by Sharon Sala
“Got it,” Trey said, and began directing his men as he put in a call to hospital security.
* * *
Lainey was almost running to keep up with T.J., and her ankle was throbbing because of it. The moment she saw Sam appear on the other side of the revolving door she stopped. He would take it from here.
T.J. was mentally counting steps to the exit when he saw Sam Jakes coming toward him, and the moment he saw Sam’s face his heart dropped. He knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew.
T.J. turned to run back the other way and saw two Mystic police officers coming his way through the lobby. When he turned to head the opposite way toward the gift shop, hospital security was already there and walking toward him.
T.J. shouted, enraged that he’d been caught. Then he saw Lainey Pickett backing toward the wall and knew what he had to do. He practically leaped in her direction. She was Sam Jakes’ woman. He would make Sam back off or make him sorry.
Before Lainey knew what was happening, T.J. had her around the neck.
“If anyone comes a step closer, she’s dead!” he shouted.
Sam stopped just inside the lobby. “Don’t hurt her, T.J. You’ve hurt enough people. Don’t hurt her, too.”
Lainey was struggling, trying to get free, when T.J. tightened his grip and put his mouth against her ear. “Be still or I’ll break your damn neck like a toothpick,” he said softly.
Lainey froze.
T.J. was trembling, trying to figure out how to get out before the building blew.
And then he heard a voice behind him and felt the cold end of a gun muzzle up against the back of his neck.
“Where’s the bomb, T.J.?”
Lainey’s heart skipped. It was Trey! “I saw him coming down the hall from the chapel,” she said.
T.J. screamed, “You bitch!” and hit her in the back of the head with his fist.
Sam rushed forward, catching Lainey just before she hit the ground. A few feet away Trey had T.J. facedown on the floor and was in the process of putting him in handcuffs.
T.J. kept screaming, “Okay, okay, you got me. Drag me out of here and lock me up. I give. I won’t fight.”
Sam had Lainey in his arms, scared to death that she’d been hurt, but the minute T.J. started begging to be taken to jail, he knew time must be running down on the bomb.
Lainey groaned.
Sam held her close. “Thank God,” he said, and carried her to a nearby bench. “Honey. Can you hear me?”
She reached for the back of her head. “What happened?”
“Look at me,” he said.
She opened her eyes.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
She frowned.
“Either I’ve gone blind or you forgot how the trick works. I don’t see any fingers.”
He cupped her face and then kissed her. “I love you more than you will ever know. Stay here a second.”
He ran toward Trey, who now had T.J. on his feet.
Sam grabbed T.J. by the handcuffs. “Trade you,” he said to his brother. “Get Lainey out of here and start evacuating the hospital. This little son of a bitch is going to show me where he hid the bomb, and if he doesn’t do it in time for me to defuse it, I’ll cuff him to the nearest piece of furniture and run.”
Trey turned and ran toward Lainey, then picked her up in his arms as he headed for the exit, shouting orders to his men and hospital security as he went.
Visitors were running out the door, while the staff ran back toward the patients. They’d heard the words bomb and evacuate, and didn’t need orders. They knew what to do. Moments later the fire alarms began to sound on every floor.
T.J. was screaming and begging as Sam grabbed the handcuffs and started dragging him backward toward the chapel.
“Stop! You’re breaking my arms! You can’t do this! I don’t want to die!”
Sam yanked T.J. onto his feet and slammed him against the wall. “Did my mother beg when you stuck the gun in her face?”
T.J. moaned.
Sam grabbed him by the neck with one hand and grabbed his handcuffs with the other, and started pushing him toward the chapel.
“Walk faster!” Sam yelled, pushing T.J. so hard he began to stumble. “Keep walking or I’ll break your damn neck and find the bomb by myself!”
T.J. shrieked and then began to cry. “I don’t want to die. Please. We need to leave.”
“Is the bomb in the chapel?” Sam shouted. “I swear to God if you don’t tell me now, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
T.J. was too scared to move and would have dropped to his knees but Sam yanked him back up.
“Yes, yes, it’s in the chapel!” T.J. shrieked.
Sam took off down the hall, dragging T.J. with him. Once they were inside the chapel Sam yelled at him again. “Don’t make me look for it!”
“Behind the podium,” T.J. cried.
Sam dragged him down the aisle, and then slammed him facedown beside the podium. When Sam pulled the beautifully wrapped box out in front of his face, T.J. shrieked again.
Sam slapped the back of his head. “Shut up. I need to concentrate.”
T.J. sucked up the curse on the tip of his tongue.
“And don’t fucking move,” Sam added.
T.J. closed his eyes.
Sam felt along the bottom of the package for wires, and when it felt clean, he slowly lifted up the lid. He saw the clock face, the load of dynamite and the time left.
Less than six minutes.
Help me, God.
