THE COMEBACK OF CON MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  She began to crawl, ignoring the pricks against her palms, the scrape against her legs. Over the metal lintel, she lifted her head to peer down the darkening hall. No fire. No flames. She caught her breath in relief and then coughed. Keep low to the exit, she thought dazedly, reaching back in memory to fifth-grade fire drills. She had to find the exit. Back door. Down the hall. To the right.

  Ahead of her, around her, the tire hissed and roared like a living thing. It sounded as if it were coming from the front of the building, from the dining room. She crawled. Which made no sense. Restaurant fires started in the kitchen.

  Unless someone started them.

  Rob. Where was Rob?

  I can mark you. I can make you mark me. This time I'll bring charges.

  Unless she wasn't there to tell. Unless he destroyed the evidence.

  She cried out in horror as smoke rolled down the walls like an evil genie and engulfed her. Her eyes stung. Her nose ran. She couldn't see or breathe, and it was hot, so hot. Dragging herself on hands and knees, her cheek almost pressed to the floor, she blundered into one barrier after another.

  Where was the exit? Where was the door?

  She cut her hand on the sharp foot of a metal shelf. Without the tears or breath to cry, she gasped and gulped.

  "Con?"

  Oh, God. Oh, Con. She scrabbled forward blindly on her stomach, her seeking hands slapping the floor. Stretching out, she touched hot metal and shrieked.

  Not a victim, he told her calmly and with conviction, a survivor.

  The stove. She'd touched the front of the stove. Orienting herself by the grating at the bottom, she rolled and reversed and crawled for the door of the big walk-in refrigerator.

  * * *

  Con shoved through the gaping onlookers, feet and heart pounding. Wild Thymes was burning. Smoke drifted from the sealed windows and poured from the roof. Pickups and cars were abandoned all over the street as volunteer firefighters leapt from their cabs and raced to the scene. Blue lights, red lights, orange lights blinked under a canopy of black smoke.

  God, he prayed. Let her be safe.

  Men were in his way, in yellow slickers and black hats. He pushed and thrust them aside, trying to get to the restaurant door. To Val, inside.

  "Hey! Keep back!"

  "Is everyone out?" he demanded.

  "We don't know. Report of a possible casualty—"

  "I've got to get inside!"

  "Stop!" a yellow slicker shouted.

  "Get him!"

  He scattered the first four men who tried, only to be dragged to a halt fifteen yards from the smoking door. A second-floor window—Val's apartment window—exploded outward. He heard warning yells and screams as glass showered the sidewalk. His captors cursed and dragged him back behind the line cleared by the firefighters.

  "Go in, damn you! She's inside. Val Cutler."

  "Easy, buddy. We've got to wait for the water. If we break in without it, we're just feeding oxygen to the fire."

  Python-size hoses snaked the street. Men ran, shouting instructions. The guy holding Con's left arm dropped it to take up a hose. The young one on his right hesitated, gave him a shake.

  "You okay? We're going in after her."

  Tight-lipped, Con assented. But his blood surged with adrenaline: fight or flight, the primitive response to terror. His muscles strained, his heart screamed, and all he could do was stand there like a chump and watch as a stream of silver water hit the roof.

  Firefighters in heavy brown coats smashed the stenciled glass. It shattered under their axes. Flame roared out, and another burst of water shot inside, throwing back the leaping flame, diverting the rolling smoke. The open window gaped like the black maw of a dragon.

  Con clenched his fists, fear and hope twisting inside him in a knot that defied definition or solution. Oh, God. He felt six years old again, standing unobserved and alone in the hall listening as the report of heavy marine casualties overseas came on TV and his mother cried. He remembered the phone call in the night notifying him of the accident that destroyed his brother Patrick's family, and the heart attack that had threatened their father just over a year ago.

  Each time, his heart had framed the same desperate prayer, ignoring the probability forecast of his logical mind. Let them be all right. Oh, God. Please, God. Let everything be all right.

  And he knew from miserable experience that the most heartfelt prayers sometimes went unanswered.

  He scanned the crowd behind the fire barriers, as if searching could summon Val into the safe circle of onlookers. And saw, on the outskirts, Rob Cross's avid face.

