Damien grabbed his arm and hauled him back. “You can’t go closer!”
“I have—”
Just then the back wall of the shed gave way. Sparks shot up, glowing orange against the darkness of the green branches overhead.
Case lurched to a halt and propped his hands on his knees. “No. God, no!” The prayer came too late.
He had failed.
Damian squeezed his shoulder. “Sorry man. I’m cutting wide around back to see if we can pin this guy in. He has to be out here somewhere.”
But as Damian melted away into the trees, Case couldn’t bring himself to care whether they caught Simon or not.
His whole world had just gone up in flames.
Kyra rested on her knees for only a moment before she clenched her teeth and forced herself to stand. She hadn’t taken all those karate lessons learning how to kick for no reason! The shed was old and the wood rotting. Chances were that the brackets holding the door closed might be rotted enough to break free, right?
She backed as close to the flames as she dared, then barreled forward and dove hard into a full-frontal kick.
She heard a splinter, but the doors didn’t give. Everything in her begged for just one full sweet breath of air, but she knew that if she gave in to the urge the smoke would take her down. She might never be able to get to her feet again.
Another run, another kick, another splinter, this one louder. The doors spread wide enough that she could see light on the other side! Hope!
One more time, Kyra!
Backing up again, she put every last ounce of her effort into the run and the kick and this time the doors gave way. She tumbled out onto the ground in front of the shed, coughing and gasping for breath.
“Kyra!”
Case’s voice. Relief sapped her of the strength to do anything but breathe.
Then a thought registered. Where was Simon?
She pushed against the ground, oxygen-deprived muscles quavering with the effort. “Case?” the word was barely a rasp. She must get to Case. He would protect her.
“Kyra, I’m coming!”
She stood, swiping at her eyes, trying to see through billowing smoke and tears. One step forward. Then two. She leaned heavily against a tree, glanced up—right into the face of a scowling Simon Hall.
A whimper escaped and she pushed off, but before she could take more than half a step an arm snaked around her neck and yanked her back. “No you don’t.” Simon’s words ground against her ear. “I must confess I’m impressed with your will to live though. Too bad all your efforts were for nothing.”
And then, with her clutched tightly to his chest and his pistol pressed firmly to her temple, he stepped out into the clearing before the cabin. “Nobody come any closer!”
Kyra clutched at the arm he angled across her throat and met Case’s ice green gaze boring steadily into hers above the barrel of a pistol as he hurried toward them. He gave her the barest hint of a nod before he turned his attention to the man holding her captive. “Give it up, Hall. All the cards are on the table now.”
To Kyra’s surprise, Simon only laughed. “Oh man, I was right. You are a cop! I figured you for a cop after the way you reacted at the park.” Simon’s feet shuffled backward a few steps, dragging her with him. Behind them the cabin crackled and popped. “I see I winged you. Does it hurt?”
A muscle in Case’s jaw bunched and only in that moment did Kyra notice that he was holding the pistol one-handed, with his other arm curled in tight against his torso. He must be in a world of pain right now. But his voice remained steady when he said, “Let the lady go, Simon. This is over.”
“Oh no!” Simon stroked her cheek with the point of the gun.
Terror all too familiar returned with full force. Kyra realized that this scenario wasn’t going to end well for her. She tried to twist her face away.
Simon grabbed her chin with one meaty palm and forced her to be still. “This isn’t over till I say it’s over.”
Kyra caught a flash of movement from a few trees farther back. Case’s boss angled out to one side, while Sheriff Holden Parker angled in the other direction, but both stayed well back from where Case stood. Both men also had guns trained on them. They were sneaking from tree to tree trying to flank him.
“Everybody stop!” Simon demanded, loud enough that they could hear him over the roar of the fire. “Or I take her head off!”
Kyra swallowed.
All the men froze in place.
“You shoot her, Simon, and we take you out in the next instant, you understand?” Case’s voice sounded like gravel under tires.
Kyra felt a tremor shiver through Simon, but at the same time his hold on her tightened. “We just all need to be calm and think this through.”
Case nodded. “That’s right. We do. And if you think it through you’ll realize that you have no way out of this situation, and hurting the lady is only going to make things worse for you.”
Simon backed up a few more steps. Kyra could feel the heat of the blaze warming the backs of her arms. Simon muttered to himself now in an agitated fashion. Kyra couldn’t make out any of his words, but it was clear that he was processing his options of what to do next.
A billow of smoke, thick and black, drifted in front of them, and when it cleared Mick had a phone to his ear. His lips moved, but he was speaking too low for her to hear his words above all the noise.
Simon must have suddenly realized he was on the phone too, because he jolted. “Hey! No phone calls! Who are you talking to?”
Mick lifted his hands, calmly. His phone still tucked in his right palm. “We’ve got a lot of people wondering what’s going on out here, Simon. I was just explaining the situation to one of the detectives. Trying to keep everyone in their right minds, you hear?”
Kyra saw Case’s gaze flicker. Had there been some sort of code in what Mick said?
She felt another tremor sweep through Simon.
Case took a couple steps closer and off to his left.
