Topaz Heat (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series)

by Bridgeman, Hallee

  “Why kill me?” She turned toward Gianni. “Why not just give the authorities the information you have?”

  His insane eyes met hers. “DiNunzio owes me. Nobody quits Gianni. Nobody gets to just turn in a two week notice and leave. I figure I kill you, then we’re even, him and me. Besides, killing him wouldn’t hurt him as much as losing you would.”

  “No,” Sarah whispered, fear closing her throat.

  “Do you even know who he is? Do you know the things he did for me?”

  Regaining her control, she lifted up her chin. “I don’t care. What he did is in the past. Who he was 10 years ago has no bearing on the man I know today.”

  Gianni threw back his head and laughed. “You’re like a child. Let me explain something to you. You don’t just get absolution for some crimes.”

  “You do from God.” Derrick’s voice startled everyone in the room. Sarah gasped and started toward him, but Gianni clucked his tongue and waved his gun. She stopped with her foot outstretched, then set it back down.

  “Well, hello there boy. Been a while.”

  “Not long enough.” Derrick held a knife in one hand, resting it against the side of his leg. “Sarah, come over here, sweetheart.”

  “You will stay put,” Gianni said loudly. He waved his gun at Sarah and then leveled it to point at Wilson, who had started inching around the room. “You will all stay put.”

  “What are you going to do? Shoot everyone here?” Wilson spoke with authority as he nonchalantly straightened the collar of his coat. “Matty, let’s go.”

  “Do not!” Gianni stepped forward and cocked the pistol in his hand. Sarah kept her eyes trained on Derrick. His face looked like it was set in stone, and he watched Gianni intently. When he lifted his hand and waved her forward, she didn’t hesitate.

  Derrick silently prayed that Sarah would move out of the line of Gianni’s fire when he gave her the signal. He prayed she wouldn’t hesitate, that she would react and come to him, to the door, to a close exit that would remove her from the madman’s sight. Out of sight, out of mind, he thought. As he barely lifted his hand and gestured, not looking at her, he peripherally saw her move toward him immediately.

  Gianni saw the movement too, and spun on his heel, his gun moving in a wide arc as he turned his body. Derrick let his knife slide down his hand until he clutched the blade instead of the handle. He tested the weight, remembering a decade gone by, recognizing its feel, measuring the distance.

  As Gianni aimed the gun at Sarah’s back, Derrick drew back and let his knife fly, watched it whirl through the air.

  In the same breath, Derrick stepped in front of Sarah, shielding her with his entire body, using his other hand to push her behind him and toward the door. Gianni flinched toward Derrick and the room filled with an unbelievably loud noise as the madman pulled the trigger and fired.

  Time slowed down.

  Derrick saw the lightning bright muzzle flash fill every corner of the room with pale light. He smelled the burned cordite, the sharp smell of extinguished gunpowder that reminded him so much of burning orange peels. His ears filled first with the sound of echoing thunder then the high pitched whine of noise induced deafness.

  He witnessed the business end of the pistol buck in the older man’s hand as his thrown blade continued to tumble in the direction of his target.

  Then something shoved him backward very hard and very suddenly, and he stumbled into Sarah’s fleeing back. In the next heartbeat, Derrick’s knife came to an abrupt halt, embedding itself into Gianni’s forearm.

  Time sped back up to normal as Derrick stumbled, turning and pushing Sarah into the hallway as they fled. With a roar of pain, Gianni dropped his smoking gun to the floor. Derrick turned his head to watch as Gianni reflexively gripped his wrist with his uninjured hand. He stared at Derrick in shock as he fell to his knees, trying desperately to retrieve his pistol from the floor with fingers that no longer wanted to respond to his mental commands.

  Sarah felt nothing except for Derrick’s arms wrapping around her, shielding her from any harm with his muscular body, protecting her and preserving her at risk of his own life. Behind them, she heard Matty attack Gianni.

