He sighed, then brightened. “I’ll call 911, get you some backup.” He started searching his pockets.
She almost snapped off an order that he shouldn’t do that, but bit it back. It would sound pretty damn suspicious for a cop to tell a man not to report a break-in at his home. Not to mention a possible shooting.
“Damn,” he said. “Cell phone’s in the car.”
“Call from the house,” she said, latching onto the excuse to get rid of him. She had to get to River, make sure he was all right.
She started off again, hoping Ethan would do the same, and waited until she heard his footsteps crunching over the cold ground back toward the house to glance over her shoulder. He was doing as he’d promised. Going into the house. She walked faster, lurching into a run as soon as she heard the door close.
“River?” she called in a harsh, overloud whisper.
What she wouldn’t have given for a flashlight. Hell, was that blood on the ground? She bent closer, checking out the grapefruit-size patch of dark red staining the snow, then rose again, looking around. “River, where are you?”
A deep moan brought her head sharply to the left. She saw a partially frozen pond, with Canadian geese huddled together along the shore. And then the shape in the snow. She hurried toward it. Moments later she was kneeling beside River, peeling off the knitted hat, cradling his face in her palms and gently smacking his cheeks to get him to open his eyes. “Come on, come on, snap out of it. We don’t have time for this.”
She smacked a little harder. His eyes popped open and took a moment to focus on her face. A heartbeat later recognition kicked in. She said, “Where are you hit?”
“Where’s Ethan?” he asked.
She dropped his head, and turned to begin searching his body for signs of injury. “In the house calling the cops. We don’t have much time to get you the hell out of here. Now where are you—oh, damn.” The blood was seeping steadily from the back of one leg. She gripped his hip and rolled him onto his side, but she could barely see in the darkness. She lowered him again, then reached for his belt, rapidly unbuckling it and sliding it from the loops of his jeans.
“Hell, Jax, this isn’t the time.”
She slid her gaze upward, met his. “Making bad jokes? Maybe you’re not at death’s door just yet, then.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, well, don’t be so sure. Was it worth all this, River? Did you at least find something useful in there?”
“No records on Steph, but…” He pulled a black leather-bound booklet from the back of his jeans and held it up. “I got this.”
“Yeah. You also got shot. I’d say all in all, you kind of lost this round, pal.” She slid the belt around his thigh, then stopped and drew away. “You have to do this, River. I go back there covered in blood, and it’s going to look fishy. I mean, I could probably talk my way around it with Ethan, but those cops he’s calling—”
He nodded and shoved the book back into his jeans. Then he sat up, took both ends of the belt, pulled it around his thigh, above the spot where the bullet had hit him, and knotted it tight. He gritted his teeth in pain, but tightened the belt mercilessly anyway, and Jax was glad he did.
“There’s no exit wound,” she said. “The bullet must still be in there.”
“Yeah, I was thinking of starting a collection.”
“Real funny. You leave the car somewhere?”
He nodded. “That way, first left, about a half mile.”
“Let’s go. We’ll hit the pavement so we don’t leave tracks in the snow, and hope you’re not laying a blood trail. All right?”
He nodded and let her pull him up. She hauled his arm around her shoulder and got him out of the ditch and onto the blacktop. Then she moved as fast as she could. Clearly, it was hurting him badly to walk on the wounded leg, and it probably wasn’t doing the injury any good, either, but they didn’t have much choice.
“We have to get off this road before the cops get here,” she said. “And they won’t be slow. Not when this was Ethan’s second break-in of the day, and their hottest fugitive in years is responsible. Hell, they’ll probably bring a freaking army.”
He glanced up at her, his face contorting with every step, and said, “Glad you still think I’m hot.”
“Jesus, River, this is not funny. If they see me helping you—”
“If they see you helping me, Jax, I’ll spin around and clock you in the jaw. Gently, of course. And you can go down on your ass and I can run for it. Say you were giving chase, that you had me.”
She thought that her footprints back there in the snow where he’d been lying were going to tell an entirely different story, but she didn’t say so.
“You’re right,” he said. “They’re going to pull out all the stops to catch me. Hell, they think I killed Stephanie. And that orderly. And Arty, if they found the freezer.”
“I think Frankie would have called me by now if there were talk of a body in a freezer, River.”
He stumbled, and she pulled his arm around her shoulders a little farther, readjusting her hold on him. She kept one arm around his waist, supporting him as much as he would let her. “You gonna make it?”
“Got to.” He moved his head. “There’s the side road. It’s bare, no snow. We should be all right.”
They walked around the corner and down the second road, which was gravel lined and narrow, but fortunately, not snow covered. She picked up the pace, even though she knew it was hurting him. Hell, if he were caught he would be killed. She believed that, and she was damned if she could figure out who was wishing him dead, plotting his demise. She wanted to think it was Ethan. He was the easy suspect. But he was too easy, and her gut wasn’t ready to bet their lives on it.
“There’s the car,” River said.
She nodded, spotting it up ahead, and walking even faster. To his credit, he didn’t complain. Didn’t grunt in pain or make a single protest. Then again, it was his life that was hanging by a thread, not hers. They made it to the car. She wrenched open the driver’s door and helped him ease inside.
