Capture the Night

by Cheryl Pierson

  “This is it,” he muttered. “I can’t…can’t…” He closed his eyes and swayed, his braced arm buckling, then straightening, propping himself upright in stubborn defiance to his body’s weakened state. His breathing deepened as he tried to force himself to remain conscious.

  Alexa hurriedly moved around beside him, just as he lost his battle and began to slide toward the floor. She guided him down, cushioning his head against the concrete.

  “Lex?” He fought to keep his eyes open and focused on her, but the effort was too difficult. He had done all he could do. It seemed like this ordeal had lasted for weeks, and he couldn’t remember what his life had been like before this had all started. It was as if he’d been born the moment the bullets had torn through his flesh, sent him reeling through the serving doors and down the dim hallway, and finally, up here on the roof.

  Alexa’s fingers were at his temple, then her palm came across his forehead. Her touch was cool and soothing, and brought some semblance of order to his chaotic thoughts.

  He was sinking, falling through the darkness, but Alexa was beside him, just as she had been at every turn during this odyssey of theirs. She wasn’t going anywhere, and as much as he hated this, he was going to have to depend on her now. He could do nothing more.

  “I’m with you,” Alexa whispered.

  Johnny’s lips quirked. “I know.”

  “What’s the joke, here?”

  “Seems like…we’ve been here before…” He took a deep steadying breath against the pain, against the dark current trying to suck him under. “At the beginning.”

  Alexa nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered. She smoothed the worry lines between his brows.

  There was a catch in her voice, and Johnny tried to look at her, but his eyelids wouldn’t open. Her hand closed around his in reassurance, and he was unaware that he’d spoken until he heard her reply.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  He’d known that. He’d known from the first time they’d found themselves in this situation. Now—he was sure she wouldn’t go.

  She needed to—to get out of here. Didn’t they have a helicopter? He thought he could hear one… He tried to open his leaden eyelids again, but couldn’t manage. He tried to speak, and found he couldn’t do that, either.

  Rough hands replaced Alexa’s touch as he was lifted. Was Alexa safe?

  He loved her.

  The sound of the chopper was deafening, the breath of wind across Johnny’s skin surprisingly hot for April. An urgent male voice was barking orders, but there was also the pall of what wasn’t being said, as well—the eloquent silence between the two medics that worked over him desperately.

  They didn’t think he was going to make it.

  “And he was worried about his brother!” one of them muttered finally, his fingers assessing each bullet hole with quick competence.

  “So, this is the other Logan, huh?”

  “Yep. Don’t know how in the hell he’s made it this far. He ought to be dead already.”

  “Speaking of dead—what about those bodies back there?”

  There was a pause, then, “We’ve got room for the other one—the crazy guy. The lady says we can’t leave him up here. I wonder if she realizes he’s dead?”

  The words came from far away as they worked, putting the rehydrating IV in Johnny’s arm, then placing the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

  “This one’ll be gone if we don’t get some action from the blood pretty quick. O Positive.”

  Another vein, another needle.

  The side door banged shut. “Let’s go, Randy! Get moving!”

  Alexa’s hand gripped Johnny’s, deliciously warm and vital—and real. Her breath was soft against his ear. “Daniel’s with us,” she whispered. A tear fell against his neck and ran into what was left of his shirt. “And I’m with you, darling,” she said after a moment. “Just hang on. We’ll be safe soon.”

  Her voice cracked, and Johnny fought to open his eyes, but couldn’t. Alexa’s fingers gripped his hand, and he realized she was trying to physically hold on to him to keep him with her.

  He tried to squeeze her fingers, but his own hands were numb. He was numb all over, his body oddly weightless and detached. He hoped to hell it was just the effects of the morphine they’d given him.

  No matter what, this hell was over. He could no longer feel Alexa’s hand on his, but he knew she was right beside him. She always would be.