  The big blond man stood at the back of the press. Logical, Con acknowledged, if he'd just arrived at the scene. Casual posture, perfect hair. Blood on his shirt. Con's eyes narrowed, suspicion coiling in his gut.

  Cross looked directly at him and smiled.

  With a snarl, Con lunged across wet pavement and orange tape to throw himself at Cross.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  «^»

  Con hit Rob hard and low.

  Patrick fought with trained efficiency and Sean with glee. The middle MacNeill brother sparred to win.

  He bulldogged Rob down onto the wet pavement, ignoring his high school rules. His slacks ripped, and the skin of his knees tore. He welcomed the haze of rage, the sharp relief of pain. Taking advantage of surprise, he seized Rob's hair and slammed the side of the big man's head into the curb. Rob bellowed. Someone screamed. Con swung his free hand and smashed the heel of his palm up Rob's nose. It crunched. Blood sprayed them both.

  "Stop it, stop it!"

  "Hell."

  "Pull him off."

  Rob's eyes glazed from contact with the curb, but he was fighting mad. He twisted away, catching Con's arm and taking him with him. They rolled, scuffling, legs tangling, arms grappling, bumping over a hose and scraping along the wet street.

  Beneath his soft padding of fat, Rob was muscled and mean. He scrambled on top like a football player fighting for an extra yard. His fist clobbered Con's throat. Close quarters cramped the blow, but enough haired powered it to close Con's windpipe. He struggled for leverage, for freedom, for air, as Rob's blood dripped onto his face. He couldn't breathe.

  Oh, God, could Val breathe?

  Rob's fingers gouged his throat. Con slammed both forearms down to break his hold. When Rob's head dropped, Con curled from the pavement and rammed him with his head.

  Rob yowled.

  And then rough hands reached in to wrench them apart and haul them to their feet: more firefighters, smelling of smoke, with dirty faces and disgusted looks. Con submitted, ignoring the pain as his arms were yanked behind him. At least Cross wouldn't get away now. And Val … he pulled a breath in through his teeth, refusing to give in to the panic clawing his gut. He struggled to speak, but his throat was still too tight.

  "He broke my nose," Rob complained thickly. "Did you see? He broke my damn nose."

  The policeman in the orange vest shoved between them. "What the hell's the matter with … Rob?"

  Cross nodded, wiping blood from his face. "Did you see? This son of a bitch attacked me. You all saw."

  While Con tried to force out words to defend himself, Rob leaned on the cop for support. His hand fumbled. And then he whirled and, with the policeman's nightstick, jammed Con's ribs, hard.

  Con heard the crack, felt pain rocket to his head and nausea to his throat.

  "Hey!" The officer grabbed back his stick. "You shouldn't have done that. Now I'm gonna have to take you both in."

  Con coughed and sucked in air. His throat protested. Pain lanced his side.

  "You okay?" the cop asked reluctantly.

  Con nodded, fighting through the pain. "Make him … tell you … what he's doing here."

  Rob, with his handkerchief balled up under his nose, rolled his eyes in disgust. "I was just standing here when this lunatic attacked me. It was self-defense, Tom. You all saw."

  The cop lo
oked from Rob's bloody nose to Con, hanging winded between two firefighters.

  Con raised his head. "Standing … how long?"

  "I just got here."

  "Who saw you arrive?"

  Rob shrugged. "I don't rightly know. I mean, every rubbernecker in town is glued to the fire."

  The fire. Oh, God. Please, God.

  Con stared over his shoulder at the wet and smoking ruin of Val's restaurant. Charred wood steamed around the broken front window. Great black fans of smut reached above the upper ones. Smoke drifted sullenly over the wet street. Where in that mess was Val? His mind refused to picture her flowing skirts and streaming hair and feathered earring consumed by fire.

  Standing in his torn shirt, with the wreckage radiating heat not twenty yards away, he shivered. His throat ached. His ribs throbbed. His face was wet, from blood or water runoff or tears. With his arms secured behind his back, he couldn't reach to wipe it. He blinked.

  "Did you find her?"

