Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  "Yes. I know."

  "I'll defend you if Zoe West arrests you for using your weapon. Hell, it's not even department issue, it's Jack's. Oh, Jesus…he's on his way up here."

  She heard sirens, up close now. Sam held her, kissing her on the forehead. She couldn't talk anymore. She shut her eyes, leaning into him, and it didn't hurt so much.

  Kara didn't make a very good patient, but one of the paramedics who tended her in the backyard of Stone-brook Cottage knew her from her Connecticut days. Sam gathered he was another reformed criminal. Whoever he was, he told her to shut up and be still. The bullet, he said, had grazed a nasty path just below her rib cage but didn't look as if it had gone in. She was very lucky.

  But Sam had to admit she'd probably thrown Billie's aim off with that chair.

  Another paramedic crew worked on Billie Corrigan. It wasn't going as well for her. Sam's aim, even with a bomb about to go off and a chair flying, was better. Hatch was with her. The paramedics ran IVs and tried to stop the bleeding as they got her onto a stretcher.

  Zoe West stood next to Sam. "Deadly force was called for?"

  "Yes." He'd already turned his weapon over to her.

  "The Texas Rangers—they going to fire you?"

  "Maybe."

  She eyed him. "You give a damn?"

  "Not right now, no."

  "I'd tell everyone I shot her if I could get away with it."

  "Thanks, Detective," Sam said. "I appreciate the thought."

  "No, you don't. You're a straight arrow, Sergeant. If I were down in Texas and shot one of your citizens, you'd have my gun and my badge."

  But she moved away, the volunteer firefighters working on the cottage, the place crawling with town and state cops. And reporters. The media were descending. Sam moved closer to Billie Corrigan. He took no pleasure in watching anyone die.

  "Don't say you did this for me." Hatch choked back tears as he held his sister's hand. "Billie…you killed one of my closest friends. You almost killed the only family I've ever known other than you."

  "Hatch, don't—I did it for you." Her voice was insistent, thready from fatigue and loss of blood. "Big Mike thought you tried to kill Allyson. He'd have made your life miserable."

  "No, Billie. He'd have found out it was you. I'd have found out. That's what you were afraid of."

  "You deserve some of Lawrence's money," she whispered. "You do, Hatch. He was your brother."

  "I don't want the damn money. I never have. You know that."

  She shook her head. "I don't believe it." She drifted a moment, came back. "And Pete. He couldn't love anyone else while he was still under Allyson's spell. Hey, brother. You don't hate me, do you?"

  "No. I wish I could. Billie…oh, Jesus, don't die on me!"

  "Wally was a dumb idea, Hatch. You wanted him to find out if it was me, didn't you?"

  "I wasn't sure—I didn't know what to do, what to believe. I thought he'd at least keep the kids safe—"

  "Wally had his own agenda. He found out about Pete and Allyson, started calling her—he threatened to pin Big Mike's death on her. You couldn't have that, Hatch. You'd have turned me in for sure before you let Allyson take the fall."

  A paramedic turned to Hatch. "She needs to stay quiet."

  He nodded. "Billie…rest, okay?"

  "That's why I went after Charlie. I didn't want—" She tried to raise up, but the paramedic gently restrained her. "I didn't want you hurt. Hatch, please say you believe me."

  "I believe you, Billie."

  "Big Mike…I knew he'd try to save that bluebird."

  Her eyes were shut now, and the paramedics lifted her stretcher as she drifted into unconsciousness. Sam doubted she'd make it to the hospital alive. Hatch watched them take his sister away. He seemed rooted to his spot on the lawn, the cool wind catching the ends of his hair.

  "I'm sorry," Sam said.

  "She can't believe she tried to kill Allyson and the kids for me. For me! So I could inherit." He didn't look at Sam, just stared at the bloodstains in the grass. "I was afraid she was up to something—I hired Wally to keep Henry and Lillian safe while I figured things out, but it turns out he had his own agenda. My God." He raised his head suddenly, fastened his incisive gaze on Sam. "Have you ever had something stare you in the face that you simply refuse to accept?"

  "I imagine we all do."

