Dallas

by Cassidy Cayman

  “I know who ye really are,” he said tenderly. “And I love ye. But ye must leave me.”

  “I could tell ye I can see if ye’re lying or not,” Soni said. “But in truth, I really dinna care. The decision is yours, wrong or right. Ye’ll go with him? Leave this life behind?”

  “I get to stay with him? No tricks?”

  Soncerae smiled her first real smile, all the tiredness leaving her face and making her look incredibly young. She had to be younger than Eloise. “Aye, if that’s yer final decision?”

  Miranda grabbed Toren’s hand and held on tight. Tears streaked his face as he shook his head, silently begging her to reconsider. She pulled him close and kissed him hard, then turned back to Soni. “It’s my final decision.”

  Chapter 15

  Toren tried to shout, tried to pull away, refusing to let Miranda give up her life for him. Everything went black and he was alone with Soni. She’d lied. Thank goodness, no matter how disappointed he may be to give Miranda up, he’d be forever grateful that Soni hadn’t gone through with it.

  She smiled. “I have one last word of advice before I send ye on yer way. Ye need to be more careful in the future. Ye’ll no’ have any magic to mend ye anymore.” She winked at him and was gone.

  The room filled with orangutan shrieking and sirens wailing. There was a pounding coming from outside the lab and red and blue lights flashed to make his head spin. He blinked and none of it went away. Miranda threw herself into his arms and kissed him. “We’re both here,” she said in his ear before kissing him some more.

  Yes, they were both there. Together. He patted his side. While his shirt was still soaked with blood, the wound was gone. Soni had tricked them both, but had given him a final warning. He was mortal now, again. He was more than fine with that.

  Eloise gaped at them. “What’s this about?” she asked.

  “I love him,” Miranda said. She blushed and turned to him. “I love you,” she said more quietly. “I really think I do.”

  “Good enough for me,” he said.

  “How?” Eloise remembered she had to guard a villain and turned back to aiming the dart gun at Bergen. “When did you have time to make a pros and cons list?” she asked over her shoulder.

  Miranda laughed. “None of that matters anymore.”

  “You’re off your rocker,” Bergen said in a muffled voice. Eloise held her foot out menacingly and he shut up.

  The pounding from the front hall stopped and seconds later dozens of uniformed people swarmed the lab, guns up, shouting for them to get down. Toren dropped, pulling Miranda with him and covering her with his body. He reached over and tugged at Eloise’s ankle. The lass was so confused she stood there with her dart gun still aimed at Bergen, but with her eyes squeezed shut. She opened them and fell to her stomach beside them. Ambrose decided he’d had enough and with an eardrum piercing shriek, jumped through one of the holes in the ceiling and disappeared. A few of the men aimed their guns toward the hole and Eloise started to stand, yelling at them not to shoot.

  “Stand down,” a young officer told them, pointing at Bergen. “That’s him.” He whipped out a pair of handcuffs and with a foot on Bergen’s back, pulled his hands around and clicked them around each wrist. “Bergen Harrold, you’re under arrest for arson and conspiracy to commit murder. You have the right…”

  “That’s satisfying to see,” Miranda said from under his arm. She groaned in pain and let her head drop to the side, forgetting about watching Bergen get his comeuppance. He realized her shoulder was still bleeding, profusely now. Her face was paler than any of his ghostly Culloden brethren.

  “This woman is hurt,” he called out to whoever would listen. “She’s been shot.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said listlessly. Her eyes lost focus and drifted shut.

  ***

  Miranda woke up feeling surprisingly good. Red lights flashed still flashed but the sirens were silent now. Her first coherent thought was for Toren and she twisted around to find she was in an ambulance. Her shoulder was neatly bandaged and an IV led to a bag full of clear fluid, probably the source of her feeling so surprisingly good. A medic stuck his head in and smiled.

  “Awake? Good. Your shoulder was a through and through, probably no need for surgery. We’re just waiting on clearance to take you to the hospital.”

  She struggled to get off the gurney but was hopelessly tangled up in tubes. Where was Toren? There was no sign of him. Through the flashing lights she caught sight of police officers milling everywhere. What if she’d imagined him getting to return with her, a hallucination from her blood loss? Panic welled and she was about to yank out her IV when a large, kilted figure shoved his way through the sea of uniforms.

  “Ah, lass, ye’re awake at last. I’m sorry I wasna here. I was so covered in blood they insisted on checking me out.” He patted his side smugly. “Of course there was nothing there, thanks to wee Soni. I told them it must have been from ye.”

  She reached out for his hand, glad to feel his solid, real presence. “It would have been nice if wee Soni could have fixed me up while she was at it.” She pursed her lips. “I guess I can’t really be mad at her since she let me keep you.”

  “Aye, that was a pleasant shock.” He leaned over and kissed her tenderly. It turned into something more, long and lingering and oh, so sweet, until she heard her sister’s annoying throat clearing and pulled back.