He opened his pocketknife, slowly eased a finger beneath a wire and, as he began eyeing its path, lost sight of the red carpet beneath his feet and the walls around him.
All of a sudden he was in Afghanistan, listening to the chatter of automatic weapons, hearing someone shouting in Farsi and someone else screaming in Dari, and feeling the heat on the back of his neck from the ever-present blast of the sun.
* * *
Lainey was crying and begging all the way out the door.
“Please, don’t let Sam die! Somebody make him come out! Don’t let him die.”
Trey put her in his cruiser, and then waved at one of his officers, who quickly came running. For a moment Trey was face-to-face with Lainey.
“Everyone in the hospital is going to die if Sam can’t defuse that bomb. Everyone. He’s doing what he has to do, not what he wants to do, because that’s what Sam does. Stay in the cruiser. Please. I need to help. One of my officers is going to take you a safe distance away.”
Her heart was hammering. She was so scared she couldn’t breathe, and yet she knew every word Trey said was the truth. “Yes. I’ll stay. I promise. You go. I’ll pray.”
“Good girl,” Trey said, and then he was gone.
Lainey was so afraid for Sam that she was shaking.
“Please, God, You saved Sam Jakes once for his mama. This time won’t You please save him for me?”
And then she sat with her hands folded, reciting the Lord’s Prayer beneath her breath as the officer drove the cruiser to the far end of the parking lot.
“Stay here. You should be safe this far away, but if it blows, just hit the floor.”
She nodded, then watched as he ran back to the building. It was almost two city blocks away, and she could barely make out what was happening beyond the chaos and hysteria. Because it had gotten her through many months of chemo, she had faith it would get her through this, as well.
* * *
Lee emerged from the cafeteria into chaos. Realizing they were beginning to evacuate the hospital, he took the stairs and raced to Trina’s room.
A nurse came running in seconds later, unhooked the heart and blood-pressure monitors, hung the IV bag on a hook at the he
ad of the bed and then they headed out the door with Lee pushing and Cain Embry running beside the bed on high alert.
Other patients were already in the halls, some in beds like Trina, others in wheelchairs. Lee was third in line for the freight elevator, and the moment they hit the ground floor, Cain grabbed the bed rail and guided her toward the exit while Lee pushed.
But being outside wasn’t safe enough. Not if the building blew. Staff and visitors began pushing patients toward the far end of the huge parking lot, getting them as far away from the hospital as they could.
* * *
Avery was on day dispatch, following the unfolding chaos on the radios of both local and county police. It didn’t take him long to figure out they had the killer cornered, and when he caught the name he nearly fell out of his chair. He couldn’t get over the fact that a father and son had committed murder an entire generation apart.
He walked back to Marcus’s cell and just stood and stared.
Marcus glared. “What? Why are you staring at me like that?” he demanded.
“I just never knew a whole family who was willing to kill to get what they wanted.”
Marcus stood up so fast it looked as if he’d been ejected from his seat. He ran to the front of the cell, his voice shaking when he asked, “What are you talking about?”
“You had T.J. kill your witnesses, didn’t you?” he said.
Marcus grabbed hold of the bars. “Are you crazy? What do you mean?”
“Whatever you were planning didn’t work. They cornered your son in the hospital right after he planted a bomb there. He already killed three people you went to school with, and was willing to kill God knows how many others just to silence Trina Jakes. You people are freaks. I can’t wrap my head around that much evil.”
“You’re wrong! I don’t know anything about that!” Marcus shouted, but Avery was already gone, his footsteps fading, and Marcus was left with a god-awful truth. He didn’t know how T.J. had found out about Donny Collins, but now he knew why the three survivors from that night’s wreck had been murdered. It was all about running for office on a clean slate. Somewhere along the way his son had turned into a monster. Maybe the blood of the Silvers who’d grown their vast fortune had become too thin. Maybe part of it had to do with being abandoned by his mother when he was young. And maybe, just maybe, T. J. Silver had always been a narcissistic psychopath and he’d been too blind to see it.
Whatever the reason, this was their end.
* * *
Sam was intent on the task at hand. He could hear Carlos talking to him, asking him what kind of bomb he was working on and if it was one he could defuse.
Every time T. J. Silver made a sound, Sam would growl beneath his breath and T.J. would freeze. He was so scared of Sam Jakes that if he could have quit breathing to make him happy, he would have.
Sweat was running down Sam’s forehead and into his eyes, making them burn. Every time he cut another wire he would pause to wipe it away with the back of one arm.
He heard people running out in the hall and thought the enemy was coming. He knew he needed to defuse the bomb before they got there, or he and Carlos would die.
He paused one last time to wipe the sweat from his hands onto his pants, and then slid a finger beneath the two remaining wires. Was it the red wire or the yellow wire? He glanced at the clock.
Fifteen seconds left.
Suddenly Lainey’s face flashed before his eyes, and reality surfaced.
Ten seconds left.
