Shadow of Vengeance

by Kristine Mason

  Bunny nodded and sent Olivia a sly smile. “So, you know her story.”

  Olivia stepped away from the hospital bed, peered into the quiet hallway, then closed the door. “This stays between us, understand?” she asked, her tone hushed, conspiratorial.

  “Absolutely,” Bunny replied with a firm nod.

  My stomach jumped and anticipation burned through my veins. I knew what had happened to me, but have never heard anyone actually discuss it. Of course there had been moments when things weren’t exactly clear. Black, fuzzy passages of time that to this day made zero sense. To be able to hear every gory detail…

  “Eighteen months ago, my brother’s buddy, Dave, got a call from a farmer. Apparently the farmer was brush hogging his fields when he found our Jane. At first, the farmer thought she was dead. I guess she was covered in—oh my God, Jane,” Olivia cried and pounded on the nurses call button.

  The room tilted. Olivia and Bunny’s voices became tinny. Panic caused my vision to blur and distort. For the first time since they’d removed the ventilator, every breath suddenly became a struggle. Suffocating, constricting, as if an anvil sat on my chest.

  “Where’s the nurse?” Olivia shouted, gripped my shoulders and pulled me upright.

  Choking. I couldn’t draw enough air into my lungs. Tears streamed down my cheeks, sweat coated my face. The tips of my fingers tingled, itched to claw at my throat, to shove the weight off my chest. Gasping, panting, I wildly shifted my eyes, searching for help, for a lifeline to ground me, to keep me sane.

  “I’ll go find her,” Bunny said and moved for the door.

  Desperation clawed inside my belly, coiled like a spring, then snapped. A low, guttural groan escaped from my parted lips, stopping Bunny. I didn’t need the nurse or doctor. They would only dope me up on some sort of potent, prescription cocktail that would render me comatose. A panic attack. I’ve silently suffered through a multitude of them since waking from the coma. It would pass. They just needed to give it time. They couldn’t let them drug me. I needed to hear—

  The door burst open and a nurse rushed into the room, followed by the doctor. My breathing grew ragged and my chest constricted even more when I saw the needle. Searching the room, my gaze locked onto Bunny’s. Jaw clenched, her dark eyes clouded with concern, she hugged herself, then winced when the doctor stabbed the needle into my arm.

  Never breaking eye contact with her, I fought to keep awake. But as the medication filtered through my veins, my heart rate slowed, my chest lightened making it easier to breathe, and my eyelids drifted shut.

  The doctor said something inaudible, the nurse and Olivia responded, their words completely lost from the buzzing in my head. Then the sweet scent of lavender cocooned me, followed by a warm puff of air against my cheek.

  “You’re safe, Jane. I promise,” Bunny whispered against my ear. Her soothing voice, a subterfuge of comfort and hope, washed over me like a hot, summer rain with the expectation of a powerful, destructive thunderstorm to follow.

  As I began to surrender to the mind-numbing drug the doctor had given me, Bunny’s gentle, calming voice mingled with my would-be killer’s familiar, hate-filled eyes. In the dark, foggy recesses of my mind, they coagulated, then congealed. Bunny was wrong. I would never be safe.

  I was supposed to be dead.

  Chapter 9

  Rachel made her way down the second floor hallway of Dixon Medical Center carrying a bag filled with sandwiches they’d bought from a local deli. She’d brought her brother his favorite, and while the tangy aroma of his corned beef Rueben mixed with the pungent odor of antiseptics, her stomach still growled. A reminder she’d skipped breakfast this morning.

  “Hungry?” Owen asked as he fell into step beside her.

  She absently touched her stomach. “Starved.”

  “You should have had Joy’s blueberry pancakes. I swear they’re like crack. I couldn’t get enough of them.”

  Half laughing, she stopped at Sean’s hospital room. “Crack, you say? Interesting. Omelets are on the menu for tomorrow morning. If there’s any mushrooms in them, you might want to think twice. Otherwise you could end up on a trip down the rabbit hole.”