  He was going to have to give himself up to the encroaching black void that was sure to overtake him, anyway. He was reluctant to embrace the beckoning blessed relief, reluctant to become totally vulnerable. There was no dodging what his body was finally giving into, though, and with a long, deep breath, he drifted into the dark current of a dreamless sleep where there was no pain…no worry…and no Alexa.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  Alexa sat in the waiting area, staring straight ahead, seeing nothing but the images in her mind’s eye.

  Her life had been turned upside down in less than forty-eight hours. She’d come to Dallas to celebrate her freedom—the one-year anniversary of her deliverance from the prison of her marriage. And despite everything that had happened in the past two days, she felt she had found what she’d been missing her entire life.

  Johnny.

  She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath, letting out a shaky sigh. Not so steady after all, she thought. But there was so much at stake. Johnny’s very life, for starters. And, a part of her wondered, would he still see her the same way—with love in his eyes—once he was out of the hospital and home, if he survived? Or maybe, this had all just been one big fairy tale… one that didn’t end “happily ever after”.

  “Ms. Bailey?”

  Alexa jumped, startled at the sudden presence beside her. She opened her eyes, focusing on the uniformed officer. He smiled, his dark eyes friendly. “May I sit down?”

  “Sure.” Alexa sat up straight, smoothing her hair back, suddenly feeling very disheveled.

  “I’m Captain Ray Carter, Ms. Bailey, Twenty-fifth Precinct.”

  Alexa put out her hand and shook with him. “Hello, Captain. Please, call me Alexa.”

  He nodded and flashed her a quick, weary smile. “We’ve got some friends in common, I hear. Johnny and Pete Logan.”

  Alexa dipped her head in acknowledgement, waiting for him to continue.

  Carter sighed. “Alexa, I’m going to ask you to trust me—I need to know some things.” He glanced at the hospital entrance as if expecting someone he didn’t want to see.

  Alexa gave him a puzzled look. “Sure. Anything.”

  “Johnny and I go way back, and Pete—” His jaw knotted for a moment, then he relaxed. “I’m gonna kill him when he gets out of surgery,” he muttered, as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.

  She smiled at his concern. “They mean a lot to you.”

  Carter met her eyes. “Yes. And for what you did to help them, I’m grateful.” He moistened his lips, and Alexa glimpsed the total extent of his exhaustion for a moment before his professional façade slipped back in place.

  “I need to know everything. But I wanted to ask a favor of you. There’s an FBI agent, Evan Sanders, who’ll be along shortly.” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to phrase his request. But Alexa understood. A smile dimpled her cheeks.

  “You…don’t want me to cooperate so fully with him, right?”

  The flush deepened in Carter’s neck and face. “The FBI doesn’t know about our SWAT guys that went bad,” he admitted. “If that becomes common knowledge—” He shook his head, his lips tightening for a moment. “Those dead men have families. Some of them have young children. While I’m disgusted by the choice they made, I’d hate to see those families left with nothing. The Dallas community—and the nation—will see these men as heroes who died in the line of duty. Only a small handful of us will know the truth—if you can live with that.”

  Alexa was quiet for a long moment. It galled her
to perpetuate the lie—that those men turned traitor would be laid to rest with honors. That the nation would mourn the loss of so many “good” men. That, for the rest of his life, when people spoke of this terrible time, Johnny would have to agree that men like Richter, Creston, and the others were fallen heroes.

  But she would know the truth, and so would Pete. This deception would be done, so that the grieving families could survive; so that a nation in mourning would remember the men who had, once upon a time, truly believed they would do their best to protect and serve—and never know they had turned from that purpose.

  Alexa nodded. “Yes. I can—I can live with it.”

  His look of relief was cut short as she continued.

  “As long as we’re in agreement on another hero.” Her eyes strayed from Carter’s grave look to the other side of the room where Ronnie Williams sat, alone and unmoving in his grief.

  “Daniel Williams?”

  Alexa nodded, remembering the desperate, tumbling fight down the metal staircase between Daniel and Creston. That scene would be forever drawn clear in her mind. Daniel had saved her and Johnny—from a fellow police officer. Her chin raised at a stubborn tilt. She knew all the things Daniel had done, but how could she remember him for anything other than the valiant role he had played in helping her and Johnny survive?