  "Miz Cutler?" He recognized the young firefighter who'd held him back earlier, his grip easy on his shoulder. Brown eyes met his, regretful and aware. "Not yet."

  "How…" He felt the tightness in his chest, heard it in his voice. "How long?"

  "We knocked the fire down. They're going in. They'll pull the walls apart, make sure we've got it all."

  Con fumbled for more questions, but answers wouldn't help. Nothing would help. Fear sliced him open and left him dangling like a butchered steer. "How bad?"

  "Dining room's gone. Looks like the fire started there. Fire marshall called the police department."

  "Why?" Rob Cross demanded.

  "What about upstairs?" Con asked.

  The fireman's attention slid over Rob and returned to him. "Looks like the fire caught in the exhaust system. The upstairs—with the smoke and all—well, it's pretty bad. I'm sorry, sir."

  Oh, God. He struggled to grasp it. The rooms filled with whimsy, the antique bureau and silly pillows, the shivering dragonfly and sturdy table, gone. Val would be devastated. He refused to accept the loss could gouge so much deeper, that she could be gone, too. But the possibility crowded his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Oh, God. Could she breathe?

  His attention jerked back to the building as three firefighters in heavy brown coats and orange helmets appeared in the gaping doorway. Two wore oxygen masks. A third, barefaced and blackened with soot, held his mask over the face of the woman he supported. Her blond braid, dimmed with smoke, swung from his arm.

  "Val!"

  The cry shook his chest, speared his rib. Arms tightened behind his back. The firefighter stepped in his way. "Just a minute, sir. She'll need to see the paramedics."

  Oh, God. He could have lost her. He still could lose her. He pulled against the restraining arms, desperate to see, to make sense of the paramedics' frantic activity. Did her arm rise, just for a moment, as they laid her under the blinking orange lights? Dark uniforms swarmed the cot with bags and lines and tubes. That was good, wasn't it? She was alive?

  And then he saw her struggle to sit up, her chest heaving, and no power in the world could have kept him from her.

  The friendly firefighter protested. "Sir—"

  "Let me see her, damn it."

  He wrenched free.

  He shouldered through the medical team and dropped to his knees in the road beside the rolling cot. She was filthy and bloody. Beautiful. Alive. She coughed and twisted and saw him. Above the clear oxygen mask, tears leaked from her red-rimmed eyes. Tears burned in his. Reaching out, he twined his fingers with hers, careful to avoid the line taped and running into the back of her hand.

  Her grip tightened. Her other hand reached up and tugged down on her mask.

  "Hey." She coughed.

  His heart swelled. "Hi."

  Carefully, he replaced her mask, freeing a bedraggled strand of hair from the securing elastic. His fingers trembled slightly as they brushed her gritty cheek. Under the grime, she was white as paper. He could have lost her.

  A ponytailed paramedic bumped him impatiently. "Are you family?"

  "No, I—"

  "You'll have to excuse us, then." She turned to her partner. "Okay, on three."

  Val's fingers clung and slid from his.

  The cop came up on one side, jostling his rib. The firefighter took his arm on the other.

  Forced back, Con called to Val as they lifted her into the ambulance. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll be there."

  He didn't know if she heard him or not.

  "Hey, buddy, take it easy." The police officer sounded unexpectedly sympathetic. "You'll see your girlfriend again. We've got to get you to the hospital anyway, get your ribs taped or whatever." He shook his head. "I don't know what got into Rob."

  The ambulance nudged down the crowded street, orange lights flashing. Con turned his head.

  "Call Edward Cutler," he said. "Ask him."

  * * *

  Patrick MacNeill offered Con the foam cup in his hand. Pacing, Con shook his head.

  Patrick took a sip himself, his brows drawing together in distaste. "Hospital coffee. It's the pits. I told Kate she should be glad she's pregnant and can't drink it anymore."

  Con smiled faintly. He appreciated his older brother's steady presence in the waiting room. But nothing could distract him from the thought of Val lying injured inside, sequestered from him by double doors and hospital curtains and officious personnel.

  "Didn't Kate say she'd be out by now?"

  "Give her a minute, bro. She's got to introduce herself to Val's doctor, make nice with the locals. This isn't her hospital."

