The Man She Almost Married

by Maggie Price

  “You didn’t mean to kill her,” she repeated. “The murder wasn’t premeditated. That’s to your advantage, Rick. I give you my word that I’ll talk to the D.A. for you—”

  “Then maybe I’ll get forty years instead of life,” he countered as he pulled the Glock out of his desk drawer and shoved the holster onto his belt. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. A beach house in a country that has no extradition treaty with the U.S. sounds a hell of a lot better than a cell. Don’t you agree?”

  A sick feeling flooded through Julia. She fought to keep her expression neutral. Sloan was on his way. She would soon run out of time. She had to distract Rick, had to put him off guard so she could go for the gun—guns she corrected, her eyes dropping to the Glock now holstered at his waist.

  “Clear something up for me,” she said, hoping the desperation seeping through her didn’t sound in her voice. “Vanessa made numerous notes in her appointment book about seeing someone with the initial S.”

  Rick gave her a smile brimming with irony. “Think about it, Julia. My last name’s Fox. Vanessa used to point out that foxes were sly. Sly. That’s what she called me...in bed.”

  Using his index finger, Rick hooked his black blazer off his chair. “Enough talk:” He shrugged the blazer on one arm at a time, shifting the Walther in his hands. “It’s time we get out of here.”

  He walked to the chair beside hers, dug her handcuffs and keys from her leather tote. “Lock one cuff on your right wrist,” he said, then tossed the handcuffs into her lap.

  Julia stared down at the shiny metal bracelets linked by a short, thick chain.

  “Do it. ” His voice lashed out.

  She picked up the cuffs, circled her right wrist with cool, heavy steel. Metal crunched against metal as the mechanism locked into place.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Julia.”

  Her gaze rose slowly, locked with his. “Do you?”

  “Yes. You think you can get the drop on me. You can’t.” His eyes flattened. “Try, and I’ll shoot you. I don’t want to, but I assure you, I will.”

  Her stomach began to churn as a different monitor displayed Sloan stepping off the elevator, only about fifty yards from where she sat.

  “I get the message,” she said.

  Rick took a step forward, his gun arm rigid and steady: “I’m going to lock the other cuff around my left wrist. In a few minutes I’ll flip a switch, causing a temporary outage of the security camera system. That way there won’t be a record of us leaving together. Once that’s done, you and I will walk out of here holding hands, so the cuffs won’t show. If we run into anyone on our way to the garage, you’ll lower your head so they can’t see your face. And you’ll keep quiet. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  She knew the minute they walked out the door they would run into Sloan. There was no way he’d miss seeing the handcuffs, no way he’d believe whatever excuse Rick conjured for them. No way Sloan would just step aside and watch them walk away hand-in-hand without questioning what was going on.

  Rick looked coldly dangerous now with his mouth set in a hard line and desperation glinting in his eyes. Sweatstreaked tendrils of blond hair plastered his forehead. His index finger stroked the trigger. Julia fully believed his threat that he’d shoot her. He had already killed—had little to lose. If cornered, he might shoot Sloan ... and any other innocent civilian who tried to block his escape.

  She stared into the automatic’s single, black eye and knew she had to act now.

  “Stand up,” Rick commanded. “And remember what I said.”

  Julia’s nerves shimmered. She pulled in a deep, steadying breath, then slid her fingers into the circle of the empty cuff. The arched metal looped over her hand, brass knuckle-style.

  Cursing violently, Rick punched the Walther forward, the grips dark against his white knuckles. “I said stand up!”

  Arm stiff, Julia bolted off the chair, using the force of her body to drive the cuff’s metal curve into the underside of his nose.

  Cartilage crunched. Blood spurted across the front of her blouse. Rick howled and swung.

  The back of his hand connected with her cheek with stunning force. She saw a flash of stars as she turned instinctively with the blow, landing heavily against the back of the chair. The rusty taste of blood filled her mouth.

  He lunged for her. She swiveled, ramming her elbow into his sternum, then grabbed for the Walther while the momentum of her body shoved him backward.