  Hatch Corrigan brushed at tears on his cheeks, but his voice was unaffected. "I felt sorry for Billie. She had to deal with our father more than I did. She watched him fall to his death. I thought she was happy here, satisfied with her work. Instead, it ate her up, seeing Pete Jericho mooning after Allyson month after month. That was it, you know. That was what drove her to go after Allyson and the kids. I knew she was in love with him but I never—" He broke off.

  Sam nodded. He'd had people unload on him before after experiencing violence. It was never pleasant. "Then the money was a rationalization?"

  "To a degree. Billie knew if I inherited I'd have taken care of her." He exhaled, sniffled, and pulled out a folded handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. He added abruptly, "Kara was never in love with me. But I think you know that."

  Sam said nothing.

  "I'm not good at close relationships. I think that's why I stayed in love with her for so long. It was convenient, easy, because I knew she wasn't in love with me and never would be." He returned his handkerchief to his pocket. "I preferred it that way."

  A state trooper came back and told them they'd heard from the ambulance. Billie Corrigan was dead. Hatch gave a curt nod and turned away, walking out past the charred cottage to a quiet spot in the shade.

  Sam's cell phone rang, and he knew exactly who it was.

  "We're at the Hartford airport," Jack said. "Susanna and the girls are glued to CNN. They've got the story as breaking news—an explosion at the governor's summer house. She's seriously injured. Damn it…now they're saying there are fatalities."

  "The suspect and a bodyguard."

  "Kara?"

  "She'll be okay. She's on her way to the hospital. A bullet grazed her on the right side. She was telling me everything I did wrong when they loaded her into the ambulance. Jack, she saved those two kids' lives—"

  "Where are they?"

  "With a friend of their mother's." Pete Jericho, Sam thought. Pete wasn't letting them go. "We're all heading to the hospital now."

  "I'll meet you there. What about you, Sam? You okay?"

  "I'm responsible for one of the fatalities."

  Twenty-Four

  Kara tried to focus on her brother and sister-in-law, but her eyes didn't seem to want to work properly. And she wasn't making any sense. She knew it was the medication. Pete Jericho had stopped in briefly and warned her she'd feel a little nuts for a while, but she probably wouldn't remember half of it, anyway. And he'd told her Allyson would be okay. His voice cracked when he said it.

  "God, I hurt." Kara wasn't quite sure if she spoke out loud. She didn't know where Sam was. In a holding cell, maybe in custody for shooting Billie Corrigan with an unauthorized weapon. "Jack, what would you do if I married a Texas Ranger?"

  "You're delirious on painkillers," he said. He wasn't wearing his badge or his white hat, just a denim shirt and jeans with a big western buckle on his belt. Susanna, as always, looked elegant.

  "I'm deliriously in love with Sam."

  Susanna winced, but Jack said, "A hard-nosed attorney like you."

  "I thought I was pregnant." She couldn't have said that out loud, not to her brother—she'd tell Susanna, no problem. But Jack didn't see her as an adult, he still saw her as a shattered nine-year-old, remembered how helpless he'd been after their mother died. Her father, too. It was one reason she'd stayed in Connecticut so long.

  Jack didn't say anything at first, so she thought she was off the hook—she hadn't spoken it out loud. But Susanna had her hand on his elbow, and finally he said, "You mean you and Sam—ah, hell, I don't even want to go there."

  "I wanted to
be pregnant. I wanted a baby more than anything in the world." Her head spun, and the ceiling seemed to be moving. "Sam's baby."

  "Kara, women fall in love with Sam all the time. He doesn't return the favor."

  Susanna smiled down at her sister-in-law. "Jack and I need to go find Maggie and Ellen. I think they're buying out the gift shop for you. Rest up, okay?"

  "I love Sam," Kara said.

  "I know you do," Susanna said. "You have for a while now."

  Kara didn't know if she drifted off, but when her eyes opened again, Sam was there, black-eyed and shaking his head at her. "I don't know what you said to your brother, but he just told me I'm lucky he came into the state unarmed."

  "Was he serious? I never know with you two."

  Sam grinned. "We like to keep you defense attorneys off balance about us Texas Rangers."

  "Don't make me laugh—it hurts." The doctors didn't think she'd need surgery, but it was still a possibility. "I might have told Jack I thought I was pregnant."

