Chelsea Lane (Haunted Hearts Series Book 5)

by Denise Moncrief

  Maybe all the fighting had been a good thing. It would certainly lend him some credibility with the bad guys. Funny, it didn’t feel like a good thing at the time he was punching any cop that came within a few feet of his drunken presence. It just felt like revenge for what the Hill County Sheriff wasn’t doing for his sister.

  He hated Sheriff Halsey even more than he hated his worthless grandson.

  Another set of hands grabbed Brett by his shirt back. He gasped for breath as the drawstring and his collar worked together to cut off his air.

  “Take it easy. You don’t want to kill him.” Dalton uttered his objection with a snarl and a hiss.

  Brett surmised Dalton was the more dangerous of his two attackers. His feet pushed against gravel as the two men dragged him away from his truck. After a moment or two, he slid headfirst into the bed of another truck. The grooves of the bed pressed into his chest. He’d have some bruises in the morning. His head bumped into something hard and metallic, probably one of those after market toolboxes that guys sometimes stuck behind the rear windshield.

  “Where are you taking me?” He slurred on purpose.

  “Shut up.” Riley rasped his favorite phrase.

  A sharp pain flashed through his right temple.

  Enough already. Didn’t the idiots realize he’d be no good to them dead? Riley had always had a dim watt light bulb for a brain.

  “You’re dead, Riley.” He had to make his displeasure sound real.

  Another round of blunt force trauma put his lights out.

  ****

  An Arkansas State Police officer that Chelsea had never met before sat with her in the surgical suite waiting room. He’d motioned her toward a set of chairs in the back corner. For privacy and better security, he’d said. It didn’t matter. They were the only two people in the waiting room at that time of night. Danger approaching them from the lobby would be obvious.

  “How long is this supposed to take?”

  The cop lowered his magazine and checked his watch. “He’s only been in there a few hours.”

  “But how long do these things usually take?” She allowed her impatience with his puny answer to spew from her lips and fly all over him.

  He wiped his face as if she’d landed a glob of spit on him. She knew better. The pretender.

  He answered in slow measures. “Depends on the type of wound, the caliber of the bullet, and the trajectory. If it damaged any of his internal organs, he could be in there a long time. You might as well get comfortable.”

  Is he freaking kidding me? There’s no way I’m going to get comfortable. She bit her lower lip before she spoke again. “He bled a lot.”

  “The bullet hit a artery.” He laid the magazine on the nearest table and faced her. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

  Jordan wasn’t out of danger yet. She was smart enough to know that. She’d watched enough Grey’s Anatomy reruns to know how serious Jordan’s condition was.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  What? The cop didn’t know everything? What a surprise?

  She blinked at him.

  “Are you his girlfriend or something?”

  She rolled her eyes. Maybe he would get the idea his question was stupid and stop his inquisition.

  “I mean he used to date someone in Little Rock. From what I heard.”

  So Jordan had dated. That wasn’t a shocker. How old was he? At his age, he’d probably dated a lot of women.

  “I’m not his girlfriend.”

  But she had kissed him and he’d kissed her back. More than once.

  “Then what are you doing here? If you aren’t his girlfriend or his sister, why are you so upset?”

  She couldn’t believe how dumb this guy was, and he carried a gun. If he didn’t get it, then he didn’t deserve an answer.

  When she glared at him, he let his stupid question go and retrieved his magazine. Why was the guy reading People? He didn’t seem like a celebrity gossip junky. He seemed more like a Field and Stream sort of bubba. She glanced around the room. There were no copies of the he-man magazine. Obviously, People was better than boredom.

  The waiting area was divided into three sections with opaque glass between them. Several chairs and a table clustered along the walls of each space. When a man came around the corner into their section, the cop glanced over the top of the pages. “Please find another place to sit, sir.”