  In the hallway, Sarah saw Detective Beaumont leading a team of policemen in full body armor rushing toward them. In the space of a breath, she witnessed Derrick and Beaumont exchange some silent and very masculine communication, using only eyes and the nodding of heads to convey whatever message they conveyed.

  Beaumont and his team rushed into the room with pistols drawn, yelling baritone commands to those within, commands that would be obeyed or else someone would pay dearly. Someone would pay with his very life. The ordered shouts that followed settled down until Sarah heard the metallic clicks of handcuffs in the sudden stillness.

  Derrick winced and put his arm around Sarah’s shoulder. He grinned stoically and said, “Let’s get out of here, sweetheart.”

  “As quickly as we can,” she said with a smile, her breath hitching as tears flooded her eyes and choked her throat.

  Derrick’s smile faded and his voice went low. “I’ll try very hard not to lean on you too much, but we need to get to the street soon. I bet there’s an EMT down there.”

  Sarah was confused but only for a second. She looked Derrick up and down and finally saw the crimson stain spreading on his chest, getting wetter and darker and wider with every heartbeat. “He shot you!” She breathed. “Derrick, he shot you!”

  Derrick grinned. “Better me than you, sweetheart.” The color had started to leave his face. Sarah recognized the early symptoms of shock. “I think I can make it if we hurry.”

  Sarah knew better. The wound looked dangerous. It looked like the bullet had entered through the front of his left shoulder, possibly shattering the clavicle, possibly puncturing the lung which could result in a tension pneumothorax, or splintering a bone that could possibly endanger his heart. If it wasn’t a through and through, the bullet could endanger all kinds of vitals in his thoracic cavity and end his life in seconds. “Sit down and put your back against this railing.”

  “Sarah…” Derrick protested.

  “Do it. Carefully.” Her tone brooked no further argument. All of her medical training took over and her voice barked with authority. She pulled his shirt out of the way and yelled, “Beaumont! I’m going to need some help here!”

  “Sarah,” Derrick grinned, “I know you’re a good nurse but I’m not having a baby.” His head lolled backward and the grin faded from his face.

  Sarah ignored his attempt to jest and became all business. She ripped his shirt out of the way then applied pressure to the wound with her bare hand. “Sit forward for a second.” Derrick leaned forward and she inspected his back. No exit wound. The bullet was still inside. He had taken the bullet instead of her. He had put himself between a madman with a gun and her. He had probably saved her life. “Sit back … slow. Easy does it.”

  Beaumont walked calmly into the hallway. “It’s okay. We’ve got them all in custody.” He saw Sarah’s arm and Derrick’s chest covered in bright red blood and his words froze. He drew his radio like a firearm and said, “I need EMTs to the third floor now! Right now! We have a man down.”

  He holstered the radio and his eyes met with Sarah. “How is it?”

  Sarah didn’t move. She said, “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  Beaumont nodded and raced down the stairs.

  Derrick leaned back and coughed abruptly. Sarah felt a tight dark circle of fear when she saw foamy blood tinge the corners of Derrick’s lips with the cough. His lung had been punctured. “Derrick, listen to me. The bullet didn’t go through. It’s still inside. Your shoulder feels a little crepitus, which means that your clavicle is probably shattered. That means you have bone splinters and a bullet rummaging around in there. We need to get you immobilized and then they are going to need to operate. In the meantime, you need to take slow, shallow breaths. Okay? Slow and steady.”

  Derrick grinned,
“My heart is racing but it isn’t because I’m shot.” Sarah’s eyebrows knotted. She wondered if he was starting to lose his lucidity.

  “Don’t talk,” Sarah ordered.

  Derrick covered her hand with his own. “I love the way you touch me.”

  “Derrick…”

  “I love you, Sarah.”

  “I love you, too, Derrick. Now please shut up!”

  Derrick chuckled and it turned into three sharp coughs. Then he said, “Let’s pray.”

  Sarah nodded. “How about if I pray and you be quiet and take slow, steady, shallow breaths?” She looked toward heaven and said, “Dear God, let us feel Your presence right now. Let us feel You lifting us in the palm of your hand.”