  "Ah."

  "With your baby," she said.

  "Of course. Who else's?"

  "I said I wanted to be. More than anything. I know I said that. I've never been good with medication." She tried to sit up, but she didn't have the strength and collapsed back on her bed. "I'm your soul mate, Sam. If you don't think you're my soul mate, that's okay, I'll still be there for you."

  "I know you will."

  "Do you? Or are you humoring me because I'm mumbling a lot of romantic bullshit? I'm really loopy from this medication."

  He smiled and kissed her softly. "I like you loopy."

  Hatch Corrigan visited later, when Kara was more clearheaded. Sam had gone off with Jack and the state investigators, and Ellen and Maggie retreated when they saw their aunt had a visitor. Their mother did not. Susanna plopped in a chair by Kara's bed and said she'd just look at a magazine a few minutes while Kara and Hatch talked. "The last time I left you alone, you made off with a gun and a plane."

  But that wasn't it, Kara knew. Susanna just thought her sister-in-law needed a solid female presence and intended to step in if she got overwhelmed by a grief-stricken, guilt-ridden Hatch Corrigan.

  He looked drained, and Kara could see more of his mother in his thin, gray face. "I'm sorry about Billie," she said, and he nodded, as if he understood she meant she was sorry about all of it—what Billie had done, that she'd put herself in a position that ended, at that point necessarily, with the loss of her life.

  He cleared his throat, his natural formality, Kara thought, helping him now. "It shouldn't have come to this. I didn't see how bitter and angry she'd become, how twisted her thinking was. She felt entitled to whatever she wanted. She hated it that Pete couldn't get over Allyson. Then, when she found out Allyson had fallen for him—I think the downward spiral really picked up."

  "People liked her, Hatch," Kara said. "I think most of us believed she had a good thing going in Bluefield."

  "I did, too."

  "How did she know Big Mike couldn't swim?"

  He shrugged, but there was nothing nonchalant about him. He exuded a kind of emotional pain Kara never wanted to experience. "I think she figured it out from watching him at parties. She was good at zeroing in on people's foibles, their secrets and weaknesses."

  "Yours?"

  "Kara, you know that the Stockwell wealth has never mattered to me. Never. You know that, don't you? Lawrence left me with plenty. I never—"

  She managed a small smile. "It's okay. You don't have to explain."

  "It was my vulnerability for her she exploited." But he sighed, straightening, his uneasiness with soul-bar-ing of any kind apparent. "Allyson's not as badly hurt as they originally feared. None of the burns is that serious. Pete—good God, he's been incredible. He can hardly stand up himself, but he's there at her side. I thought it was Billie who pushed him, but Sam says it was Wally."

  Kara nodded. "I agree."

  "I'm sure he'd be pleased," Hatch said wryly.

  "No, seriously. Billie didn't want to hurt Pete. She thought he'd turn to her when Allyson was out of the way. Wally was a sneak looking for an advantage. I'll bet he found the tree house and was up there putting two and two together when he ran into Pete and gave him the heave-ho over the edge."

  In her chair, Susanna gave up any pretense of reading her magazine. She frowned at Kara, as if she shouldn't be discussing the facts and theories of attacks, murders, bombs going off. But Kara needed to sort it through, needed to come to some kind of understanding, and Susanna must have understood that, because she didn't call for her husband.

  Hatch rubbed the back of his neck, and Kara knew that he, too, needed this chance to understand. "Sam thinks Wally stumbled on Lillian's binoculars before he pushed Pete."

  Kara raised an eyebrow. "How come Sam told you all his theories?"

  He smiled. "I wasn't shot, Kara."

  "My head hurts more than where I was shot, I swear. I can't think straight…" She winced in pain, touching her bandaged middle, but rallied when Susanna made a move to throw Hatch out. "Billie probably ran across the binoculars when she was making her escape after killing Mike and realized Henry and Lillian could have seen her. She must have decided to take her chances and left the binoculars in the woods, hoping the kids hadn't seen anything. They were all over the woods, but she might not have heard him—or did and just didn't want them to know she was onto them. But she didn't leave the binoculars where Lillian remembered dropping them."

