The Darkest Days (The Adventures of Xavier & Vic Book 6)

by Liza O'Connor

  He disappeared down the basement steps for only a second and then returned, grabbing the other two and adding them to the pile. He closed the cellar door and locked it, then grabbed a knife and jammed the blade into the keyhole and snapped the tip off so that even if someone had another key, they wouldn’t be able to open it.

  He then returned to Lady Haughton and lifted her from the floor. The young girl had been petting her face but scampered back when they approached.

  “I am taking her to the best doctor in the country, Vic explained. “If anyone can save her, it will be Dr. Connors.”

  They hurried out, and upon receiving his orders, Casey proved himself the finest racing carriage driver in the world. In less than ten minutes, they had made a ride that normally required twenty minutes to a half hour.

  Tubs burst into the waiting room with Vic in tow. The nurse didn’t need to be told it was an emergency. She took one glance at the woman in Tubs’ arms and scurried to the door, opening it to let them into the back.

  A moment later, Connors rushed into the exam room behind them. “The Queen has been shot?”

  “Not that I know of,” Vic said. “This is Lady Haughton. I believe she has been poisoned.” She pondered why the nurse had told him the queen had been shot, but upon staring at the woman’s pale face, she noticed a strong resemblance between the lady and the Queen.

  Connors glanced at Tubs as he laid the woman on the table. “Tubs are you all right?”

  “I’ll live,” he replied.

  Tubs’ assurance alarmed Vic and the moment he stepped away from the table, she turned him towards her. Blood covered his chest.

  “You were shot!” Her fingers fumbled with the small buttons on his shirt.

  He stopped her and ripped open the shirt. “It’s ruined anyway.”

  She stared at three small bullet holes in his chest. Had this been her, she’d be dead.

  She pointed to a bench that looked as if it would hold Tubs’ four hundred pounds. “Sit down,” she ordered.

  “I’m not going to die,” he promised her.

  “Good. Tell me what to do.”

  “The bullets are still in. You’ll need to get them out like you did with my shoulder wound.”

  “Vic, leave him be,” Connors warned. “I will care for Tubs when I’m done here.”

  “Vic can do it,” Tubs insisted.

  “Those bullets may be all that is keeping you alive. The location of those shots is worrisome.”

  Tubs frowned at him and then refocused on Vic. “I’m gonna live. My life is too wonderful for me to die now. Did you know the lady’s servants carried weapons? Had I known, things would have gone down differently.”

  “No, but I should have. I knew the butler was off during my first interview, and his expression when Leslie arrived was one of pure hate. I should have realized he wasn’t a real butler. He was one of the evil cousins.”

  “Well, if it had just been him…”

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t interview his sons yesterday. Had I, the marked resemblance between them would have awakened my intuition when Leslie said the cousins all looked alike.” She gripped Tubs’ massive arm as guilt engulfed her. “It is my fault you were shot, and you have to live because you have a son and wife who need you and I will never forgive myself if my failure to see what was right before my eyes gets you killed.”

  Tubs shook his head. “This is not your fault. Butlers and servants are not supposed to carry guns. You can ask Gregory if you don’t believe me.”

  Overwhelmed and exhausted by her failure, she collapsed on the floor and hugged Tubs’ legs.

  “Tubs, was Vic shot?” Connors demanded as he continued working on the woman.

  Her protector and friend leaned over and pawed at her.

  Tears leaked from her eyes. “I’m not shot. I’m just a dangerous trouble-magnet. Tubs pushed me to the floor before a shot was fired.”

  Connors left the room, evidently finding her tears unbearable. But he’s a doctor. He cannot leave a room just because someone cries. She pushed herself off the floor and walked to Mrs. Haughton. The woman looked dead. She placed her fingers and slowly moved it up and down until she found a faint pulse.

  Smiling, she petted the old woman’s forehead. “We found your ghost and Leslie. The ghosts have been captured and will soon be dead, and Leslie will come live with you if you wish. You only have to get well, and he will come.”

