She didn’t answer him directly. “You destroyed my father.”
He didn’t want to kill her. He had to make her see reason, Olson thought. Too much had already been lost. “He’s gone, Serena, you’re not. You can have a full life ahead of you—I really, really don’t want to have to hurt you.”
“I don’t think you’ll be hurting anyone anymore,” Cameron said. “Turn around, Chief.”
Serena jumped back, out of Olson’s reach, afraid he would grab her and use her as a shield. But he surprised her by swinging around to face Cameron.
His gun trained on Olson, Cameron spared a glance toward Serena as he slowly made his way to her. His heart had been in his throat the entire time. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. It was all she could do not to collapse against him.
“I would have been here sooner, but the chief intercepted your message.” Cameron looked at Olson. “When I came in the station, Tina asked me if you’d passed it on the way you told her you would. When I said no, she told me what it was. Something just didn’t feel right. You were the one who taught me that if something didn’t feel right, it usually wasn’t. I got here as quick as I could.”
A thin smile curved Olson’s mouth. “You always were a good pupil.” He began to lower his hands.
“Keep them up, Chief.” Cameron cocked his gun. “I won’t hesitate to use this.”
“I’m counting on it.” With a resigned expression, Olson suddenly threw himself on Cameron’s revolver, jerking the finger on the trigger.
Serena screamed as Olson crumbled at her feet, a gaping hole in his chest. Blood pooled over and around his body. She fell to her knees, trying to cradle his head in her lap. The shirt she wore grew dark with blood.
Olson tried to look at her face, to see her one last time, but it was getting much too dim. “I’m... sorry... Ser...”
He was dead before he could finish.
“I forgive you, Uncle Dan,” she cried softly. “I forgive you.”
Very gently, Cameron brought Serena back up to her feet. “It’s over now,” he told her, taking her into his arms. “It’s finally over.”
The words “I know” were muffled against his shoulder as she sobbed.
Epilogue
The aftermath seemed endless. It was a swirling mass comprised of flashing red and blue lights, ambulance sirens, news media, people trying to while away their boredom or satisfy their curiosity, and questions, questions and more questions.
For Serena, it all merged and fused, becoming a single cacophony blaring in the background.
She stood beside Cameron, feeling his hand on her shoulder, feeling his protection and sympathy, as she watched the long metallic zipper slide up the black body bag, enshrouding what had once been a decent, proud, fine man.
Serena tried not to think, not to feel anything, and told herself it was better that way. Better to allow the numbness to coat her until she could deal with what had been discovered here tonight. What had been said.
“We can do this tomorrow, if you want,” Cameron told her when a detective named Kendall asked her to come down to the station to give her statement.
Almost the entire police force had come out, as had the local politicians. Rumors were that the mayor was even somewhere in the crowd, for once unprepared to give a statement. Everyone was in a state of shock.
“Tomorrow’s soon enough,” Martinez agreed.
But Serena remained adamant. “I want this over with now. While it’s fresh. And I want to tell it to you,” she said to Cameron.
So she rode in with Cameron and Martinez, consoling herself that finally the truth would come out.
But victory wasn’t sweet. It was at the cost of someone she’d cared about, someone she had, until tonight, admired.
She reached for Cameron’s hand. He closed his fingers over hers.
Cameron said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes. He’d been there for her, perhaps even saved her, although she refused to believe that, in the end, Dan Olson would have killed her.
But that was something she would never know for sure.
“Okay, we’re here,” Martinez said needlessly.
Getting out of the car, Serena squared her shoulders and went in to give her statement.
Exhausted, Serena leaned her head against the back of the seat as Cameron drove her home again.
It was over, finally over.
Tomorrow, the newspapers would carry a full account of everything. Not just the local paper, but the county newspaper and the Los Angeles papers, as well. She’d done what she had set out to do. She’d cleared her father’s name.
The sense of exhilaration wasn’t there. Only weariness.
“He spared me all this, you know. The last time, Uncle Dan spared me the media circus. He had me sequestered with a stenographer. I guess he thought it was the least he could do. I gave my statement to the stenographer, and then the next day, Aunt Helen took me away to Dallas,” she said quietly, reciting it as if it had all happened to someone else.
Cameron looked at Serena. The streetlights were playing across her face. When he thought of how close he’d come to losing her, physically losing her, he felt sick to his stomach.
As soon as he heard from Tina that Serena had left a message for him, he’d known something was wrong. It had been a gut feeling, something Olson had once told him couldn’t be taught. It was an inherent thing, a talent. A sense that only the best cops had.
He wondered when Olson’s gut feelings had quit on him.
And remembered again how his own gut had tightened when he saw Olson’s car parked just inside the orange grove, as if he didn’t want anyone to know that it was there.
That was when he’d known. Known that Olson had to have been Carolyn McKee’s lover and that Serena was in danger. There had been no other reason for Olson not to have passed Serena’s message on to him. He’d wanted to find her alone.
