by Pandora Pine
Mark chuckled in a voice that didn’t sound like his own. The voice had taken on a darker and more sinister tone. “I’m not here to talk to you, detective. I’m here to kill you. You’re just the first name on my kill list.”
Ronan tried to take a deep breath to slow down his racing mind. He knew the only thing he could do right now was to keep Mark talking until he could yank his arm loose or until someone saw what was going on and could call the police. “Why am I on your hit list, Mark? I saved you from living on the streets. Helped you find a nice home to live in.”
“You didn’t save shit. You ruined everything!” Mark’s voice was filled with hate.
“Who else is on your hit list?” None of this made any sense. Least of all what he could have possibly ruined for the former child-prostitute with the Pretty Woman fantasy. Mark couldn’t possibly be angry that Ronan had taken him out of a position where a john could fall in love with him and carry him away to a better life like Richard Gere had done, could he?
Mark laughed. It was a rich sound, filled with malice and hatred. Ronan half-expected spiders to come crawling out of the kid’s mouth like in some cut-rate horror flick. “Since you’re gonna be worm food in about thirty seconds I don’t see any harm in telling you. Fitzgibbon, your precious psychic, Jace Lincoln, and the one who got away.” Mark’s eyes were glittering with murderous glee.
“The one who got away?” It took Ronan a second to think of who the hell Mark could possibly be referring to. “Greeley?” Greeley Fitzgibbon was the one teenager that Rod Jacobson failed to kill twice. “Why do you want to kill him, Mark? He didn’t do anything to you. For that matter neither did Tennyson or me.” Ronan tried again to pull away from Mark. There was something else niggling in the back of his mind. Rod Jacobson had once called Tennyson his precious psychic, but there was no way Mark could possibly know about that.
Mark yanked Ronan closer, shoving the gun flush against Ronan’s chest. “Mark has nothing against any of you. You stupid fuck. Some detective you are.” He pulled the trigger three times in quick succession, finally releasing Ronan’s elbow as he started to crumple down toward the sidewalk.
“Jacobson?” Ronan whispered.
“Ding, dong, give the man a prize,” he whispered and he bent down to remove Ronan’s gun from its holster. “Rot in hell, motherfucker.”
“Tennyson,” Ronan whispered, before he lost consciousness.
24
Tennyson
Tennyson was two blocks away from their street when his chest exploded in pain. He knew exactly what the pain was. Ronan had just been shot. He’d never felt pain like that in his entire life. It was so intense that part of him wanted to pull the car over and curl into a ball and wait until it went away. The other part of him said, “Fuck that!” and kept driving.
He could hear sirens in the distance and prayed those were for Ronan. In the few weeks that they’d been living in the new house, Ten knew there were a lot of stay-at-home mothers living in their neighborhood. Someone must have seen or heard something. He was about to hit the Bluetooth button on his steering wheel to call Truman when his phone started ringing. It was Truman. “Tru?”
“Ten, where are you?” Truman’s voice was hoarse. He sounded like he was crying.
“Half a block from home.”
“Ronan was hurt. I forgot my yoga mat and when I pulled up at the house he was just lying there…” Truman started to cry.
“Tru, are the cops there? An ambulance?” A blaring car horn pulled Ten’s attention back to the road. He saw he was drifting into oncoming traffic. He jerked the wheel, bringing the car back into his lane.
“They’re loading him into the ambulance now.” Truman sucked in a harsh breath.
“Which hospital?”
“N-N-N…” Truman was crying so hard he couldn’t get a word out.
“North Shore Medical Center?” It was where Ten had gone last year when he’d had the flu.
“Y-Yes,” Truman managed.
“I’m turning the car around now. Get one of the Salazar sisters to drive you. I’ll call Carson.” Tennyson knew Carson was already well aware of what was going on. Cole too. Not that he wanted to see either of the Craig brothers at the moment, but Ronan needed all the support he could get. “Pray for him, Truman.” And pray that I don’t kill your husband and his brother too… Ten couldn’t help thinking.
“O-Okay.”
