In the Blink of an Eye

by Julie Miller

  Before she ended the connection, she added. “I love you.”

  She ran out the door and dialed 911. Chances were a neighbor had already called in the gunshots. But, then, she wasn’t much of one for taking chances.

  “Here.” She butted Mac aside, took over his job and placed the phone in his hands. “It’s the dispatcher. Tell her our situation and location, then give it back to me so I can report his vitals.”

  Mac’s calm, sure tone threaded its way through Julia’s veins, creating a pocket of normalcy amidst the crazy world where her hospital bed was dirt and concrete, and her state-of-the-art equipment was little more than her own two hands. She packed off Merle’s chest and leg with the towels and secured them with her belt and the ties.

  “Here.” Mac’s fingers groped for her shoulder, then slid straight up her neck. “You talk. I’ll hold it.”

  Cupping his other hand around the shell of her ear, he held the phone in place while she reported the visible signs and suspected extent of Merle’s injuries, freeing her hands to elevate Merle’s feet and tuck the afghan around him for warmth.

  “I can hear him trying to say something.” Mac bent low over Merle and turned his ear to the young detective’s mouth. “O? No? Go?”

  “He’s nodding.” Julia stayed on the line with the dispatcher while she marked Merle’s response to Mac. “Go?” Another nod. “He wants us to go.” She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you, pal.”

  While she reported the fluctuations in Merle’s pulse, Mac slowly lifted his head and turned it in another direction, toward the uneven sound creeping up behind them.

  “I’m sorry. I have to do this.”

  With a jolt, Julia turned, shivering at the odd inflection in that familiar basso profundo voice. Wade Osterman staggered through the hedgerow, bleeding from the cut across his forehead and from somewhere beneath the bright red stain on the shoulder of his pale blue shirt. “They’ll make me pay. I have to do it.”

  He lurched forward on unsteady feet, his gun held between two shaking hands.

  Julia stared into the deadly void of the black steel barrel and sat up straighter. But she didn’t move from Merle’s side. “Wade? What’s going on?”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Mac push up onto his hands and knees, angling his ear toward their would-be assassin. Wade might have seen the movement, too, but his perception was impaired. He swung his gun to the left, beyond Mac, then back at her.

  Keep him talking, she thought. “Did you shoot Detective Banning?”

  “I had to.” The big man was nearly in tears. “I can’t pay.”

  “Can’t pay who?”

  Mac threw himself at Wade’s legs. The two men tumbled to the ground. A wild shot rang out and Julia leaned over Merle’s body to protect him.

  She prayed for a miracle, and hoped her mother had understood her message, and that Mitch had dispatched someone he trusted to help them.

  Mac had his hand on Wade’s gun now. The two men rolled in a tangle of legs and fists. Wade might be injured, but his size and vision still gave him an advantage over Mac.

  Julia felt a gentle nudge against her thigh. Merle. She angled herself to see his face. Sirens wailed in the distance now, so she moved closer to hear him.

  His lips moved against the pain and his hand slid from under the afghan. “My gun.”

  Of course. They needed a weapon to fight Wade.

  Julia spun around on her hands and knees, and found Merle’s compact weapon beneath a pile of leaves. “I don’t know how to use it.” Mac sailed backward and landed, still, in the grass. “Mac!” Oh God. A wave of panic started at her toes and shimmied up through her body. She hurried back to Merle’s side. “I’ve never fired a gun.”

  Wade found his own gun, then climbed up on his feet with a series of jerks.

  Merle’s fingers splayed beside his hip. His eyes guided Julia to the subtle movement there.

  Mac began to move. He was stunned, disoriented. But alive. Healthy.

  For now.

  Wade lifted his gun.

  Julia wrapped Merle’s fingers around his weapon.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Taylor.” Wade squeezed the trigger as he apologized.

  A shot exploded in Julia’s ears.

  Wade crumpled to the ground and Merle’s hand fell to his side.