  “Yes,” she whispered. She looked down at her hands resting on her lap, clasping them together.

  “We have reason to believe he, um—” Carter began carefully.

  Alexa raised her gaze to his, fire sparking in her eyes. “Captain, I know what he did. Everything he did.” She softened her brusqueness. “And—I will tell you everything later—to your complete satisfaction. If you want my cooperation in this, then for Daniel’s sake—and his brother’s—please don’t ask any more questions now. Trust me when I say that Daniel—he was a hero in his own way. That’s how I want his brother to remember him, too.”

  Carter gave her a slow nod. “Okay. That’s what I’ll tell him. But I’m gonna hold you to that promise, Ms. Bailey.”

  She gave him a faint smile.

  Carter’s attention was drawn to the doorway as Evan Sanders burst through into the room with his entourage. He sighed. “Well, here comes trouble.”

  Alexa bit her lip. “I see what you mean.”

  “Remember—”

  “I will, Captain. Don’t worry. I suddenly feel faint.”

  They stood up in unison, Carter reaching to assist her. “Do it up right,” he murmured. “He’s making a bee line for us.”

  In the next second, Carter was catching her awkwardly in his arms, calling for a nurse—and wondering if this wasn’t the real thing, after all.

  Chapter 43

  The first thing Johnny was aware of was the soft sound of a woman sobbing, saying the rosary as she wept. His sister, Rosa.

  For him? His thoughts were jumbled, tripping over one another from the morphine-induced state he was in, among other things. Was he dying? He didn’t think so. He couldn’t feel the incessant pain any longer, but he could feel his fingers. He moved them against the sheet.

  For the first time in a good while, he appreciated the comfort of the bed he was in, and the faintly-scented cleanliness of the sheets. Little things like this, you took for granted, until you lost them.

  He shifted, and soft fingers grasped his, accompanied by a breathless sound only a woman could make. He forced his eyes open a scant eighth of an inch, enough to see Alexa leaned over him. She studied his face, a sweet expression of relief blossoming across her features as their eyes met. Sudden tears gathered in the green depths and he tried to move his hand to cup her cheek, but his arm would not cooperate.

  “Welcome back, darling,” Alexa whispered, a smile curving her lips.

  Johnny tried to say her name, but couldn’t. His mouth felt numb.

  “Don’t try to talk,” Alexa told him. “Just rest.”

  She turned away for a moment, calling Rosa’s name. In an instant, his sister was leaning over him, speaking to him in Spanish so rapid that he understood almost none of what she was saying. None but the important parts—“I love you, brother,” and “Now I can stop worrying.”

  Johnny’s lips slanted upward in a faint smile, but he sobered almost immediately.

  José. Did she know about her son? God, how long had he been here, lying in this bed? The unbidden thought of José’s death was the key that unlocked the door, a torrent of memories flooding across him, bombarding him.

  Pete. Was his brother even alive? And what had become of Brendan Roberts?

  He didn’t recall saying anything as his thoughts raced forward, but suddenly Rosa was silent, as if not knowing how to answer or what to say next. He felt rather than saw her looking to Alexa—waiting for her lead.

  “Pete,” he heard himself say more clearly this time.

  “He’s fine,” Alexa answered. “Still recovering, like you.”

  “I…wanna…see him.”

  Alexa smiled at the stubborn quality in his tone. “Turn your head—just a little more this way—” She moved back a step as Johnny turned his head and found himself staring across the room at his bandaged brother in the other bed.

  Pete’s eyes were open, and he tried to grin. “Hi, brother.”

  “You…look like…a damn mummy.”

  “I’m in better shape than you are.”

  Johnny’s gaze sought Alexa again. She was there, close beside him, still holding his hand.

  “How long?”

  “Two days,” she said. “And if you will rest and not try to talk, I’ll tell you everything. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he muttered. He sure had her bluffed if she believed for one minute he would be able to carry on any kind of conversation. He wasn’t going to be capable of doing more than listening.