Panic had eaten through him with sharp, shrewlike teeth when Cameron remembered that it was Olson’s nephew who had put in Serena’s security system. Art Olson would have thought nothing of it if his uncle asked him questions about the system he’d installed in Serena’s house. That had given the chief easy access to his defenseless prey.
But it was all behind them now, thank God.
He smiled warmly at her. “I thought you were asleep.”
Serena slowly moved her head from side to side. “I’m not sure I can ever sleep again.” If she closed her eyes, she would see him, see Uncle Dan—for he would always be that to her—the way he’d looked just before he died.
“You will,” Cameron assured her. “And this time, the nightmares will be gone.” And I’ll be there to hold you until they are.
“The old ones,” she agreed. There was no reason for them to haunt her now.
“And this one,” he added firmly. “In time.”
“In time,” she repeated.
She turned her face, looking out the windshield as they approached her house. The ambulances, the police cars and the camera crews, with their minivans, were gone. The land was hers again.
Perhaps even for the very first time.
“So what are you going to do now?” he asked, pulling up in the driveway. Movement-sensitive, the lights Art had installed in front of the house turned on, bathing the driveway in huge spotlights. “Now that you’ve finally done what you set out to do?” He pulled up the hand brake and turned the engine off. He managed to keep the anxiety out of his voice. “Are you going back to Dallas?”
Did he want her to? Had the bad feelings that surfaced between them this morning remained?
Serena could feel her heart twisting inside her chest. She didn’t want to leave. But if he didn’t want her to stay...
She got out of the car to catch her breath. She needed air, and a second to think, to plan.
She was going to say yes, he thought, getting out on his side. Serena was going to leave town and go back to Dallas. Back to
the university that sheltered her, back to the work she had buried herself in. Back to Dallas, and away from him.
The hell she was.
“Well, are you?” he demanded sharply.
She lifted her chin, ready to take him on. Ready to fight to stay. “And if I said yes?”
“Then I’d say you were damn stupid.”
She blinked, not expecting this. Her brows narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Stupid,” he repeated slowly, curbing the worst of his anger. How the hell could she leave, after what they’d just been through? “As in ‘devoid of a brain.’ As in ‘see scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.’”
She didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted, to laugh or to cry. Everything was mixing together in her, making her feel like a human potpourri of emotion. And one emotion was taking center stage.
“I know what ‘stupid’ means, I’m asking why you’re saying I’m stupid.”
He was through being polite about this. “What would you call a woman who walks out, not once but twice, on a man who loves her?”
“I don’t know.” Surprising him, she entwined her arms around his neck. The heat of his body felt so good, so infinitely comforting, as she leaned into it. “What would you call a woman who walks out, not once but twice, on a man who loves her?”
For a moment, he was stunned. And then Cameron grinned. Except when he assured himself earlier tonight that she was safe, he had never realized that relief was such a powerful force.
“You’re not going, are you?”
She looked up at him innocently. “Do you want me to?”
Cameron kissed the side of her neck, working his way up to her ear. He felt her shiver against him with anticipation. It was going to be all right. “What do you think?”
She sighed, banishing everything from her mind but him. “I think I’m finally going to have that happy ending I once believed in.”
“Not you, we,” he corrected. “And you’re wrong, anyway.”
“Oh?” Confused, she cocked her head and looked at him, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s not a happy ending. It’s a happy beginning.” He kissed her, teasing her mouth with lips that touched hers fleetingly. “The beginning of the rest of our lives.”
The smile began in her eyes, ending in her heart. “Are you starting to propose to me?”
He kissed her again, a little more slowly this time. “I never stopped proposing to you, not from the first time I saw you. You’re just finally listening.” Cameron framed her face in his hands. She’d always been precious to him, but never so much as now, when he’d nearly lost her forever. “I’ve never loved anyone else but you, Serena. And I never will. So will you?” he pressed. “Will you marry me?”
She wanted to shout, “Yes!” but she forced herself to ask first, “Are you sure, very sure, Cameron? Think carefully before you answer. Because once you say yes, you’re not going to be able to get rid of me with a sandblaster.”
He kissed her again, kissed her as if his very soul were in it. Kissed her like a man who’d been granted a second chance, against all odds.
Kissed her as if he’d loved her since the beginning of time.
“Answer your question?” he asked.
It took her a minute to catch her breath. But when she did, she laughed. “Put your sandblasters away, Bedford. Serena McKee’s back in town, and this time, she intends to stay.” She pressed closer to him. “Now, what was that you were saying?”
“I think this conversation is the kind that’s better carried on inside.” He picked her up in his arms.
She laced her arms around his neck. After all these years, she was finally where she belonged.
“My sentiments, exactly. I love you, Cameron,” she whispered.
“Good. Then the rest of this should be easy.”
His lips meeting hers, Cameron carried Serena into the house. A house that no longer had any ghosts to get in the way.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7248-4
SERENA McKEE’S BACK IN TOWN
Copyright © 1997 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
“You need someone in your corner, Serena,”
Letter to Reader
Books by Marie Ferrarella
Books by Marie Ferrarella writing as Marie Nicole
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Copyright
Serena Mckee's Back In Town Page 20