Tennyson hit the button to end the call. He swung the car around, just as a red ambulance with flashing lights pulled out into the street ahead of him. Saying a quick Hail Mary, like Ronan had taught him, Tennyson followed behind it.
The hospital was only five minutes away, but Ten knew this ride was going to take an eternity. He hit the Bluetooth button on the phone and called out for it to dial Fitzgibbon.
“Hey, Ten! Did you see Ronan’s kick ass performance today?”
“Kevin, Ronan’s been shot. You need to get to North Shore Medical Center in Salem now!”
“Jesus Christ, Ten! What happened?” Fitzgibbon was all business.
“Do you want facts or what I saw in my vision?”
“Both.” Fitzgibbon didn’t waver in his answer.
“Ronan was shot three times in the chest in front of our house. Whoever shot him stole his gun. There are no exit wounds, so the bullets are still inside his body. Ronan said he knew the man who shot him. Truman found him. Forgot his yoga mat and had to turn around to come home to get it.”
“You get to the hospital with Ronan.”
“Get here as soon as you can, Cap. Ronan is going to need you.” Tennyson stopped short of saying he was going to need the burly cop too.
“You got it. I’ll make all of my calls from the car.”
The phone beeped three times in Tennyson’s ear. “Bertha? Erin? I swear to God, the two of you had better know what you’re doing. If I walk out of this hospital a widower before I’ve ever become a husband, we’re going to have words. Understood?”
Silence.
“I know you both can hear me!” Tennyson shouted. They had better be with Ronan. He needed them a whole lot more than Ten did right now. He hit the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and called out for Carson’s number.
“Hey, we’re pulling into the parking space right next to you,” Carson said.
Ten didn’t even bother to respond. He hit the hang up button and climbed out of the car. The second the door was shut behind him, he started running for the emergency room entrance.
“Tennyson, wait!” Carson shouted.
Tennyson kept running. Carson had kept him from trying to get to Ronan earlier. He wasn’t going to do it again. Not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, Ten felt his lungs starting to burn, but he kept running anyway. He burst through the hospital doors, frantic to find someone to help him. He spotted the ER intake nurse who was flipping through People Magazine. “Help!” Tennyson managed to squeak out.
“Are you sick, sir?” the nurse asked.
Ten shook his head. “My fiancé, Ronan O’Mara was shot. The ambulance just brought him in.”
She clicked around with her mouse on the computer. “I don’t have anyone by that name on my list.”
“Oh my god! Is he dead? Did he die in the ambulance?” Tennyson felt his knees buckle. Strong arms caught him from behind.
“Nurse, I believe that’s our friend behind you.” Carson was pointing to a stretcher being pushed down the hall. A paramedic was sitting on top of the patient’s chest performing CPR. Another was running alongside holding up an IV bag. Carson wrapped his arms tighter around Tennyson.
“Ronan’s a detective with the Boston Police Department,” Cole chimed in from behind them. “Please…” He didn’t seem to know how to end his sentence.
“Save him,” Tennyson begged. He was at his breaking point. He knew he only had a few minutes of near sanity left before he was going to end up crying hysterically.
“Come with me.” The nurse flagged down another woman dressed in
scrubs and came out into the waiting room a moment later. She led them down the hall to a private waiting room. “I’ll have someone come speak to you as soon as we have some news. I assume there are going to be a lot more of you coming to see how Detective O’Mara is doing?”
“Yes, we have a very large extended family,” Carson said.
“I’ll make sure they all know where to find you.”
“No media,” Cole added. “Ronan’s working on a very high-profile murder case at the moment. Please don’t let anyone with press credentials back here to see us.”
“He was the one who did the press conference about those murdered boys this afternoon, right?” The nurses face brightened.
“Yes, that’s him,” Cole agreed.
She nodded and headed out of the room.
“Come on, let’s sit.” Carson led Tennyson to a nearby chair.
“I’m so fucking angry at you right now!” Tennyson hissed before he swung on Carson. Luckily, Carson ducked out of the way before Tennyson’s fist connected.
