by Ross, JoAnn
“Hey!” the red-faced driver shouted, just as she reached for the handle.
There was the sudden crack of a pistol being fired. The cedar jamb right beside her head splintered.
Ignoring the sliver of wood that had slammed into her cheek, Merry flung open the door and began running.
“Oh, my God!” Julianne’s heart took a joyful leap as she watched her sister fly out of the house and begin racing toward them, actually leaping over burning grass, her speed amazing for a pregnant woman carrying twins. “She’s really here. And alive!”
“Now we just have to make sure she stays that way.” Dallas opened his door, leaving it open to shield the gunfire that began blazing from the house.
“I’m going to get her,” Tom said. He was out of the Hummer like a shot.
“Who knew a bulked-up jarhead could move so fast?” Dallas said. “I’m going after him. Meanwhile, since we’ve no idea how many bad guys we’re facing, you’ll have to help hold them off.”
“I can do that.” She had, after all, qualified every year on the range.
“You don’t have to actually hit anyone,” he assured her. “Just provide cover for Tom and me.”
“Roger that.”
Actually, after what whoever was in that house had put her sister through, Julianne had not a single qualm about shooting the kidnappers. In fact, she’d love the chance to put bullets right through their evil black hearts.
“On three,” Dallas said.
“Three,” she repeated.
“One.” He held up a finger.
“Two.” A second.
“Three.” He burst from behind the door.
At the same time, Julianne leaped out of the Hummer and, using her own door as a shield, picked up the M16, and as Dallas had shown her how to do when he’d gotten it for them, began blasting away at the first-floor windows.
Although she was dying to watch Merry make her way across the burning expanse of ground, Julianne couldn’t risk allowing herself to be distracted.
So she kept shooting.
And, as bullets blazed from inside the house, she prayed as she’d never prayed before.
She had no idea how long the gun battle lasted.
The already surreal day had taken on a slow-motion feel as she fought to keep both her little sister and the man she loved alive.
Later, she would assure herself it was only seconds. A couple minutes at most. But while it was happening, it seemed like a lifetime.
And then Tom was back, Merry flung over one broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
At the same time, Dallas was shoving someone—who was bleeding copiously from his leg as he stumbled—toward the Hummer. Julianne immediately recognized him as the older of the two NCIS officers who’d shown up at their BOQ in Hawaii. The Lobster Face guy whose circle had intersected with Ramsey’s.
“Got her,” Tom said with amazing calm as every nerve ending in Julianne’s body jangled like a bosun’s mate’s alarm.
“I knew you’d come!” Merry shouted over the wail of the wind and the roar of the fire crowning in the tall pine trees. Her smile flashed in a face blackened by smoke and ash.
She, too, seemed far less rattled than Julianne felt.
As Tom settled her into the vehicle, Dallas tossed the NCIS officer onto the back floorboard. “Use some of those straps to tie him up,” he instructed Tom, who, showing they were on the same military page, had already begun to zip the plastic ties around the man’s wrists.
He was not gentle.
Julianne didn’t blame him.
Even as their prisoner complained about unnecessary roughness, she decided he was lucky Merry’s Marine husband just didn’t shoot him on the spot.
Dallas jumped back into the front beside Julianne, who’d also scrambled back up into the Hummer.
Rather than try to turn the Hummer around in such a small space, he shoved the gears into reverse and began speeding backward.
At the same time, there was a huge crash and all of them watched as one of the trees towering over the house came crashing down onto the roof.
The dry wood, combined with the flaming tree and stockpile of ammunition inside, was all it took.
The house literally exploded, as if it had been hit by a bomb.
“Well, I guess we won’t have to worry about any more shooting,” Dallas said. His smoke-smudged face broke into a grin. “And now that we’ve had our fun for today, ladies, what do you say we blow this pop stand?”
“That would be a good idea,” Merry agreed. “Since I think my water just broke.”
