Still Waters

by Tami Hoag

  Oh, Jesus, please let her be all right.

  As he started to move toward the dining room, a second shot exploded above him. Dane bolted into high gear, vaulting over the fallen chair and bashing the door open with his shoulder. He took the stairs two at a time, blocking out the pain that tore into his knee. He hit the second-floor landing and charged for her bedroom, shouting her name like a war cry.

  “Elizabeth!”

  THE DAMN GUN HAD JAMMED. JUST AS IT HAD THE DAY Dane had shown her the kind of damage it could do. Her first shot had gone into the wall, spraying plaster everywhere. The recoil had slammed her head into the frame of her bed. And when she opened her eyes, Aaron was still standing there, unshaken, unaffected. He took another step toward her and she shot again, missing again as he dodged to the side. The bullet hit the pot of the fuchsia plant on the dresser and disintegrated it, sending shards of pottery exploding out like shrapnel. She pulled the trigger a third time and nothing happened. A fourth time. Nothing. Her gaze flicked from the man to the gun and she saw the spent shell caught half in and half out of the chamber.

  “You can't kill me,” Aaron said knowingly. Behind his spectacles his eyes glowed. His mouth curled at the corners in a smile that shot spears of terror through Elizabeth.

  “Elizabeth!”

  “Dane!” she screamed, scrambling to get her feet under her as Aaron turned toward the door.

  The Amishman wheeled and slashed down with the chisel as Dane rushed in. Blinding pain spiked up Dane's arm as the point of the tool sank into his right wrist. Stupid, he cursed himself as his fingers went instantly numb and the .38 dropped to the floor. Only green rookies charged in like something from Miami Vice. Running on emotion could damn well get them both killed. Keep your head in the game and your heart out of it, Jantzen.

  Aaron jerked the chisel free, backed up a step, and came at him again, shrieking like a banshee, madness flashing like lightning in his eyes. Dane raised his injured arm to block the assault, and the chisel sliced across his forearm as he balled his left hand into a fist and slammed it into the Amishman's belly. Aaron grunted and doubled over but swung his weapon again, driving the steel blade to its hilt into Dane's left biceps.

  Dane staggered back, swearing, grinding his teeth against the pain, blinking furiously as sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes. He tried to reach for the chisel to pull it out, but his right hand hung limp and useless, numb to the commands of his brain. Spotting the .38, he dropped to his knees on the hard wood floor and dove for the revolver, stretching out his left arm to reach for it, bellowing as the chisel dug through muscle and scraped bone.

  With a howling cry of triumph Aaron flung himself down on top of the sheriff. He felt wild. Euphoric with the zeal of his duty. Bursting with the power of God. He was an avenging angel, a savior, filled with brilliant white light and radiance. He tore his weapon free and lifted it high above his head, ready to plunge it through Satan's heart.

  Dane looked up into the face of his own death and gulped what would be his last breath.

  An explosion rent the air.

  Aaron rose up higher, arms stretching toward heaven, back arching, mouth tearing open wide as the slug penetrated between his shoulder blades and exited through his chest, ripping a hole the size of a man's fist, spewing blood and tissue in a grisly spray. Dane rolled out of the way as the Amishman fell forward, dead, his hands still clenching the handle of the chisel as the blade sunk into the floor.

  An unnatural silence rang in Elizabeth's ears as she knelt on the bed, a powerful absence of sound caused by the concussion of the gun blast against her unprotected eardrums. It seemed fitting though, she thought as she stared in horror at the blood that pooled thick and dark red around Aaron Hauer's lifeless body. A moment of silence for the passing of a life. A moment of absolute stillness in which she had to realize what she had done.

  She had killed a man, ended his life in the blink of an eye, without a second's hesitation. He was gone from this world just as she would have been had he caught her, just as Dane would have been if she hadn't gotten the gun working. In those few minutes three different lives had hung in the balance. Any one of them might have been snatched away.

