Guilty as Sin

by Jami Alden

  Panic and fury roared through him, drowning out the voice of reason trying to reassure him that so what if Tommy could find them, it didn’t matter because there was no reason for him to be looking.

  Yet he couldn’t escape the sensation that the walls were closing in on him, the end was rushing up, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  He surged from the chair, pulled the gun from his waistband as he loomed over Kate. “How long has that been on?” he shouted. “How long!” he repeated, kicking her in the leg when she didn’t respond.

  Kate gave a feeble whimper and tried to open her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered when she saw the gun pointing at her head.

  Oh god, this is it, Kate thought through the haze of pain. He’s going to finish it.

  Her eyes drifted shut, but she could hear him cursing, call her a host of filthy names. She blocked it out. I’m sorry, Tommy, she thought, as though somehow he’d pick up her thoughts in the ether. I’m sorry I pushed you away.

  She could hear the scuff of John’s feet on the deck, assumed he was getting in better position to aim.

  Maybe I’ll get to see Michael again.

  Chapter 33

  He and CJ were halfway down the trail when they heard a gunshot, followed immediately by a shrill alarm from Tommy’s phone indicating that the GPS signal was lost.

  Panic surged in his chest. Holy shit, he killed Kate. I’m too late, and he killed her. The thought echoed through his head as he took off at a flat-out sprint, CJ following close behind. “Call in the boats, get them to block him off,” Tommy said, unnecessarily, it turned out. Before he even finished the sentence, he heard CJ shouting the orders into his mike. Burkhart had parked the boat in a narrow, U-shaped cove no more than fifty yards wide. They’d completely lost the element of surprise, but it would be easy to block off the escape route. Within a minute a voice came through his earpiece assuring them the boats were in position.

  As they got closer to the lake, the brush thickened, and Tommy felt branches tearing at his arms as he crashed through the foliage. When they were close enough to hear the rumble of the boat engine, they slowed their pace to keep the noise level down.

  Burkhart had only gotten about twenty yards off the shore before the boats pinned him in.

  Over the noise of the boat’s engine, one of the deputies called through a megaphone, “Put down your weapon and release the girl.”

  Tommy’s stomach flipped as he raised the binoculars to his eyes to confirm what he already dreaded. Burkhart was standing at the helm, and though he didn’t have a clear view of Kate, it was obvious by the man’s stance he was holding a gun to her head.

  There was a moment of relief. Despite the gunshot they’d heard, if he was using Kate as a hostage, it meant she was alive.

  The relief fled immediately as he focused in on her and got a better look. She was unconscious, he realized, her head slumped forward. And—Jesus Christ, his heart froze in his chest—the front of her shirt was covered in blood.

  She looked like she was dead.

  He shoved the thought away, forcing himself into mission mode. If she was dead… He couldn’t go there. He had to keep it together. Because if she was alive and he lost his shit right now and didn’t get her to the hospital in time, her death would be as much on his head as Burkhart’s.

  Tommy and CJ locked eyes. CJ pointed at him, then at the north end of the U. Making his way carefully through the brush so Burkhart wouldn’t see him, Tommy moved until he was parallel with Burkhart’s boat while CJ took up the same position on the opposite side of the cove.

  “I’ve known you for a long time. I know this isn’t who you really are,” the deputy called over the speaker. “John,” the deputy said in a softer tone.

  “You don’t have a fucking clue who I am and what I’m capable of,” Burkhart screamed.

  “It’s clear she’s wounded. I know you don’t want her to die. Let her go.”

  Burkhart’s response was to pull Kate tighter against him and dig the barrel deeper into her temple.

  Tommy pulled his rifle off his shoulder and put his eye to the scope, which allowed him to take in the scene in excruciating detail. “You in position?” he said to CJ.

  “Affirmative,” CJ’s answer came clearly through Tommy’s earpiece.