64
Not wanting to take the time to drive Merry to the base hospital at Oceanside, they took her, and their prisoner, to Bear Valley Community Hospital. The lack of any available deputies to guard the bad guy could’ve proven a problem had not the ER doctor on duty just happened to be a former Army physician who’d worked in battlefield conditions in Iraq.
After locking the guy’s arms and nonwounded leg to the rails of the gurney, he proceeded to extract the bullet and sew up the wound, leaving the others to attend to the about-to-be new mother, who was rushed into delivery.
Although Merry had told Julianne about Tom nearly fainting during the birthing video, he definitely stepped up to the plate when it came to the real thing.
While Julianne had taken a few classes as well, in the event the Marine might be deployed when the time came, she had little to do but to stand by and watch as Merry’s husband mopped his wife’s sweaty brow and coached her with her breathing.
“That’s it, baby,” his deep voice crooned. “You’re doing great.” He massaged her abdomen, which had hardened with contractions. “This is going to be a cakewalk.”
“You’re as big a liar as the nurse who taught that birthing class,” Merry accused through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I know.” She collapsed back against the pillow as the contraction passed. “At least the sex was worth it.”
He laughed at that. “And the babies will be, too.” He smoothed away the hair clinging damply to her forehead.
“Yeah. Remember that when you get up to help with the two a.m. feeding,” she said through her panting.
“There isn’t any other place I’d rather be.”
Julianne exchanged a look with Dallas, who was standing just inside the door, looking as if he’d love to escape at any moment. But she could see that he was as touched by the relationship between the soon-to-be parents as she was.
“So,” Dallas asked, “have you picked out names?”
“Since my beautiful, traditional wife decided not to know their gender ahead of time, that’s still up in the air,” Tom said. “If they’re both boys, I was trying to get her to go with Starsky and Hutch.” His large dark hands began massaging the pale, hard flesh again. “But she turned me down flat.”
“I suggested Laverne and Shirley if they’re girls,” Julianne said. “But that didn’t make the top ten, either.”
“You guys are just a riot,” Merry said, panting. “You’d think you’d have more respect for a pregnant woman. Especially one who’s been kidnapped and . . .”
Her voice dropped off as her eyes grew wide. “Oh, wow.”
“Oh, wow, indeed,” Julianne echoed. “You can see Laverne’s head.”
“It’s got hair,” Dallas pointed out.
“Of course my baby has hair,” Merry huffed indignantly.
“Actually, it’s more wet fuzz,” Julianne said.
“I thought babies came out bald,” Tom said.
“Like Bruce Willis,” Dallas offered.
“Stop that!” Drenched in sweat, seeming between laughter and tears, Merry bore down.
A moment later the baby slid from her womb with a silky, wet ease.
“Would you all please welcome Starsky to the world?” the doctor said.
“That’s not his name.” Even as she protested, tears welled up in the new mother’s exhausted eye
s. She looked up at her husband. “We have a son,” she said.
“And he’s perfect.” As the indignant wail of new life echoed around them, Tom bent down and touched his lips to Merry’s chapped ones. “Just like his mother.”
Ten minutes later, his sister, who would not be called Laverne, the new mother insisted firmly, joined the party.
After ensuring that the babies, despite being born early, were well, Julianne and Dallas left the delivery room and headed down the hall toward where they’d been told the NCIS officer had been moved after being treated in the ER.
“This is a little surreal,” Julianne murmured. “Going from watching two new lives coming into the world to a guy who was part of a conspiracy that ended up with lives lost.”
“It’s definitely on opposite ends of the human continuum,” he said. “You know, I thought that baby-birthing stuff would be gross, but that was pretty cool back there.”
“Way cool.” Despite the seriousness of the mission they still needed to wrap up, Julianne smiled. “Every once in a while something happens that reminds me miracles do exist.”
