There was only one way to explain his injuries plausibly. He had to make them worse.
Chapter 13
Somehow, Emma managed to drive out of the city, even though she couldn’t see. But when she reached Country Route 14, the long stretch of road leading from Greenway to Covendale, she had to pull the car over. Her eyes were swollen and aching, and she was practically hyperventilating.
Nick was The Hammer. It was every nightmare she’d ever had, screaming to life. She’d trusted him. Loved him. And he’d lied to her, to everyone, pretending he was such a sweet, stand-up guy. Playing the dumb lug so no one would suspect him. For God’s sake, he was a cop. He was supposed to uphold the law.
And all this time he’d been out here breaking it. Violently, and profitably. He was worse than the men her mother latched onto.
Worst of all, she’d fallen for it.
She rolled the window down to let the air in and allowed herself cry, until her chest ached and her breath splintered in her lungs. More than ever, she wished she’d heard the whole conversation between Nick and Ankles. She wanted desperately to believe this was all wrong, a mistake of epic proportions. Like one of those Hollywood scenarios she’d imagined, when Kyle warned her this might happen. That she’d regret finding the man behind the mask.
Well, she did. She hoped he was happy.
She sat in her car by the side of the road for a long time, thinking and not thinking. Considering her options, letting her thoughts drift. Every choice was painful and unthinkable—because no matter which angle she approached it from, one constant remained.
Part of her still loved him. The part that remembered how he’d put her needs before his own, how he controlled everything he said and did…but lost control with her. He couldn’t have faked that. He was a liar, and a monster. But he wasn’t heartless.
She’d resolved exactly nothing when she finally decided to head home. At least she could breathe now, and her eyes were less puffy. She’d try to calm down, freshen up a little, maybe sleep on it—if she could get to sleep. Right now that prospect seemed unlikely.
Just as she reached for the ignition, the sound of a rapidly approaching engine swelled outside. She saw headlights filling the rearview mirror. A car zoomed past her, going far too fast.
Nick’s car.
She shuddered and started the engine. Despite her terror at learning who he really was, she knew he’d been devastated to find her there. She’d never seen so much pain and regret, carved into his features and burning from his eyes. If he kept going that fast, something terrible would happen.
As if answering her thoughts, the harsh squeal of braked echoed back through the night—and on its heels, a dull and crunching thud.
“No!” Sickened and frantic, she rammed her car into drive and peeled onto the road. “Please, no,” she whispered as she approached the slight rise ahead, the curve beyond it. Her hands shook as she rounded the bend.
Nick’s car had struck a massive tree just off the road, hood-first at a slight angle. The passenger side was obliterated down to the door. Shattered glass and twisted metal sprayed across the road—and the slumped figure in the driver’s seat wasn’t moving.
“Nick!” Emma slammed the brakes and pulled over in a squeal of rubber. She was out of the car almost before she had it in park, sprinting for him. Her hands scrabbled across the door handle, catching and slipping before she finally managed to lift it and yank the door open. “Oh, God. Nick. Please…”
He was bloodied and pale, bent at an unnatural angle. Her heart twisting painfully, she reached for him with a trembling hand, praying for a pulse.
He gasped and twitched once. His eyes fluttered open and skipped around wildly, focusing on nothing. He opened his mouth, and blood sluiced out.
She sobbed in sheer relief. “Don’t move,” she whispered, grabbing for her phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“I had to.” The words were barely audible.
“Nick, please. Don’t try to talk.”
He shifted slightly, and let out a hoarse scream. “I had to,” he gasped. “No choice. Emma…”
His eyes rolled back, and he slumped motionless again.
As she dialed 911, the faintest glimmer of hope rose in her. He was alive—that was the most important thing. She didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. But it sounded like, just maybe, there was a reason. An explanation that wouldn’t make him a monster.
Right now, though, she had to make sure he lived long enough to tell her.
She gave the dispatcher their location and huddled on the ground beside the wrecked car, holding Nick’s slack hand in both of hers until the ambulance came.
* * * *
Emma had lived in Greenway for four years, and she’d never been to the Jefferson-Tate Hospital. She wished she wasn’t there now, either.
They hadn’t let her ride in the ambulance. She’d driven here as fast as she dared, only to hear that Nick was being treated and she’d have to wait. The emergency room receptionist wouldn’t even tell her whether she’d be allowed to see him when they were finished.
She sat in the waiting room, smeared with Nick’s blood, and watched the big double doors leading back to the treatment area. Every time they opened, she tensed. But no one approached her with news, good or bad.
Eventually, an older couple came in and made a beeline for the receptionist. Emma noticed them only because there was something strangely familiar about the man. She could’ve sworn she’d seen him before, but he’d looked…different.
The woman was absolutely frantic, and Emma heard her all the way across the room. “Nick Donovan,” she said. “Where is he?”
It clicked in her mind. The man was Charlie Donovan, thirty years older than the pictures she’d seen. And he looked like he’d aged ten of them tonight.
