by Geri Foster
Her body numb with fear, Emily slowly opened her eyes and looked at Mac. The gun barrel against her temple hurt. How much pain would she feel when the bullet sliced through her brain? How long would it take her to die?
Quickly she prayed.
Brody held Jake while keeping his gun trained on Marino. Frank stood next to Mac, his gun staring at Marino. On the other hand, Mac’s weapon hung next to his thigh.
The last four days fast forwarded through Emily’s mind and she realized how very little she knew the man across from her. Yes, they’d made love, and had gotten close, but she didn’t know the man inside his skin. While they’d been through so much, Mac had always kept a part of himself separate. A place she couldn’t touch because she hadn’t been invited.
Now it taunted her like a bully on a playground.
The knowledge that he didn’t love her in return and never would crumbled her heart. He’d go on fighting the bad guys and keeping danger at bay. But the real man would never be revealed.
Warm tears of sadness, not fear, glided down her cheeks as she listened to her heart break.
“Why don’t you just leave this between me and you? Let the woman go.”
“Oh, you’d love that wouldn’t you?” Marino tightened his arm around her neck. “Not going to happen.”
“You know Angelina didn’t love you.”
“You shut up.”
“She loved Bruno.”
“No, that is a fucking lie.”
Mac shook his head. “No it isn’t. She told me one night. But I think you’ve known all along.”
“Enough!” Marino shouted. “This ends now.”
Emily watched as the air in the parking garage stilled. The outer noises silenced, and everything fell away. She, Mac and Marino were all that existed.
Time slowed to a crawl.
As if committing Mac’s image to memory, Emily saw him blink. Was this the end? He braced his legs and sucked in air from his parted lips then slowly released it. Without moving a single part of his body, his gun was in his outstretched hand...and then he fired.
The deafening noise sounded like Big Ben had just struck with her in the bell tower. It seemed to echo and reverberate in her heart, seizing her breath in its wake.
Nothing moved.
Marino’s hold on her lessened then he slumped to the ground. His black eyes stared into emptiness. A trickle of blood oozed from the perfect circle between his eyes.
Emily’s body went limp. If it hadn’t been for Frank and Mac she would have face planted on the concrete. Her body trembled, her thoughts swirled and it all became too much.
Darkness closed in like a fog rolling off a turbulent sea. Mist engulfed her completely, sealing her off from the world.
***
“That was one hellva shot,” Frank said as Mac carried Em into the office. An ambulance had been called for Jake. “Someday you’re going to wonder what would have happened if you’d missed.”
“I already am.”
“You’re a good shot,” Frank added, “but I wish you hadn’t taken it.”
Mac’s heart pounded like a set of bongo drums in his chest. Adrenalin pumped through his veins like a shot of morphine. “I saved her life.”
“Yeah, but Emily saw the ugly side of you. I don’t think seeing you in action is going to set well.”
“I can’t help that.” Mac rubbed his neck and closed his eyes. “It’s what I do.”
With Em safely on the couch, Mac looked down and knew with a certainty that shattered his soul that he’d never see her again. Not unless Falcon business necessitated it.
“I’m going to the hospital to check on Jake. I’ll be around.”
Frank pointed to Em. “What about her?”
Mac looked away. “She’s going to be okay.” His voice cracked like a fresh egg. “Em’s tough. She doesn’t need someone like me.”
“And you know that how?”
“Frank, none of us are marrying material.”
“Who in the hell decided that?”
“Maybe it’s an unspoken rule. You think she’s going to want anything to do with me after seeing me drop a guy? No woman in her right mind would hitch up with a guy like me. Besides, next time I might miss. Or worse, lose my nerve and do nothing.”
“Mac, she has to know you did what you had to do.”
He walked what seemed like a mile to the door. “Yeah, when she comes to, tell her that and see if she believes you.”
Out of the office, he took the stairs to the bottom floor. Cops and CSI were all over the place. He gave them a statement. When they learned Marino’s Interpol status, there wasn’t much left to say.
Mac got in his car and drove to the hospital and checked on Jake. That took about five minutes because he almost had a stroke cussing out Mac for taking such a tough shot with Em’s life on the line.
Sadly, Mac went home, stood in the shower and let the warm water wash all the stress and anguish from his body. With his palms against the tile wall, he stood there mentally going over his shot. It was a good shot. Sadly one he’d made all too often, but this one left him rattled and nauseous.
What if this once, he’d missed? Slowly Marino’s crumpled body morphed into Em’s. Scalding tears blurred his vision. Intense pain knocked him to his knees. Hunkered in the shower, Mac buried his face in his palms, and cried until the shower ran cold, and the tears no longer stung his eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Belize
Two weeks later
Brenda stretched and sat up. She yawned then reached for a bottle of water in the ice bucket next to her beach chair. “We having fun yet?” Emily asked.
“Oh God,” Brenda groaned. “I’m ready to go home, except I don’t think my stomach will let me fly.”
