When the Storm Breaks

by Heather Lowell

  It was a nice old-fashioned high school gym, the kind with slippery wooden floors and bleachers lining both walls. Unfortunately, there was only one set of doors, and they were right in front of her.

  She was trapped.

  Claire jumped as she saw the killer’s face through the broken glass pane. She leaned further back, trying to use her weight to keep him from getting in while she struggled to turn the lock.

  It was a losing battle. Even if someone had heard her and the fire department arrived in the next few minutes, she wouldn’t be able to hold the door for that long. The killer was much stronger than she was. When she got too tired to hold the door against him, he would shove inside and see what she had already seen—there was nowhere left to run.

  Okay, Aidan said that if you can’t run, grab anything that could be a weapon and bash your attacker with it. Nose, throat, balls, in that order.

  Breathing rapidly, she braced her feet, leaned back to hold the door, and looked frantically over her shoulder for something that could be a weapon. The only thing she could see was an orderly row of hand weights and barbells laid out on a pale exercise mat to her left.

  The door leaped, jerking her forward. If she didn’t let go of the bar, she would be pulled along with the door and land right in his arms. She pushed away and pivoted toward the row of weights on the floor nearby.

  The killer was quicker. He grabbed her, but her bloody, sweaty wrist slipped right through his hand. With an enraged sound, he slashed at her with the knife.

  Claire instinctively held her arm in front of her face as she fell toward the exercise mat. Her retreat and the killer’s momentum brought them both crashing to the floor. She lay on her back, facing the killer as he lunged to his feet above her. She scrambled away from him as he came at her, swinging the knife in vicious arcs that made the air whistle.

  Again she held up her arm to protect herself, then screamed with rage and pain when she felt the knife connect with her flesh. The killer laughed and kept coming.

  She cried out again, a primal sound of frustrated fury that echoed in the empty gymnasium. She flipped onto her stomach and pulled herself along the floor. The barbells were almost within reach. When her hand connected with the cold, heavy weight of a barbell, she grabbed it so tightly that her nails broke at the quick.

  The killer was straddling her, knife raised, certain of his triumph. She threw herself over onto her back and hurled the heavy weight at his face. It struck him on the temple, forcing his head around and away from her, giving her the opening she needed. With a grunt of effort, she drew her knee back toward her chest, then sent her foot shooting heel-first into the killer’s bulging crotch.

  With a high-pitched scream of agony he flew backward.

  Sean and Aidan burst through the broken door just as Claire’s heel connected. With guns drawn, they ran over to where Wilkes writhed on the wood floor, making inhuman sounds of pain. Aidan kicked the knife away from where it had fallen on the mat. Sean’s foot went straight for the killer’s balls, landing a brutal blow despite the protective hands the killer was holding between his legs. Wilkes let out another keening sound and abruptly stilled.

  Sean jammed his weapon back in the holster, then turned and threw himself down on the mat next to Claire. Her arm and one leg were bloody. “Are you all right?”

  Claire launched herself at Sean and wrapped her arms around him. She was shaking uncontrollably now that the whole thing was over, and she didn’t trust herself to speak. She tried to get closer and squeezed him until her arms were numb.

  He decided that anyone with her grip couldn’t be too badly hurt. He buried his face in her hair and rocked her against his own trembling body. “That was too close, love,” he said roughly. “Too goddamned close.”

  “L-Livvie?” Claire asked, terrified for her friend.

  “Aidan says she probably broke her ankle bailing out of the attic window, but otherwise she’s fine.”

  “Thank God.” Claire loosened her hold on Sean enough to lean back and look at him for a moment. Then she pressed her mouth to his.

  He kissed her back, urgently at first, then more gently as he finally realized that she was alive and in his arms again. He shifted to his side, then sat up and pulled her into his lap. She kept her arms tightly entwined around him, trying to reassure herself that he was really here and she was alive. She could feel the tremors making their way through his body, echoed in the shudders that were making her own hands tremble as she held him.