“His phone was dead,” Cole said, stepping between them. He pushed Ten into the chair and knelt at Tennyson’s feet. “Look, I know you’re angry and you have a lot of questions. “We both tried to reach out to Ronan. Each time we tried to call him, the call went straight to voicemail. The only time that happens is when the phone is off or dead. We all know Ronan never shuts that phone off.”
Tennyson knew Cole had a point.
“Mom came to both of us and told us to stay out of this. She said it had to play out the way it was supposed to play out. Carson and I both disobeyed her, Ten. We kept you from going after Ronan because we were afraid you’d get hurt too. You can hate us for being selfish pricks, but we all know you would have charged in there to save Ronan with only your wits and your gift to save you. The last time a psychic did that, he got shot and almost fucking died.” Cole pointed to Carson.
Tennyson sighed. “Carson, I’m-”
“Don’t even say it. I’m the one who’s sorry.” Carson looked devastated. “We left you on the floor of the shop, Ten. We turned around the closed sign and we called all of our clients to cancel our readings today. All we cared about was keeping you safe.”
“But, Ronan!” Ten shouted, flying out of his seat. “I don’t care about being safe. All I care about is Ronan! If I lose him, you both mark my words, I won’t fucking survive. It’s not possible to have a love like this, lose it, and then come out whole on the other side. You should have let me go, Carson, because if Ronan dies. I will too.” Tennyson’s dark eyes were filled with tears. He wasn’t too proud to let them fall.
“No one’s dying,” Bertha Craig announced from behind Carson.
“Is Ronan okay?” Cole asked his mother.
“No, they’ve got him in surgery. Erin is with him now. I wanted to come down here and check on my boys.”
“I’m not your boy,” Tennyson answered.
“Now come on, Tenny, I know you don’t mean that.” Bertha folded her arms over her chest.
“I do mean it!” Rage like Ten had never known in his life burned in his gut. “You explain this to me, Bertha! You tell me right now why I had to let this thing play out! Why would you keep me from helping him?” He was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Bertha nodded. “You want to see? Fine.” She shut her eyes.
Ten felt like he was going to throw up again. He slammed his eyes shut and when the nausea passed, he opened them and saw that he was standing in the same exact spot on the sidewalk in his neighborhood as he had been in his earlier vision. He didn’t hesitate to turn around this time.
The scene was all the same, Ronan was crumpled at the foot of the stairs. But now, there was a man still standing over his body and a blue Chevy tearing down the street. His blue Chevy. The car came to a stop and he was running out of it. He only got around to the front of the car before the man started shooting at him and Tennyson watched his own body fall backward to the ground.
He ran, not to Ronan this time, but to his own body. There was a bullet wound in the center of his forehead. His dark eyes stared sightlessly up at the blue sky.
Tennyson watched numbly Truman arrived home and frantically called 9-1-1. Tears streaked down his face as an ambulance pulled up. Paramedics scrambled out of the back. Some of them ran to Ronan, while others raced to him. A gurney came out and Ronan was quickly loaded onto it. The ambulance screeched away. Moments later, a police officer draped his body in a yellow tarp, like the kind he saw at the Dylan Charles crime scene back in May.
Tennyson took a ragged breath as the vision faded.
“Do you understand now?” Bertha Craig asked.
Tears were still streaking down Tennyson cheeks. He had no words for what he’d just seen.
“I knew my boys would do everything they could to reach Ronan. I also knew they’d do everything they could do to save you, Ten.” Bertha wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.
All Tennyson could do was cry.
25
Ronan
“Ro Your Boat?” a very familiar voice asked gently.
There was only one person who ever called Ronan by that nickname and if he could hear his mother’s voice, it must mean Ronan was dead. “Mom?”
“The one and only!” Erin O’Mara laughed.
Ronan opened his eyes, but the light was too bright. He quickly shut them again. There was no pain. Christ, the last thing he remembered before everything went dark was this white-hot pain in his chest that he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. “Am I dead, Mom? Is this heaven?”
“No, baby, you’re not dead, now. This isn’t heaven. I’m not sure what it is. A waiting room, I guess.”