“I warned you. But would you listen? No.” Emily laughed. It sounded strange to her ears after so much sorrow. “Never party with the natives. They’re better at it.”
“Now I remember you saying that.” Brenda squinted over at her. “About the time you finished off your third Margarita.”
“The difference is I stopped there. Unlike someone I know. Someone who spent most of the night hugging the toilet.”
Brenda put her sunglasses back on. “Shut up.” She rolled over with a moan. “When did the sun get so frickin’ bright?”
“Always has been.”
Brenda sat up and gulped more water. Emily looked out at the Caribbean coast and smiled. The turquois water, the warm sunlight, and the swaying palm trees were just what the broken-heart doctor ordered.
She’d finished a warm stone massage, a yoga class and thirty minutes in the sauna. Her body felt relaxed and renewed, while her heart struggled to mend.
“I’m glad I punched your sister.”
“I know you are.”
“She deserved it.”
“Definitely.”
Brenda looked at her. “I wish I’d punched Stanley too. And choked those two dogs.”
“No one has the right to hurt a dog.”
“Okay, maybe just super glue their mouths shut.”
Emily laughed. “Poor doggies. They don’t know they sound so obnoxious.”
Brenda rubbed her face. “I guess I should be glad she didn’t sue me.”
“I wouldn’t let her do that.”
“Did you get in touch with that guy? The one you did all the investigating on?”
“Yeah, I did and I think Mac is going to be very happy.”
“What about you? Are you ever going to be happy?”
“I’m working on it. I’m smart enough to know when to walk away. Mac’s a great guy, but he can’t be my guy.”
“Love stinks.”
“You’re right. Love only wins the day in movies. In real life, love is elusive and damn hard on the heart.”
“Maybe we expect too much from men?”
“As opposed to marrying the first guy wearing pants?”
“I agree. Let’s keep our standards high.”
Emily dropped her glass and rolled out of her chair, laughing.
“What’s the deal?”
“We have high standards? What about Howard?” Emily asked.
“Howard was a mistake.”
“Howard was a thief.”
“In my defense, I didn’t know that until my brother ran a check on him.”
“How smart can he be to date a detective’s sister?”
“Duh.” Brenda joined in the fun. “He looked so surprised when Kenny showed up at the door with an arrest warrant.”
“You told me he peed his pants.”
Brenda turned hysterical. “He did.”
“And there is always me with Stanley. I can’t believe I was that desperate.”
“I don’t think you were desperate. In a strange kind of weird way, Stanley isn’t so bad.”
“You’re right.”
“Until he took up with your bitch of a sister. That’s so low, he’s crawling on his belly.”
“Poor Stanley wasn’t the first man to fall for Victoria’s charm. I think she’s taken every guy I’ve ever dated.”
“Then why didn’t you smack her?”
“I guess because she’s the only family I have.”
“That’s sad. Are you still going to their wedding?”
“I guess.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t think you are going to be invited.”
“Good. I’d throw rocks at them.”
Emily tried to put Mac behind her. She and Brenda had been in Belize for four days. Tomorrow they’d fly back home and life resumed
as normal. As if it could.
Emily picked up her cell phone and listened to Mac’s voice mail again.
“Instead of playing with your phone, call the guy, for crying out loud.” Brenda slipped on her sandals and walked toward the waves. “You have nothing to lose.”
“Just my pride.”
Brenda stopped and looked back at her. “How does that make you feel in the middle of the night?”
“He only wants to apologize and I don’t want to hear it. The man doesn’t love me. He just wants to know I didn’t commit suicide or something.”
“The lies we tell ourselves.”
Emily pushed the delete button and erased Mac’s message asking her to call him back. It had been days. Time she got back to her life.
Frank had taken care of getting her another house, and had put Mr. Dooley in charge of restoring everything back to normal. While Emily hadn’t put out a dime, somehow whatever she needed or wanted magically appeared.
When her phone rang, Emily jumped. The caller ID was one of her clients in France. She’d been expecting the call. Next Monday she had a corporate meeting in Paris.
***
Bedford, TX
Home from a recent assignment, Mac locked the door and looked around his silent apartment. After putting his gear away and showering, he’d flipped on the TV for another lonely night. A knock sounded at the door. In an instant Mac’s heart went from a normal beat into Atrial Fibrillation.
Em?
With her gone, his life had returned to normal on the outside. Inside, it was empty as a spent chamber. His emotions felt like they had been spit out of a blender. He wanted to go after her, but couldn’t. Besides she’d made her feelings known by not returning the one call that had taken him all day to gather the nerve to make.
Mac opened the door and a tall man stood on his apartment landing. “Hi, you John McKinsey?
“Yeah.” This guy looked familiar in a bizarre kind of way. Mac wondered if he knew him from somewhere.
The guy took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to say this but, I’m your brother, James.”
The air gushed from Mac’s lungs as he stared into strangely familiar blue eyes. “I don’t have a brother,” he replied. Denial wasn’t working. There was something so primal about this guy. Same height, eyes, built, and stubborn cowlick.