  She continued to pray as paramedics raced up the stairs with a stretcher.

  SOMEONE had fetched Sarah’s shoe and handed it to her before the doors of the ambulance closed. The paramedics let her ride in the ambulance, but they wouldn’t let her help them. Powerless, she watched them work, never ceasing praying. Praying out loud, praying under her breath – she never stopped. Derrick lost consciousness long before he was loaded into the ambulance, but Sarah still constantly squeezed his hand, touched his cheek, spoke to him in soothing tones. It comforted her even if it couldn’t comfort him.

  The ride to the hospital was short. The emergency response team met them at the doors. A surgeon started assessing the situation immediately as they rushed into the trauma room. Sarah answered the questions pointedly, never missing a beat. This was her hospital. She knew the staff, and they knew her.

  While the secretary at the administration desk called for an operating room, the trauma team stabilized Derrick. Sarah helped one of the nurses cut his clothes off so that monitors and IV’s could be attached. A breathing tube was inserted. The second the surgeon gave the go ahead, they wheeled his bed from that room and headed toward the elevator. At the elevator doors, her clothes-cutting partner stopped her. “You can’t go in with him, Sarah. You need to go to the waiting area.”

  “But –”

  “Nurse!” the surgeon said, gesturing toward the controls. Every heartbeat of Derrick’s outside the operating room brought him one heartbeat closer to a bullet fragment ripping apart a vital organ.

  The nurse stepped back as the doors slid shut. Before they sealed completely, Sarah heard the alarm of the heart monitor signal a warning.

  Stomach rolling and hands shaking, Sarah pulled her phone out of her scrubs pocket. With Derrick’s dried blood on her fingers, she sent a mass text message to her family – Tony, Robin, Maxine, Barry – asked them each to check with each other to make sure everyone got the message and to meet her in the surgical floor waiting room.

  She called her mom. Her voice started to hitch, but she swallowed the tears. Time for that later. “Please come,” she whispered when she finished explaining where she was and why she was there. After she hung up, she called Peter O’Farrell.

  “Sarah?” She turned and saw her roommate Melissa. She held her arms out and Sarah stepped into the hug, soaking in the reassurance. As Sarah stepped away, Melissa said, “Here, now, love. Go change. I’ll rummage up some tea for you.”

  Sarah looked at her clothes and all the blood staining them. Derrick’s blood. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Do you have a change of clothes?”

  Trying to make sense of Melissa’s words, Sarah finally nodded.

  “Good. Okay. Go use our locker room. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

  Feeling as though she moved underwater, she walked through a series of corridors. Even the staff of a hospital in downtown Boston looked at her, shocked expressions failing to hide their curiosity as to what she would have encountered to be covered in so much blood. Finally, she came to the OB nurses’ locker room. Her fingers fumbled on the dial of the combination, but she finally got her locker open. Inside, she kept a spare set of scrubs and underwear. She grabbed her toiletries bag and the change of clothes, then went to the shower room.

  She stood there under the lukewarm spray and watched the blood mix with water and spin down the drain. Tears burned in her eyes, but she closed them, took a deep breath, and gave her head a quick shake. Determined, she picked up a washcloth, soaked it with body wash, and scrubbed as quickly as she could. Time to breakdown later, she promised herself. She needed to put her back up right now – be there for her family, be able to answer questions and make sense when she spoke.

  She didn’t bother wetting her hair. She just washed the blood off her hands and arms, and cleaned the cuts on her ankle and leg from when her foot fell through the stairs. As quickly as she could, she dressed in clean scrubs, threw everything into her locker, then rushed upstairs to the surgical family waiting area.

  CHAPTER 22

  DOCTOR Jeremiah Woodworth picked another bullet fragment out of the lung of the young man on the operating table in front of him. He had done this too many times in his career at the hospital central to Boston’s downtown, and it never got easier. It never got dull. So much violence tainted this fallen world.

  The hand carved tattoos on the man’s chest combined with the bullet ripping its way through the torso gave the doctor some indication of the type of lifestyle this poor soul likely led.

