by Elle James
“Is this the sheriff?” Echols asked. Then he went on, “I’m calling regarding Tristan DuChaud.” There was a long pause, then, “You don’t need to know my name. Not yet. But I’ve got news for you. DuChaud is not dead.” He listened for a moment, his gaze on Tristan.
“I’m standing here looking at him. Where? Hell, I don’t know. Somewhere in the swamp.”
The sheriff talked again and Echols looked at Tristan, frowning. “I don’t know about his wife. She was in the house?”
Tristan shook his head.
“DuChaud is telling me she wasn’t in the house.” He listened, then sighed. “Yes. Fine. Fine. I set the fire. Yes, that was us, too. We shot at you when you tried to take the path to the dock.” Echols listened some more, then looked at Tristan again. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Sheriff!” Tristan shouted. “Can you hear me?”
“Hello?” the sheriff said. “I was about to hang up. Who the hell is this?”
“Sheriff Nehigh,” Tristan yelled. “It’s Tristan DuChaud.”
“What? DuChaud’s deceased. What’s going on here? I warn you, I’ve got helicopters on the way. You guys are in big trouble and this is not funny. I’m having your phone traced.”
“Barley,” he yelled desperately, hoping that using the sheriff’s nickname would convince him. “I’m Tristan DuChaud. You dated my sister in high school. We’re on a satellite phone. I’m not dead. Boudreau, tell him.”
Boudreau sat up and bellowed, “Sheriff, it’s Boudreau here. Tristan tells the truth. He is alive.”
“Boudreau? DuChaud?” Sheriff Nehigh said. “I just got word from the Coast Guard that their helicopters have picked up your signal. They’ll be on top of you in no time.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “Now, we got some time. Tell me this. What the hell is going on?”
Chapter Fifteen
When Sandy opened her eyes, everything was glowing an odd, ugly sea-green color. She blinked and looked around. It was a hospital room and she was in a hospital bed.
Her first thought was that she’d lost the baby and her pulse leaped in fear, but then he kicked.
“Ow, bean,” she whispered. “That was a good one.”
When she took a breath the harsh smell of antiseptic stung her nostrils and made her sneeze.
Sneezing made her hurt, deep in her stomach. She moaned a little, then lifted her head to look around. She wanted to shift her position, but when she tried to put her hands down on the mattress, she felt a pull and a small sting on the back of her right hand. IV solution. Bandage. Soreness.
On the wall in front of the bed was a whiteboard and a plastic box. It was too dim in the room to read what was written in green marker on the white board, but the box was labeled Biohazard, Warning: Risk of Contamination and Dispose of Properly in red letters.
Of course. She was in a hospital room.
She tried to remember how she got here, but her brain was hazy and the memories were more like dreams that always fluttered away on butterflies wings when she tried to catch them.
A vision of Tristan yelling across the swamp came to her. Was that the last thing she remembered?
She closed her eyes and explored her memory as well as she could. What had happened between that snippet of time and now was in there. She knew it was, if she could just access it.
Within seconds of closing her eyes, she began to drift off to sleep. While sleeping some more seemed like a great idea, she wanted to remember, so she flexed her right hand and the pain from the IV cannula stung her again, pushing away her drowsiness.
A memory of the prick of a needle and a voice promising that she’d relax soon came to her.
Well, she’d relaxed, all right. She could barely hold her eyes open. She glanced at her left wrist. Her watch was gone.
That made sense. They didn’t let anyone wear jewelry into surgery.
Surgery? She’d had surgery? From somewhere came a faint recollection of a male voice telling her she wouldn’t remember a thing, then lots of painfully bright lights hurting her eyes.
She wondered what time it was. She squinted at the clock on the wall above the whiteboard, but the green glow in the room was too dark to see the time.
Suddenly, she had to know the time. She felt along the edge of the hospital bed, looking for the buzzer. And she was thirsty.
When she turned her head as she felt for the buzzer, she was startled to see a figure in a chair beside the bed. She pressed her left palm against her chest, where her heart pounded.
The sight of the shadowed figure triggered more memories, this time of endless questions.
Suddenly, it all came rushing back. The hammering interrogations had started with the EMTs on the helicopter and continued with the emergency-room staff downstairs.
But they were nothing compared to the grilling she’d gotten from the sheriff, a Homeland Security Agent, a member of the Governor of Louisiana’s staff and a rather handsome, if uptight, young man who had never explained who he was.
And now here was another stranger, waiting for her to wake up? No. She pressed her lips together tightly.
“No,” she muttered. “No more questions.” Not until she got to ask a few of her own.
She reached for the buzzer again, so she could tell the nurse to get rid of this man, whoever he was, but she couldn’t find its cord.
Suddenly tired, she laid her head back on the pillow. “Well?” she said, letting her eyes drift closed. “What do you want?”
The man didn’t answer. She glanced sideways at him, then lifted her head to look more closely. He was sitting awkwardly, his head bowed.