  So Alexa began to pick her way through the words she needed to tell him about what had transpired since the medics had rushed into the equipment room two days ago and they’d flown to the hospital.

  She told him that the Prime Minister was recovering well, the blow to his neck had resulted in a fracture, but he had not suffered any nerve damage. The baby boy was doing well, but from what authorities could tell, the child had no relatives other than his aunt, a young college student who was in no position to take him to raise. He would be headed for foster care, then adoption, as soon as all the red tape had been cleared.

  Alexa seemed unsettled as she spoke of the baby. Johnny understood. He hated to think of another child being shuttled through the system, too. A thought came to him, half-formed and rash. When they started fresh, would Alexa consider making Little Dan part of their world?

  Her voice called him back to the present. “Pickens and the others—Brendan’s cadre—have been hustled off to Great Britain. Scotland Yard officials picked them up yesterday.” Alexa shook her head. “I hate to think that some of those men were innocent, yet there’ll always be suspicion upon all of them in the group.”

  Johnny nodded. “It happens.” Alexa looked at him, with understanding in her eyes. Just like in the Dallas Police Department.

  “Daniel and José—they—they were buried this afternoon.” She glanced away, her teeth sinking into her lip.

  Johnny’s breath went out of him. He had forgotten. His medical state was precarious, but not being on top of his game disarmed him for an instant as a wash of fragmented memories came flooding back to him: the smell of the blood, of death; the way Daniel had looked at him just before he took that last breath; and how his own fear of losing Pete and Alexa had consumed him.

  He closed his eyes for a minute, buying time to reconcile the past and the present within himself to get through this next moment, then the next. There would be a lot of that to follow—living moment to moment until the grief and the anger and the suffocating fear began to diminish.

  Alexa squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry we missed the services.”

  “You—didn’t go?” He slitted his eyes open to
view her once again. She looked down, and he wanted to tell her that had sounded wrong—as if he were condemning her—when he’d just been surprised, and nothing more.

  “I wasn’t up to it.” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “And I made a promise not to leave someone, remember?”

  “It was beautiful, Johnny,” Rosa interjected from where she sat nearby. Her voice broke and she reached to wipe a tear from her cheek. Alexa let go of Johnny’s hand and went to Rosa. Leaning over her, she hugged her, and Rosa clung to her, unable to hold back the tears, sobbing openly now.

  Johnny cursed his own inability to go to his sister and comfort her. He shot Pete a glance, and saw similar feelings written across his younger brother’s battered face.

  “What about Mama?” Johnny asked.

  “Went down for coffee.” Pete grinned. “She won’t stay mad at you for long once she sees you’re all right.”

  After a moment, Rosa collected herself and patted Alexa’s hand as if to tell her she would be fine. To Johnny, it seemed as if the two of them had known one another forever, and nothing could have made him feel better just then.

  “José—he was a good man,” Rosa murmured.

  Johnny noticed her fingers reaching for the medallion that hung at her neck. José’s medallion. His eyes met Alexa’s and she gave him a brief nod, then looked back at the grieving mother. “Yes, he was,” she agreed. “He had a very kind and generous heart.” After a moment, Alexa patted her shoulder. She looked at Johnny. “I think the same could be said of Daniel,” she said in a soft tone. Johnny lifted a hand, an invitation for her to sit beside him again.

  “He was a hard one to figure,” Johnny returned. He had to admit, he hadn’t trusted Daniel. That left a hollow feeling inside him, somehow, after the way things had turned out. But in the end, Daniel had shown what he was made of. He’d given his life for them. Given everything—

  Johnny raised his eyes to Alexa. “The quarters—I lost them.”

  She smiled, reaching into the pocket of the jeans Ray Carter’s wife, Julie, had brought her. Solemnly, she laid the heavy roll in Johnny’s palm and closed his fingers around the paper wrapping. “No. You didn’t lose them, Johnny.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “You never let go of them until the morphine kicked in.”