She stood and walked over to them as the receptionist calmly consulted her computer. “Mr. and Mrs. Donovan?”
The woman turned to her and gasped. “Are you a doctor?” she said. “Where’s my Nicky? I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not a doctor,” she said. “I’m Nick’s neighbor…his friend. I brought him in.”
Nick’s mother looked from her face, to the blood on her clothes. And burst into tears.
Charlie Donovan put an arm around his wife’s shaking shoulders. “Are you Emma?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Nicky’s talked about you,” he said with a sad smile. “What happened? Do you know?”
“There was an accident.” She shuddered, remembering the awful sound of squealing brakes and crunching glass. And the message he was desperate to get across, though she didn’t understand it. I had to. “He hit a tree. But he was alive, and conscious…” At least for a moment.
The receptionist looked up. “Mr. Donovan is in room B-9,” she said. “Through those doors, all the way down, take a left.”
“Thank you,” Nick’s mother said shakily. The two of them started for the doors, and Emma trailed behind them.
“Family only,” the receptionist said.
Charlie turned to look at her. “She’s family,” he said firmly.
The receptionist shrugged and went back to her computer.
When they entered the treatment area, Emma breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much,” she said. “They wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Yes, they’re like that around here,” his father said. “I’m Charlie, by the way.”
She smiled. “I know. Nick’s told me about you, too. And you, Mrs. Donovan, but he didn’t mention your name.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear.” She swiped at her eyes. “I’m Viola. I’m just so worried about Nicky, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“I understand.”
They found the room, and Viola rushed right in with Charlie a step behind her. Emma hesitated. She wasn’t sure how welcome she’d be, but she needed to make sure he was all right. That he’d pull through.
She would check in. Then she’d leave.
When she entered the room, voices drifted from the other side of a curtain across the center. One of them sounded like Nick—brief and weak, but coherent. She held her breath as she approached.
Nick was propped in a bed, battered but awake. His parents sat on the opposite side in two chairs, and there was a third chair on this side. He murmured something, and Viola smiled and wiped her eyes.
A moment later, he turned his head and noticed her. “Emma,” he whispered.
She walked over slowly. “You’re awake.”
“They say I’ll live.” He shifted and winced. “Thank you. For calling it in.”
“You’re welcome.” A hot lump lodged in her throat, and her eyes stung. “Well, I should go,” she said. “You folks probably want some time—”
“Oh, please stay,” Viola said. “We’re so glad you’re here. We can’t thank you enough, can we, Charlie?”
“No, we can’t.”
She made her way to the chair, feeling Nick’s gaze on her the whole time. But when she sat down, he looked away. “I didn’t break anything,” he said. “They want to keep me overnight. But the doctor…” His voice trailed into a rasp, and he cleared his throat. “The doctor said tomorrow, I could probably go home.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Viola said. “I mean, you’re not critical. So you’re going to be all right.”
“Yeah.” Nick closed his eyes. “Hope they send me with a lot of drugs.”
“Oh, Nicky.” Viola fluttered a hand at him. “I’m so glad he’ll be able to go home,” she said. “They kept Charlie here for two weeks, and it was awful.”
Charlie smirked. “Worst food I ever ate.”
“Two weeks?” Emma said. “What happened?”
“He needed surgery, for aneurysms in his artery. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
Emma smiled. “No.”
“Well, his doctor said he would’ve died in less than a month.” She shivered. “It was terrible. Medicaid had cancelled on us, and no one would do the surgery without insurance unless we paid upfront. They were going to let him die for money.”
“It’s all right, Vi,” Charlie said, patting her leg. “That’s all over now.”
“I know, but it still makes me so mad.” She blew an exasperated breath and sent a fond glance at her husband, and then her son. “Nick took out a loan to cover the whole thing,” she said proudly. “Three hundred thousand dollars, the crooks charged us. And he’s never let us pay back a penny of it.”
“A loan?” she echoed as her stomach turned and twisted. “How…”
“Oh, Nicky has excellent credit. He’s a deputy, you know.”
Emma blinked rapidly, unable to hold back fresh tears. Theodore “Ankles” Martello. Crime boss. Killer.
Loan shark.
I had to. No choice.
Nick’s eyes were open. He stared at her wordlessly, with desperate hope written on his face.
She reached out and took his hand. “Yes, he is,” she said. “He’s the best deputy in Covendale.
Chapter 14
Nick squinted as the nurse rolled him out into the bright sunshine. “Oh, look,” he said. “It’s morning.”
“Yes, it’s been morning for a few hours now,” the nurse said with a smile. “Is this your ride here?”
He looked up, and saw Emma getting out of her car. If his entire body didn’t feel so broken, he would have ran to her right then—but he still wasn’t sure how she felt about all this, or how much she’d figured out. They hadn’t been able to talk in front of his parents, or in the hospital.
But he’d gotten some small measure of relief to know she didn’t despise him completely.
“That’s her,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Just take it slow, Mr. Donovan.”
“Trust me, I don’t have any fast in me right now.”