  “Jules?” Mac’s hoarse cry cut through the shock of seeing a man shot to death right before her eyes. With his right arm outstretched, he crawled toward her.

  She met him halfway. “I’m here. I’m all right.”

  When their fingers touched, he grabbed her and pulled her to him. He framed her face in his hands and looked down as if he could really see. She winced at the swelling around his left eye.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine.” His hands were quick and hard as they swept across her body, verifying what his vision could not see. She caught his hands in a prayerlike grasp between them. “Merle shot Wade. He tried to kill you.”

  Mac squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, as dumbfounded by these last few minutes of hell as she was. “I wish I knew what was going on.” But in the next breath, he was in control again. “Get me Osterman’s gun. I want to find out if it matches the slug in Banning’s chest.”

  “How?”

  “Just do it.”

  Julia scrambled off to do his bidding. She pressed two fingers against Wade’s throat and searched for a pulse that wasn’t there.

  “Jules?”

  She didn’t fully understand, but she obeyed Mac’s need to hurry. Choking down the urge to retch, she pulled the gun from Wade’s still-warm fingers. Useless tears stung the back of her eyes. The big doofus shouldn’t have died. He shouldn’t have been mixed up in any of this. “Why, Wade?”

  She pleaded with a senseless world for answers, but found none. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and turned back to Mac. One awful night fifteen years ago, he had made sense of all the madness. He found a way to make everything right again.

  But could even Mac Taylor make sense of this?

  Mac tucked Wade’s gun into the back of his jeans when she handed it to him. He had crouched beside Merle and held the younger man’s hand. Held it tight. “Hang in there, Banning. Help’s on the way.”

  “Go.” Merle’s chest heaved with the effort to speak that one word.

  The sirens grew louder as they rounded the corner. Julia found the strength to offer him a smile. “The ambulance is almost here.” She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. “You saved our lives. Now you be quiet and save your own.”

  But his continued agitation concerned her. “I’ll go meet the ambulance.”

  “No.” Mac caught her ankle as she stepped away, tackling her to the ground. “It could be the police.”

  Julia pushed at the weight of his body on her legs. “Then I’ll meet the police.”

  “What if it’s Masterson and Niederhaus?”

  Julia slumped back on her elbows and buttocks. She was feeling tired. Beyond tired. Too weary to fight anymore, she sank into the hard-packed dirt as her adrenaline wore off and her patience wore thin. “What are you saying?”

  Mac loomed over her, his bruised and battered face lined with the same frustration she was feeling. “I have two downed cops on my lawn and my bloody fingerprints all over everything. I don’t think they’ll be interested in any explanation.”

  “But they’re cops. They’re the good guys, right? They have to—”

  “Didn’t you hear what Wade said? Can’t pay. He shot at us because someone forced him to.”

  A glimmer of understanding relit the fire in her veins. “Blackmail?”

  “Blackmail.” Mac sat back on his heels and pulled Julia up to a sitting position. “Another cop on the take dies while I’m around. I’m starting to feel guilty myself.”

  “You’re not.” She reached out and cupped the side of Mac’s jaw. “You need to leave. That’s what Merle meant. You need to go someplace sa
fe until we can find out who’s behind all this.”

  He covered her hand with his, linking them in a quick caress. But just as quickly, he wrapped his fingers through hers and clutched them against his heart. “You’ve been a trooper. I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. But I want you to stay with Banning. Make sure he pulls through.”

  Julia looked about as he released her hand. The sirens had now taken on an ominous tone, like great predators hunting down their prey. “Where will you go?”

  “I’ll figure that out later.” Mac was already half crawling, half limping toward the front door. “Just answer anything they ask as honestly as you can. Don’t get caught in any lies.”

  “But you’re hurt.” He hit the front step and pitched forward, catching himself on the frame. “Dammit, Mac. You can’t do this on your own.”

  Julia picked up her phone and bolted to her feet. Even though he had given her the order to stay, she knew in her heart she had no choice. How did a blind man try to hide? Or watch his back? She caught Mac’s left hand and slipped it through the crook of her arm, pulling him up and into the house behind her. As they dashed through, she grabbed her bag, their jackets and Mac’s antibiotic drops from the kitchen.