  “Why?” Belligerence resonated in the man’s attitude. The leather vest. The tat sleeves. The skull and cross bones do-rag. All of these things might proclaim the man an unusual visitor to the surgical waiting room. But Chelsea was well aware that looks could be deceiving. Jake Richards had sported a clean-cut image. He would have blended into any country club. Appearances meant nothing.

  Still, she appreciated the state cop pushing the man to go somewhere else. The cop placed a hand on his service weapon after a few seconds of intense staring.

  The belligerent man moved along without further comment, but not before he’d scrutinized Chelsea with his eyes, up and down her body as if he was checking her out without her clothes on.

  “Creep.”

  The cop spoke without looking up from his engrossing read. “Me or him?”

  She laughed. “Him.”

  Before she could continue their light-hearted banter, the doctor emerged from the double doors to her left.

  “Clark family.”

  She jumped to her feet. “He doesn’t have any family here. I’m his girlfriend.”

  The cop snorted. After all, she’d just told him she wasn’t.

  The doctor glanced at the cop, and the officer nodded as if to confirm her assertion.

  Jerk. The doctor or the cop. She wasn’t quite sure whom she meant. Maybe they were both jerks. She growled under her breath before pouncing on the doctor. “How is he? Will he make it? How long will he be in the hospital?”

  The doctor held up his hands. “Whoa. Slow down. One question at a time.” He motioned her to take a seat.

  She did, but her knees bounced with the pent-up energy she’d stored ever since she’d arrived with Shaw Bennett at the hospital.

  “The bullet nicked his right lung. We were able to repair it, but I’m concerned about possible infection. There was a lot of debris in the wound track. I’m going to order him some strong antibiotics. The next few hours should show us how fast he’ll recuperate. If everything goes well, I could release him in a couple of days. If he develops complications, he could be here a week or more.”

  The doctor smiled and pulled his skullcap from his head. The material was patterned with the eye of the tiger and the LSU logo.

  “The short answer. He survived, but how long his recovery takes…we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “When can I see him?”

  Once again, the doctor glanced toward the cop. Another slight nod of the officer’s head. Shaw had obviously left the doctor instructions that she knew nothing about. That pissed her off, but she wasn’t sure why. Her mind was too tired to figure it all out. All she wanted to do was see Jordan.

  “If he goes to a regular room, you can see him then. If he goes to CICU, then you’ll have to stay in the waiting area. I’m sorry. Family only. That’s strict hospital policy.”

  She nodded as if she understood. The doctor was wrong about that. She’d sneak in to see Jordan if she had to, if that’s the only option she was given.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The scent of Chelsea’s shampoo hit his nostrils first. Jordan allowed a sigh to escape him before he opened his eyes. Ever since Brett had brought her some necessities, she’d smelled of vanilla. That might be his new favorite scent. Then the pain hit him. The memory of getting shot flooded his mind. He worked to sort through all the stimuli and the memories and settled on one important thing. If he could smell her shampoo, then Chelsea was alive.

  Sure, he recalled vague memories of Grayson and Chelsea trying to stop the bleeding. Then he’d warned her to hide. Or did he have
the two things backwards. When had Grayson shown up? Before or after he was shot?

  He opened his eyes and stared up at ceiling tiles. The beep of medical equipment jolted him in surround sound. The noise seemed to come from every direction. He did a physical inventory and was relieved to discover he wasn’t on a ventilator. That was a good sign. He’d heard of guys that had been shot never coming off the breathing machine.

  He glanced right. Splats of fat raindrops pelted the windows of his hospital room. Careful not to move too quickly for fear of getting dizzy, he shifted his gaze to the left. Chelsea slumped in what appeared to be a horribly uncomfortable vinyl chair covered in a hideous print that would have been right at home in the nineteen-eighties.

  His heart clutched in his chest. If Chelsea was able to sleep in that contraption, then she was obviously exhausted. The chair looked like sheer torture.

  “Chelsea?”

