Skin

by Patricia Rosemoor

Guarded, she made her way forward, slowly swinging the rifle in an arc. She might be the hunter, but she was cautious. Eyes wide, breathing shallow, she licked her lips as she swung her gaze around her surroundings. She might know how to use the weapon, but this was his territory, not hers. So many trees and bushes. So many places to hide.

  As her rage settled down, she could hardly believe what she’d done, not in successfully defending herself, but in turning the tables on Gabe.

  She wasn’t him. She wasn’t a killer. She’d never believed she could shoot someone, not even to wound him as she’d already done. All she’d ever wanted was to save her sister and stop him from killing again.

  So what the hell was she doing?

  And where the hell was he?

  She could hear her own heartbeat. Maybe why she couldn’t place the rustling sounds until they were nearly on her. She was swinging in an arc when he ambushed her, coming at her from behind a tree. They fell to the ground together. Still holding the rifle, she rolled and got to her feet, but he was just as quick.

  Gabe grabbed the rifle barrel with both hands. He was stronger. She was losing it. He laughed.

  Rage renewed, Lilith lunged forward toward the rifle and him and snap-kicked, the ball of her foot making contact with his knee. With an agonized yowl, he let go and toppled backward.

  “Bitch! You women are all alike. You enjoy emasculating men.”

  “Sounds good to me.” So angry that she was shaking inside, she aimed the rifle lower. “Did they beg you, Gabe? Beg me.”

  “Get real.” Gabe was breathing hard, staring up at her, hatred burning in his eyes.

  She squeezed the trigger. The bullet chewed up the ground between his thighs. She kept the rifle aimed low.

  “Were they afraid, Gabe? Sweating inside like you are? Did they beg you? But you killed them anyway, didn’t you?”

  She shot again. The earth next to his ear churned. “I really could kill you.”

  “So why don’t you?”

  “Because I’m not you. I don’t want to be you.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want to see the happy faces of your ex-wife and kids when the jury votes to fry your ass.”

  That got to him. His expression morphed into a mask of fury. His body grew tense, and she knew he was getting ready to strike again. She used the rifle to indicate he should get to his feet.

  Suddenly, Gabe relaxed. His expression grew cunning. “Okay, okay. I’ll go easy, but I can’t get up alone.” He held out his hand for help.

  She gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re the crazy one.”

  Never taking the rifle off him – nor her eyes for more than a second at a time – Lilith searched around until she found what she needed. Carefully, she stooped and picked up a broken tree limb, then threw it at him.

  “Help yourself up. And hurry.”

  Gabe grabbed onto the tree limb and with muttered curses, used the makeshift staff to steady himself as he got up on his one good leg. Lilith backed off. He tried a few steps. His face contorted in pain, and he dragged the bad leg.

  “You fucked up my leg good.”

  “You’re lucky that’s all I messed up. Be glad I’m such a good shot. Not that you’re going to get the chance to make any more kids. Poor little bastards with you for a father.”

  Talk of his kids seemed to fuel Gabe. His expression went from angry and cunning to cold and hard.

  “So what was your sister’s excuse? You? You make her into the little tramp I took off the street?”

  His words cut through Lilith as sharply as any knife. Gabe hobbled a couple of steps, glanced back as if to make sure she was still following.

  “I did her good, you know. She didn’t make me just for the apartment or the intro to Sal. She liked it. Wanted it.”

  More likely, Hannah had simply been desperate to be off the street.

  “Shut your filthy mouth, Gabe, before I cut out your heart!”

  An empty threat. Lilith knew she couldn’t kill Gabe, no matter that she would like to see him dead.

  “Hannah spread her legs for me every chance she got,” Gabe said. “She trusted me. Even gave me the key to her loft. Thought I cared about her. That’s what made it so easy to take her.”

  “You bastard!”

  Gabe stopped, but Lilith was still moving. He swung the tree limb and knocked the rifle out of her hands. She went after it. Hopping on his good leg, he went after her. He threw himself against her. Off balance, Lilith struggled to stay on her feet.

  They toppled together.

  Gabe came rushing down on her, his face a mask of insane hatred as he wrapped his hands around her throat. His greater weight pinned her and kept her from breathing. Feeling as if her chest would explode, Lilith fought him to no avail. He was as desperate as she now.