Ronan snorted. That was the single most confusing thing his mother had ever said to him. “I’m not dead now and this is some anteroom of heaven. Have I got that right?” He tried to open his eyes again and found the white light wasn’t as bright as it had been before.
“That’s about the size of it,” Erin laughed again.
Ronan blinked a few times and his mother’s face swam into focus. He hadn’t seen her in nearly thirteen years. She’d died from a brain aneurysm shortly after he’d graduated from the police academy. “Mom,” his voice was barely above a whisper.
Erin pulled him into her arms and hugged her son tightly. “I missed you, baby boy.”
“I missed you too, Mom. I just wish I didn’t need to take three bullets to the chest in order to hug you again.” Ronan pushed back from the hug to take her face in his hands. She was just as beautiful as he remembered.
“Me too, Ronan.”
“How’s this going to turn out for me? Is this just a temporary reunion or are we going to be fighting crime on the other side permanently?” Ronan held his breath waiting for her answer.
Erin shook her head. “I don’t know, Ronan. I really don’t. Tennyson is asking Bertha the same question and neither one of you believe the answers you’re getting. I’ll just tell you now that just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I have all the answers.”
“How is Ten?”
“He’s alive, Ronan. The vision you sent him was enough to make him black out long enough so he wouldn’t be able to rush home in time to end up a victim of the gunman.”
Ronan’s breath caught in the back of his throat. That statement was so stunning that it was almost beyond belief. “He was really going to die today, Mom?” Ronan felt tears starting and fought them back.
Erin nodded. “Today was supposed to be his last day on Earth. I don’t know how you did it, Ronan, but you saved him.” She reached out to touch the side of his face.
Ronan had no idea either, but no matter how this ended up for him, it was worth it if Tennyson survived. “I always thought that if I got the chance to see you again I’d have a million things to say. That we’d talk until I lost my voice, but now…” Ronan pulled his mother in for a hug and let his tears fall.
“No matter what happens, it’s going to be oka
y.” Erin held him close and rubbed his back.
Ronan hoped his mother was right. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him. When he left our crime scene today, I was so busy talking to Captain Fitzgibbon, I didn’t even wave when he left. What if that’s the last memory he’ll have of me, Mom?”
“It won’t be his last memory of you.”
“You’re right. His last memory will be of me lying in a hospital bed with tubes connected to my body. Or of my coffin being lowered into the ground while a lone bugle plays Taps.”
“You always were dramatic, Ro Your Boat.” Erin rolled her blue eyes, which matched Ronan’s exactly. “What you need to do now is fight. You need to fight so that you can make more memories with Tennyson. Fight so that I’ll get be a grandmother one day, Ro. I mean, being a Nana to a grand puppy is nice, but Dixie doesn’t quite understand who I am.”
Ronan managed a smile. “You’ve met Dixie?”
“She’s presh, Ronan, but not as precious as a baby with your eyes or Tennyson’s cute little nose.”
“I know he’s crazy about Carson and Truman’s babies…”
“He doesn’t think he’ll survive without you.” Erin patted his leg and stood up.
“The hell he won’t!” Ronan roared. “He’s the strongest man I know. Where are you going?”
“Since you’ve found some fight, I’ll go check in on Tennyson. He’s gonna need all the support he can get if you go belly up and end up wearing a toe tag in the morgue.”
“Jesus Christ, Mom! Have a little faith, would you? And you say I’m the dramatic one! I’m an O’Mara! You raised me better than that.”
“Damn right I did.” Erin waved before she disappeared.
Ronan took a deep breath. He didn’t much like this anteroom to heaven. He was needed back in Salem with Tennyson, Dixie, and their friends. There was just one thing he needed to do before he went back. He made the sign of the cross before he began to pray, “Hail Mary, full of Grace. The Lord is with thee…”
26
Tennyson
It was almost midnight and there was still no word about Ronan. Nurses had come in a few times to let them know that Ronan was still in surgery, but had provided no more detail than that. Tennyson didn’t know how much more waiting he could take.