  Tears and terror rose up in her throat and choked her as the acrid scent of gunpowder burned her nostrils. She coughed and gagged, sinking down on the comforter as the strength rippled out of her legs. She was shaking violently, but she couldn't seem to let go of the gun. Her fingers were curled tight around the pearl handle, knuckles white as bleached bone, nails as red as Aaron Hauer's blood. Her breath hitched in and out of her lungs in fits and starts, and she looked around wildly for Dane.

  He struggled to his feet and came toward her, like something from a nightmare. He was limping. Blood beaded on his face in a thick red mist. Aaron's blood. Wincing, he raised his left forearm and tried to wipe it away. His own blood ran in ribbons from his wrist and from the gashes in his arms. The muscles in his square jaw clenching against the pain, he reached out to her with his left hand.

  “Give me the gun, honey,” he said softly.

  Never taking her eyes off Dane, she lifted her trembling hands. The pistol felt as heavy as an anvil, so heavy she could barely find the strength to lift it, much less hold it still. Dane took it from her and set it aside on the cluttered nightstand.

  “It's over,” he said, turning back toward her.

  “I k-killed him,” Elizabeth stammered, her gaze straying against her will to the man who lay dead on her bedroom floor. She shuddered as if her life were trying to ooze out of her too. “I—I killed a man.”

  “I know,” Dane murmured, his eyes strictly on Elizabeth. She was as pale as milk. Her eyes were glassy as she stared at the body.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, his voice quiet but firm with command. “Elizabeth, look at me. Look at me.”

  She broke the trance with several sharp blinks and looked up at him. “Aaron killed Jarvis. He—he—” Was insane. Was watching us. All of it tumbled through her mind and turned her stomach. Fear curled a fist in her chest and shook her like a rag doll.

  “Damn you,” she muttered, tears streaming down her face as she looked at Dane. “I thought he was gonna kill you!”

  Dane slid his arms around her as best he could and pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair. “Sorry he didn't?” he asked.

  Elizabeth pressed her face into his shoulder and sobbed, too overwhelmed for banter. She had been terrified when her own life had been threatened, but that feeling hadn't compared to the terrible wrenching in her heart as she had watched Aaron Hauer rise up above Dane with that chisel in his hand. He would have died. For her. Because of her. She would have lost him forever.

  But then, he wasn't hers to lose, was he?

  She put her arms around him and hugged him for all she was worth, needing to hold him as long as he would let her.

  “I love you,” she whispered desperately. “I love you.”

  “Shh . . .”

  She took his murmurs of comfort for censure and shook her head. “I know you don't want to hear it. I don't care, you ornery son of a bitch. I love you.”

  Dane almost managed a laugh, but the pain dug its talons deeper. He felt as if it were tearing out his strength a chunk at a time, and he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to stay on his feet, but he fought back the wave of weakness and that blissful dark horizon of unconsciousness for the moment. He wanted—needed—to hold this woman who claimed she loved him.

  I love you too. The words squeezed past the walls of his defenses and whispered through him, stinging and sweet and terrifying. Words he didn't want to hear to go with the feelings he didn't want to feel.

  As a siren whined near, he took a step back from her physically and emotionally. “I'm bleeding on your sheets,” he said dimly. He tried to take another step, and pain dug into his left knee, as sharp as cat's teeth. His vision blurred a little and her face went in and out of focus as unconsciousness beckoned agai
n.

  Elizabeth sniffed and forced a laugh “You silver-tongued devil.” He didn't want her love. No big surprise.

  Downstairs the screen door slapped shut and Mark Kaufman's voice called out for Dane.

  “Up here, Mark!” Dane called back, not taking his eyes off Elizabeth.

  “Who says there's never a cop around when you need one?” she said dryly.

  She slid off the bed and crossed the room, wrapping her silk robe around her and retying the sash. She kept her head up. She didn't need him, she just wanted him, and God knew she was used to not getting what she wanted.

  “Elizabeth.” Dane thought he ought to say something, offer some explanation, make some parting apology.