  He was going to kill her if she didn’t act fast.

  She shoved a hand in her jacket pocket--

  Her head whirled, lit by flashes of light.

  --and, pulling Gabe’s knife from her pocket, plunged it into him.

  His expression morphed to one of surprise and disbelief as his gut absorbed the finely honed shaft.

  She felt his warm blood ooze over her as he let go and collapsed on top of her.

  Limbs shaking, she lay there in shock.

  Dear Lord, he’d forced her hand to kill him.

  Suddenly his weight was lifted from her. Blinking, she saw Pucinski laying Gabe on the ground. And Michael was over her, helping her to her feet, pulling her tight against his chest.

  “Lilith, are you all right?”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “Michael, I-I killed him.”

  “Nah, you didn’t,” Pucinski said. He was kneeling next to Gabe, checking his pulse. “He’s still alive.”

  Lilith swallowed hard. Part of her was sorry that Gabe wasn’t dead, but mostly she was relieved. She’d lived with guilt long enough. Elena had asked her what she was willing to do. She hadn’t really known how to answer then, but she did now.

  Two uniformed officers had followed Pucinski, who told them, “Get an ambulance here.” He frowned down at Gabe. “You made our case, Miss Mitchell, but we’re gonna have to come up with a creative explanation for his, uh, being in his birthday suit...”

  The enormity of what she’d gone through was too much for Lilith. The dam that had been holding back her emotions finally burst, and she sobbed against Michael’s chest.

  oOo

  Chapter 23

  LILITH SAT on an examination table, ice pack to the side of her face, as a doctor stitched up her leg where Gabe had cut her. She’d barely felt the injury until she was in Pucinski’s car and her adrenaline had drained away.

  She’d insisted on checking on Hannah and Carmen, and so he’d left the uniformed officers with Gabe and had driven her and Michael to the more distant hospital.

  Hannah was alive but still hadn’t come around. Lilith was sick over it, but all she could do was wait.

  Thankfully, Carmen would be fine. The girl had already been released to her parents, who’d taken her home. As to Carmen’s future, Lilith only knew she would continue to fight for the girl. Assuming Carmen would still let her.

  The doctor stitched, Lilith winced, and Michael found her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. She tried on a smile for him but figured it wasn’t very convincing.

  “All done,” the doctor said. He pulled out a pad and wrote a prescription. Handing it to her, he said, “For the pain.”

  She shoved it in her pocket, put the ice pack back to her face and waited for a nurse to come in with printed instructions on home care.

  As if she was going anywhere.

  By the time she was released, and she limped into the waiting room with Michael’s support, Elena was there for her. Lilith had called her on the way to the hospital.

  Elena’s eyes widened when she saw Lilith’s bruised face. “Oh, honey, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  “I’m n
ot all right. I won’t be until I know Hannah’s going to make it.”

  Elena held her hand throughout what felt like an interminable wait for word on Hannah’s condition. Michael waited, too, but he gave her space, sitting to one side several chairs away. He was watching her, though, his gaze now familiar and comforting.

  A half hour went by. An hour.

  “What’s taking so long?” Stress over Hannah was making Lilith edgy. “Maybe I should find a doctor.”

  “One will find you,” Michael said.

  Elena added, “You have to believe Hannah’s going to be okay.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Because of you.”

  A lot of things she didn’t want to think about had happened because of her, Lilith thought, just as Detective Pucinski strolled into the room. “Miss Mitchell, I just checked on Carrie... Caresse. She survived the surgery.”

  “Thank God.”

  “No, she wanted me to thank you.”

  “Did she say what happened?” Michael asked.

  “She sniffed out O’Malley through the club’s manager. Ruscio told her that O’Malley recommended Hannah. Apparently, O’Malley saw her potential.”

  “So she was already tagged as one of his victims.” Lilith realized her sister never had a chance.

  Pucinski went on. “Carrie put two and two together and had a conversation with O’Malley that he didn’t like. That’s how he figured out she was the plant.”

  “They didn’t know each other?” Elena asked.