  So CJ too could see Kate’s pale, unresponsive face and the fact that not only did Burkhart have a gun to her head, he had his hand wrapped firmly around her throat.

  “If you don’t move in five seconds, she’s dead. Five, four…” Kate’s head lolled to one side. Just the opening he needed.

  “I have a shot.” Tommy took a deep breath and settled the M1A more firmly against his shoulder.

  “So do I,” CJ said into his ear. “Let’s do this.”

  “Three, two…”

  A loud crack, another following a millisecond later. Time seemed to stop for a moment as Tommy watched Burkhart’s head explode into a bloody pulp, his body falling lifeless to the ground.

  Tommy was sprinting down the hill before Kate hit the deck.

  “Excuse me? Sir?”

  It took a few seconds to realize the doctor was speaking to him. “Yes?” Tommy looked up to see a lanky guy in his mid-forties dressed in scrubs. Tommy recognized him from around town but couldn’t place the name.

  “You came in with Kate Beckett, correct? I’m Dr. Shreeve, her surgeon.”

  Tommy nodded eagerly and shot to his feet. “How is she?”

  The doctor’s mouth pulled into a grim line that sent Tommy stomach hurtling for his feet. “Because it took a couple hours for her to get treatment, she lost a lot of blood. And with bullet wounds there’s the risk of extensive tearing.”

  Tommy’s vision swam, his throat so tight he couldn’t breathe as the doctor’s words sank in. She’s dead. Oh, God, she’s dead. She’s dead and I never told her I love her.

  He felt his knees go watery beneath him as the doctor continued to speak, his voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

  “… but with physical therapy should recover fully.”

  Tommy snapped to alertness as the doctor’s words sank in. “Wait, she’s not dead?”

  Shreeve’s bushy eyebrows knitted together over the bridge of his nose. “No. As I said, though the injury is serious, I expect her to make a full recovery.”

  Again his knees threatened to buckle, this time with relief. “Here’s a tip, Doc: How about next time you lead with that.”

  Despite the doctor’s reassurances, the sight of Kate, so pale and still in the recovery room, hit Tommy like a blow to the chest. With her eyes closed, oxygen mask over her face, and the sheets and blanket pulled over her, it was hard to believe she was breathing.

  Logically, he knew she had to be, otherwise the half dozen or so machines she was hooked up to would be setting off all kinds of alarms. Still, he couldn’t draw a breath until he got close enough to see the shallow rise and fall of her bandaged chest, until he took her hand in his and felt her fingers curl slightly in response.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he said, his voice thick. The doctor had warned him that it could take awhile for her to regain consciousness, and even then she would be out of it from the morphine drip.

  So he was surprised when her eyelids fluttered at the sound of his voice, and she murmured something that sounded like his name behind the oxygen mask.

  His fingers curled more tightly around hers and he felt his mouth stretch into a grin even as his eyes burned with tears. “Katie girl, you’ve got to stop scaring me like this.”

  Her eyes crinkled a little bit above her mask. And he couldn’t be sure, because it was muffled by the mask, but it sounded like she said “Keep you on your toes.”

  Her little comeback sent a surge of tangled emotions through him—relief, joy, gratitude. And on top of it all, a love that felt so big it was going to swallow him up.

  He bent his head close to where hers rested on the pillow. Through the smells of antisept
ic, he got a whiff of pure Kate. He took a deep breath, filling himself with the scent of grass, flowers, and the sweet musk that was uniquely her. “I was so damn scared I was going to lose you,” he said. “When I saw you there…” The words choked off at the image of her on the boat, so pale and small, blood staining her entire torso crimson. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you.”

  Her fingers squeezed feebly at his hand. It took him a few moments to realize she was trying to say something else. He lifted his head, moved his ear right next to the oxygen mask.

  “Sorry,” he heard her whisper. “Sorry I pushed you away… told you that you ruin everything.” The single tear rolling from the corner of her eye hit Tommy like a punch in the gut.