  Pausing in the doorway, she looked back at him over her shoulder as Kaufman came thudding up the stairs. “That's all right, sugar,” she murmured. “I'll let you take the easy way out. I've sworn off men anyhow.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “THANK YOU AGAIN FOR MEETING ME HERE, gentlemen.” State Attorney General Paul Douglas pushed his chair back from the linen-draped table and rose, buttoning the double-breasted jacket of his immaculately tailored gray suit. Fifty-five, tall, and gracefully built, Douglas was in transition from handsome to distinguished. His hair was fading from dark chestnut to the color of steel with silver wings at his temples. Lines of character were etching deeper into his long, tanned face. He was a man with a brilliant future in state and national politics—a future that loomed even larger and brighter thanks to the case that had just been dropped in his lap. Ferreting out rotten apples in the legislature wasn't going to hurt his popularity at all.

  Dane eased his chair back from the table and stood slowly, gingerly straightening his left knee, which was encased in the latest fashion for orthopedic braces. Despite the fact that they were in one of the finest restaurants in Rochester, a town that catered to well-heeled visitors including presidents and heads of state from the world over, the excellent steak on the plate before him remained largely untouched. The events of the past few days had soured his appetite.

  Crime had no such effect on Yeager, he noticed. The agent had all but sucked the pattern off the china. He stood now too, along with the Tyler County attorney, Jim Peterson. Peterson was in his best suit, groomed to impress. Yeager looked like an unmade bed in a yellow dress shirt he had to have slept in and a brown tie with a splotch of ketchup ready to drip off the tip.

  As the men shook hands, Ann Markham got up from a table across the room and came toward them. As sleek and graceful as a small shark, Dane thought, taking in the trim teal suit and the predatory gleam in her dark eyes. Her gaze flicked from Dane to the attorney general and held on Paul Douglas's face as she turned up the wattage on her smile.

  “Ann.” Smiling, Douglas tipped his head and reached out to engulf her hand in his. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Well, they let me out of my cage every once in a while,” she said, her voice smooth and slightly breathy. Businesslike with an undercurrent of sex. “How've you been, Paul?”

  “Fine. I'd ask the same, but I can see for myself you're looking wonderful.” Ann all but purred at the compliment. “I'm afraid I have to run,” he said apologetically, “but be sure to call me next time you're in the Cities. We'll have drinks.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Douglas and Peterson said their good-byes and went out together. Yeager caught Dane's eye and Dane nodded him off as Ann turned toward him. The agent frowned and backed reluctantly away from the table.

  “Yes, fancy meeting you here, Ann,” Dane said blandly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pleated tan trousers.

  She sent him a sly, triumphant smile. “There's no sense playing the game if one doesn't intend to win, darling. I all but have a homing device attached to our illustrious Mr. Douglas.”

  “You'll go far.”

  “I fully intend to. And what about you, Sheriff Jantzen? Where will all this murder and intrigue take you?” she asked, dark eyes sparkling with surpressed humor.

  “To an early grave.”

  A warm, wholly unsympathetic chuckle bubbled in her throat. “Poor baby,” she said. “Care to stop by my house on the way for a nice long soak in the Jacuzzi?” She glanced up at him through her lashes, lust lighting a fire in the depths of her dark, exotic eyes.

  Dane wished he could have said yes, but there was no answering flame inside him. A sigh slipped from him as he shook his head. “No. Thanks.”

  She studied him for a minute, looking surprised for just an instant, then skeptical. Finally her lips twisted into a wry smile. “What's her name?” He gave her a carefully blank look for an answer, and she laughed. “Give me a little credit, Sheriff. I make a very good living out of reading people. What's the name of this wonderful creature you've fallen in love with?”

  He didn't want to admit to being in love—not to himself or to Ann Markham—but there seemed no point in prolonging the argument either way. “Elizabeth.”

  Ann nodded. Now that her prospective boss was out of the room, she felt free to open her calfskin clutch and take out a cigarette. “Is she a soft, sweet, docile-little-housewife type?” she asked, lighting up.

  Dane couldn't hold back the automatic burst of laughter that erupted from him, turning heads of diners at several nearby tables. “Hardly.”

