“Oh, Dirk.” She jumped up from her chair, hurried over to him, and sat down on the sofa beside him. She picked up the cat and unceremoniously set her on the floor. Then she grabbed him in a bear hug … one of the no-frills, rib cracking kinds he usually gave her.
“I will next time,” she told him, kissing his cheek.
“You will not.” But he looked pleased as he ruffled the top of her hair with his big hand.
“I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”
Dirk had been gone less than a couple of minutes—just long enough for Savannah to change into the white, flannel nightgown that had once been Granny Reid’s and settle into her book-cat-chocolate ritual—when the phone rang.
It was Dirk. “I think I left my sunglasses there,” he said, sounding totally disgusted. “That or I’ve lost them again.”
“It’s dark out. How did you notice your sunglasses are missing?” She sighed, replaced the lid back on the chocolate box, and slid it into the magazine rack. At this rate, these truffles would last her until Christmas … or at least next week.
“A dude’s gotta keep tabs on his shades,” he said. “They make you feel like a man.”
“They make you feel like a man.” She set her cats and her book aside and started walking around the living room, searching his usual spots where he tended to plop things down and forget them. “Do you know where you left them?”
“You always ask me that. And I never do.”
“Where are you?”
“Lester Street. I’m almost there.”
“I’ll keep looking.” She hung up and went to the kitchen, muttering, “Dang boy’d lose his head if it weren’t sewn on….”
She opened the freezer door and checked inside, figuring that any guy who would leave his car keys in there might also stick a pair of shades inside. Nothing. Not even ice cream, she thought, thanks to her pack of ravenous guests.
She smiled and closed the door, thinking she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Glancing around the kitchen, she spotted them … black Ray-Bans camouflaged on top of her black coffeemaker. “There they are, you turkey butt,” she said to the forgetful, soon-to-arrive Dirk. “I’m gonna get a piece of scratchy, itchy twine and tie these onto your head.”
She heard the knock at the door and hurried back through the living room and into the foyer, nearly kicking over a cat. “Sorry, Di,” she said. “Go get back on the footstool. Mommy’ll be there in a minute. Just let me give Uncle Dirk his sunglasses, so that he can look like a man.”
She turned the deadbolt and swung the door open.
Looking into the semi-darkness—she had forgotten to flip on the porch light—she saw something that confused her.
Dirk had something on his face, she thought. Something white.
Her mind spun, trying to figure out what she was seeing and what it meant.
“What are you wearing there?” she said.
He was playing some sort of silly joke, like he did on Halloween when he thought it was hysterical to appear at her door wearing a mask that looked like a decomposing corpse.
He stepped closer to her and raised his hand. “It’s your fault, you bitch! You didn’t like me! You told her to leave me!”
In an instant, she knew. This wasn’t Dirk.
The thing on his face was a bandage. And he was pointing a gun at her head.
“No!” She raised her arms and crossed them over her face. “Don’t!”
Fire flashed through the darkness.
A sound like thunder crashed around her.
Smoke filled her lungs, and her wrist stung as though someone had stabbed it with a red-hot poker.
She tried to grab at the gun, but it was just out of her reach.
Another thunderous sound and blaze of flame.
More choking, blinding smoke.
It felt as though someone had slammed her in the chest with a huge fist. Then came the fiery pain.
And another blast.
It all seemed like a terrible dream, in slow motion, where something horrible is happening, but the dreamer can’t run, can’t speak, and can’t wake up.
“She loved me. But you told her I was no good. It’s all your fault.”
Gasping and holding her chest, Savannah stepped backward.
My weapon, she thought. It’s in the closet.
But the closet was six feet away and he was never going to let her get that far.
Besides, she was already shot, several times.
As the strength left her legs, she crumpled to the ground and lay there on her side.
Chad stood over her, looking down at her.
“You’re gonna die! You’re gonna die for what you did to us … to me!” he shouted at her.
As though from far away, she heard and saw the next two blasts. She was dimly aware that one had hit her leg and another her abdomen.
I’m dying, she thought. He’s killing me right here in my own house.
She looked down at the front of her nightgown—Granny Reid’s nightgown—and saw that it had several black holes in it and the entire front was stained red with blood.
“You ruined it,” she said. She could hear the liquid sound in her chest as she tried to speak. She knew that meant she’d been hit in the lung. She knew it was very bad. But she mostly felt indignant that he had ruined her grandmother’s lovely nightdress.
She tried to think of some way she could fight back.
But there was no fighting back. She couldn’t move.
She looked up at him and watched as he leaned down and placed the barrel of the gun against her forehead. The weapon filled her vision. She tried to swat it away, but her arms weren’t working.
“Okay,” he said. “Now you’re gonna die.”
In an instant, she decided that she didn’t want his face to be the last thing she saw. So she closed her eyes … and prayed that Grandpa Reid and the angels were waiting on the other side to take her heaven.
Chapter 26
She heard the explosion. She smelled more smoke. And waited, expecting to enter some sort of restful darkness or heaven’s bright lights.
Instead, she heard an enormous thud. She felt it in the wooden floor she was lying on.
Footsteps pounded across her porch, through the open doorway, and into her foyer.
She opened her eyes … and was staring into the dead eyes of Chad Avery.
He was lying on his side on the floor next to her, facing her. And even though she could hear the sick, burbling, death rattle in his throat, she knew he wasn’t truly breathing.
Chad was no longer among the living.
She wasn’t completely sure if she was either.
Then she became aware of hands on her, touching her. Big hands. Gentle hands.
“Savannah! Oh God, baby! Van! No! No! No!”
She felt something being laid over her. It smelled of leather and cinnamon and Old Spice. It was Dirk’s old bomber jacket, still warm from his body.
“Dirk,” she murmured.