  Aidan stood over them and grinned at the picture they made. He couldn’t tell which one was more relieved—or more white.

  “You going to share some of that loving with me?” he asked.

  She shifted to look at him. “I’ll kiss you later.”

  “Promises, promises,” Aidan said. “Are you all right?”

  “Now I am. How did you guys find me, and what the hell took you so long?”

  “It looks like you had everything under control,” Aidan said.

  “Yeah, but it sure is nice to have good backup. Thank you. Both of you,” she added, but had eyes only for Sean.

  Wilkes groaned and made gagging noises. Sean slanted him a feral glance. Knowing what his partner was thinking, Aidan shook his head. Sean turned back to Claire as she watched the man who had terrorized her for over a month.

  “Right in the family jewels, lady,” Aidan said, feeling involuntary male sympathy for Wilkes. “That’s got to hurt like hell.”

  “Actually, it didn’t hurt me at all,” Claire said.

  Sean laughed and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Remind me never to piss you off, sweetheart.”

  “Five years of cardio kickboxing,” she said. “Builds excellent leg muscles.”

  Aidan put his hand dramatically over his heart. “Will you marry me, Claire?”

  “No way,” Sean said, before she could respond. “Find your own Amazon. This one is mine.”

  Aidan shrugged, then caught sight of Sean in back. “Jesus. Which one of you is bleeding?”

  “What?” Sean and Claire said together.

  “Good thing backup and a medic unit are on the way,” Aidan said. “There’s blood all over Sean’s back. I thought you said you weren’t hurt, Claire.” Aidan leaned over to examine the fresh red streaks on his partner’s shirt.

  “I’m not. I have a little cut on my neck, but nothing else hurts.”

  Sean tilted her chin up and thoroughly inspected her neck. “That one doesn’t look too bad. It’s already scabbing over. You must be cut somewhere else.”

  “Really, I’m not,” Claire said. “Oh, a few little ones here and there, but nothing hurts.”

  Aidan reached down to probe her forearm.

  “Ouch!” She glared up at him.

  “Nothing hurts, huh?” Sean carefully drew her arms from around him and pushed aside her light cotton shirt to check the deep gash on her forearm.

  “It didn’t before. Now it does,” Claire said, as her arm suddenly began to throb.

  “Adrenaline is a great painkiller,” Aidan said, “but it wears off fast.”

  “You’re going to need stitches,” Sean said grimly. “Lots of them.”

  He took off his shirt and wrapped it around the wound on her arm. Despite her hiss of pain, he applied firm pressure. Then he put his arms around her again and held her, talking nonsense in her ear to distract her.

  They stayed that way until the other police units arrived, followed by four paramedics with two stretchers.

  Chapter 77

  Washington, D.C.

  Thursday, early morning

  “I’m not normally a needle fan,” Claire said to Sean, “but whatever the doctor shot into my arm was good stuff. It feels much better, see?” She wiggled her fingers at Sean, trying to wipe the tight, grim expression off his face.

  He said nothing, just surveyed the neat line of stitches down her arm while a muscle in his cheek twitched. She was sitting up in a hospital bed dressed in a ridiculous
institutional gown. The whole thing reminded him way too much of the first time he’d seen her, bruised, concussed, and so beautiful it had rocked him back on his heels.

  “I’m all right,” Claire said. “Quit beating up on yourself.”

  “You came too close to dying tonight! We barely put the pieces together in time, and it was sheer luck that Olivia managed to get out of the attic to tell us about the car. Just a minute either way and—” He clenched his jaw and wrapped his fingers around Claire’s uninjured hand. He didn’t like to think what might have happened, but he had a whole file of morgue photos to haunt him.

  “Hey,” she said, squeezing his hand back, “if I’d been a few minutes off that first night, I wouldn’t have seen Renata Mendes get killed. Then I never would have met you. That’s worth a few close calls.”

  He shook his head but lifted her hand and kissed her palm.