  She didn’t open her eyes. Maybe she hadn’t heard him. Maybe his voice was so weak he hadn’t made any sound. Maybe calling out to her was only in his head. Could this be a dream?

  He tried again. “Chelsea?” His voice rasped past a sore throat. No, it wasn’t a dream. The pain was real.

  She shifted and turned her head. The movement caused her hair to shift off her face. In rest, the woman appeared more relaxed than he’d ever seen her. He thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. Not that Chelsea was a particularly beautiful woman. In fact, her looks were only kind of average pretty. Most people would say she was attractive without being drop-dead gorgeous. Didn’t matter if she conformed to society’s definition of beauty or not. Her features were attractive to him. No, it was more than that. There was something about her, that part of her that made her unique from anyone else, that attracted him.

  She wasn’t polished or sophisticated or educated. None of those things. What shone through the imprint of a rough life? No matter what she had endured, a tender heart beat beneath a life-toughened exterior. The things that had happened to her hadn’t turned her into a bitter, hateful person. She could get pissy, but she was never out and out mean.

  Her presence tenderized his heart as nothing else could have. He remembered enough about the events at the cabin to realize she risked her life coming to the hospital to be with him. Why hadn’t Shaw Bennett insisted that she go to a safe house?

  When her eyes finally opened, they brightened, shining an inner light through a hazel glow. Beautiful eyes.

  “Jordan? Thank God you woke up.”

  She rose and moved to sit on the edge of his bed, taking his hand in hers. No flesh-to-flesh contact had ever felt so good.

  “How long have I been out?” His throat burned like fire.

  “A couple of days.” She brushed her free hand over his cheek. “The bullet went straight through, but it nicked your lung. The surgeon fixed it. It looked like you were going to come out of it all right, but then you developed an infection.” She paused a moment, tears glistening in her gorgeous eyes. “Your temperature got so high… It was really scary.”

  “You can’t be here. This is the obvious place for him to find you.” Despite his words, he was glad she was by his side. Ecstatic even. So much so that he had a hard time not devolving into giddiness.

  She sucked back a ragged breath before speaking again. “Did you see who shot you?”

  “No.” He tried to shake his head but it hurt too much to move that quickly. He waited until the pain dulled before trying to talk again. “I assumed it was Jake Richards.”

  She laughed, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why that was so funny.

  “It wasn’t Jake Richards.”

  “How do you know that? Did you see the shooter?” He only had a few more sentences left in him before his voice played out. The important stuff needed to find a voice, but it seemed all he could do was ask the obvious.

  “Timna told me it wasn’t Jake.”

  “Who’s Timna?”

  Chelsea brushed his cheek again. “Shhh. You’re running out of voice, and you need to rest.”

  “But I need to know—”

  “I know, and I’ll tell you everything. When you’re rested.”

  She rose to her feet, causing the bed to shift and his shoulder to throb. He flinched and groaned.

  A concerned expression covered her face. “I’m going to get the nurse to give you more pain meds.”

  “I don’t want pain meds. I want out of here.” Every time he drew in a breath, something popped in his chest. Maybe he’d stay a little longer, but she had to leave.

  She smiled and the expression on her face dispelled the darkness of the day creeping in through the windows. “Sure, you do. Now is not a good time to act like a tough he-man. We have stuff to do, Jordan, and we can’t do anything until you get well.”

  She was out the door before he could stop her.

  What stuff did they need to do? His heart raced at the thought of all the things he’d like to do with her.

  ****

  Chelsea had planned to trail the nurse, but Shaw Bennett exited the elevator near the nurses’ station just as the nurse headed down the hall toward Jordan’s room.

  “Morning, Chelsea.”

  She smiled. Ever since Jordan had come back to consciousness, she’d been smiling a lot. “He’s awake and he wants to get out of here.” Her words came out sounding more like a demand than a report of Jordan’s condition.

  “That’s a good sign.” He pulled her toward the waiting area on the other side of the elevator bank. “Did you ask him what he saw?”