He slid the knife between the wires.
Five seconds left.
He folded the red wire down the sharp side of the knife and made the last cut.
The clock clicked over.
The silence in the chapel was deafening.
Sam shuddered as T.J. began to sob.
His cell phone rang. When he heard the notes of “Amazing Grace,” he started to shake. It was all he could do to answer it, and then he heard his brother’s voice.
“Sam?”
“It’s done. You need to call someone to come get it.”
Trey sighed. “Thank you, Sam. Oh, my God, thank you. The county bomb squad just passed the city limits. They’ll be here shortly.”
“Good. Now come get this little pissant before I kill him,” Sam said softly.
“Where are you?”
“In the chapel. Come on in. You can’t miss us.”
“We’re on the way.”
Sam wiped a shaky hand over his face. “Is Lainey okay?”
“Yes, but she’s scared out of her mind for you.”
Without saying another word, Sam dropped the phone into his pocket, then stood up, grabbed T.J. by the handcuffs and hauled him to his feet.
The pain that shot through T.J.’s shoulders was excruciating, but he’d learned the hard way that physical pain was far less frightening than Sam Jakes.
Sam wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him without wanting to put his hands around the bastard’s neck and choke the life out of him where he stood.
It was only moments before Trey entered the room with two officers and the bomb squad behind him.
Trey read T.J. his rights and took him into custody while the bomb squad secured the disabled bomb in a special container and carried it out of the room.
Sam felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder, but he couldn’t look at him for fear he would lose it.
“Sam?”
“I’m okay,” he said softly and walked out of the room, then down the hall and out of the hospital.
The slap of cold air on his face brought him fully back to reality, and he looked up and saw the morass of vehicles and patients all over the parking lot.
He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. He needed Lainey, but he didn’t know where to start looking for her, so he stood where he was and scanned the area.
* * *
Lainey was a long distance away, but she recognized Sam when he walked out of the hospital. All she could think was Thank You, God. She could tell he was looking for her. She climbed out of the police car and started walking, dodging people in beds, circling others in wheelchairs, moving past nurses and doctors, as well as an array of officers from the West Virginia Highway Patrol directing traffic in the lot.
She saw Sam searching the crowd and didn’t even try to get his attention in all the noise. He was her homing signal, and she was locked on and moving.
She knew when he finally saw her because his expression shifted from frozen to broken so fast it scared her. Even though her foot was killing her, she lengthened her stride.
He was coming toward her now, moving faster, oblivious to all the people around him. And then all of a sudden she was in his arms.
He swung her off her feet and buried his face in the curve of her neck.
“Oh, Sam, Sam, I was so scared,” she whispered.
He heard the tremble in her voice. “I know, baby, I know. So was I.”
“Is it over?” she asked.
“All over but the shouting,” he said, and started walking with her through the crowd.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He paused long enough to give her one brief kiss.
“We’re going home.”
Twenty
Seven days later Trina came home from the hospital weak and shaky, but glad to be alive. Her heart was broken at the loss of her mother, and going back to the farmhouse without her in it seemed next to impossible.
She had learned from her brothers of Lee’s constant devotion to her and her care, and how he’d been the first to stand guard at her door when she’d come out of surgery. After all the tragedy and all they’d lost, holding on to their old grudge seemed ridiculous. She�
��d cried in his arms and he’d cried with her, and she wanted him back as much as he wanted her.
They were driving to the farmhouse, and she was trying so hard not to weep. She didn’t want to live anywhere else, but she didn’t want to live there alone. She glanced over at Lee, studying his profile as he drove, and knew it was a sight she wanted to wake up to for the rest of her life.
She fidgeted a little, not knowing how to even broach the subject of sharing a home, when he happened to glance over and saw her staring.
“What’s wrong, honey? Are you in pain? Are you cold?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I think I’m just dreading going home without her,” she said softly.
Lee reached for her hand. She clasped his gratefully, feeling his warmth and strength.
“I can’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling, but I can tell you what’s going through my mind. I am so grateful you’re alive and that I have the privilege of taking you home. If it makes you too sad to think of going home without her, could you think of it as going home with me? I love you, Trina. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Breath caught in the back of her throat.
“Oh, Lee, there’s nothing I want more,” she said.
He tapped the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road.
“I was going to save this for a more romantic moment, but right now I’m going to take being grateful to God over romance.”
He pulled a small box from the inside pocket of his coat and laid it in her lap.
“Open it, honey. I’ve had it for months. That’s how much I love you. That’s how sorry I was for what I said that hurt you. And it’s how happy I am that you’re here to open it.”
Trina opened the small box with trembling fingers, and then leaned back with a gasp at the sight of the solitaire diamond glittering in the beam of sunlight coming through the windshield.
“Oh, Lee, it’s beautiful!”
He took it out of the box.
“Will you marry me, Trina? I promise to love and protect you for the rest of my life.”