  He chuckled, then motioned toward the door. “After you.”

  Ignoring the tingle in her belly that had nothing to do with her need to eat something, she glanced away from him, from his sexy smile and entered Sean’s room. Then froze. “Oh my God.” She rushed to the bed. The linens had been torn away. Fluids of some sort soaked the remaining sheets, while sensors that had been attached to her brother dangled from the machine in the corner like limp spaghetti noodles. The chair she’d sat on during her last visit rested haphazardly on its side as if it had been kicked out of the way.

  Panic weakened her knees, yet her instincts, her love for Sean, forced her feet to move. She rushed back to the doorway where Owen stood. “Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong.” That earlier tingling in her belly morphed into a spasm of dread. The room was a mess, her brother was missing. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen his doctor, let alone any nurses. Terror clenched her by the throat. She rushed past Owen.

  He gripped her by her upper arms and pressed her against the wall before she could make it through the threshold. “Look at me,” he demanded with a slight shake. “Focus on me.”

  She stared into his blue eyes, into their calm, serene depths. Composing herself, she fed off his strength.

  Thank God he was here with her. The last time Sean had been in the hospital, she’d been on her own. Young, scared, her mother nowhere to be found. Like that night fourteen years ago, she could use a friend, a shoulder to lean on, someone to help ease her fears.

  “Are you with me?” he asked, loosening his grip and rubbing her arms.

  With a nod, she drew in a shaky breath.

  “Good. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Come on. Let’s find some help.”

  Holding her by the elbow, he escorted her back down the corridor toward the nurse’s station. A woman, dressed in scrubs, exited a nearby room. Taking the lead, Owen approached her and asked about Sean. The empathy softening the nurse’s eyes took Rachel’s fears to new heights. She leaned against Owen and ran a trembling hand across her forehead.

  “My brother…” He was all she had left in the world. No other family. Very few friends. What would she do without him?

  “Is stable,” the nurse said and touched Rachel’s shoulder. “He’s been moved to ICU, which is located—”

  Without allowing the nurse to finish, Owen took Rachel’s hand and led her into another wing of the medical center. He didn’t speak, didn’t slow his pace until they reached ICU. When they spotted Sean’s doctor, Owen tightened his hold on her hand.

  “I was about to call you,” Dr. Gregory said when he reached them.

  “What happened?” she asked, fighting the tears, the fear. “He was doing fine...I spoke with him this morning. We were supposed to have lunch together.” She raised the bag of sandwiches to emphasize, then dropped it on the nearby nurse’s station.

  Dr. Gregory nodded. “I know. He told me earlier. But about an hour ago, he started to experience severe chest pain. Although he has broken ribs, where he was experiencing the pain concerned me. I immediately ordered a CT scan and—”

  Never letting go of Owen, she stepped forward. “Please, what’s wrong with him?”

  “He developed a blood clot in his spleen. I can’t be sure, but I’m assuming the clot is a result of his injuries.”

  “Blood clot,” she echoed. “How serious?”

  “He’s stable and the medication we have him on will help shrink the clot. I do want to keep him in ICU for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, though. After that, I’d still like him to stick around for another day or two. Run additional scans to be sure there’s no other complications.”

  She glanced at Owen, who gave her hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Can I see Sean?” she asked the doctor.

/>   “Of course.” Dr. Gregory motioned toward a room kept private by a dark gray curtain. “He’s sleeping though. If you’d like, I can have someone call you when he wakes.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” she said. “I don’t want to disturb him, but I do want to peek in on him.” As she began to move toward the curtain, dragging Owen with her, she paused and turned to the doctor. “Can you stick around for a few minutes? I want to talk to you.”

  After Dr. Gregory agreed, she pulled back the curtain and stepped into the small, dimly lit room. Sean lay prone on the hospital bed, sensors stuck to his chest, an IV dangling from the top of his hand. The glow of the heart monitor cast eerie shadows across her brother’s pale, bruised face. She finally let go of Owen, took her brother’s hand in hers, then leaned over him. After kissing his forehead, she whispered, “I love you.” And as she stared down at him, images of Sean flipped through her mind. Like a slideshow of snapshots, they came and went. Bringing a smile to her face and tears to her eyes.