“Damn Ethan and his dumb luck,” River muttered. He fished the keys from his pocket and stuck them in the switch. “I don’t imagine he’s fired a gun more than five times in his whole freaking life, and he manages to hit a moving target.”
She fastened his seat belt around him, only realizing what a nurturing thing it was as she heard the click. Giving herself a mental smack upside the head, she took her hands away. “At least he missed the femoral artery or you’d have bled out by now.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“And it’s the left leg, so you can drive. Thank God the car’s an automatic.” She met his eyes. “Think you can make it home?”
“I’ll make it.”
She nodded. “If the bleeding starts again—”
“I’ll cinch it up tighter. Don’t worry. We’re gonna need to clean the car. If they check—”
“They’re not going to have a reason in the world to suspect me, River. No one’s going to check my car. Unless you keep talking until the cops get here and spot it.”
She started to straighten, but River caught her head in his hands, pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her mouth.
When he let her go again, he said, “Thanks for having my back.”
“Yeah. Just get the hell out of here, will you?”
He nodded. She backed out of the car and closed his door, watched as he pulled it into motion and headed down the dirt road, away from the main one. He probably knew a shortcut or alternate route that would avoid the cops.
Hell, the cops.
She turned and ran back the way she had come, scanning the roadside until she spotted a limb she could reach without leaving tracks in the snow, one drooping from a pine tree. She snapped it off, and kept running, back to where she’d found River lying, and then she took her time, did her best to wipe out the marks her knees had made, and a few of her footprints in the snow, whil
e leaving one set of her own, and all of River’s pretty much alone. It was tough, in the dark, but her eyes had adjusted by now. She thought she was seeing everything. She heard sirens, and knew she’d run out of time.
She turned and walked through the snow back to the paved part of the driveway, tossing the branch under the first tree she saw, then hauled out her shield, and kept the gun tucked out of sight. As soon as the cars came howling into the drive, she held up her ID, letting their headlights catch it in their glare.
The cars stopped, officers got out, several coming toward her at once.
“Jackson,” she said. “Up from Syracuse, New York.”
“Ryder,” the cop in the lead said, extending a hand. “What have you got?”
She shook his hand, wondering belatedly whether she had blood on hers. She didn’t think so. “Dr. Melrose and I walked in on an intruder at approximately—” she glanced at her watch “—21:45. He was in the den—first floor, rear of the house. He fled, exiting through that door there—” she pointed as she spoke. “Crossed the back lawn. Melrose had a freaking firearm. Took a shot at him as he fled.” She shook her head.
“He have a license for it?” Ryder asked.
“I have no doubt. But using it was unnecessary. I disarmed him, sent him to the house to call you all, and headed out here to investigate.”
“He hit the prowler?”
She nodded, then led them straight to the bloodstained snow where River had been lying, and pointed. Ryder pulled out a flashlight and aimed its beam at the snow. “He went down, here, for a minute. Maybe two. Then took off again,” Jax explained. “I’ve searched the area. No sign of him. I think he’s long gone.”
Ryder nodded, turned to his men. “Fan out, search the area.” Then he returned his attention to her again, his light moving with his eyes, until she shielded her own. “You’ve got a little blood on you.”
She followed the light, saw the blood on her blouse, swallowed hard. “I didn’t have a light. Had to get pretty close to that spot to see if it was blood. I’m surprised I didn’t smear more on me than that.”
He nodded. “Okay. You get a look at the perp? See if he had a car somewhere?”
She shook her head. “No. It was too dark and then he was gone. I didn’t hear any vehicle, though. My guess is he’s still on foot.” Better to keep them here, searching the area, and give River plenty of time to get safely away.
“All right.”
Ethan was hurrying from the house now, down the driveway to where she stood. “Thank God,” he said, taking in the entire situation with a swift glance. “Did you find him?”
“Not yet,” Ryder said.
“He’s hit, though.”
Ethan blinked as if he’d been stunned by Jax’s words. He met her eyes and it was clear he knew he had just shot his best friend. “I didn’t mean—” he began.
“No one ever does,” she snapped. “Listen, I need to get my ass home, and I’ve got no wheels here.”
“I can drive you—” Ethan began.
“We need to get a statement from you, Dr. Melrose.”
“Of course.” He looked at Jax again. “You can take my car. I have the SUV, anyway.”
She nodded. “Walk me back? They can wait five minutes for that statement.”
He frowned, but nodded, and she started back toward the house. She remained several steps ahead of him, so that he had to run to catch up, and even then she kept her brisk pace unchanged. “So why’d you do it, Ethan?”
“What?”
“We both know your burglar had to be River.” She stopped abruptly, turned and stared him in the eye. “So tell me, why did you shoot the man you keep telling me was the best friend you ever had? The man you were close to tears about earlier? Why did you try to shoot him in the back, Ethan?”
He frowned deeply, and for a moment she thought he would deny that was what he had done, but he didn’t. He faced her. “I didn’t think,” he blurted. “Jesus, you don’t know what went through me after I pulled that trigger and realized it might be River running from the house. I just—I just reacted, that’s all.”