  She pushed down her impatience to get back to Jordan. “I don’t think he’ll be able to identify the shooter. He thought it was probably Jake Richards, but we both know that’s not right.”

  Shaw lowered his tall frame into an uncomfortable-looking hospital chair. The chairs on the floors weren’t as nice as the ones in the surgical suite waiting area.

  He leaned his forearms on her legs and glanced up and down the long corridor past the elevator bank and back toward the nurses’ station before talking. “Whoever shot Jordan also took a shot at Fred Haskins.”

  Okay, he had her full attention.

  “We found where the shooter was hiding out near Haskins’s house and recovered a shell casing. Same caliber and markings as the casings we found in the woods near the cabin. Probably the same shooter.”

  She dropped into the seat next to him. Weariness swept over her.

  “You don’t have to worry about Jake Richards any longer.”

  Her heart stalled. “Why?”

  “He’s dead. Shot through the head.”

  “Did the same guy—”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. His killer used a handgun instead of a rifle.”

  She wanted to escape whatever he was about to say next, sensed what was coming like a bullet aimed straight at her heart.

  “We still can’t find your brother.”

  Chelsea closed her eyes. Too much. It was all too much. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  Shaw wrapped his hand around hers. “How do you know that? It’s been a long time since the two of your were close.”

  “No. No. You’re wrong. Brett wouldn’t do that.”

  “Do you still have that cell phone I gave you?”

  She didn’t like where the conversation was going. Knowing instinctively what he was going to ask, she began shaking her head.

  “If he contacts you, call me immediately.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  Shaw squeezed her hand. “He’s unpredictable.”

  Thoughts swirled through her mind. The elevator pinged and distracted her. “That’s Jordan’s doctor. I need to go.”

  Shaw released her hand. She was halfway across the waiting area when he called to her.

  She swung around to face him, ready to verbally snap his head off. “Stop it, Shaw. I don’t want to hear any more. Brett wouldn’t go after Jake. He’d go after the one who started it all for me.”

>   “James Standridge is dead.”

  She said what she needed to say. “But Zach Halsey isn’t.”

  “We’ve been watching Zach.”

  Her surprise must have been revealed in her expression because he told her what she wanted to know. “We’ve been watching him ever since Brett disappeared.”

  No more. She couldn’t listen to him accuse Brett of anything illegal. She walked away without looking back, not really caring what Shaw Bennett thought of her attitude. At that moment, she wished Brett would do something permanent to Zach Halsey. He deserved whatever punishment he received.

  ****

  Brett examined the set up and couldn’t believe he was doing what he swore he’d never do again. He nudged a beaker with his knuckles. Lifted a coil of tubing and inspected it for holes. Then he circled the table and pretended to do an inventory of chemicals. “We’re gonna need more acetone.”

  “Sure, Brett. Whatever you need. Just get the stuff made.” Riley twitched. He still had a nervous tic that manifested when he was hyper.

  “When does he want it?”

  Neither Riley nor Dalton had yet to mention Haskins’s name.

  “He wanted it yesterday, but if we get it to his guy by tomorrow night maybe he won’t be too upset with us.”

  Dalton hadn’t bothered to deny there was someone else giving them orders. The two men weren’t sharp enough to pull off anything on their own. The lab they’d set up was a disaster.

  Brett shook his head. “That isn’t possible. We can’t make that much in that amount of time. Not without more help.”

  Riley banged his hand on the nearest table, rattling the stuff perched on the top.

  Brett pointed at him. “Stop that. You wanna blow us all up. Some of this stuff is unstable.”

  “It’s only dangerous when it’s cooking.”

  Brett smacked Riley upside the head.

  “Hey.” Riley pointed his weapon at Brett. “You remember who’s boss here. All right?”

  Brett snorted his opinion of that. “You think I don’t know what’s going on? You aren’t the boss.”