Suzanna's Surrender tcw-4
Page 21
“Three months of my time, and not a little trouble. Then there was the loss of Hawkins, of course. He wasn't much of a partner, but he was mine. Just as those are mine.” He looked down at the necklace and his mouth watered. They dazzled him. More than he had dreamed, more than he had imagined. Everything he wanted. His fingers trembled lightly on the gun as he reached out. Suzanna jerked away. He lifted a brow. “Do you really think you can keep them from me? They're meant to be mine. And when they are, everything they are will be mine.”
He stepped closer, and as she looked around for the best route of escape, his hand closed over her hair. “Some stones have power,” he told her softly. “Tragedy seeps into them, making them stronger. Death and grief. It hones them. Hawkins didn't understand that, but he was a simple man.”
And the one she was facing was a mad one. “The necklace belongs to the Calhouns. It always has. It always will.”
He jerked her hair hard and fast She would have yelped, but the gun was now pressed against the racing pulse in her throat. “It belongs to me. Because I've been clever enough, I've been determined enough to wait for it. The moment I read about it, I knew. Now tonight, it's done.”
She wasn't certain what she would have done – given it to him, tried to reason. But at the moment, her little girl moved into the doorway. “Mom.” Her voice trembled as she rubbed her eyes. “It's thundering. You're supposed to come get me when it thunders.”
It happened fast. He turned, swinging the gun. With all her strength, Suzanna hurled herself at him, blocking his aim. “Run!” she screamed to Jenny. “Run down the hall to Holt.” She shoved, and raced after her daughter. The decision had to be made the minute she hit the doorway. As she watched Jenny streak toward the right and – she hoped – safety, Suzanna plunged in the opposite direction.
He would follow her, not the child, she told herself.
Because she still had the necklace. The next decision had to be made at the steps. To go down to her family and risk them. Or to go up, alone.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard him pounding behind her. She jerked in shock as a bullet plowed into the plaster an inch from her shoulder.
Breathless, she streaked up, only now hearing the boom of thunder that had frightened Jenny and made her look for her mother. Her single thought was to put as much distance between the madman behind her and her child. Her feet clattered on the winding metal staircase that led to Bianca's tower.
His fingers darted through the open treads and snatched at her ankle. With a sound of terror and fury, she kicked out, dislodging them, then stumbled up the rest of the way. The door was shut. She nearly wept as she threw her weight against the thick wood. It gave, with painful slowness, then allowed her to fall inside. But before she could slam it closed, he was hurtling in.
She braced, certain it would be only seconds before she felt the bullet. He was panting, sweating, his eyes glazed. At the corner of his mouth, a muscle ticked and jerked. “Give it to me.” The gun shook as he advanced on her. A flash of lightning had him looking wildly around the shadowy room. “Give it to me now.”
He's afraid, she realized. Of this room. “You've been in here before.”
He had, only once, and had run out again, terrified. There was something here, something that hated him.
It crawled cold as ice along his skin. “Give me the necklace, or I'll just kill you and take it.”
“This was her room,” Suzanna murmured, keeping her eyes on his. “Bianca's room. She died when her husband threw her from that window.”
Unable to resist, he looked at the glass, dark with gloom, then away again.
“She still comes here, to wait, and to watch the cliffs.” She heard, as she had known she would, the sound of Holt racing up the steps. “She's here now. Take them.” She held the emeralds out. “But she won't let you leave with them.”
His face was bone white and sheened with sweat as he reached for the necklace. He gripped it, but rather than the heat Suzanna had felt, he felt only cold. And a terror.
“They're mine now.” He shivered and stumbled.
“Suzanna,” Holt said quietly from the doorway. “Move away from him.” His weapon was drawn, gripped in both hands. “Move away,” he repeated. “Slow.”
She took one step back, then two, but Livingston paid no attention to her. He was wiping his gun hand over his dry lips.
“It's over,” Holt told him. “Drop the gun, kick it aside.” But Livingston continued to stare at the necklace, breathing raggedly. “Drop it.” Braced, Holt moved closer. “Get out, Suzanna.”
