by J. R. Ward
Vin pivoted on his bare feet and saw the vision he’d been given in his trance play out: A man with thinning blond hair was turning the corner at the head of the stairs and lifting a gun to point it straight into the bedroom. Yes…this was it. The trigger was going to be pulled and the bullet was going to travel through the air in the blink of an eye…and Marie-Terese was going to be struck.
“No!” Vin screamed as the shot went off.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Jim leap in front of her, the man’s body blocking the lead that was meant for her by taking it in the chest, the impact carrying him back and knocking her down.
Vin’s instinct was to go to her, but that was not the right move. Wheeling around with his gun, he knew that he had to make sure the intruder didn’t get a second shot—it was the only thing he could do to improve the chance of people surviving.
Although he had the cold, deadly suspicion that Jim was down for count permanently.
Holding his weapon steady, Vin stepped into the doorway—and directly into the face of a man who was a good three inches shorter than he was.
It was a question of who pulled their trig first, and surprise worked in Vin’s favor—the shooter had naively assumed that there were only three people in the room.
Vin didn’t hesitate to squeeze out a round, right into the guy’s heart, and the impact kicked the man’s aim off and tightened his index finger at the same time. Which meant Vin took a slug in the shoulder.
Fortunately it was the left one.
As the intruder went down flat on his back and his weapon scattered away, Vin squared his muzzle off and pumped another round and another round and another round into the guy so there was no chance the fucker was going to be able to blink, much less lift a gun.
With each shot, the man jerked, arms and legs flopping like a puppet.
“Marie-Terese, are you hit?” Vin called out as the din faded.
“No…but oh, God…Jim’s barely breathing and Eddie fell out of the window.”
Blood dripped off Vin’s free hand and onto the intruder’s jeans as he stepped over the guy and kicked that gun all the way down the stairs. He still wasn’t about to trust that the bastard was dead, though, so he trained his weapon on the paling face before him as he listened hard for more footsteps downstairs.
“Get your phone,” Vin said to Marie-Terese. “Call nine-one-one.”
“Already dialing,” she replied.
He wanted to look over his shoulder and check her with his own eyes, but he wasn’t taking any chances. There was no telling who else had come into the house, and there was still a shallow movement in the intruder’s chest.
As seconds drifted into minutes, Vin totally approved of the way the color was leaving the unremarkable features of the man’s face, but Christ…who was he? What was he?
Although if a bullet could stop him, he probably was just a human.
Marie-Terese’s voice drifted across the room. “Yes, there’s been a shooting at One-sixteen Crestwood Avenue. There are two men—three down…. We need an ambulance right away. Marie-Terese Boudreau. Yes…yes. Yes…no, it’s not my residence—”
The lids of the intruder suddenly flipped open and Vin found himself staring into a pair of pale browns that were fixated on something other than whatever was in front of him. With a stiff twitch, those graying lips started to move.
“Noooooo…” The word was extended for the length of a horrified exhale, as if whatever he was seeing made nightmares seem like sitcoms.
With a gasp and a shudder, the guy passed into the hereafter, an expression of terror freezing on his face as a line of blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth.
Vin kicked those loose legs a couple of times and then he listened hard. He could hear wind whistling up the stairs, but there were no other sounds anywhere else.
He backed up slowly, gun swinging from left to right in case somebody came up from down below or popped out of any of the doorways.
Inside the bedroom, he held his arm wide and Marie-Terese came forward for a hard hug. She was shaking, but she held on strong for the split second they were together.
“Can you do CPR on Jim?” he asked. “Or do you want to hold this gun on—”
“No, I’ll take care of him.” She went over to the man, knelt down and put her ear next to Jim’s mouth. “He’s still breathing, but it’s not by much.”
Whipping off her fleece, she wadded it up and put it to the bleeding wound on the front of the chest and pushed down while she took his pulse. “So faint…but it’s beating so I can’t do chest compressions. The ambulance is due in five minutes.”
Which was forever in a situation like this.
“Don’t shoot,” came a groggy voice from downstairs. “It’s just me.”
“Eddie?” Vin called out. “Jim’s hit!”
When Eddie appeared at the top of the stairs, he looked like roadkill, and as he limped forward, he glanced down at the intruder. “That’s really dead. How’s Jim?”
“Good,” Marie-Terese whispered as she stroked the man’s face. “Right, Jim? You’re good and you’re going to get fixed. You’re going to make it just fine….”
Vin put his gun down on the bed and knelt on the other side of Jim, mirroring Marie-Terese’s position on the floor as she reached out to the fallen man.
“He saved me,” she said, her fine hand stroking Jim’s thick arm. “You saved me, Jim. I’d be dead without you…. Oh, God, Jim, you saved my life….”
Vin ran his eyes over that big chest and didn’t need a medical degree to know that the wound the man had taken was fatal. Jim was breathing in the same shallow way the intruder had been, and he was soon going to go the route the shooter had: His color was fading at an alarming rate, evidence of internal bleeding.
Shit, there was nothing they could do other than wait for the pros to come with their stretcher. CPR was not an option as long as Jim had a pulse and was breathing on his own, and pressure wasn’t going to do shit for a torn artery.