He’d fallen asleep. She leaned as far to the left as she could and squinted, trying to make out his features in the early-morning sea-green light. As soon as her eyes focused on his face, her heart skipped a beat.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Tristan.”
He stirred and lifted his head.
She reached out to him.
“Hey, San,” he murmured, reaching out to take her hand. “Are you all right? The nurses wouldn’t tell me anything except that you were resting comfortably.”
“Oh, Tris.” Her voice broke. He was really here. “Oh, my Tristan.”
And then her brain was awash with everything that had happened, from the fire to the running and hiding in the swamp to listening to the doctors talking about the miracle that was her baby.
The images and words rushed past her like fast-flowing river water. After a moment, she tried to verbalize some of it.
“I remember waking up in the ER and thought the past few days were a dream. I thought I was back in that world where you were dead.”
He took her hand and wrapped his around it, then kissed her fingers. “I’m not dead,” he whispered. “Feel this?” He pressed a trail of kisses onto her skin, from the back of her hand to her forearm to her shoulder, all the way up to her cheek. Then he said softly, “Tell me what the doctors said? Did they get the bullet out? Is the baby okay?”
Sandy smiled. “The doctor said we were very lucky. The baby’s fine.” A delicious warmth spread through her when Tristan gently pressed his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes as he pulled away just enough to kiss her.
But behind her lids, new images appeared, of bullets flying and blood spattering. She frowned at him.
“What about you?” she asked, looking him over. He was dressed in scrubs. His face was scratched, probably by branches, and his eyes were sunken with fatigue, but he was here. He was alive.
He nodded. His hand tightened on hers. “I’m fine.”
“Are you really okay? And what about Boudreau?”
“He’s here. We’re in Houma. Terrebonne Parish Hospital. They’re releasing Boudreau this afternoon. One of the rifle bullets parted his hair
, on the wrong side, no less,” he said, the frown fading a little as the corner of his mouth turned up. “They admitted him because the slug that hit him in the forearm kind of pulverized the bone.”
“Oh, no,” Sandy said. “He won’t be able to get along with one arm.”
“Okay, pulverized is probably the wrong word. They put several pins in it and they think it’s going to heal okay. It’ll hurt him when it rains, though.”
“I hope it does. Heal, not hurt.”
“He’s been asking about you. He wants to come see you as soon as it’s okay with the doctors.”
“Really? I’d have thought he’d be chomping at the bit to get back home.”
“Well, that, too.”
She paused to look at him. The light in the room was getting brighter as the sun rose outside. “Tristan, please tell me. You’re really okay? Have you been here the whole time?”
He shook his head. “I had to be debriefed. They flew me to DC. I guess they wanted to see for themselves that I was alive.”
She frowned at him. “Really?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Just kidding. It’s standard procedure to be transported in for a debriefing after a...situation.”
“You look exhausted,” Sandy said. “How are you? Have you been able to rest? Did the doctors look at your leg?”
He angled his head. “I’m fine, really.”
“Fine? That’s all you have to say after everything that’s happened?”
Tristan lowered the guardrail and leaned forward. He rested his palm on top of her head and stroked her forehead with his thumb.
“Homeland Security had me thoroughly checked out, mentally and physically. I must have talked with every acronym in the city. FBI, CIA, NSA. But they also sent me to Walter Reed for a complete physical. I might have to have surgery, but it can wait awhile.”
“Surgery. On your leg? Oh, Tristan, maybe they can fix it,” she said, squeezing his hand.
He frowned. “We’ll see. Anyhow, I’ve been back here since yesterday evening. Spent about three hours talking with the sheriff, then I came to see you about eight-thirty, but you were asleep. They let me stay in here, a booby prize, I guess, since they wouldn’t tell me anything specific except that you and the baby were resting comfortably.” He stood and bent over to kiss her on the lips.
For a moment, Sandy floated in the blissful knowledge that Tristan was real, he was alive and nothing could change that.
When she opened her eyes and took her first good look at him, she saw that his face was drawn and pale. He looked worried and—as she’d told him—exhausted. More than anything in the world, she wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted to feel the vibrancy of his skin, the warmth of his lips. She wanted to soak in everything about him that proved to her that he was alive and real and here.
But because of the way he looked, all she said was, “They got them, didn’t they? The bad guys?”
The frown returned to Tristan’s face. “Oh, you surely remember that. Lee had told Echols, the guy on dry land, that he was sending a helicopter to strafe the whole area and kill us and them. That’s the reason he finally decided to call the sheriff for me.
“The sheriff managed to get the Coast Guard to send two helicopters to intercept Lee’s bird and send it running back to where it came from. Then one copter airlifted you and Boudreau here, and the other one picked up our two friends and me.”
“I remember floating really high up but I thought that was a dream.”
“Nope. No dream.”
Sandy stared at him, openmouthed. Butterfly wings. “Not butterfly wings, helicopter propellers,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. And they put you and those two killers in one basket? Tristan. They could have killed you.”