  The woman’s lashes seemed to flutter for a second. In hopes it meant the woman could hear her, she added a guilt factor in case the lady was prone to such motivation. “You have to recover. Tubs took three bullets in the chest to get you to the doctor. Well, he took the bullets meant for me…but I was and am determined to save your life. So if you see a white light, do not follow it. I have risked a great deal to save you, and Leslie loves you very much. He has a very good reason why he would not live with you before, but it has been resolved. Life will be better for you both now. All you have to do is stay alive.”

  A hand caressed her back. She stepped back as Connors injected something into the woman’s arm.

  “I have determined the poison used. Depending on how long ago she was poisoned, she should make a partial or full recovery.”

  “I don’t believe it was more than five hours ago. Somewhere between noon and three. That was when Leslie visited her.”

  “Is that who shot Tubs?”

  “No! Leslie is a victim as well. It was the butler and his many sons.”

  “The butler did it?”

  “Not a real butler. He’s a nephew of Lady Haughton. He’s been trying to kill Leslie for thirty years, but he evidently gave up recently and began a new scheme to kill his aunt and make it look as if Leslie did it.”

  “You might want to start with the conclusion when you speak to Stone. He’s waiting in the lobby for you, but I can’t promise how long he’ll wait.”

  “What about Tubs?” she demanded.

  “My nurse and I will attend to him now.”

  “I’m not leaving until you declare Tubs healthy and fit.” Tears filled her eyes. How could he even think she’d leave Tubs?

  “Vic…this could go bad. I can’t have you distracting me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Stone is insisting on speaking to you.”

  She glared at Connors through her watery eyes. “I don’t care what Stone or you want. I’m staying with Tubs.”

  Connors looked at the giant. “Tubs, tell her to go.”

  Vic stared at him and shook her head.

  He held out his giant hand and she returned to his side and took it. “Don’t send me away,” she whispered. “Sara’s not here. It’s up to me to keep you away from the light.”

  He gripped her hand. “I want Vic to stay. He’s my best friend.”

  Connors sighed as he rolled the exam table holding Mrs. Haughton to the side of the room. “You won’t fit on an exam table, so I need you to lie on the floor.”

  Tubs’ slow and careful descent to the floor made Vic realize how much pain he was in. He had released her hand when easing himself down, but once he was prone, he reached out and took it again.

  “You are my first and best friend,” he said. “Thank you for staying with me.”

  Vic nodded, struggling not to burst into tears. “You’re going to be fine, Tubs. We have too many cases left undone.”

  “The cat case?” he challenged.

  “No…you never have to do cat cases. Ben was taking appointments left and right while we were gone. We’re filled up clear to April. That’s over fifteen cases. You know we’ll never be able to solve them all without you. You were born to be an investigator. No one is better than you.”

  He closed his eyes and smiled.

  “Tubs?” Vic whispered.

  Realizing Connors had left the room again, she bellowed his name. A second later, Connors, his nurse, and Stone entered.

  “Tubs fell unconscious.”

  Connors rushed to h
im, kneeling and feeling for a pulse.

  “He’s alive,” he stated in relief and barked orders to his nurse. “Vic, if you insist upon staying, despite my request that you leave, then you must remain quiet.” He glanced up at Stone. “One word from Vic and you may pull the boy out.”

  Stone nodded and remained standing out of the way by the wall. He didn’t look angry at being denied an interrogation. In fact, his eyes remained focused on Tubs, his expression betraying great concern. He should worry. No one had done more for this country than her big fellow. He even killed the Mesmerist, something no one else could have done.

  Vic’s attention turned back to Tubs, his massive chest now fully exposed. The nurse was shaving the black hair around the wounds. It gave them an appearance of bulls-eyes and Vic didn’t like it, but she refrained from objecting, instead pondering why this would help.

  She decided it was because the hairs might get caught in the wound and fester, if particles of dirt had coated them. Next, the nurse scrubbed him with diluted carbolic acid to kill any germs

  Finally, Connor knelt beside Tubs on the opposite side of the nurse and Vic. He delicately sliced into the skin across the bullet hole directly above his heart.