  “Don’t, it’s okay.” Tommy’s throat felt like it was being closed in a vice.

  Her eyelids slid closed and when several moments passed he thought she’d fallen asleep. But then she whispered, “You don’t ruin anything. Only you make everything right.”

  Tommy’s eyes burned as he brought her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “We make everything right,” he whispered fervently. “And I should have told you this a lot sooner, but I love you, Katie.”

  The only reason Kate knew she was really awake this time was because of the pain. The grinding pressure started in the upper right part of her chest and radiated all the way down to her hand. Though the pain made her gasp, she resisted the urge to give herself an extra dose from her morphine drip.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how long she’d drifted in and out of her drugged half sleep, plagued with strange dreams and visions so vivid it was hard to know what was real and what wasn’t.

  She opened her eyes, and even through the pain she felt her heart surge with happiness at the sight of the man asleep in the chair next to her, his body bent in half so his arms and torso rested on the bed next to her. She had no idea when he’d come in—there was only a vague impression of a deep voice rumbling in her ear.

  I love you. Her heart clenched at what she hoped was an actual memory, not just a fantasy cooked up by her overmedicated brain.

  Her arm felt like it weighed a thousand pounds but she willed it to move so her hand could come to rest on Tommy’s head, her fingers coiling in the short thick strands of hair.

  He raised his head and greeted her with a smile so full of warmth she felt like the sun had risen right there in her hospital room.

  “You’re here,” she whispered with an answering smile.

  He took her hand in his, pulled it to his mouth, and pressed a kiss in the center of her palm. “I never left.”

  Kate felt the burst of joy ebb as she dug back through her foggy memory bank and remembered the events leading up to her surgery.

  “John?” she asked, her stomach churning at the thought of the man.

  “Dead,” Tommy said. There was no missing the satisfaction in his voice. “Got him with a clean shot to the head.”

  She must have been unconscious at that point, she thought with a shudder. While part of her was glad not to have the memory of John’s death, after all of the evil he’d inflicted on Kate, her family, and so many others, part of her wished she’d been able to see him take Tommy’s bullet to the head.

  “You mean I got him with a clean shot to the head.” Kate turned her head and saw CJ standing in the doorway.

  Tommy rolled his eyes and shook his head, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. “Whatever, Marine. You keep that fantasy alive as long as you want, but we both know the truth.”

  “Acing sniper school and hitting a moving target are two totally different things, Ranger boy,” CJ retorted. Then, his expression serious, he continued, “I don’t want to intrude, but I just wanted to check in, see for myself you’re on the mend.”

  Kate shifted in the bed, wincing at the shaft of pain driving through her chest. “It hurts like a bitch, but the doctors seem to think I’ll be fine.”

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. I also wanted to let you know that I spoke to Agent Torrance at the FBI. They’re going to formally reopen the Bludgeoner case with Burkhart as the key suspect. I’m going to reopen Michael’s case as well.”

  At the mention of her brother’s name, Kate felt another wave of pain pour through her that had nothing to do with the wound in her chest. All at once, the soul-crushing truth she had discovered came crashing down over her. “Oh, God,” she whispered, tears flooding her eyes as she clutched her free hand against her chest.

  Tommy immediately sprang to attention. “What is it? Are you in pain? I’ll call the doctor—”

  “No,” Kate whispered. “It’s not that.” The pain from her wound was nothing in comparison. “It was supposed to be me.”

  “What do you mean?” Tommy asked. Her throat closed up over the words, as though somehow by not saying them, she could pretend they weren’t true.

  “He didn’t come for Michael that night. He was coming for me.”

  Though it made a weird sort of sense that Kate was the intended target—all of Burkhart’s other targets had been female—that didn’t stop Tommy’s mind from reeling as Kate repeated what Burkhart had told her.

  “As soon as he realized he’d grabbed Michael and not me, he decided to kill him.” The pain reverberating in Kate’s voice felt like it was leaching from her skin under his own.