  His free hand flailed out, catching the loose cuff that dangled from her arm. He was a big man; he had her on height and weight, and when he stumbled off balance, he dragged her across one corner of the desk. A brass lamp clattered to the floor. The ashtray flew across the polished surface, spreading cigarette butts and a gray cloud of ashes in its wake.

  He regained his balance with catlike fluidity. His meaty fist tightened on the handcuff. He yanked her around to face him, nearly jerking her arm out of the socket.

  Blood from his nose slicked her fingers, making it impossible to get a firm grip on the Walther, which seemed fused to his hand. Sucking in a breath, Julia clamped onto the wrist of his gun hand and drove her knee toward his groin.

  At the last second, he twisted, deflecting the full force of the potentially debilitating blow.

  Heart pumping against her ribs, she stiffened her fingers then went for his eyes.

  Sloan’s frown deepened as he walked briskly along the thick-carpeted corridor with spacious executive offices opening to either side. He turned a corner, his determined stride taking him down the brightly lit hallway that led to Rick’s office.

  He’d been on his way to find Julia, when he’d driven out of the garage and spotted her police cruiser parked near the front door. The receptionist had not logged her presence into the computer, but her car was here, and Sloan had no intention of leaving the building until he talked to her. Logic told him to start looking for her in Rick’s office. If he didn’t find her there, he had a good chance of spotting her on a security monitor.

  Sloan’s hands balled, while frustration rose inside him like floodwaters. Since the moment she walked out of the guest house that morning, he’d thought of nothing but her. Of the defiance that glittered in her dark eyes and whipped color into her face when she’d stood before him naked, her hair a beautiful mess from their night of lovemaking. Of the passion and energy that swirled around her. Of the soft curves and temptation. Of the way he’d felt himself going completely and quietly unglued by the raw hurt that had settled in her eyes.

  Hurt he had put there. Had to put there.

  He’d done the right thing. The best thing. At least that was what he’d told himself throughout the day while he sat at his desk, staring at an endless stream of paperwork, but seeing only Julia. Finally, he’d shoved the unread piles of documents and spreadsheets aside and reached for the phone. The message he’d left for her at her office had gone unreturned. As had the one on her home answering machine. Finally, his ability to wait had died out like an oxygen-deprived fire and he’d left his office, intent on tracking her down.

  He had to see her. Had to talk to her; had to find some way to bring a sense of peace to their parting.

  Dammit, how could she think he wanted to leave her? Didn’t she know that just the thought of walking away again twisted his gut into hot, agonizing knots? Didn’t she know that he still loved her—had always loved her—beyond all reason?

  Hell, no, because you didn’t bother telling her.

  He clenched his jaw. He had thought he’d experienced the worst life had to dish out when he walked away from her two years ago. But the knowledge he was ill and facing surgery had fueled his determination to leave. Now doubt wavered inside him. Temptation ate at him to let his clawing need for a life with her override every logic-based decision he’d made.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked back through time, picturing his mother’s slow deterioration while she sat beside his father’s hospi
tal bed for unending days that transformed into weeks... then months. She’d died slowly on the inside, along with his father.

  For Sloan, the memory was like a slash of a scalpel to his senses—but it served its purpose. It confirmed how right his decision to leave Julia had been, how right it still was.

  He continued down the silent, paneled corridor. Dammit, he had to talk to her, had to make her understand why he couldn’t take a chance with her life. He had no idea how the hell to do that, but he’d worry about using the right words after he found her. Right now, he was more concerned about where she was.

  Turning a corner, he stepped into the dim reception area outside Rick’s office. He was just about to sidestep a grouping of padded chairs, when a crash, followed by a hard thud, brought his chin up. Less than a heartbeat later, a gunshot blasted through the air.

  The force of the bullet slammed Julia back against Rick’s desk. Instant, clenching pain seared her chest. Her lungs heaved once, then her legs crumbled beneath her and she went down hard on her back.