  “And speaking of a few minutes off, and almosts,” she said, “I’m not going to miss this chance. There’s no pressure here on you, I just promised myself I would say it as soon as I saw you again.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I love you.” She smiled up at him. “Wow, that felt really good. I love you, Sean.”

  She repeated the words again. Then again, until he leaned down and kissed her, undone by her softly spoken words and the glow in her dark eyes.

  “I think you’re breaking hospital rules. Especially if there’s tongue involved.” Aidan stood in the doorway to the suture room, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Beat it. I’m busy here,” Sean growled.

  “So, I just got off the phone with the investigator who handled Richard Wilkes’s arrest twelve years ago.” Aidan came into the room and sat down, ignoring his partner’s words.

  Sean sighed and lifted his mouth from Claire’s. “Hold the good thoughts, promise? What did the detective say?”

  “Pretty much what we figured. Wilkes had fixated on a Costa Rican girl who worked as a maid and cook in his father’s household. When he was sixteen, he approached the girl and declared his affections, but she laughed it off, figuring he was just a kid with a crush.”

  “But he wasn’t,” Sean said. “He was a disaster waiting to happen.”

  “Yeah, well it turns out the maid had plenty of boyfriends to keep her busy. So many, in fact, that the investigator thought she might have a job on the side.”

  “She was turning tricks?”

  “He didn’t go that far. She sent most of her salary home to family in Central America. So she dated lots of the guys who worked in the house and on the grounds, and if they gave her presents and money, she certainly didn’t turn them down,” Aidan said.

  “Let me guess. Wilkes found out about this?” Sean asked.

  “You got it. He flipped. Called her a whore and said his money was as good as the gardener’s and chauffeur’s. He assaulted the girl, pretty violently I guess. She went to the hospital afterward and was talked into pressing charges by the staff there.”

  “So how come he’s walking around free today?” Claire asked.

  “His daddy had money and a good lawyer. He paid the girl to go back to her own country and keep her mouth shut, then the lawyer got the charges reduced to harassment.” Aidan shrugged. “Wilkes did court-ordered counseling until he turned eighteen, then was declared rehabilitated.”

  “Rehabilitated, my ass,” Sean said. “If we’re correct about the homicides we think Wilkes is linked to, the first one was committed within six months of his ‘rehabilitation.’”

  Sean looked at Claire and clenched his jaw at the thought that everything she had endured was the result of a rich father and a system that was too easy to manipulate in favor of violent juveniles.

  “Yeah, he’s a whack job, all right. He fit Keeley’s profile pretty well—thank God. Otherwise, we never would have known where to look for you, Claire.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Sean figured it out,” Aidan said. “He thought Wilkes would need closure on the killing that went wrong, so he went to the schoolyard.”

  “My hero,” Claire said softly.

  Sean shifted in his chair. “It was a team effort—you, Olivia, Aidan, the fingerprint lab, homicide team, Diaz.”

  “What about the whole Camelot connection?” Claire asked. “Was Wilkes a member?”

  “No, but his company had been a corporate sponsor. His picture was on the wall in Afton’s conference room. We realized tonight that you must have seen it there the night of the first murder.”

  “The conference room? That never occurred to me. I was thinking only of the catalogue.”

  “So were we,” Sean said.

  Claire hesitated, then asked the question that had been bothering her. “What if he pleads insanity and gets ‘rehabilitated’ again?”

  “It won’t fly,” Sean said. “He shot a computer hacker this morning. We figure he used the guy’s technical abilities to track down where you were.”

  “How could he do that?”

  “He hacked into Sean’s home phone records,” Aidan said, “noted the new pattern of calls to Virginia, and traced the phone number to its address through another website. Once Wilkes had the address of the safe house, he was done with the guy. So he blew his head off.”

  “That’s why you’re anxious to test the gun Wilkes locked away in the glove compartment, right?” Claire asked.

  “You bet,” Sean said. “I’m no lawyer, but the chain of events we saw tonight proves premeditation, planning, and clear knowledge that Wilkes knew what he was doing was wrong. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have tried so hard to cover his tracks with everything from Renata Mendes to now.”