He paused, then took hold of both her hands and, as hospital life continued around them, spent a long time looking down into her face. She’d washed the ash and smoke off her face, which was still reddened from the heat of the blaze, her hair was scrubbed back into a ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of oversize blue scrubs and paper slippers, but she was still the most beautiful woman Dallas had ever seen.
“You’re not going to get any argument there.”
Because, the way he saw it, Julianne Decatur being in his life was definitely a miracle. He wanted to tell her that. And more. But as the announcements continued to blare from the wall speakers, he reluctantly decided that this was neither the time nor the place.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. “Then I want to take you somewhere.”
“Where?” she asked as they began walking.
He flashed a grin. “Somewhere wonderful.”
65
Lobster Face guy’s face was even brighter than it had been in Hawaii—partly from the heat of the fire, and partly from anger. He was definitely not a happy camper.
“I demand a lawyer,” he said the moment they walked into his room. Which wasn’t that surprising, since he’d been yelling the same thing most of the drive from the cabin. Until Tom had shut him up with a very well placed hit to what turned out to be a glass jaw.
“Then you’re in luck. Because Agent Decatur is a lawyer,” Dallas said.
For a guy with two wrists and one ankle chained to bedrails, and another leg in a plaster cast elevated above the bed with a system of pulleys and weights, the NCIS officer still had a lot of attitude. And none of it good.
“You know what I mean, fuck for brains,” he growled.
Dallas rocked back on his heels and folded his arms over the front of the scrub suit he’d changed into so he could attend the birth of Merry’s babies. “Now, is that any way to talk to someone who might just be able to offer you a deal?”
“You want to offer me something? Get me some fucking drugs for the pain. The doctor’s a fucking sadist.”
“If you talked to him this way, you might’ve pissed him off,” Dallas suggested.
“Or maybe he didn’t like the idea of you kidnapping a pregnant woman in the middle of a Santa Ana wildfire,” Julianne suggested.
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“Whose was it?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed. “Flyboy here mentioned a deal?”
“Depends on what you’re putting on the table.” Her tone had turned as cool as Dallas remembered it. Much cooler than he knew the woman to be. “Maybe you don’t have that good a card in your hand.”
“Bitch.” His glare could’ve stripped paint off the side of a carrier.
It also ricocheted right off her. “You’ll have to do better than that,” she said. “Because I’ve been called a lot worse.”
“Now there’s a surprise,” he muttered.
“It was also the wrong answer,” Dallas said. “Wanna try again for Double Jeopardy?”
There was a pause as the NCIS agent mentally processed his chances. “I want immunity from prosecution.”
“It’s not up to either Agent O’Halloran or me to decide,” Julianne said. “But I’m guessing that’s not an option. Lives were lost.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Only because we made it there in time,” Dallas pointed out. “Even if your cohorts didn’t get trigger-happy, you’re talking about a pregnant woman inhaling a lot of smoke. And that’s if she managed to avoid getting turned into a crispy critter.”
“California has had a fetal homicide statute since 1970,” Julianne told him. “In People v. Bunyard, the California Supreme Court also upheld the application of a death penalty based on a multiple-murder conviction. Which means you could have been looking at death for taking three innocent lives.”
He didn’t respond to that. But his face did go from scarlet to ash.
“You were lucky we showed up when we did,” Dallas suggested. “Maybe we even saved your life.”
“Remind me to thank you.” He grimaced again, obviously in pain. “Of course, there’s also the fact that you shot a goddamn bullet through my leg.”
“You’re lucky I decided to aim for the thigh. For a moment I was seriously considering blowing off your family jewels. Then I decided you’d bleed out, which wouldn’t serve any purpose. Because as much as I’d love to be the guy who put you six feet under, you’re the one who’s going to tie up all the loose ends for us.”
“Wrap them up in a shiny red bow,” Julianne agreed.
Despite his lack of cards to play, the guy actually sneered. “And you know this why?”
“Because you used to be one of the good guys,” she said. “NCIS is the best in the world. I don’t know where you went off the tracks, but this is a chance to redeem yourself. So, after you get out of prison, which you undoubtedly will, eventually, you’ll be able to look yourself in the mirror.”