  She took a long drag on her cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Good,” she said, slanting him a catty look. “I have to go, Sheriff. I'm nearly standing in the no-smoking section. Don't want to be in violation of any laws, now, do we?” She gave him one last, thoughtful look, her mouth tightening at the prospect of losing. No matter that she hadn't wanted him for anything other than sex. “Have a nice life.”

  “You too,” Dane murmured, but she had already turned and was walking out with her head up and her sights set on the state capital.

  Yeager had doubled back around the perimeter of the dining room and stepped out of the shadows of a potted palm, his brows tucked down in a grim line of annoyance. “Come on, Casanova,” he growled. “I told Jolynn I'd be home in time for dessert.”

  THE OLD CLOCK ON THE LIVING-ROOM MANTEL CHIMED midnight, the soft dulcet tones drifting out through the screen door. Dane stood on the front porch, leaning a shoulder against a smooth white pillar, his gaze trained to the south. He had shucked his shirt and tie, trading the dress clothes for jeans and boots and a work shirt that hung open despite the cool night. He lifted the bottle of Miller that dangled from his fingertips and took a long pull, then set the bottle aside on the rail.

  He could have been in bed—his own or Ann's. For the first time in over a week he could have afforded the luxury of a decent night's sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. His insomnia had nothing to do with the relentless ache in his knee or the fact that he had handed over a political time bomb to the attorney general in the form of Jarvis's book. It had to do with perceptions—of himself, of his life.

  For years he had kept his life neatly in order, each part separate from the next, carefully compartmentalized and kept in cool perspective. Now he felt as if the ground had shifted beneath him and everything had fallen out of place. He didn't like it. Not one damn bit. Even if he could manage to put everything back the way it had been, nothing would be the same. There would be one stray piece that refused to fit—Elizabeth.

  He had let her walk away, had told himself it was best for both of them if they let it end. But he couldn't get her out of his mind . . . or his heart. He couldn't stop himself from wondering if she was all right, if she was sleeping tonight, if she was missing him or cursing his name. It didn't make sense that he should love her, that he should have fallen in love with her so quickly or at all. But there wasn't anything logical about this, and stepping back only left him alone with his future stretching out in front of him like a long, dusty road running to nowhere.

  Alone. That was the path he had chosen after his divorce. He had labeled it freedom and stuck to it, fooling himself into thi
nking he was a lucky man, independent, answering to no one. Now alone felt like just what it was—a void, a vacuum, a black hole where his heart beat out its days and nights in a solitary rhythm.

  He wasn't lucky, he was scared. He was a coward. That was the truth. The thought of investing his heart in another relationship scared the hell out of him. He had played that game before and lost big, and he couldn't stand the thought of losing, and he couldn't bear the thought of the pain.

  “Daddy?”

  Dane jerked his head around at the sound of Amy's voice and the soft creak of the screen door. She stood there in her Raiders jersey, blinking sleepily, long hair a rumpled curtain hanging over one shoulder, arms banded around herself to ward off the chill of midnight. He had scarcely seen her since the fight in his office. The case and its aftermath had consumed his life for the past two days. Now he drank in the sight of his daughter and wished things weren't strained between them.

  “Hey, peanut,” he murmured. “What are you doing up?”

  “I couldn't sleep.”

  She padded barefoot across the porch to tuck herself against his side, her arms sliding around his waist as she nuzzled her face into the curve of his shoulder. The action was so automatic, Dane couldn't help but wonder if she did this with her stepfather, if Mike Manetti offered her fatherly comfort on the nights she couldn't sleep in California. The thought sliced through his heart like a knife. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

  “Is your knee bothering you?” she asked.

  “No,” he lied. It hurt like hell. He'd been on it too much today. It felt as if little demons were standing on either side of his kneecap, swinging sledgehammers against what little cartilage was left. He knew it would be a miracle if he got through the week without having to have the fluid aspirated, but his knee wasn't what was keeping him up, so he ignored it.