“You shoot at fleeing prowlers so often it’s become a reflex action, huh?”
“Don’t make it sound like that, Jax. If it had hit me sooner that it might be River I never would have—”
“Might be River? Ethan, you know damn well it was River. You just told me no more than two hours ago you were certain River was the one who’d broken into your office today. So who else would break into your home a few hours later? Who else could it have possibly been?”
“I’m a lousy shot!” he exclaimed. “I probably wouldn’t even have hit him if you hadn’t slammed into me like that.”
“Yeah, or maybe you’d have killed him.”
He spun away from her, let his head fall forward as if his neck had turned to water, and pushed his hands through his hair. “Did you see him? Is he all right?”
“If I’d seen him, he’d be on his way to a hospital, and in custody,” she said, and she didn’t even feel guilty about the bald-faced lie. It was getting easier and easier to lie for River. “But there is a pretty good size patch of bloodstained snow over there,” she stated, and when he turned, looking horrified, she nodded toward where River had fallen. “So we know you at least wounded him. Nice job, Ethan. That’s the work of a true friend, right there.”
“I told you, I wasn’t thinking. God, I would never deliberately shoot River.”
“Wouldn’t you?” she asked. “Because you know, it occurs to me that someone seems to want him dead. Someone hired that goon at the hospital, pulled strings to get him in there despite his record. Maybe even delayed the mandatory background check. River told you he’d been attacked and I’m beginning to think that wasn’t a delusion, after all. And now you’ve shot him for no good reason whatsoever.”
Ethan was silent for a long moment, studying her.
“Makes you wonder,” she said. “You got the keys or what?”
He nodded, tugged them from a pocket and slapped them into her hand. “I’m not the one trying to kill River, Jax. I swear to you. I’m not. I thought I aimed low and to the left. I really did. I just wanted him to stop running, end this insanity once and for all.”
She studied his eyes, watching for signs of deception. It occurred to her that the bullet had been low and to the left, just not far enough. Then again, he wasn’t an experienced marksman. And she had knocked him off balance.
She pursed her lips, sighed and lowered her head. “I’m sorry if I was rough on you. I just had to be sure.”
“And now you are?”
She lifted her head again, put a smile on her face. “More than I was. Thanks for the loaner. I’ll take good care of it and get it right back to you, okay?”
He nodded. “Before all this—I mean, it didn’t end well, Jax, but I enjoyed having dinner with you.” He reached out as he said it, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
She covered his hand with hers. “Me, too,” she said. “Maybe next time we can invite Victoria along. I’d really like to meet her.”
He stiffened just a little at the reminder of his wife. Jax knew he hadn’t asked her out with the intent of hitting on her. It had been about the case, about River. She believed that. But that had changed, just for a moment, just now. Whether he’d intended it or not—she’d felt it.
* * *
Dawn woke from a sound sleep to see the woman standing at the foot of her bed, staring at her.
She sat up fast, startled. “What the—” But then the fear faded, because the woman was the same one she’d been seeing for days now. Maybe the shock was wearing off. She didn’t look at all menacing. Just rather lost, and maybe frightened. Dawn softened her voice, squared her shoulders. She was tired of ignoring them and demanding they go away. It wasn’t working, anyway. Maybe she should try to find out what the hell they wanted from her.
Swallowing her fear, she forced words to her lips, but they came o
ut shaky. “Who are you?”
The woman didn’t speak. She just stood there, staring.
God, what was the point of her showing up all the time if she wasn’t going to say anything? “You want something from me, right?”
The woman nodded. The movement revealed the scarred and sooty side of her face, and it almost made Dawn change her mind about trying to communicate. Goose bumps rose on her skin and not just from the deathly chill. She was scared.
“Well, if you want something, you’re going have to tell me what it is.”
The woman opened her mouth and moved her lips, though Dawn couldn’t hear a word. She flung back her covers and got out of bed, but didn’t move any closer. Something inside was stirring. She wanted to know what the woman was trying so hard to say.
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.” She touched her own ears and shook her head in case the woman couldn’t hear her, either. Dawn shivered a little as the woman seemed to grow more agitated. Her eyes widened, the veins in her neck standing out as she moved her mouth more urgently, spewing forth a stream of words that were soundless, and yet emphatic.
Dawn could almost hear them now, whispers reaching her, but nothing more. She stepped closer, forgetting her fear for an instant as she stretched out a hand. “Calm down. Take it easy. It’ll be all right, just—”
She stopped speaking then, because she had lowered her hand to the woman’s shoulder, a gesture of comfort, and when her eyes shifted to her hand so she could correct her aim, she saw it—she saw it—move right through the woman.
Of course it did. It wasn’t a surprise, it was just…surreal. And disorienting. It made her stomach heave and her head spin. Her body turned to ice in the instant before the woman simply opened her mouth as wide as she could and screamed. And even though Dawn didn’t hear the scream with her ears, she felt it. It reverberated through every part of her body. She felt it in her chest and in her teeth, the way you felt the music at a Godsmack concert—would feel it even if you were stone-deaf. It went on and on, until she thought her head would split, and she pressed her hands to her ears and closed her eyes in self-defense.
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