sobbed. It was difficult to tell because there were tears in her eyes but she was smiling. He helped her out of the truck and together they climbed the steps. As he pushed open the front door, he said, “How ’bout breakfast?”

  “Sounds good.”

  He reached around her to close the door and trapped her between it and him. “Breakfast. Every morning for the rest of our lives.”

  She smiled at him sadly. “Wick—”

  “Now wait. Before you start raising objections, hear me out.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “I’ll be your best friend for the rest of your life. I’ll try my damnedest to heal that part of you that still hurts. I’ll be an ardent and faithful lover. I’d father your children, gladly. And I would protect you with my life.”

  “You already have.”

  “You saved me, too, Rennie. And not just on the operating table. I was in a wretched state when Oren came to Galveston. Being lured into a case involving a mysterious lady surgeon was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  She smiled, but her eyes were still clouded with doubt. “I don’t see how we could ever work.”

  “Come to think of it, you may be right,” he sighed. His hand moved to the top button of her blouse and undid it. “I throw temper tantrums and you’re cool under pressure. I’m a slob, you insert the tabs on your cereal boxes. I’m poor, you’re rich.”

  By the time he had enumerated those fundamental differences, all the buttons were undone and so were her slacks. Leaning into her, he kissed the side of her mouth. “We make no sense at all.”

  She tilted her head to give his lips access to her throat. “Except what Grace said.”

  He pulled her earlobe gently through his teeth. “What did Grace say?”

  She tugged the shirttail from his waistband and ran her hands up over his chest. “That you’re in love with me.”

  “Smart Grace.”

  “So you are?”

  “I are.” Her soft laugh became a low moan when he unclasped her bra and took her breasts in his hands.

  “Then there’s my work.”

  “There is that.” His tongue stroked her nipple.

  “It’s very demanding.”

  He caressed her tummy with the backs of his fingers, down past her navel. “I guess you’re right.” He turned his hand and slid it into her underpants. “We’ve got nothing going for us.” She was wet and receptive, and as he slipped his fingers into her, he captured her mouth in a searing kiss.

  A few minutes later, Rennie lay sprawled on top of him on the sofa. The clothes that hadn’t been removed in time were damp, wrinkled, and twisted around them. Strands of her hair were wrapped around his neck. He was balancing with one foot on the floor. They were flushed and breathless, and excitement still pulsed where their bodies remained joined.

  He panted a few breaths. “You were saying?”

  He felt her smile against his chest as she asked drowsily, “Pancakes or eggs?”

  About the Author

  Sandra Brown is the author of over sixty New York Times bestsellers, including most recently Low Pressure; Lethal; Rainwater; Tough Customer; Smash Cut; Smoke Screen; Play Dirty; Ricochet; Chill Factor; White Hot; Hello, Darkness; The Crush; Envy; The Switch; The Alibi; Unspeakable; and Fat Tuesday, all of which jumped onto the New York Times list in the numbers one to five spots. There are over eighty million copies of Sandra Brown’s books in print worldwide and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. In 2008, Brown was named Thriller Master by the International Thriller Writers Association, the organization’s top honor. She currently lives in Texas. For more information you can visit www.SandraBrown.net.

  Journalist Dawson Scott knows well the horrors of war.

  But when he investigates a pair of domestic terrorists, his true ordeal begins…

  * * *

  Please turn this page for a preview of Deadline.

  Prologue

  Branch, Oregon—1976

  The first hail of bullets was fired from the house shortly after daybreak at 6:57.

  The gunfire erupted in response to the surrender demand issued by a team of law enforcement agents.

  It was a gloomy morning. The sky was heavily overcast and there was dense fog. Despite the limited visibility, one of the fugitives inside the house got off a lucky shot that took out a deputy U.S. marshal whom everybody called Turk.

  Gary Headly had met the marshal only the day before, shortly after the law enforcement team comprised of ATF and FBI agents, sheriff’s deputies, and U.S. marshals met for the first time to discuss the operation. They’d congregated around a map of the area known as Golden Branch, reviewing obstacles they might encounter. Headly remembered another marshal saying, “Hey, Turk, grab me a Coke while you’re over there, will ya?”

  Headly didn’t learn Turk’s actual name until later, much later, when they were mopping up. The bullet struck half an inch above his Kevlar vest, tearing out most of his throat. He dropped without uttering a sound, dead before landing in the pile of wet leaves at his feet. There was nothing Headly could do for him except offer up a brief prayer and remain behind cover. To move was inviting death or injury, because,
once the gunfire started, the open windows of the house spat bullets relentlessly.

  The Rangers of Righteousness had an inexhaustible arsenal. Or so it seemed that wet and dreary morning. The second casualty was a redheaded, twenty-four-year-old deputy sheriff. A puff of his breath in the cold air gave away his position. Six shots were fired. Five found the target. Any one of three would have killed him.

  The team had planned to take the group by surprise, serve their arrest warrants for a laundry list of felonies, and take them into custody, engaging in a firefight only if necessary. But the vehemence with which they were fired upon indicated that the criminals had taken a fight-to-the-death stance.

  After all, they had nothing to lose except their lives. Capture meant imprisonment for life or the death penalty for each of the seven members of the domestic terrorist group. Collectively the six men and one woman had chalked up twelve murders and millions of dollars’ worth of destruction, most of it inflicted on federal government buildings or military installations. Despite the religious overtone of their name, they were wholly without conscience or constraint. Over the relatively short period of two years, they had made themselves notorious, a scourge to law enforcement agencies at every level.

  Other such groups imitated the Rangers, but none had achieved their level of effectiveness. In the criminal community, they were revered for their audacity and unmatched violence. To many who harbored antigovernment sentiments, they had become folk heroes. They were sheltered and were provided with weapons and ammunition as well as with leaked classified information. This underground support allowed them to strike hard and fast and then to disappear and remain well hidden while they planned their next assault. In communiques sent to newspapers and television networks, they’d vowed never to be taken alive.

  It had been a stroke of sheer luck that had brought the law down on them in Golden Branch.