  On a normal body, the heart resides close to the surface, just beneath the rib cage, but Connors had to cut through a half-inch pad of fat and several inches of muscle before he reached the rib cage. Vic rose to her knees and leaned forward. She could see the faint metallic glisten of metal.

  “It has penetrated the ribcage,” Connors spoke as if the missing bullet were a death sentence.

  “No, it’s there,” Vic said.

  Connors shook his head.

  “Give me something thin to point with!” she demanded.

  “Vic, if the bullet was here, I’d see it. It’s gone beyond the rib cage. I will attempt to crack away a few ribs and prod further, but…” He looked up at Stone.

  “No! I can see it,” Vic insisted.

  “Stone,” Connor said.

  “You can cart me out after I point out the bullet,” she warned the inspector.

  Since Connors refused to give her something thin, she released Tubs hand and located her picks, pulling out one and leaning over his body. Reaching in, she placed the tip onto the bullet.

  “It’s not flesh. It’s metal! Feel for yourself!”

  He took her pick and tapped the section. “It’s the bullet! Now let’s hope we can get to it.”

  Vic gripped Tubs hand with both of hers, hoping the same.

  She expected Stone to pull her away any second, but time slowed to a near halt as she watched Connor struggle and fail over and over again before finally extracting the bullet. What should have been a moment of celebration quickly became a nightmare. With the bullet removed, blood shot up like a misty red fountain from his wound.

  Blood rained upon her as Connors yelled orders to his nurse. At least, she hoped it was the nurse he yelled at because her mind had gone numb. Tubs was going to die all because her intuition had failed to suspect the butler in time.

  Her guilt grew unbearable as she watched Tubs’ life flow from his body, and then it stopped.

  Tubs was dead. Her highly skilled and wonderful giant was dead. “I’ve killed Tubs!” She threw her bloody hands to her face. “I killed Tubs!”

  Seconds later, strong hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her from the room. Tubs blood still ran into her eyes, blinding her. “Charge me with murder. I killed him!” she cried.

  Arms circled her and held her tight. “No! You are not at fault.”

  “You weren’t there!” she snapped, finding no comfort in Stone’s assurances or hugs.

  “I should have been. I promised we would not do cases apart.”

  His declaration made no sense until she realized Stone wasn’t hugging her. Only one person had ever made the promise to never do cases apart again.

  Xavier.

  Now knowing who offered her comfort, she stopped fighting the hug and wrapped her arms around him. “If my intuition had only told me it was the butler it would have gone differently.”

  “Tell me what happened.” She knew he was only distracting her, but she needed a distraction or she’d go mad.

  She talked through her day, her conclusion the cousins were her suspects, her planned method of determining the names of the cousins, and then arriving to discover Lady Haughton was near death. “They grew tired of trying to kill Leslie, so they decided to frame him for her murder. That way the courts would strip him of his right to her money and distribute it among the surviving relatives.”

  Once Xavier wiped her eyes free of blood, she gazed up at him. “Only I had failed to realize the butler was the cousin. I should have. I knew from our first visit there was something wrong with him. Had I interviewed his sons, I would have known who he was before I arrived at her house today.”

  “How would that have helped?” Xavier challenged.

  “Because Leslie told me they all look alike. Male or female, they looked alike. Had I seen his sons, I would have made the connection. But I only met the cretins when we tried to leave. Tubs was behind me carrying Lady Haughton. When they refused to let us leave, I pulled my gun. Then all five of them pulled guns. Tubs must have dropped Lady Haughton, for the next second, I’m flying to the floor and then there were about seven shots fired.”

  She pressed her cheek to his chest. “By the time I got up, Tubs had them tied and carried them down into the basement. “I hadn’t realized he’d been shot. I should have! They’d been aiming at me. Then he knocked me down, standing where I’d been. I should have known.”