  “So he grabbed Emerson Flannery and made it look like a murder-suicide,” CJ said through gritted teeth. “That sick fuck.”

  Kate was sobbing softly now, the sound cutting at Tommy like shards of glass. He bent his head until it rested against hers on the pillow. “Kate.” He didn’t have the words to comfort her.

  “It should have been me,” she sobbed. “If I’d only been there, in my own bed like I should have been, Michael would still be alive.”

  “And you would be dead!” Tommy said, too harshly, but even the thought of it was almost too much for him to deal with. “You think that would have been better?”

  She turned so her face was buried in the curve of his neck. He could feel her tears soaking his skin, burning him like acid. “My family would say so.”

  Tommy blinked back his own tears and threaded his fingers through Kate’s hair. “And I say they’re full of shit. I say the only person to blame for any of that is that sick fuck who took advantage of your family’s trust and then tore it apart.”

  CJ excused himself. Tommy didn’t even spare him a glance.

  “If he hadn’t been after me—”

  “He would have been after someone else. He was a sick killer, and if it hadn’t been Michael, or you, it would have been someone else. You can’t beat yourself up for the rest of your life for what he did. You’re as much a victim as Michael or any of those other girls.”

  “How can you say that when I’m alive and they’re not?”

  “Barely,” Tommy snapped, “or did you forget the part where he put a bullet in your chest?”

  She started to turn her face from him. He caught her chin, gently but firmly keeping her eyes locked on his.

  He knew she was at a breaking point, that if he didn’t pull her back from the edge he was going to lose her again. For good this time.

  “Don’t. Don’t push me away again. I know it feels impossible now, but you can get past this. I’ll be with you, every step. I’m not going to let you go through this alone.”

  She started to open her mouth but before she could speak, he continued. “You wanted to know what I said in the letter? I said a lot of things, but the most important thing I said was that I love you.”

  She stiffened against him and her throat spasmed on a hard swallow. “You did?”

  “I did. And I do. Love you, I mean. And I know at the very least you need me right now, even more than you needed me then. And I’m not going to turn my back on you again, no matter how hard you try to push me away.”

  Kate lay next to Tommy, her fingers clutching his hand like a lifeline. She didn’t know it wa
s possible to feel such intense grief and intense joy at the same time.

  But Tommy’s confession sent a burst of happiness through her, immediately followed by a rush of shame. What right did she have to be happy after everything that had happened?

  “Do you love me, Kate?” It tugged at her heart, the way he sounded almost tentative.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then don’t let him take this away from us too. He already tore your life apart. Don’t let him take our future.”

  Kate moved her hand to rest against his cheek. She soaked in the different sensations, the scratchy feel of stubble against her palm, the softness of his lips as she brushed her thumb against them.

  She looked into his eyes, so close she could see the flecks of gold in their dark depths. It was as though the years had fallen away and he was looking at her with all the love and intense devotion he’d once felt in his young heart, no trace of the hardened warrior he’d become.

  Every fiber of her being wanted to drink it all in and give it right back to him, but the guilt was still there, a yawning cavern in her soul, threatening to consume her. Telling her she didn’t deserve any of it.

  She told Tommy as much.

  “What do you think Michael would want?” Tommy shot back, the frustration evident in his voice. “Do you really think he’d want you to spend the rest of your life miserable, doing penance? If the tables were turned, would you want him to do the same?”

  “Of course not,” she said, choking on a sob. “But you don’t know what it’s like—”

  “You think I don’t know what it’s like to have someone’s death on my conscience? I was there the night Michael died too. I’ve gone back and replayed that night thousands of times, wishing I hadn’t pressured you to sneak out.”

  “I was the one who went. I was the one—”

  Tommy pressed two fingers gently against her lips. “We both should have made different decisions. But the truth of the matter is that the only guilty party in all of this was John. He almost took you from me today. When I thought you were dead, I felt like my life was over. I never got over losing you the first time.”