  Eloise raised her eyebrows but kept her comments to herself. It was probably from worry over seeing her in an ambulance. “I can’t believe they’re taking so long to get you to the hospital,” she griped. “I’m trying to figure out who’s in charge of this circus.”

  “Where’s Bergen?” she asked, trying not to look around fearfully. Toren was by her side and the area was flooded with cops. There was no way he was a threat to her any longer.

  Eloise snorted. “They took him away about twenty minutes ago. Are you in much pain?”

  “None, actually.”

  “Good. Oh, look, finally someone’s coming to talk to us.”

  A police officer approached them with a wary look at overhearing Eloise’s impatience. He had dark, solemn eyes and neatly trimmed black hair. His badge read Officer Detchkov. He addressed Eloise.

  “Ma’am, we need to know if that orangutan upstairs is dangerous. We need to collect evidence but it’s still on the loose.”

  “Ambrose isn’t a—” Eloise started her knee jerk reaction to anyone getting Ambrose’s species wrong. “Oh, sorry, yes, he is an orangutan.” She gazed at the handsome young officer and beamed. “And no, he isn’t dangerous at all.”

  “You’re the one who arrested Bergen,” Miranda said, leaning forward on her gurney.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You already knew who he was, didn’t you? And none of us called, so how did you show up like that?”

  He shook his head, distressed at having to deliver the news. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that Dr. Harrold was plotting your murder. The fire was supposed to look like an accident but anyone with half a brain cell can see it was clearly arson.”

  Eloise beamed at him some more, a crush clearly brewing there. “But why?” she asked. “Miranda was his partner. How would he benefit from her death?”

  Officer Detchkov puffed out his chest. “He was trying to steal her research. He got a very lucrative offer to start testing your formulation from a Russian pharmaceutical company and I guess he didn’t want to share or maybe he didn’t think you’d go for it. He started planning with one of the people over there to get you out of the picture.”

  “Oh my gosh, did you get that guy, too?” Eloise asked.

  “It was actually that guy who contacted us here locally. He didn’t like the permanent nature of your partner’s plan to get you off the project and started worrying about your well-being.” He paused and grinned, a blush stealing over his cheeks. “This is my first assignment. Normally there’s no way I’d ever get something so huge as a murder
plot, but they needed someone who spoke fluent Russian. My parents are immigrants, so I grew up back and forth in both countries and sound like a native when I want to.”

  “So ye pretended to be one of them and helped plan Miranda’s murder? Eloise was in there, too, and so was I. We all could have been killed,” Toren said.

  He looked chagrined. “He was supposed to tell us exactly when it was to take place. He made it seem like he was still in the planning stages and might do it next week. Our original plan was to notify you as soon as he said it was a go. He never shared with us that tonight was the night or that he was going to go to a resort up in Wisconsin and try to use that as his alibi.”

  “But then how did you know?” asked Miranda.

  The whole story made her sick. She wondered if Bergen had been the anonymous tipster to her current benefactors to try and get them to drop their funding. That would make it a lot cleaner when he decided to take her years of hard work off to greener pastures in Russia.

  “Ye were on the phone with him when he came back here to clean up his mess,” Toren guessed.

  “Yes, that’s it exactly, uh, sir. How did you know that?”

  “I overheard him arguing with someone on the phone when he got here. I didna like the sound of it one wee bit.”

  Officer Detchkov frowned and bit his lip, looking like he might cry. “I was never so scared in my life, ma’am,” he said to Miranda. “I tried to talk him out of it, tried to delay him as much as I could while I despatched the team. We were shocked that he’d go ahead without alerting me. I’m terribly sorry you were shot.”

  “I’m not badly hurt,” Miranda said. “I’m glad you showed up when you did.” She looked meaningfully at Toren.

  “Aye, good work, lad,” he said begrudgingly.

  “Is there anything else?” Eloise asked. “Can she please get to the hospital?”

  Officer Detchkov looked befuddled as to why the ambulance hadn’t left yet. “Of course. And Miss Clark?” He turned his full attention to Eloise. “If you don’t mind, could you come up and keep an eye out for the orangutan in case it comes down while the team collects evidence?”

  Her eyes widened. Miranda could see her little sister’s dream of being part of an actual crime investigation about to be fulfilled. “I should go to the hospital with Miranda,” she said, looking at Officer Detchkov as if she could will him to order her to stay.

  “Don’t be silly, El,” Miranda said. “Ambrose needs you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Miranda looked at the burly Highlander by her side, covered in blood and proudly touting girl power. She felt more sure than she ever had in her life. “Yes, of course. I’ll be fine. I have Toren.”

  The end.

  Thank you for reading!

  I hope you enjoyed Dallas. Stay tuned for the next ghosts in the series, exciting things are to come! If you’d like to read my other ghost in the series, it’s Book 36, Alexander

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