  While he worked, while he asked for tools, sponges, light, while he explained things to the surgical intern watching the procedure intently, he prayed for this young man. He prayed for his physical body and his spiritual state. He knew he didn’t know anything, but he knew the Holy Spirit did, and that was all that mattered.

  He followed the path of a fragment to the outside of the heart. “Let me see that x-ray again,” he said to the nurse at his right elbow.

  She held up the x-ray to the overhead light. He squinted at it, looked at the chest cavity below him, and said out loud, “I hope this young man has someone praying for him. And for me. Because I think we’re both going to need all the help we can get.”

  SARAH stared at the toes of her shoes. She didn’t have a change of shoes and blood covered the plastic tops. Cleaning them didn’t occur to her until she sat in the waiting room, away from access to water and towels.

  Her mother sat on one side of her, Maxine on the other. Robin and Maxine sat with their heads bent together, talking in low tones. Barry stood, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, ankles crossed. He hadn’t moved a muscle in an hour.

  Peter came and went, taking phone calls outside the waiting room. For some reason, the silence wouldn’t be penetrated. There seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgement of the need for utter silence.

  Sarah concentrated on even breathing and maintaining control. So far, she’d relayed the story of what happened three times. Once Tony got there, she’d have to tell it all over again. She needed to keep control. She needed to not break down. Not yet. Tonight. Tonight in her own home in her own bed, when Derrick was safe and alive and well, she would break down.

  Had she ever considered the magnitude of her love for Derrick? How empty her world would be without him? How had she allowed them to waste ten years they could have been together? If only she had quit looking at the outside package and seen the man inside, they could have had an extra decade together. Now they might not have another ten seconds.

  The waiting room door slammed open and all eyes turned to look as Tony rushed in. He scanned the faces in the room and headed straight for Sarah.

  Robin jumped up as he reached them, and he put his arms around his wife but spoke to her sister. “I got here as quickly as I could. Had to turn the pilot around. What happened?”

  Sarah took a deep breath as she stood and wiped her hands on her thighs. “Gianni Castolli abducted me from my house today,” she began.

  With Tony’s “What?” interrupting her without really interrupting, she continued with the rest of the story.

  Long after she finished speaking, he stared at her. Finally, he stepped toward her and put his arms around her. “I’m so sorry, mia sorella.”
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br />   “I know.” She hugged him tight once then stepped back. “At least it’s all over now. Derrick isn’t facing a trial for murder anymore.”

  “Instead we’re in here waiting while a doctor digs a bullet out of his chest.” Tony ran his hands through his groomed hair.

  Peter set his Bible down and approached his friend. “You and I both know that you can’t wish away your past,” he said. He took his glasses off and slipped them into the front pocket of his shirt. “We can be absolved for our sins, but the past still exists. Derrick handled himself like a champion soldier of God throughout this entire ordeal. He never faltered, he never wavered in his unshakable faith. For that he is to be admired. For that, we can lift him up as an example of how to persevere in even the most trying circumstances. Don’t take his past from him.”

  Tony cocked his head while he stared at his mentor. After several seconds, he nodded. “Thank you.”

  Sarah rolled her head on her shoulders and watched as Melissa came into the room with a tray of coffee and tea. She was so thankful for her friends and family. Without them here in this room with her, she would be an emotional puddle on the ground.

  She moved back to her seat, but instead of sitting in the vinyl chair, she sat on the floor between the feet of her sisters. Maxine leaned forward and hugged her. “I hate waiting,” she said.

  Robin took a cup of coffee from the tray. “I remember waiting after your accident,” she said to Maxine. “It was a nightmare.”

  “I wish they would let me in there,” Sarah whispered. “It’s the not knowing what’s going on that is so hard. If I just knew, I could be digesting it and coping with it.”

  Robin put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Melissa knelt behind Sarah. “Do you need anything?”

  Sarah reached her hand over her shoulder. Melissa placed her hand in her roommate’s. Sarah stared at her sisters, then her mother, and squeezed Melissa’s hand. “Not a thing.”