  Con acknowledged that with a nod. Patrick had come as soon as Con called, Kate the instant she was paged. Con couldn't ask for more.

  Except for Val to be all right.

  "I hate not being able to do anything," he confessed quietly.

  Patrick got up and laid his hand on his brother's shoulder in a rare gesture of physical support. "Sometimes the best you can do is to be there."

  Con set his jaw. "They wouldn't even let me in to see her."

  "But you called her folks. She's got her parents with her."

  "I'm not sure she'll thank me for that." He swore, his hands balling in his pockets, his gut in knots. Define the problem. Val was injured. Solve the problem. Not a damn thing he could do.

  "I just wish I knew what to do for her, that's all."

  "Answer Man. You always did want to solve everything."

  "Oh, like you don't," Con retorted.

  Their eyes met in rueful recognition, and then Patrick shrugged. "At least you punched out the bastard who did this. You give your statement to the detective?"

  "Yeah. Whatever good that will do. She was unconscious when he set the fire."

  "It will put him away for a while."

  "Not long enough."

  "At least they're not going to charge you."

  "Yeah, I'm a real hero," Con said bleakly. "Went from aggravated assault to apprehending a suspect in the time it took Cutler to throw his weight around."

  Kate MacNeill pushed through the doors, her pregnant belly obvious eyen under her white lab coat. "Con? You can go in now."

  "How is she?"

  "She's all right," Kate assured him, her eyes kind. "Smoke inhalation. Bruises and lacerations. A bump on the head."

  "Okay." He drew a breath. He was not going in there to carry on over her, to burden her with his terror, rage and relief. He would be strong and reassuring and calm. "Okay."

  But when he saw her propped on the emergency room stretcher with a tube running into her arm, her face as white as the surrounding sheets, he almost lost it.

  "Holy saints. You look…" He swallowed. "Pretty good, all things considered."

  A corner of her mouth moved upward in a smile. He had to jam his hands in his back pockets to keep from grabbing at her. "Well, thanks." Her voice rasped. She coughed. "You don't."

  The overwhelmed resident in ER had taped Con's ribs.
A sympathetic orderly had liberated a scrub top from the hospital laundry to replace his torn shirt. But even after washing his battered face in the men's room, Con figured he was no soothing sight for an invalid.

  "Cross looks worse."

  She closed her eyes. "Good."

  "He's been arrested, then?" Edward Cutler inquired.

  Con pivoted to find him standing just inside the curtains, as if he might slip out at any moment. Typical, Con thought. The guy was clearly concerned and ready to stand in a father's place. He just looked like he'd rather be somewhere, anywhere, else.

  Con checked out the thin, well-groomed ash blonde beside him. Val's mother. He wondered if before rushing to her daughter's hospital bed, she'd taken the time to freshen her makeup, to tie that jaunty scarf around her still-firm throat. He tried not to hold her perfect appearance against her. Certain women, he knew, didn't leave their bathrooms in the morning without applying eyeliner. But it left a bad taste in his mouth. Why didn't she touch her daughter? Why the bell wasn't she shaking?

  He still was.

  He answered Cutler's question. "Detained for questioning. They're still sorting out the charges. The detective said they took your statement."

  Edward nodded. "We spoke. I assured him that when you attacked Rob, you were acting on an appropriate suspicion of his misconduct at the bank."

  Con was surprised by Cutler's apparent support. "Thanks," he said briefly.

  "Of course, you and I both know you still haven't substantiated those suspicions. Until you do, I'm not satisfied you've earned your recommendation."

  Like Con gave a rat's ass about Cutler's recommendation at this point. Val was all that mattered. But her father was focused, as always, on his private ledger of personal credits and debits. At least now he was attempting to manipulate Con on Val's behalf.

  "I'll give it my best," Con said.

  "See that you do," said Edward.

  Sylvia Cutler spoke up for the first time. "I think all this business talk could wait till another time. We should leave the two of you alone. Edward, would you show me the coffee shop?"

  Con didn't get her at all. Bridget MacNeill would have clawed like a tigress to stay at the bedside of a wounded cub. But he was glad they were leaving.