He shook his head. “They were too happy not to be killed by Lee. I understand they’re in DC now, singing their little hearts out to Homeland Security and the FBI about Vernon Lee and his plot to bring down the US from the inside by supplying automatic handguns to kids on the street and organized crime.”
“Have they caught Lee?”
Tristan shook his head. “They can’t find him. I was told there was evidence that he’d been shot, or had shot himself. But all that was found in his penthouse office in the Lee Building in San Francisco was a gun with his fingerprints on it and a fair amount of his blood. I don’t think anybody connected with this case is going to make an assumption about whether he’s dead. Not after they all assumed that I was.”
“So he could still be out there?”
Tristan didn’t answer for a beat. “He could be,” he finally said.
“You don’t think he is? Do you think he’s dead?” she asked on a yawn.
Tristan frowned and was silent for a long time. “I don’t. I think I’d have to say show me the body.”
“Tristan,” she said. “I have to tell you something. Lee Drilling sent a really nice condolence letter and they have set up a trust fund for the little bean.”
“A trust fund? Screw that.”
Sandy shivered. “I know. It kind of makes me nauseated to think about it.” She lay quietly for a moment. “I might be sleepy,” she murmured.
Tristan smiled at her. “You’d better sleep while you can. Everybody from the sheriff to the media to the government’s going to want to talk to you, too, now that you’re awake.”
“I’ve already talked to them,” she protested.
“Apparently not enough. I was given the times by my boss at Homeland Security and told that the alphabet agencies would like me to be at the interrogation, too.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I’m afraid all this will go on for a long time. I’m sorry.” He sat there, pressing her hand to his cheek, that frown back on his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
She pulled her hand away and took a long breath to try to push through the drowsiness. “Oh, no. No,” she said sternly. “You are not going to keep on doing that. I won’t stand for it.”
Tristan lifted his gaze to his wife’s eyes, which were blazing. But he couldn’t hold it. Anger and fear shone from their depths. He stood and walked over to the window, where the sun was just coming up.
What could he do, if anything, to repair their broken hearts? They’d grown so far apart during the past few years. And then all this had happened and he’d let her down so completely that he was sure she could never forgive him.
He’d done it for her and their baby, and to try to stop a murderous terrorist, but had he lost everything important to him in the process? “Sandy,” he said without turning around. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
He turned awkwardly, favoring his bad leg. “I let you down in so many ways. I hope you can forgive me.”
“For-forgive you?” she stammered. “Are you kidding me?”
He closed his eyes, pain wrenching his sore heart. “I know. It’s not enough, but I swear to you, I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you if you’ll let me.”
“Tristan, there’s only one thing I want you to do.”
He nodded. “Of course. Anything.”
“Come here and turn on the overhead light.”
Baffled, he did as she said. When he looked at her, her face was glowing as it had when she’d first found out she was pregnant. He almost gasped aloud. From the time they were nine years old, he’d always thought she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. She still was.
“Unless I dreamed it, too, there should be a big manila folder around here somewhere. Do you see it? I’m pretty sure the doctor left it here.” She looked around.
He saw it lying near the sink. He picked it up. “Is this it?”
“Yes. It’s my sonogram. They printed it out so I could show you. They made a DVD for us, too.”
“Of what?” he asked, still confused about what she was doing and saying.
When he looked at her, her eyes were wet with tears. Fear clawed at his insides. “Sandy? You said everything was fine. Is something wrong with the baby?”
“Just look at it.” Her voice was tight with emotion.
He took out the glossy photograph and looked at it, his hand shaking with the force of his pounding pulse. “This is the bean?” he asked, angling his head one way and then the other. “Sandy, what is it? What am I looking at?”
A sniffle made him glance at her. “Are you crying? God, Sandy. Just tell me. What’s wrong with him?”
“Can you see him?” She traced a shape on the photo with her finger. “His head, his back, his little legs?”
Tristan did. He traced the tiny head, the curve of the little back. The perfect arms and legs. “Oh,” he said. “He looks perfect. Please tell me he’s okay.” His voice broke and his eyes stung. “Please.”
Sandy didn’t say anything. She just kept her gaze on the sonogram. Tristan turned back to study it. Then he noticed something odd. He frowned. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
“Hmm?” Sandy murmured innocently.
“That.” He pointed to a small opaque object that appeared to be clutched by the bean’s impossibly tiny hand. “It looks like—” He stopped. He bent to look closer.
“Like what, Tris?” she whispered.
“It looks like a—” He shook his head. If he thought his pulse was pounding before, now it was slamming against his breastbone like a battering ram. “But that’s impossible,” he muttered.
Sandy chuckled softly. “You’d think so, but there it is.”
“How— What—”
“I don’t know how, but that is the bullet that shot me.”
“But that’s his little hand. He’s holding it.” Tristan looked up. “What—what do the doctors say?”