Simon angled to keep Case directly in front of them.
Kyra was so hot now that she could feel sweat drenching her.
“What do you want, Simon? There has to be something you want. Just tell us and we’ll see what we can do for you.” Case took a couple more steps.
Simon gritted a laugh and turned with him. “You think I’m stupid?”
In the background, Mick and Holden started to ease out to the sides again.
“Hey! I told you two not to move! Stay where I can see you!”
Both men froze, hands lifted.
Parker’s voice was calm and soothing when he yelled across the distance. “We’ve known each other a long time, Simon, right? How long has it been?”
Kyra returned her focus to Case and blinked. While her attention, and presumably Simon’s, had been on the men in the background, Case had moved a couple steps nearer. And now his gaze was piercing right into hers. His eyes narrowed slightly and his chin dipped a notch at the same moment that she noted the fingers on his injured hand waggling.
She glanced down. He had two fingers protruding. And he obviously wanted her to take note of that fact.
“What are you doing Case? You are about to get the pretty lady here shot! Step back.” For the briefest of seconds, Simon pulled the gun away from her head and thrust it toward Case.
Case stilled and his attention returned to Simon’s face. “I’m not moving, Simon. Just calm down. See? I’m right here.”
The gun pressed to her temple again, and Kyra’s eyes fell closed in despair. She was about to get shot. And with that realization came one other. Her only regret was that she didn’t have more time to get to know Case. She opened her eyes, sought his out. He was looking at her again, but there was an intensity about his look that made it clear he was waiting for her to understand something.
Kyra fought through the panic, and heat, and terror that was making every thought ungraspable, trying to figure out what Case was attempting
to tell her. And then in a flash it came to her. Two. The count was always two. No matter what number he said to Simon, something would happen on two. But…her panic increased. What was she supposed to do on two? Just stand there? And what was his plan?
“Simon this is your last warning. Let the woman go and turn yourself over peacefully. Do it now. I won’t say it again.” There was a deadly calm about Case’s instructions that Kyra had never heard in his tone before.
Kyra felt Simon shake his head. “No way, man. Ain’t happening!”
Case’s eyes suddenly widened. “Kyra, are you with me?!” His brows shot up. “Simon, I’m telling you man, she’s about to faint. I’ve seen this before. I’d say we have about five seconds before she goes limp in your arms!”
Comprehension dawned. Relief nearly made her faint right there on the spot. But she had to wait for two seconds.
Case took two quick steps toward them.
“Shut-up!” Simon extended the gun to stop Case’s forward progress. “Kyra don’t you dare faint.”
Too bad for him, she’d reached the count of two in her head, because she followed orders and slumped into a “faint.”
Shots rang out.
Simon’s arm around her neck went limp.
Something bounced against the pine needles by her head.
And then she was scrambling. Cowering. Crawling.
She didn’t know or care what direction she headed, only that it was away.
Someone grabbed her!
“No!” She fought and kicked. Clawed at a root and dragged herself forward. Swung her elbow.
“Kyra, it’s me!”
The heel of her hand connected with flesh and a grunt sounded near her ear.
“It’s me, Kyra. You’re safe. Everything’s over.”
Case! The words penetrated her consciousness. The person trying to grab her was Case!
With a sob, she turned and flung her arms around his neck.
He grunted again. And hissed as her weight forced them against a tree. But one arm curled around her and pulled her tight.
Kyra was sobbing then, crying against his neck. “Thank you. Thank you. I was so scared.” A root dug into her hip and she scooted closer, further into the safety of his embrace.
“I know you were. But I’ve got you now. It’s all over.” His hand soothed the length of her spine but there was something strangled about the words that broke through to her.
“Your shoulder! I’m so sorry!” She jolted back.
All around them was chaos. Several policemen had descended on Simon’s body. A man she didn’t recognize leaned over Simon and touched his throat, feeling for a pulse, but even as she watched, he shook his head. One of Parker’s officers unfolded a large blanket and draped it over the body.
Kyra shuddered. “Oh dear Jesus.” Her hand flew to her mouth and she was thankful to already be sitting because her legs felt no stronger than cooked spaghetti. A cough wracked through her.
“Kyra, we need to get up. Get you to the hospital.”
“I’ve got her.” A strange, yet somehow familiar voice spoke from beside them, even as the man scooped her into his arms.
Kyra was too startled to resist. Her arms wrapped around the man’s neck on instinct. It was the man who’d been leaning over Simon only a moment ago. Handsome chiseled features, and eyes the color of caramel corn, accompanied the familiar voice.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Case groused, struggling to his feet. “Just don’t get used to carrying her. Because as soon as my arm is better, that’s going to be my job.”
Kyra bounced a frown between Case and the new man.
Case smiled at her, but it was a bit pinched around the edges. “Kyra, I’d like you to meet my partner, Damian Packard.”
Right. “But how did you—”
Case led the way up the trail away from the still snapping fire and chaotic chatter of the officers.
“I was already on my way here. Because you see, my partner here can never quite finish an op without me.” Pack offered her a grin.
Case snorted.