“No, I'm not leaving you.”
He didn't have time to swear at her. Though he was prepared to kill, he could see that the man was no longer concerned with his weapon, or with escape.
Instead, Livingston merely stared down at the emeralds and trembled.
With his eyes trained on Livingston, Holt reached up to grasp the wrist of his gun hand. “It's over,” he said again.
“It's mine.” Wild with rage and fear, Livingston lunged. He fired once into the ceiling before Holt disarmed him. Even then he struggled, but the struggle was brief. With the next crash of thunder, he howled, striking out wildly even as the others raced into the room. Disoriented or terrified, stunned by Holt's blow to his jaw or no longer sane, he whirled.
There, was the crash of breaking glass. Then a sound Suzanna would never forget. A man's horrified scream. Even as Holt leaped forward to try to save him, Livingston pinwheeled through the broken window and tumbled to the rain swept rock below.
“My God.” Suzanna pressed back against the wall, her hands over her mouth to stop her own screams. There were arms around her, a babble of voices.
Her family poured into the tower room. She bent to her children, pressing kisses on their cheeks. “It's all right,” she soothed. “It's all right now. There's nothing to be afraid of.” She looked up at Holt. He stood facing her, the black space at his back, the glitter of emeralds at his feet. “Everything's all right now. I'm going to take you downstairs.”
Holt pushed the gun back in its holster. “We'll take them down.”
An hour later, when the children were soothed and sleeping, he took her by the arm and pulled her out on the terrace. All the fear and rage he'd felt since Jenny had run crying down the hallway came pouring out.
“What the hell do you think you were doing?”
“I had to keep him away from Jenny.” She thought she was calm, but her hands began to shake. “I suddenly had an idea about the emeralds. It was so simple, really. And I found them. Then he was there – and Jenny. He had a gun, and God, oh God, I thought he would kill her.”
“All right, all right,” Holt said. Suzanna didn't choke back the tears this time, but clung to him as they shuddered out of her. “The kids are fine, Suzanna. Nobody's going to hurt them. Or you.”
“I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't trying to be brave or stupid.”
“You were both. I love you.” He framed her face in his hands and kissed her. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She sniffled a little and wiped her eyes. “He chased me up there, and then...he snapped. You saw how he was when you came in.”
“Yeah.” Two feet away from her, with a gun in his hand. Holt's fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Don't you ever scare me like that again.”
“It's a deal.” She rubbed her cheek against his, for comfort and for love. “It's really over now, isn't it?”
He kissed the top of her head. “It's just beginning.”
Epilogue
It was late when the family gathered together in the parlor. The police had finally finished and left them alone. They were drawn together, a solid, united front beneath the portrait of Bianca.
Colleen sat, a dog at her feet, the emeralds in her lap. She had shed no tears when Suzanna had explained how and where she had found them, but took comfort in having that small, precious memory of her mother.
There was no talk o
f death.
Holt keep Suzanna close, his arm firm around her. The storm had passed, and the moon had risen. The parlor was washed with light. The only sound was Suzanna's soft, clear voice as she read from Bianca's journal.
She turned the last page and spoke of Bianca's thoughts as she'd prepared to hide the emeralds.
'“I didn't think of their monetary value as I took them out, held them in my hands and watched them gleam in the light of the lamp. They would be a legacy for my children, and their children, a symbol of freedom, and of hope. And with Christian, of love.
'“As dawn broke, I decided to put them, together with this journal, in a safe place until I joined Christian again.'“
Slowly, quietly Suzanna closed the book. “I think she's with him now. That they're with each other.”
She smiled when Holt's fingers gripped hers. Looking around the room, she saw her sisters, the men they loved, her aunt smiling through tears, and Bianca's daughter, gazing up at the portrait that had been painted with unconquerable love.
“It was Bianca, more than the emeralds, who brought us all together. I like to think that by finding them, by bringing them back, we've helped them find each other.”
Beyond the house, the moon glimmered on the cliffs far above where the sea churned and fought with the rocks. The wind whispered through the wild roses and warmed the lovers who walked there.
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