  Eyes blazing with desperate fury, Rick stood over her, the Walther still aimed at her chest. “You made me do it,” he yelled. “Dammit, you grabbed the gun—”

  A vicious shout registered in Julia’s brain a half second before Sloan sailed across her, catching Rick in a flying tackle. Their bodies crashed backward together, somewhere out of her range of vision.

  Dazed, she lifted her right hand to her chest, wincing when the swinging end of the handcuff hit her jaw. She stared at her blood-smeared fingers. She knew she was hit, but wasn’t sure where, wasn’t sure if the blood belonged to Rick or her.

  Seconds later the pain intensified, burning and tearing at her lungs. She knew then that the blood was hers, felt her blouse going damp with it.

  A quick series of grunted curses filled the air; glass shattered somewhere around her. Sloan shouted, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  Her vision swam; the floor tilted crazily beneath her, touching off nausea. She retched. There was nothing in her stomach to come up. The part of her brain that shock had yet to reach told her to get up, subdue her suspect, then call for backup.

  All she could do was lie on her back, drawing in torturous breaths with great spaces between them.

  Minutes—or hours—passed. Suddenly Sloan’s face, bloody and bruised, swam over her in wavy distortion, like a desert mirage.

  “Jules? Sweet Jesus.”

  “Almost...had...him.”

  Sloan tore open her blouse. She caught the dark flicker of fear in his eyes as he ripped off his elegant silk tie and crumpled it against the place on her chest where fire burned. The pressure sent a dim, raspy moan up her throat.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I have to stop the bleeding. You’re going to be all right.”

  “Get... Rick?”

  Sloan spared a glance across his shoulder. “He’s out cold.”

  “Has...guns. Two...”

  “They’re in my pocket.”

  “ Call...in.

  The pain intensified, twisting her shoulder muscles into breath-stealing spasms. “Killed... Vanessa,” she finally managed.

  “I called. The police are coming. An ambulance is coming.”

  “Sloan...”

  “Don’t try to talk. Lie still.”

  A sweeping wave of darkness closed in. Her eyelids took on added weight and fluttered shut.

  “Look at me, Jules.” Even through the racking pain she heard the trembling in Sloan’s voice as his fingertips patted her cheek. “Stay with me, baby. Try to stay awake.”

  She could feel herself shivering on the inside. Not from pain, but an insidious, rawboned cold that crept through her bones, making them feel as if they might snap from brittleness. Her chest was on fire, yet her body might as well be floating in ice water.

  “Cold...”

  Keeping pressure against her wound, Sloan worked his way out of his suit coat and spread it across her. “They’ll have blankets in the ambulance. You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me? You have to be okay.”

  Her head rolled weakly to one side.

  “You’ve got to hold on.” He tore off his vest, wadded it in his hand and compressed it against her chest. “Hold on. You can’t—” His voice broke. “I love you. God, I love you, Jules. You’ve got to hold on.”

  As he spoke, his voice faded, came back, faded again, until all she heard was a persistent, gray hum. She felt herself slipping toward darkness. She tried in vain to move her arms, to raise her hands so she could hold on to him, but she was incapable now of even the tiniest movement. Fingers of fear crept through the shock when she realized she couldn’t keep herself from falling into the inky pit.

  “Don’t...leave...me.”

  Her whispered, gasping words had the flames in her chest erupting with fiendish intensity. Tears clogged her throat, turning the effort of breathing into agony.

  “I’m right here, Jules. I won’t leave you. Just stay with me.”

  He cupped her cheek with a trembling hand, his palm a warm oasis against her icy flesh.

  “Fight it. Dammit, you’ve got to fight. You’ve got to hold on.”

  Her lips trembled open on a moan. A thick, suffocating cloud descended around her like a blanket of cotton. Seconds later, a black void opened beneath her.

  Chapter 13

  Sloan would have gotten on his knees and begged if he thought it would save her. He paced the corridor outside the hospital waiting room, praying, making deals with God to please, just let her live. Let her be all right.

  Remembering how lifeless Julia had looked sprawled on the floor of Rick’s office was like the stab of a knife through his brain. Her flesh had not only been pale as ice, it had felt like ice. She’d lost so much blood. Too much. Could someone lose that much blood and survive?