The guy shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t know I had a brother either until I received a call from a lawyer. Emily Richards.”
“Em called you?”
The man calling himself Mac’s brother put out his hand. “I’m James McKinsey.
Trembling, Mac stared at the offered palm. It represented a bridge to his past. One he feared crossing, because you couldn’t reverse this situation once the handshake put it in motion.
Fear turned to courage. Mac raised his eyes, clasped his brother’s hand and pulled him to his chest. Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes.
When they separated Mac invited him in and offered a beer. His brother took it and gulped down a mouthful before the questioning began. “So, how do you know you’re my brother?” Mac asked, silently praying this wasn’t some cruel joke.
“I was born in ‘70. When I was a little guy my aunt took me and raised me. I knew I had a mother, but I don’t remember much about her.”
“I was born six years later. Mom never mentioned I had a brother.”
James rubbed the back of his neck. “Lucy, my...our aunt told me mom was married to a jerk. Guess no one liked the old man.”
“I didn’t know him well. He took off when I was seven or eight.” Mac finished off his Heineken. “Mom talked about him, but he never came around.”
“I heard she was murdered during a drug deal gone bad.”
“Worst day of my life,” Mac said, his throat tight. “Everything changed after that.” Memories rushed forward. Because he’d been a minor when it all happened they had kept him out of the report and sent him into the foster system. “Mom was hooked pretty bad by the time she died.”
“I read the report.”
“They told me I didn’t have any family.”
“I don’t know why they would say that. Then again, maybe they asked Lucy to take you, and she refused. I have no way of knowing. I didn’t find out mom was murdered until I became a cop and looked into the report.”
“You’re in law enforcement?”
“Yeah, I’m a Captain for the Dallas Police Department.”
Pride filled Mac’s chest and swirled around his heart as gently as a spring breeze. Considering their childhood, they could have become their parents all over again. Somewhere in the gene pool there had to be some decent people who were made of stronger stuff.
“Wonder what mom would think about what we’ve become.”
“I can’t even imagine. Since I barely knew her. You know, there are times I can’t remember what she looked like,” James said.
“I can see her as plain as day. I like to think of her straight, clean.” Mac peeled the label from his bottle. “You know she tried a few times. Tried to get away from the dopers, pills, the booze...but she couldn’t stay clean long.”
“Aunt Lucy and her husband did a great job of raising me, but they had two kids of their own. And while they were really good to me, I never felt I belonged. Then I heard from this lawyer. She came into the precinct several days back and asked me all these questions about my past.” James shrugged “It made me wonder.”
“I can’t imagine how Em made the connection.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Couple of weeks ago Fort Worth PD picked up the old man on some outstanding warrants. Turns out this lawyer’s friend, Brenda, has a brother in the department. I guess this Brenda mentioned you to him and started the wheels turning. Anyway, the detective said the guy told him he had two sons.”
“Leave it to good old Rayland.”
“So, Miss Richards started looking into some closed records and found you had a brother. She showed up at my house last week.”
He chuckled. “That sounds like Em.”
“You know her personally?”
“Yeah, I do.”
James spread out his arms. “Bro, what have you been up to for the last thirty two years?”
Mac laughed. “We can’t cover it all in one visit.” He pointed to his brother.
“And you, a cop and all.”
“And you.” James leaned back and stretched his arms on the back of the coach. “Hell, nobody seems to know what you do.”
Mac studied the family he’d missed all his life. How many times had he wanted to reach out to someone? How many times had he pulled away, frightened?
“Something I have to say,” Mac said. “When mom was murdered, I was there.”
James sat up. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, I hid in a closet. She’d shoved me in there. I stayed all curled up in a ball. Afraid to come out. Scared to save my own mother.”
“You know, at seven you couldn’t do much, don’t you?”
“I do, but I fear one day on a job I’ll turn back into that little kid. I won’t be there when someone I love needs me.”
“You’re not that scared kid anymore, bro.” James stood and put his arm around Mac. “You never will be again.”
“How do I know that?”
“Because I’m your older brother and I say so.” James said, good naturedly. “And you need to stop blaming yourself for what happened to mom. You couldn’t save her. She couldn’t save herself. From what I hear, you’re pretty damn good at what you do.”
“Yeah, but there is always a little bit of doubt.”
“I know, John. And there always will be. I struggle every day to do the right thing. Just like every other person out there.”
“The line of business we’re in doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room,” Mac said.
“This is how I deal with it. I am what I am. Yeah, I came from bad stock, but I learned a long time ago the difference between right and wrong. And I always try to do the very best I can at the time.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Hey, I have another surprise.
“Really, I think you finding me is already a pretty big surprise.”
“You have two nephews. Eight and Ten.”
“Well, Holy shit. You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. I have the wife, two kids, a van and a mortgage.”
“Wow,” Mac said. “I’m impressed as hell.”
“What about you?”
Sadly Mac hung his head. “Naw, nothing.”
“You never married, had kids?”