  As the ambulance spun into the driveway, they ran out the back door into the alley behind Mac’s house.

  While the paramedics tended to Merle, she tossed their things into the back seat of her car and Mac climbed in.

  And when the unmarked police car skidded up onto the curb in front of the house, Julia slammed her car into gear and sped away.

  “YEAH, JOSH, WE’RE FINE.” Mac had taken a chance on contacting a cop he could trust. His youngest brother. He already felt guilty as the criminal I.A. believed him to be for getting Julia involved in this mess. He didn’t want anyone else in trouble or danger on his behalf. But regret and pride had given way to practicality. “But we need some help.”

  With one ear to the phone, he could still hear Julia puttering about the office of the abandoned warehouse where they planned to hole up for the night. Busy again. She was moving some furniture around, and cleaning things off, judging by the cloud of dust tickling his nose. Other than the ancient creaks and moans of the building settling around them, she made the only sounds in this derelict neighborhood between the old stockyards and the Missouri River.

  Josh’s bright, teasing voice took on an unusually serious tone. “Word around the station house is that I.A. wants to bring you in for questioning.”

  “I.A. wants to put me away permanently.” He expelled an angry, frustrated sigh and bent his mouth closer to the phone. “I can’t find answers from a jail cell, Josh. And nobody else is asking the right questions. They’re convinced I’m behind the trail of missing evidence. Or that I discovered it and now I’m covering it up to make my department look clean.”

  “Did you kill Ringlein?

  “No.”

  “Did you steal that evidence?”

  Damn. Did even his own brother doubt him? “No.”

  Josh laughed, and his rich, robust tone almost gave Mac hope. “Then I’m not aiding and abetting a felon. I’m taking care of my big brother.”

  As a big brother, Mac felt compelled to remind Josh just how serious this situation was. “If this turns out badly, you could lose your badge for helping us.”

  “Understood. Now tell me what you need.”

  Mac ticked off a list of items—fresh clothes, toiletries, cash. While they talked, he became aware of the sudden silence in the room. For the barest instant of panic, he thought Julia had left. And then he heard her sudden catch of breath. It was a shivery sigh that seemed to shudder through her all the way from her shoulders down to the floor.

  “Jules?” Mac stretched out his arm, blindly seeking contact, silently asking for her hand.

  She didn’t disappoint. She hadn’t yet.

  Her fingers touched his in a timid grasp.

  Her skin was like ice. And he didn’t think it was solely due to the lack of heat in the building. Had she just now realized what they were up against? Was she thinking of the blood she had stopped to wash off her hands more than once that day?

  Alarmed, concerned, Mac turned his head away from the phone, wishing he could read her face. But he couldn’t, of course. So he did the only thing he could think of. Treat the symptom. Even if he didn’t fully understand the cause.

  He tugged her into his chest and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She folded her hands between them, to seek warmth or to form a barrier of protest, he couldn’t tell.

  Mac squeezed her tighter, and dipped his nose into the stale smells of dirt and stress that tarnished her beautiful hair. Her hands never snuck around his waist or clung to the front of his jacket, but at least she didn’t pull away. She might not want to be intimate with him, but, thankfully, she’d accept whatever human comfort he could give her. He owed her that much. And more, so much more.

  “Mac? You still there?” Josh’s voice summoned him across the line.

  Keeping Julia close, Mac answered. “I’m here.”

  They arranged a time and meeting place for the next morning. Josh promised to find and hide Julia’s car where they had abandoned it in a suburban mall parking lot before switching to a public transport bus to ride back downtown.

  Finally, Josh asked, “What about Jules? She need anything?”

  Mac felt like a total jerk. He hadn’t thought to ask if she had any particular requests. He could feel her shifting in his hold, raising her face toward his.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  Her ear brushed against his shoulder as she nodded. “Some shampoo? I feel pretty gritty.”