  As he’d leaned over her, he’d known he would give his life if only he could take away her pain, ease her tormented breathing. Save her.

  Instead, all he could do was stand helplessly aside when the grim-faced paramedics wheeled in their equipmentloaded gurney. In hushed tones, they exchanged a litany of medical jargon while sliding an IV needle into a vein, then positioning small, round electrodes across her blood-soaked chest. “Vitals?” one medic had asked. “Weak,” the other replied.

  Everything so efficient, so matter-of-fact. So terrifying. As Sloan paced, he glanced into the small waiting room off the main corridor. The thin, red second hand of the wall clock swept soundlessly around the dial. Had it been only an hour since the medics had shoved Julia’s gurney through the doors to the ER? A thick blanket had covered her motionless body; there had been no color to the part of her face that showed around the oxygen mask, no fluttering of the dark lashes that lay still—too still—against ashen, hollow cheeks.

  If only he’d reached Rick’s office a few seconds earlier, Sloan thought as he paced to the end of the hall. He turned to retrace his steps, sidestepping a wheeled cart that held some sort of instrument with an array of cords, dials and switches. Maybe if he’d been faster, he could have shoved Julia out of harm’s way, taken the slug himself. Anything to have kept her safe. Anything.

  But he’d been too late. And the bullet had crashed through her chest, doing damage he was afraid to even think about. Damage that made his stomach muscles tremble, turned his heart into a sledgehammer.

  He stared down at his hands, still shaking as if no time had passed since he’d knelt over her, desperate to stop her bleeding. He’d had so much blood on him that when he rushed into the ER, a nurse had mistaken him for a patient and tried to hurry him into an examining room. After his terse explanation of why he was there, she directed him to a sink; he’d gotten the blood off his skin, but the cuffs of his white shirt were crimson.

  He swallowed back the sick taste that rose in his parched throat. He’d known he had to stanch the flow of blood pouring from the bullet wound, but he had no idea if he’d gone about it the right way. What if he’d added to her injuries with t
he pressure he’d placed on her chest? What if he’d pushed broken cartilage—or a bone—through an already damaged lung? God, what if she died from his clumsy attempt to save her?

  “Remington!”

  Freezing in midstep, Sloan swiped his gaze to the far end of the fluorescent-lit corridor. For an instant the identity of the man clad in a green polo shirt and khaki shorts who’d rushed off the elevator eluded him.

  “Julia’s recorder?” the man asked into a cellular phone while his ground-eating stride brought him toward Sloan. “Fox had it in his pocket?”

  Halliday, Sloan realized, recognizing the detective’s voice.

  “What was on the tape?” Halliday halted beside Sloan, his eyes grim marbles of blue behind his wire-rim glasses as he listened into the phone.

  “That’s not enough to pin the West homicide on him,” Halliday said after a moment. “Is the bastard talking?”

  The detective’s gaze rose and locked with Sloan’s. One side of his mouth lifted briefly, then resettled into a tight line. “That so? He’s here. I’ll tell him he’s up for a good citizen award.”

  Halliday clicked off the phone, his face taut with concern. “How’s my partner?” he asked, his voice less steady now.

  “She’s been in surgery about thirty minutes. I’ve asked, but can’t get any information on her condition.” Sloan sent a dark look at the stern-faced woman sitting behind the nurses’ station. “I’m not family.”

  “Yeah, standard policy,” Halliday said.

  “Their policy is about to go to hell. My secretary’s tracking down the hospital administrator. After we talk, I expect to have unlimited access to everything concerning Julia.”

  Halliday gave him an appraising look. “I bet you will,” he said, then shifted his gaze to the waiting room. “What about Julia’s parents? Have you called them?”

  “I talked to Fred.” Sloan tightened his jaw. He’d had to treat the receptionist who worked for Julia’s father with blunt rudeness just to get her to put his call through after he’d identified himself. “Fred handled the news as well as expected, but we both knew that wouldn’t be the case with Georgia. He said he’d pick her up at the decorating job she’s doing somewhere north of the city. They ought to be here any time.”