For the first time in Vin’s life, he started praying for the sound of sirens.
Jim had been shot before. And stabbed. Hanged once, too. He’d been injured in fights by fists and crowbars and jackknives and boots. Even been impaled with a Montblanc pen.
In all of those situations, he’d known he was going to survive. No matter how much it had hurt, or how much he’d bled, or how vicious the weapon, he’d known his injuries weren’t fatal.
And now he knew with the same certainty that the bullet in his chest had left in its wake the kind of tearing trail that was going to carry him to his royal reward.
Angel or no angel, he was dying.
Funny, it didn’t hurt much. There was a sharp burning, sure, and he was having trouble catching his breath—which he took to mean either his lungs were starting to fill with blood, or his chest cavity was flooding out—but overall he was comfortable. Maybe a little cool, but mostly comfortable.
So he was clearly in shock.
Guess that little bullet had nicked an artery.
He opened his mouth on instinct only, not because he wanted to pray or beg for the medics to come faster: He was drowning in his own body and that was the long and short of it.
And it was not a bad outcome, really. Thanks to the Four Lads, he knew he’d be seeing his mother soon. And he hoped to meet up with the lovely blond girl who hadn’t deserved to die as she had.
All that put him at peace.
Funny, as he pictured those English guys in their whites with their dog, he wished them well and felt sorry for them. Guess those angels had been wrong. He wasn’t the answer to their problems—although at least he’d gotten Vin and Marie-Terese on the right track.
And it was strange to know, but it had turned out the crossroads had been his, not Vin’s.
When he’d seen that gun muzzle up and all ready to rock-and-roll, his only thought had been about Vin and Marie-Terese. Saving her meant saving them both, and their love was worth so much more than
one paltry life.
It was the first time he’d done that. The first time he’d not only been truly unselfish, but acted out of something other than anger or vengeance. And he’d never been more sure of anything, except the need to avenge his mother all those years ago.
Summoning his flagging strength, Jim focused his eyes and saw Marie-Terese and Vin bending over him. Vin had gripped his hand and was talking at him, the man’s face intense to the point of distortion, his features pulling together, his eyes burning. Jim tried to concentrate and get his hearing to work, but sound was beyond him. Best guess was that the guy was telling him to hold on, ambulance on the way, hold on, ambulance coming…. Oh, God, Jim, stay with us….
On the opposite side, Marie-Terese was silently crying, her beautiful eyes resplendent in her sorrow, her crystal tears falling off her cheeks and onto his chest. She had his other palm and was slowly rubbing his arm as if trying to warm him up.
He couldn’t feel a thing, but as he watched her stroke him, he was touched.
Unfortunatley, he didn’t have a lot of time left with them, and he didn’t have the breath to speak…so he did the only thing he was able.
With the last of his strength, Jim brought their hands together, linking them over the pinhole in his chest that had changed everything for all three of them, holding the two halves of them so they were one.
As his vision receded, he looked at those fingers, the small and the large, woven among each other. In a rush, he knew for certain the future was going to be kind to them. The demon was gone from Vin and somehow those talismans were in the possession of Adrian. These two fine, broken people were going to heal each other and walk through the hours and days and years of their decades side by side, and it was right; it was good.
He’d done a good thing. After so many years of taking lives, he’d saved one that mattered. And two that counted.
At the crossroads, he’d chosen wisely.
Abruptly, Jim’s chest seized up and he coughed hard, his mouth becoming wet. His next inhale was nothing but a gurgle, and his heart started to hopscotch. Not long now, not long at all.
He couldn’t wait to see his mother. And he was surprised at how much what he had done put him at peace.
Just as red lights played across the ceiling—the sign that an ambulance had pulled into the driveway—Jim let out his last breath…and died with a smile on his lips.
CHAPTER
41
The ambulance ride was bumpy from the speed and bright from the flashing lights. The sirens, however, came on only at intersections.
Marie-Terese took this as a good sign.
Sitting on a built-in bench beside Vin, with one hand locked on a vertical stainless-steel bar to steady herself and the other tight to his warm palm, she figured if his condition were really dangerous, the rip-snorting, high-pitched stuff would be going constantly.
Or maybe she was just trying to placate herself.
As he lay on the gurney, Vin’s eyes were closed and his face was pale, but he was holding on to her. And every time they went over a pothole, he winced, his lips pulling back off his white teeth—which had to mean he wasn’t in deep shock or a coma. And that was good, right?
Compared to the downside potential.
She glanced over at the medic. The woman was concentrating on the screen of a portable EKG, and her expression gave nothing away.
Marie-Terese leaned to the side and tried to get a look at whatever readout the machine was giving…and all she saw was a white line making some sort of pattern against a black background. She had no clue what it meant.
Out the back window of the ambulance, she prayed to see more street lamps on the sidewalks…and buildings instead of strip malls or residential streets…and cars parked parallel to the curb.
Because that meant they were finally downtown.
It wasn’t just for Vin’s sake.