  So many memories. So many good times.

  In that moment she realized there had been more good times than bad, despite living with or without their mother. That she should embrace those wonderful memories, shove aside the resentment she held against her mom and move forward. And as she gazed down at her brother, gently touching his red hair with the tips of her fingers, she also realized that today was the first time she’d told him she loved him in…she couldn’t remember. She also couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t bothered to say those three little words that spoke volumes.

  With a sigh that bordered on relief, she stepped away from the bed and looked to Owen.

  “If you want to stay with Sean, I can handle the investigation.”

  With a slight shrug, she shook her head. “I’d rather keep my mind busy. And find whoever did this to my brother.”

  After giving her brother a final glance, she stepped out of the room. Dr. Gregory waited for them at the nurse’s station and offered a small stack of papers as they neared. “Sean’s toxicology report,” he said and handed them to her.

  “What were the results?” she asked, not in the mood to try and decipher the report.

  “He had Rohypnol, as well as trace amounts of chloroform, in his system.”

  She stared at the first page of the report, the letters and numbers blurring as fury settled deep in her soul. Sean had been drugged and beaten. Now he was in the ICU of some Podunk hospital recovering from a blood clot. They needed to find the man behind her brother’s kidnapping and beating. More importantly, they needed to find Josh Conway before he suffered a much worse fate.

  With renewed determination, she squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. “What about Bill Baker? Do you have his results yet?”

  Dr. Gregory furrowed his brows. “Bill Baker?”

  She hid her irritation. “I called you about him yesterday. We wanted a tox screen done on him, too.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” The doctor nodded. “I haven’t received anything on him yet. Let me check with the lab.” He leaned over the nurse’s station and grabbed the phone.

  While Dr. Gregory made his phone call, she pretended to review her brother’s test results. Now that the initial shock of Sean’s blood clot had somewhat abated, she couldn’t help the embarrassment rolling through and making her cheeks burn. The way she’d clung to Owen, physically leaned on him…what had she been thinking? She’d treated him like crap for the past year. Yeah, while fantasizing about all the things he could do to her body. And sure, they were what she’d considered friends before the mistletoe incident.

  Still.

  She glanced at him, then quickly looked back to the tox report. The concern, the tenderness in his eyes cranked up her heart rate. Even with Sean lying in a hospital bed with a blood clot, Dr. Gregory standing a few feet away trying to find Bill’s toxicology report, nurses buzzing around ICU, and a killer/kidnapper on the loose, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been wrong about Owen. If maybe he wasn’t a douche bag bottom feeder of the dating pool. She thought about Jake. About Owen’s actions and reactions every time the sheriff was around, and wondered. What would it be like to have Owen? Not just in her bed, but in her life as more than a coworker or platonic friend. Before her mind could wander down that path, Dr. Gregory hung up the phone and turned to them.

  He shook his head. “Bill never came in yesterday.”

  “Are you sure?” Rachel asked, confused. Bill had been more than happy to agree to the testing and they’d watched him make a call to have his shift covered. Plus, he’d been so worried about losing his job. She might not know the man, but she doubted he’d blow off the testing and risk being fired. “Maybe the lab tech made a mistake.”

  “No. They were slow yesterday. The tech I just spoke with was there all day and knows Bill. I guess they went to school together.”

  “Well, maybe something happened that prevented him from making it in,” she said, now beyond irritated with Bill and also a little…suspicious. Maybe Bill was somehow involved and had faked his symptoms the night the boys had been taken. Maybe he had laced Sean and Josh’s Mountain Dew with Rohypnol and knew that the drug would be undetectable after a certain period of time. If that were the case, and he had pretended to have been under the influence, then purposefully skipped the blood test, he would have gotten away with aiding and abetting a kidnapping. Even if he showed up for testing today, and had truly been drugged, the Rohypnol would have already worked through his system, which ruined any possibility of linking Bill to the boys.