  Shampoo. Yes. Definitely. He wanted her to wash away those horrible memories from the day. “Shampoo, Josh.” He closed his eyes and thought of his first impression of the grown-up Julia. “Something simple and clean. Nothing perfumey.”

  “Got it. You sure you don’t want me to bring it out tonight? I can do it on the sly.”

  “No.” Mac thanked his brother. “I want to lie low for a few hours. See if anyone shows their hand. I’m going to do this on my own, Josh.” Correction. He nuzzled his cheek against the crown of Julia’s hair. “We’re going to do this. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”

  “I’ll let you call the shots on this one, Mac. But take care of yourself. I’ll have a hell of a time explaining it to Ma if you get hurt again. Or something worse.”

  “I will.” He felt a sudden tension creep into Julia’s shoulder and automatically began to massage it, kneading in a smidgeon of the warmth she reluctantly took from him. She must have heard Josh’s last comment. “One more request.”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t suppose you could get me something to drive?”

  “And put a blind man behind the wheel? I guess it couldn’t be much worse than some of the other folks I’ve pulled over.” Mac shook his head. Josh could find something humorous in the entire world coming to an end.

  But fortunately—and to his chagrin—Julia saw the humor in it, too. He could hear the hushed giggle in her throat, and feel the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she tried to hide her amusement at the silly comment. He stilled his fingers as she finally relaxed.

  Mac felt a relaxing bit of relief himself now that her fears had eased. But then he was broadsided by an emotion completely foreign to him.

  Jealousy.

  Josh had made her feel better. Josh had made her laugh.

  He could only get her killed.

  But common sense demanded that he set that stabbing feeling of betrayal aside. Josh was his brother, not his competition. Hell. Julia wasn’t even interested in him. She’d made that clear this morning with her packed bag and her rejection of his kiss. She was here to repay that stupid favor. Nothing more. He should appreciate whatever it took to help her get through all this.

  He just wished he’d been the one to make her laugh.

  Mac crushed his emotions b
eneath his sternest big-brother voice. “Work with me here.”

  “Okay.” Josh’s laughter finally subsided. “What does Jules like to drive?”

  Her giggles stopped more abruptly, as if she was surprised to be asked. “Nothing too big,” she said, after a thoughtful moment. “Nothing with a stick shift.”

  “Did you hear that?” Mac asked.

  “Got it. I’ll have her carriage delivered first thing in the morning. See you then.” Josh caught his breath then, and for a moment, was deadly serious. “You take care of yourself. And tell Jules good-night.”

  Mac quietly answered both requests. “I will.”

  He disconnected the call, and he and Julia were alone again. She took the phone and stepped away. The chill in the stark, silent air washed over him as she left him to pack it in her bag.

  He paused to consider for a moment the quick, intense emotional reactions this suddenly shy woman caused in him.

  By simply being herself—practical and efficient, sassy and stubborn, cool under pressure yet somehow unsure of herself—she made him more aware of himself as a man.

  He’d always considered himself a scientist. First, as a student. Then as a forensic cop. He’d always enjoyed the challenges of learning, the thrills of discovery. The triumph of ascertaining an exact answer to the questions posed to him throughout his life. But he could see now that he’d neglected to train his heart in the same way he’d developed his mind.

  He loved his family. Shared a bond with his brothers and sister that he’d trade for no other. He’d dated a respectable number of women, and had liked them, had cared for them on some level.

  But no one turned him inside out and worked him over the way Julia did.

  He just didn’t understand it.

  But understanding would come with time and study. And just like any other mystery, he was determined to solve it. Just not tonight.

  He didn’t have the answers to any questions tonight.

  “Tired?” he asked, feeling a need to break the silence. She was busy again. Whether she had a legitimate purpose, or was simply working through the same nervous energy he was feeling, he couldn’t tell.

  “Exhausted.” The busy sounds stopped for a moment. “Here’s a bite to eat. I always keep something in my bag for emergencies.”