Shifting around and moving her butt forward on the seat, she was able to look through the front windshield, and she took solace in the fact that the ambulance ahead of them—which had Jim in it—still had its lights going. The medics had triaged both men, called for a second team, and treated Jim first—and she had stood out in the hall with Eddie as a portable defibrillator had been brought in and that wounded chest had been shocked once…twice….
The sweetest words she’d ever heard had come from the man with the stethoscope: I have a pulse.
She hoped they were able to keep it going up in front. The idea that Jim would have to die to save her was nearly unbearable.
And as for Saul…he hadn’t needed fast transport to the hospital. Plenty of time for him.
Good God…Saul?
He’d been all but invisible in those prayer group meetings, nothing but a quiet, balding man who had the sad-sack look of someone perpetually on the losing end of life’s equation. She’d seen nothing from him to lead her to believe he was obsessed with her, but the trouble was…he was precisely the kind of man you wouldn’t remember.
Thinking back to when she’d run into him at church the night before at confession, she wondered how many times she’d missed noticing him. After all, he’d been the first car to stop when she’d had that near miss in traffic after the service today. Which suggested he’d been right behind her.
How often had he followed her home? Had he come to the Iron Mask?
On a cold shiver, she wondered…had he killed those men she’d been with?
The whole thing didn’t exactly make her glad for the kind of man her ex-husband had been. But she appreciated the precautions she’d taken because of Mark.
From out the front windshield, the offices of the Caldwell Courier Journal flew by and she squeezed Vin’s hand. “Almost there.”
His lids lifted. Those gray eyes that had first captivated her did the trick all over again: Staring into them, she felt as though she were tripping and falling and didn’t have a clue where she was going to land.
Although that was no longer true, was it. She knew exactly the sort of man he was, and he was not the kind she had to look out for.
He was the man she needed in her life. Wanted in her life.
Leaning down to him, she smoothed his hair back, stroked his five-o’clock shadow, and looked into his eyes. “I love you,” she said, bending down and kissing his lips. “I love you.”
His hand cranked down on hers. “Love you…too.”
Boy, that croaking voice lit her up from the inside. “Good. We’re even then.”
“We…are….”
The ambulance bumped over something in the road and everything from the machines to the medic to Vin on the gurney got tossed up. As he sucked in a vicious hiss and squeezed his eyes shut, she went back to looking out the front window again, anxious to see the ambient glow of the St. Francis Hospital complex…hoping that somehow her making visual contact with their route would speed things along.
Come on…come on….
All at once the ambulance up ahead put its red lights out and slowed down to the speed limit, and the one she and Vin were in caught up quickly…then passed its leader.
“Why did they slow down?” she demanded as the medic repositioned the EKG monitor. “Their lights are off. Why are they slowing down?”
The shake of the head she got in response was not a surprise. It was a tragedy: You needed to rush only if the person were alive. Which was why no one had attended to Saul after he’d been pronounced dead.
Death left you with an eternity to deal with bodies. No hurry there.
Marie-Terese dragged in a breath, and as tears came to her eyes, she let go of the stable bar and brushed them away. The last thing she wanted was for Vin to crack his lids and see her upset.
“ETA two minutes,” the driver called out from in front.
The medic picked up a chart. “Ma’am, I forgot to ask you. Are you his next of kin?”
Wiping her eyes, she pulled herself together for Vin’s sake and knew right off there was no way in hell s
he was going to risk getting sidelined when it came to his care. Acquaintances and friends got only so far when it came to ER doctors and nurses.
“I’m his wife,” she said.
The woman nodded and made a note. “And your name is?”
She didn’t even pause. “Gretchen. Gretchen Capricio.”
“You are a very lucky man.”
Two hours later, those hell-yeah words were spoken to Vin as his admitting physician snapped off her bright blue surgical gloves and tossed the pair into an orange biohazard container.
She was so right. All it had taken was local anesthesia and some stitches to close up the entrance and the exit wounds. No bones busted up or tendons sliced or nerve damage. That bastard with the gun had hit nothing but meat, which was gross and a good call.
Vin had been really lucky.
Unfortunately, his response to the good news was to curl over and throw up into the pink bedpan next to his head. And the fact that he moved his torso made the pain in his shoulder go rock-star…which made the vomiting worse…which made the pain worse…and around and around he went.
And yet still he had to agree with the woman in the scrubs. He was lucky. The luckiest bastard on the face of the planet.
“You cannot handle Demerol, however,” she said.
Thanks for the newsflash, Vin thought. He’d been hurling since they’d given him the shot about thirty minutes ago.
After his latest bout of gagging lost its enthusiasm, he settled back against the pillow and closed his eyes. As a cool hand towel-wiped his mouth and his face, he smiled. Marie-Terese—Gretchen, actually—was still terrific with the terry cloth.
And God willing, she wouldn’t have to put that skill set to use on him again anytime soon.
“I’m going to give you an antinausea injection,” the doctor said, “and if the vomiting subsides, we can release you. Stitches need to be removed in ten days, but your internist can do that. We’ve given you a tetanus shot and I’ll write you a prescription for oral antibiotics—but we have some samples here, and we’ve already given you one of them. Any questions?”