“And this also gives you a chance to get out ahead of Ramsey. And Wright. One of whom might be willing to make a deal. Which would leave you out in on a very precarious limb. Telling us what you know about those two could win you some brownie points at sentencing,” Dallas pointed out. “Especially since you weren’t the one to set everything in motion to begin with.”
He thought about that. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out the way it did. If fucking Ramsey had kept his dick in his pants, where it belonged, none of this would’ve happened.”
“So Captain Ramsey was the father of Lieutenant Murphy’s baby?”
“Yeah. But you would’ve found that out anyway. With those damn DNA tests. I told Wright that.”
“Wright being the one who killed the lieutenant.”
“Yeah.” He dragged a hand down his face, which was still smeared with smoke. Obviously none of the ER staff had been all that sympathetic to his condition.
“And pushed LSO Manning overboard,” Dallas said. “Then he spread the word that Manning and the LT had a sex thing going.”
“Yeah. Once he learned there was going to be an investigation into that pilot’s so-called suicide, he decided to give you guys a scapegoat. One who couldn’t speak up for himself. But I didn’t know he was going to off either one of them.”
Dallas shot Juls a look. The one she gave back assured him she didn’t believe that any more than he did.
“The LSO’s murder might’ve come out of left field,” Dallas said. “But Lieutenant Murphy couldn’t have been that much of a surprise.”
“It shouldn’t have been any big deal,” he insisted, unknowingly repeating what Dallas and Julianne had already considered. “She was going to get an abortion. Move on. But the fucking captain decided he was in love.”
He heaped an extra amount of acid on those last two words.
“And Wright and the rest of you feared he’d blo
w his promotion by making some grand romantic gesture,” Julianne guessed.
“Yeah. Talk about your middle-age crazy. The guy was on the verge of going fucking insane.”
“Which would’ve made it hard to ride his snazzy white dress uniform coattails into the Pentagon,” Dallas said.
“Hey.” The bluster was back. “Not everyone washes out of the military like you two. Some of us see it as a career.”
“But not everyone kills to get ahead.”
“Like you’ve never heard of a battlefield promotion?”
Dallas felt a temper he usually kept under control flare. With effort, he banked it. “Have you ever been on a battlefield?”
“No.”
He bent down until they were face-to-face. “Then don’t even talk about something you don’t know shit about, pal. Or I might just go PTSD, get trigger-happy, and shoot a hole through that other leg. Before blowing off your puny, pitiful excuse for balls.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” The bluster wavered. Dallas could smell the fear beneath the stench of smoke, blood, and antiseptic.
“Try me.” He flashed a grin. “Like Dirty Harry asked, Do you feel lucky today?”
Lobster Face gave him a long, hard look. “I knew you two were trouble when you showed up in Oahu.”
“Congratulations,” Dallas returned. “Because that’s the one thing in this goat fuck of a plan you managed to get right. So”—he stood back up again, folded his arms, and set his face in his best Spec Ops, “don’t fuck with me” look—“why don’t you just tell Agent Decatur what she needs to know to wrap up this case. Because we have a ship to meet.”
66
“Well, you certainly made that parking valet’s day,” Julianne said as they watched the young man roar away from the Hotel del Coronado in the Hummer.
Dallas grinned as he looked at the line of snazzy, polished BMWs and Mercedes waiting to be parked. “One thing’s for certain—we don’t have to worry about dings.”
There’d been a time when the spit-and-polish Julianne might have felt uncomfortable entering the lobby, with its ornately carved wooden ceiling, huge bouquet of fresh flowers, and massive crystal chandelier, in the same blue scrubs she’d worn for Merry’s delivery. But after taking the NCIS officer’s statement, and handing him over to some government cops who’d arrived on the scene, both she and Dallas had just wanted to make the most of their time together before the O’Halloran docked.