  “That poor girl,” Claire said. “I still don’t remember that night. Is there any chance of linking Wilkes to her murder with physical evidence alone?”

  “We’ll do our best.” Sean stroked Claire’s cheek. “I’m glad you don’t remember that night, love. You have enough horrible memories from tonight to last a lifetime.” He pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand.

  “They’re not all horrible memories.” She smiled and drew a finger across his lips.

  A voice spoke from the hall. “Oh, so I get left alone in the frigid X-ray department,” Olivia said, “and you’re having a little slap and tickle with the love of your life. That’s gratitude.” She sat in a wheelchair with her splinted left leg sticking straight out and tried to look mad despite the grin that kept sneaking over her mouth.

  “Livvie!” Claire tried to get up to hug her friend, but Sean held her back.

  “You stay put until the doctor says otherwise,” he said.

  Aidan wheeled Olivia over to Claire so she could gently hug her friend. Both women had tears in their eyes as they held each other.

  “I was so worried, honey,” Olivia said. “I thought I’d done the wrong thing by hiding, and maybe I’d never see you again. I would never have forgiven myself.” Two tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “You did exactly right,” Claire said, pulling back to look at her friend’s pale face and smile at her reassuringly. “Sean and Aidan say you saved my life.”

  Sean leaned over and gave Olivia a hard kiss and a gentle hug. “Claire’s right. Without your help—” He broke off and hugged Olivia again, his throat closing up as he thought about how close it had been.

  Aidan looked up as the attending physician entered the suture room, which was by now crowded with people.

  “I heard we had an escapee from the X-ray lab,” the young doctor said with a grin, “and I suspected I knew where she might be hiding out. Ms. Goodhue, you’re going to have to go back and get that leg properly splinted.”

  “But what about Claire?” Olivia asked. “Will she be all right?”

  “She’ll do just fine with some rest and tender loving care, which I see is already being taken care of,” the doctor said, winking at Sean. “Back to X-ray with you.”

  Olivia protested, but a nurse came and took control of her
wheelchair. “Merde!” Olivia said. “Claire gets to stay and snuggle with two handsome men and I’m left alone in an icebox with radioactive machinery.”

  “I’m on my way to rescue you,” Aidan said. “And Afton will be here soon.”

  “Give us a few minutes first,” the nurse said, then pushed Olivia down the hall.

  “Where’s Wilkes?” Sean asked.

  “Oh, he’s headed up to surgery right now,” the doctor said.

  “Surgery?” Claire asked.

  “Yup. He’ll probably lose at least one testicle. They’re swollen up like grapefruit,” the doctor cheerfully informed her.

  Claire’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t think I kicked him that hard.”

  Sean smiled grimly and said not one word.

  “I see no reason to keep you, Ms. Lambert,” the doctor said. “Come back and have your stitches removed in seven to ten days. Unless you have any questions, I’m due in X-ray.”

  The doctor left before Claire could gather her wits enough to decide if she did have any questions.

  “I’ll go protect Olivia,” Aidan said, heading out the door.

  Sean looked over at Claire as she shifted on the bed, pulling up the gaping neckline of the hospital gown. He waited until she turned her face up to his. “How are you feeling? Still on an adrenaline rush?”

  “No. I just feel a little tired.”

  Sean looked at her intently. “So your head is all clear right now? No medication, adrenaline, hormones, or anything else that might interfere with your judgment?”

  Claire stilled. “Nothing is clouding my thinking right now.”

  “Good. I love you, Claire. I’ve never said that to a woman before.”

  “You know I love you, too.”

  “I hope you do. I hope it’s not just adrenaline or something, because I’m not letting you take the words back.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Good,” Sean said, smiling at her. “God, I can’t believe you’re here right now. I wanted to kill Wilkes with my bare hands when I learned you’d been kidnapped. I wanted to die myself when I thought we might not make it in time.”