  "Then Wally finds them and gets in touch with Billie—"

  "Right." Kara frowned, trying to think and reason it out the way Sam had. "Being an opportunist, Wally figures he's got something he can use to put the squeeze on Billie, maybe get her to give him a cut of the inheritance she's going to get you? Whatever. He arranges to meet Billie at the gravel pit, and she kills him, takes the binoculars and tries to frame Charlie."

  Hatch grimaced, but she thought their blunt talk was helping him accept the reality of what his sister had done, the twisted clarity of her thinking, at least early on. "Billie could have hoped ultimately to pin the frame on Wally—"

  Kara didn't like that. "And what, say she killed him in self-defense? No way. Did Ranger Sam come up with that theory?"

  "He said it was a possibility."

  "One full of holes. It doesn't explain the bombs, and Billie shot me with Wally's .38 after he was dead."

  "She didn't expect to have to shoot you at all," Hatch said. "That was an act of desperation. She wanted to keep you in the kitchen until she was sure the bomb went off, then heroically but unsuccessfully try to save you." He smiled at her, but his eyes were soft and sad. "According to Sam."

  Kara sank her head back into her pillow, exhausted now. Pete didn't remember falling, but she remembered getting shot—she remembered everything. "Oh, Hatch. Big Mike was right, you know. I needed to be home. I needed to go back to Texas." She touched his hand, clammy from the shock he'd had. "What are you going to do?"

  He didn't hesitate. "Go away for a while. Figure out who I am apart from my mother and my dead brother's wife and children. But don't worry, I'll be back. And Kara—" His smile reached his eyes, but just barely. "You and Sam Temple are something else together. I can't wait to see your babies. They'll be hardheaded and black-eyed, and you'll both have your hands full."

  Susanna shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing and yet, somehow, had expected it all along.

  Kara tried to sit up. "Hatch…"

  "Be happy, my friend. I'll see you around."

  After he left, Susanna sighed. "Hardheaded and black-eyed? He doesn't know the half of it."

  "He's dreaming. I'm dreaming. Susanna, you warned me about Sam."

  "I warn Jack about a lot of things. He doesn't listen, either."

  A few minutes later, her sister-in-law whispered to her. "Kara? Are you up to a couple more visitors?"

  Kara stirred, and Henry and Lillian waved tentatively at her from the doorway. Susan
na, a natural with children, smiled, getting to her feet and encouraging them to come in. "I'm hearing stories about how great you two were today."

  "They were," Kara said. "They were pretty damn unbelievable."

  But Henry and Lillian weren't interested in themselves. "We brought you a present," Lillian said.

  Henry nodded, edging toward the hospital bed with his sister. Kara felt light-headed and not quite there, but she smiled, wondering what they were up to this time.

  "We made it ourselves while we were waiting to see Mom," Henry said. "Pete got us the materials."

  Lillian pulled something from behind her back, what appeared to be a long, skinny stick covered in multicolored sparkles and glitter and bits of ribbon. Kara wasn't sure what it was, but they told her.

  "It's a wand," Henry said.

  Lillian giggled. "For our fairy godmother."

  Twenty-Five

  Allyson spent just three days in the hospital and was released on the condition she take it easy for a couple of weeks. Not that hard to do, she thought lazily in her hammock. Even as governor. She lay on her stomach on a special pad Pete had made to cushion her wounds. He'd moved the hammock from outside the charred remains of the barn and hung it between two sugar maples in the Jerichos' backyard. Allyson could see Bea Jericho in her floppy hat, chickens warbling behind her as she scooped up their droppings and dumped them into an old bucket she'd then carry to the compost pile.

  "Your mother seems so normal," Allyson said. "I love watching her."

  Pete, sitting in the grass near her hammock, shook his head. "My mother is not normal."

  Allyson didn't laugh. She couldn't, not yet. It hurt too much—physically, emotionally. She had relatively minor but still painful burns on her back and arms, three broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung and cuts and bruises, but none of her injuries, mercifully, were that serious. The quick action of the troopers guarding her had saved her life. She'd asked them to her hospital room to thank them, but they insisted they'd just done their duty and wanted no special recognition. Also, although no one else did, they blamed themselves for not knowing the bomb was there in the first place.