  Xavier pulled her back to him. “That was his job, Vic…to protect you.”

  She pushed away from him and glared with fury. “But not to die for me! He was never meant to die for me. And it wouldn’t have come to that if only I had figured out the truth before we arrived.”

  Xavier pulled her back to his chest. She didn’t resist. She needed his love now more than ever.

  When he next spoke, his voice was tired and tense. “Is that sufficient? Because I’d like to take my pup home.”

  “Yes,” Stone replied and gripped Vic’s shoulder, turning her to face him. “This was not your fault. There is no one on my entire force who can come close to your level of intuition. Nor did it fail you. You simply have too high of an expectation in yourself. Try to focus on the positive. You and Tubs saved two important lives today and uncovered a serial killer we have sought for over twenty years. When I die, I can only hope I go out half as well.”

  Xavier spoke. “He’s right. Every life ends in death. Tubs went out the best any of us could hope for. He finished the mission, he saved his best friend, he helped rescue two of the royal family and ended a sadist’s reign of terror. He went out a hero.”

  Vic nodded in agreement. Then frowned as one of the points settled in her consciousness. “Leslie and Lady Haughton are royalty?”

  “Yes. So you will probably have to endure an accommodation from the Queen.”

  Vic shook her head. “No, Tubs deserves it. He never got credit for anything good he did when he lived. By God, he’ll get credit for this, or I’m going to yell at the Queen.”

  Xavier pulled her to his chest. “I’ll do everything in my power to see he’s acknowledged.”

  Chapter 30

  Xavier and Vic were about to enter their carriage when Stone burst from Connors’ office. “Xavier wait! Tubs still clings to life.”

  Vic pushed out of Xavier’s arms and rushed back inside, only to slam against a locked door. She pounded on it with her fist. “Connors, let me in!”

  When the door did not open, she cursed and reached for her picks, only Xavier wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away. “Vic, think of Tubs.”

  “I am thinking of him. I promised to hold his hand.”

  “Tubs was shot in the chest at close range. No one should be able to survive that. To save him will require Connor to perform better than he ever has.
Your presence will be a distraction, one that could be the difference between life and death for Tubs.”

  Vic ceased to resist him, turned, and pressed into his chest as she sobbed. “He can’t die for me. He can’t!”

  Xavier cradled her head and kissed her temple, leading her to a bench where they both sat, settling in for a long wait.

  Stone approached. “I need to return to Scotland Yard and ensure none of these fiends escape justice. Let me know when…you get new information.”

  He touched Vic’s head, sighed heavily, and left.

  Fear gripped her heart. “He doesn’t think Tubs will make it.”

  “Vic…the chances are very slim,” Xavier said.

  “But Tubs has taken a bullet before.”

  “A great deal of them, but nothing like this. I have no idea how he managed to carry Lady Haughton to Connors’ with three shots to the chest.”

  “He did more than that. He tied up the five villains and carried them to the cellar, then made sure the other servants couldn’t get them out. I didn’t know he was even hurt until Connors asked him if he was all right.” She gripped Xavier’s jacket lapels. “He can’t die, not when he finally has a life he loves. Sara and Ham need him. I need him!” She stared up at Xavier. “We need him.”

  “Pup, I’m not arguing he isn’t needed, but you have to face the truth: the chances are slim—”

  “Don’t say that. Tubs is going to live because he has to. He can do things no one else can. So he can survive this…because he has to because none of us will be whole without him. God took my parents and Aunt Maddy, but I’m drawing a line here. He can’t have Tubs.”

  Xavier ceased trying to make her face his unacceptable reality. Instead, he held her tight against his chest and gently rocked her until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  ***

  Vic woke with a start as she heard a familiar voice. “Connors?” she called.

  She tried to extract herself from Xavier, but he held her tight, even in his sleep.

  “Let me go, I hear Connors!” she complained.

  Suddenly the door to the back rooms opened and a very haggard Connors stared at them. “I didn’t realize you were still here. You should both go home.”