They rounded the corner of the house. Red and blue lights strobed from almost every direction. An ambulance sat at the end of the drive and the paramedics descended on them, then, urging Case into a wheelchair, and instructing Damian to carry her to the back of the ambulance so she could be checked out. Over Damian’s shoulder she saw Case being loaded into a cruiser that left immediately, lights still flashing.
Concern tugged at her brow. What if he didn’t make it because he’d come to save her?
“Hey.” Damien jostled her slightly. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. They just want him in surgery sooner than later.”
He eased her onto the back stoop of the ambulance, and paramedics bustled to snap an oxygen mask over her face, take her blood pressure, check her pupils. She was being taken care of. Safe. But Kyra couldn’t relax.
All the way to the hospital, she couldn’t stop coughing, and every breath sounded like it was being sucked through a kazoo. The x-ray was torture because she had to hold still, and they had to repeat the process twice when she coughed at the wrong moment. Her head felt like it might explode while at the same time nausea churned. Through the shower they made her take to clean the grit and smoke off, and into the room where they propped her up in a bed with every machine known to man strapped to her, she worried and fretted and trembled. They took her blood and rushed it down for emergency tests.
Her pulse was too fast, they said. Her breathing too shallow.
For several hours, doctors and nurses flitted in and out of her room with worried expressions and low voiced murmurs of concern.
Kyra tried to calm herself. She tried not to fight the oxygen mask they put on her. But nothing was comfortable, and everything felt out of sorts.
And then Case walked into her room. His arm was wrapped from shoulder to wrist in so many layers of bandages that he looked like the Michelin Man, but his gaze was laser focused on her. And the moment she laid eyes on him, it was as though all was right with her world.
The beeping on the machine next to her slowed from a rapid tattoo to a steady rhythm.
The nurse that Case pushed past to get to her side, smiled and tapped the oxygen indicator on her meter with a satisfied smile. “I guess broken heart really is a syndrome,” she chuckled. “I’ll be right outside.” She pulled the door almost shut as she stepped out into the hall.
Case sank onto the edge of her bed and leaned forward to sweep a strand of hair away from her forehead. “Hey. They tell me you are really going through it.”
She couldn’t speak past the oxygen mask, but she managed to shake her head. She was fine now. She fumbled one hand across the blankets until she could wrap his good hand in her own. And then her eyes slipped shut.
Case had made it. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized that all her concern and anxiety was over him. But he had made it. And Simon wouldn’t be selling drugs to any more of her students In her book, that made for a pretty good end to a pretty terrible day.
With a soft sigh, she gave in to the tug of much-needed sleep, but not before she curled her fingers through Case’s, good and tight.
EPILOGUE
September had stretched into an unseasonably warm October, and overhead gulls soared on warm breezes, calling out to each other. The surf pulsed against the shore, and two little boys giggled from the playground just a few feet away.
Legs outstretched before her, Kyra leaned back against her hands and curled her fingers into the warmth of the grass.
Case lay perpendicular to her, his head resting just above her knee. His arm was still in a sling, but he no longer needed any bandages. His surgery had gone even better than expected and he was slated to regain full use of his arm after several weeks of physical therapy. He angled his face and looked up at her. “You doing okay?”
She transferred all her weight to one hand and allowed the other to stroke through his hair. “Any day spent with you is a good day.
”
He sat up, scooted a little closer and then propped his good hand on one side of her. “You just seem a little quiet today. Your lungs okay?”
“My lungs are fine.” And they were. With lots of rest and a round of antibiotics, she’d made a full recovery from her smoke inhalation scare. “Chloe came back to school today, and I guess that has me thinking through everything again.”
“How is she?”
Kyra absently traced a finger down the strap of Case’s sling. “She’s doing really well considering what would have happened if she hadn’t pushed me at the exact moment that she did. Her scar is pretty wicked, but she’s scheduled for plastic surgery on that in a couple weeks. And I think this near-death experience really shook her up. I even heard her talking to one of her friends before class about how God has used this in her life.”
Case captured her fingers in his own, toying with her first finger. “That’s really good. I’m glad to hear it. I always saw potential in her.”
“Mmmm.” Kyra knew she shouldn’t be so gloomy. But she was dreading tomorrow. For the past three weeks Case had been under doctor-ordered rest. He’d spent the whole time on the island and they’d spent every spare moment they could with each other. But all that was coming to an end. Tomorrow he was leaving to go back to work, even if it was only desk duty. He would be across the water.
“That’s not everything, is it?” He tilted her a look that urged her to be honest.
Kyra blinked hard. “I’m just going to miss you when you leave.”
“Hey now, none of that.” Case stroked a thumb beneath her lashes, swiping her tears away. A mischievous tilt tugged at his lips. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that you’re going to miss me.”
She frowned at him, dashing at her wet cheeks and inwardly admonishing herself to get her emotions under control. “Why does that make you happy?”
“In your eyes I’ve gone from would-be serial killer, to delinquent, to a man you are going to miss. I’ve come a long way.” He winked and leaned in to brush her lips with a soft kiss.
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