  “No reason they should. O’Malley was a homicide detective. Carrie a uniform assigned to undercover. She was recently transferred in from another district.” He checked his watch. “I need to get going. I’ll be doing paperwork until dawn. I just wanted to let you know the good news and to check on your sister. O’Malley’s gonna stand trial, and he’s gonna be locked away forever. Tomorrow, I need to take your statement in detail.”

  Lilith nodded.

  “Count on me, too,” Michael said. “Whatever it takes to keep the bastard where he belongs.”

  “You ask me, he belongs in a grave, but we don’t do that in Illinois anymore.” Pucinski made for the door. “We can only hope that he’ll suffer his own private hell.”

  After the detective left the building, Michael said, “Great news about Caresse.”

  But Lilith’s mind was back on her sister. “If only Hannah makes it, too.”

  Elena wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “She’ll make it. She’s too much like you to give up.”

  Her sister was like her, not just in looks, but in survival skills. Hannah just had developed a different set than she had. Lilith closed her eyes and prayed that Hannah came out of this alive. She didn’t care how her sister made a living. She just wanted Hannah in her life.

  And so, a quarter of an hour later, when Lilith learned that Hannah was awake and wanted to see her, she finally let out the mental breath she’d been holding.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” Elena said.

  Michael didn’t say anything.

  As she limped along the corridor behind the nurse, Lilith thought Michael was the first man with whom she’d ever really connected on more than a physical level. He was a man worthy of her trust.

  The nurse stopped before a doorway to a patient room. “Keep it to two minutes.”

  Lilith nodded and went inside.

  Her sister looked small and fragile in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV and medical equipment, more like the kid Lilith remembered.

  Though her head was bandaged, her face bruised and cut and swollen, Hannah said, “You’re a mess. Need... serious makeover.”

  Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Lilith sat at the edge of her bed. “I was so afraid for you.”

  “You saved me and Carmen... found us... heard you.”

  Hannah was making such an effort to speak that Lilith’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You warned me. Wouldn’t listen. Think I’ll listen now.”

  “No lectures. But when you get out of here–”

  “–we’ll talk.”

  And this time, she would watch what she said, Lilith thought, hopeful for their future. “I want to hug you, but I’m afraid to touch you.”

  Hannah slid her hand to Lilith’s and clasped it tight.

  Lilith took a deep, remorseful breath and hoped that Hannah would be able to start over with her help. While she’d always felt compassion for women who lived on the edge, she hadn’t been able to understand why they couldn’t change their lives. After all, she’d gotten away from an abusive household. What she’d gone through this last week had taught her a painful lesson she hadn’t expected – that extraordinary circumstances could make even her feel weak and unable to help herself. It took determination and belief in one’s self to survive. Not everyone had that. She’d done it. And so had Hannah.

  Hannah’s eyes closed, and her hand relaxed. Lilith realized she was asleep. The nurse had said two minutes. Reluctantly, she rose. The moment she left Hannah’s room, Lilith spotted Michael waiting for her in the corridor.

  “You’re still here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  “Michael... I-I didn’t expect you to wait with me all this time.”

  “I figured if I didn’t, I might never see you again.”

  Lilith’s stomach fluttered. He wanted to see her after she’d believed the worst of him. She had believed in his innocence until she’d seen the recording. Gabe had done a good job of planting doubt in her head. She so regretted that.

  Realizing Michael was waiting for her response, she said, “Well, I certainly won’t be at the club.”

  “So you do want to see me? Where, then?”

  “Neutral ground? No cameras.”

  “Deal, but I’m counting on your having a change of heart. You said you don’t do relationships. A lot has happened in the last few days. I thought that maybe now you might give it a chance.”

  He was grinning at her, and Lilith’s pulse picked up a beat. She didn’t know what the future held for them, but she wanted to find out.

  Smiling, she said, “I’m willing to give it a try.”

  oOo

  With 90 novels and more than seven million books in print, Patricia Rosemoor is fascinated with "dangerous love" – combining romance with danger. She has written various forms of romantic and paranormal romantic thrillers, even romantic horror, bringing a different mix of thrills and chills to her readers. Patricia has won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America and two Reviewers Choice and two Career Achievement Awards from RT BOOKreviews, and in her other life, she teaches Popular Fiction and Suspense-Thriller Writing, credit courses at Columbia College Chicago. SKIN is her first original indie thriller.

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