  Based on her perception of Bill, she didn’t truly buy her own suspicions. Until they found him, though, considering Bill a possible suspect topped her empty list.

  After thanking Dr. Gregory, and one last check on her brother, they left Dixon Medical Center. Once they were in the Lexus, Owen shoved the key into the ignition, but dropped his hand on his lap.

  “What?” she asked, embarrassed to meet his gaze. She’d been too clingy earlier and had crossed the line from coworker to intimate friend.

  “Why don’t I take you back to Joy’s.”

  “Because?”

  “Rachel, look at me.”

  When she did, her heart tripped. The concern brightening his eyes and hardening his face made her want to crawl onto his lap, have him cradle her in his strong arms and sleep the day away. Pretend her brother wasn’t in ICU and that Josh Conway wasn’t still missing.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked, then reached over and lightly touched her jawline with the back of his fingers.

  After swallowing the lump in her throat, she said, “I’m wondering about Bill.”

  Dropping his hand away, he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about Bill, or Hell Week. I want to talk about you. That was a big scare and I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  She stiffened. “If you’re worried my head isn’t in the investigation, don’t. I’m fully capable of handling this case despite Sean’s injuries.”

  He placed his head against the headrest and looked to the Lexus’s ceiling. “I’ve never doubted you.” He momentarily shifted his gaze to her. “Ever.” His eyes back on the ceiling, he released a deep sigh. “I don’t know what changed between us. But I still…care.”

  Care? A soft flutter flitted through her stomach. She went back to her earlier thoughts, imagining her and Owen as more than coworkers. Then quickly shoved them aside. If he’d cared about her, then why had he dismissed her after their kiss? As disbelief, insecurity and self-doubt crept in, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She really didn’t. He’d stood by her side in ICU, offering his comfort and strength when she’d needed it the most. Other than that moment, he’d been…different memories from the past year moved through her mind. Owen teasing her with an endless supply of number two pencils, bringing her back cheesy, yet sweet, souvenirs from his trips, and gift cards for her birthday and Christmas. Then there was Jake. H
ow Owen acted toward the sheriff every time he was around or they’d discussed him. Like he was…jealous?

  She stared at his profile. At his strong jaw and firm lips. An emotion she couldn’t name bubbled to the surface and tightened both her throat and chest, along with remnants of the hurt and anger he’d caused a year ago. She’d considered herself half in love with Owen up until the mistletoe incident. After that, she’d tried to hate him. Tried to stop the fantasy, the hope. And she’d succeeded. Or so she thought. Being here in Bola, stuck together, dealing with not only Sean’s injuries, but the investigation, had all of those emotions—whatever they were—jumbled, uncontrollable, indiscernible.

  When he finally looked at her, the intensity in his eyes made her breath hitch. She’d caught that same look from him before, just before he’d kissed her under the mistletoe and also last night, when she’d worn that skimpy camisole. A flurry of awareness burst past the anger she’d tried to harbor against him. Past the fear of losing the one person she could depend upon—her brother. Even past her self-doubts about running her first investigation and finding Josh Conway. All of those things, while still raw and fresh, and still at the forefront of her mind, suddenly didn’t compare to the one thing she selfishly craved the most. Owen. His touch. His friendship and, God help her, his love.

  Damn it. She’d never stopped loving him. And for the first time in her life, she wanted to pretend she had no one else depending on her or measuring her capabilities. She no longer wanted to be the brainy geek seeking action and adventure. She wanted to be wanted, needed and yes…loved. But love was an emotion she had a hard time understanding. The love of a sibling or a child—which she considered Sean more of a son than sibling—wasn’t the same as the love shared between a man and woman. Her mother hadn’t given her the best example of what a solid, loving relationship looked like. If anything, her mom had tainted her outlook on relationships, and had made her cynical, wary and completely ill at ease when it came to opening herself up to not only the opposite sex, but people in general.