The nurse laughed. “All right.”
He’d just made it to his feet when Emma reached him with a face full of concern. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she said.
“Not exactly.” He managed a small smile. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem.”
It seemed to take forever to get to the car. He winced as he climbed in, and leaned back with his eyes closed while Emma got herself situated. They needed to talk, but he’d already decided it would be better to let her direct the conversation.
Anything he said without prompting would probably make it worse.
The car started and pulled away, and Emma didn’t say anything. Silence filled the car for several minutes. Just as he thought maybe he should try a simple question, like how much do you hate me, she let out a long breath and said, “Nick…did you take out a loan from Ankles Martello?”
His eyes flew open. That was about the worst thing he could’ve heard. He looked at her, and her face was strained and set. “How do you know him?” he rasped.
“It’s a long story, and I want to hear yours first,” she said. “Please.”
He swallowed once and stared out the windshield. “Yes, I did.”
“Is that why you’re…”
“Yes,” he said. “Emma, I’m so sorry. I’ll tell you everything…if you want to hear it.”
“I do.”
“All right.” He drew a deep breath. And told her.
By the time he finished, she was crying openly. “You went through all this to save your father’s life,” she said. “And now he’s making you keep going?”
Nick nodded. “I’m earning him a fortune. He’ll never let me stop, but I don’t know how I can keep this up. Especially every week.”
Her lips firmed. “What if he was locked up?” she said. “You know, in prison. For life.”
“I’ve got nothing on him,” Nick said. “Believe me, I’ve tried. I just can’t find any evidence that would stick.”
“Well, I can.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“It’s my turn to tell the story,” she said. “Starting with why I was after The Hammer.”
He listened as she talked about her friend Kyle bringing her to The Vault that night a year ago. The night of his first fight. How she’d wanted the scoop to prove herself as a journalist, and to expose the nastiness that went on in that place. And how she’d bumped into Kyle and his new friend David last night—a hacker who’d been monitoring Ankles electronically and gathering dirt on him.
How David had left her a number and offered to send her the dirt.
“No.” He shook his head to emphasize the point, horrified to his core. “Don’t you understand that he’ll kill you?”
“Not if he doesn’t find out until it’s too late.”
“He will. Emma, the man has connections everywhere. He’ll know.”
“Can you think of another way out?”
He couldn’t. But he’d rather fight at The Vault every night, and lose on purpose, than let her risk her life for him. She was not going to die at Ankles Martello’s hands. “I’ll find a way,” he said. “Any other way. I can’t fix it if you’re dead.”
“Nick…if you keep doing this, he’s going to end up killing you.”
“Maybe.”
“Damn it, I love you!” She pulled the car over and slammed it into park. “I love you,” she repeated with tears in her eyes. “Please…let me help you.”
“God, Emma…I love you, too.”
He couldn’t help it. He reached for her, pulled her toward him, and kissed her until they both ran out of breath. “I love you,” he said. “And I swear, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I will protect you.”
She smiled. “I know you will.”
“All right.” He leaned back with a shaking breath. “Tell me how you’re going to do this.”
* * * *
The printing press roared and thumped away at the back of the building when Emma slipped into the Banner’s front office on Saturday night. Normally the sounds of those huge machines
fascinated and enchanted her, but tonight they seemed ominous.
After all, it might be the last night of her life.
She was utterly terrified, but determined. It was the only way to save Nick. She trusted him completely, and believed him when he said he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
Problem was, he couldn’t protect her if Ankles got to him first.
She headed for the archive room and the ultra-secure server. Earlier, she’d gotten in touch with David Drake and told him about the setup here, how they’d built it to communicate with anonymous sources. He’d made her look up a bunch of numbers and information that might as well have been Chinese to her, but it satisfied him. And he agreed to send everything he had on Ankles Martello here.
All she had to do was retrieve it and print it out.
More than once on the way here, she’d felt like she was being followed. It wasn’t comforting to know that she probably was. Nick had pointed out that the crime boss probably bumped into her at The Vault on purpose—it was his subtle way of saying he knew who she was, and who she mattered to.
She was insurance, just like Nick’s parents. But she was going to cash out all of their premiums and close the policy down.
The archive room was cold and silent as a tomb. Emma powered up the server, turned on the printer, and waited until the screen flashed to life and everything loaded. She logged in and navigated to the message bank, the way Cheri had shown her. It had been empty then.
Now there was one new message. With attachments.
She downloaded the attachments and sent them to the printer. As it started spitting out pages, she turned toward it—and heard a hollow click behind her, followed by a scratching sound. Like a Zippo lighter.
She smelled cigarette smoke.
“I do know you.” The sound of Ankles’ voice sent chills down her spine. “Didn’t I tell you she looked familiar, Pinky? It’s the reporter. The one who’s been trailing Nicholas.”
Emma turned slowly, trying to hide a bad case of the shakes. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you,” she said. “This is newspaper property, and you’re trespassing.”
Deputy's Secret (Welcome to Covendale Book 3) Page 10