“I’m here, honey. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
She heard him punch three buttons on his phone. Then he said her address and told them, “Officer down! Officer down! Ambulance! Code Three! Get it here now!”
But I’m not an officer anymore, she thought, as the world spun around her. Doesn’t Dirk know I’m not a cop anymore?
“Savannah,” she heard him saying, “I’ll be right back honey. Right back. You stay awake for me, okay? Stay awake.”
She fought to keep her eyes open until he returned a moment later and shoved some things under her legs to elevate them. She could feel their texture against her calves, and she realized they were the cushions from her sofa.
“There, baby,” he said. “You lay really still for me and try to stay awake. Stay with me, honey. Please, stay with me.”
He moved the jacket aside just a bit to look at her wounds. Then he pulled his tee-shirt off, wadded it into a ball, and pressed it tightly beneath her
left breast.
It hurt terribly, but she didn’t complain. Deep inside, beneath the pain and beyond the weakness, she realized he was fighting for her life.
“I need …” she whispered to him.
“What, honey?” He leaned his head down to her as he pressed his shirt against her wound. “What do you need?”
“You. You wanted me to…. I need you….”
Savannah floated in and out of consciousness in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. At one point, when she woke, she saw a paramedic standing over her, working on her, wearing a white face mask.
She thought he was her attacker. Weakly she flailed at him and tried to yell, “No! Get away from …”
But her arms were useless and her voice only a whisper.
“It’s okay, Van,” she heard Dirk say. “No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe now. Rest. Just rest.”
His deep, calm voice reached inside her and touched her fear. Dirk was there. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt her now.
“It’s over,” he said. “The worst has already happened, and you’re okay.” He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. She could feel his hand trembling. “You are okay, aren’t you, sweetheart? Please … tell me you’re all right.”
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
She saw the look of relief on his face and considered that her reward for lying. And she was lying. Because she couldn’t feel her arms or legs anymore. And a coldness like she had never experienced before was growing from the core of her body.
Her wounds burned and ached terribly, but that wasn’t what frightened her. It was the coldness deep inside that was draining the life from her. And it was spreading by the moment.
No, she thought. I’m not okay. Not okay.
When the ambulance arrived at the emergency room entrance, two paramedics rushed to unload her and the gurney she was lying on. But Dirk took over for one. “Let me,” Savannah heard him say. “I have to do something.”
As they wheeled her through the large doors and into the hospital, she was finding it harder and harder to stay awake, to concentrate on what was happening around her.
Everything looked hazy and everyone seemed so far away.
She couldn’t seem to think clearly.
She looked up at Dirk’s bare, blood-smeared chest. “Oh, no, you’re shot,” she whispered, trying to reach up to touch him.
He clasped her hand. “No, honey. I’m not shot.”
She closed her eyes, tried to squeeze his hand, and couldn’t. “I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad you’re not hit.”
She heard one of the paramedics say, “Her vitals are dropping.”
And Dirk say, “Multiple GSWs.”
“How many?” a female asked.
“Five,” Dirk said, his voice choking.
Five, Savannah thought. Five gunshot wounds! Boy, somebody’s hurt bad. Lord, help them, she prayed silently. Please help that person with the five gunshots.
“It feels like we’ve been in this room for ten hours at least,” Dirk mumbled as he toyed with his foam coffee cup that had been empty for ages.
He was sitting on a hard plastic chair in the waiting room. And in the chairs around him sat Ryan and John, and a sobbing Tammy.
Dirk was wearing a tee-shirt. When Ryan and John had arrived, Ryan had removed the undershirt from beneath his dress shirt and given it to Dirk.
John reached over and gently eased the cup from his hand. “I’ll go get us some fresh ones,” he said.
Ryan glanced at his watch. “I know what you mean, but it’s only been three. The doctor said the surgeries would take hours. They’ve got a lot of work to do on her.”
“Were they sure they’d have to remove her spleen?” Tammy asked, crying into a handful of tissues. “She needs her spleen. It does important things in your body.”
“They said it’s torn and bleeding really badly. If they can’t fix it, it has to come out.” Dirk wiped a weary hand across his face. “It’s the bullet in her lung that they’re the most worried about. They don’t think the one in the belly tore any of her intestines. Oh, God.”
“That bastard really did a number on her,” Ryan said. “I can’t help but say it: I’m glad you took care of him. No trial necessary.”
They all three turned to look at Tammy, who started crying even harder.
John reached over and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close. “I’m sorry, love. We forget that he meant something to you … and this is a double tragedy for you.”
“No,” Tammy said, her eyes blazing. “He’s no loss. I’m glad he’s dead, too. I don’t want Savannah to have to go through a trial, looking at him there in court, remembering what he did to her.”
They sat silently for a moment, then Tammy whispered, “If she makes it, that is.”
“She’ll make it,” Ryan said.
Dirk twisted his hands that were still smeared with her blood. “The doctor said he gives her a fifty-fifty chance … at best.” He shook his head. “God, when he said those words, it felt like the earth had just opened up and swallowed me whole.”
Ryan reached over and gave him a quick, vigorous back rub. “Hey, that’s our superwoman you’re talking about there. The doctor doesn’t realize who he’s dealing with.”
“Yes,” John added, “I’d lay much better odds for our girl than that. We’re not talking about just any ordinary female.”
“She is strong,” Tammy said. “And healthy … especially considering all the crap she eats.”
“She’s very tough,” Ryan agreed. “Strong willed and determined. That counts for a lot at times like this.”
Dirk looked at them with tortured eyes. “You guys didn’t see her. I did. He shot the hell out of her. She’s a mess.”
Dirk started to cry. Tammy continued to cry. And a moment later, they were all four crying.
And that was the way the doctor found them when he walked into the waiting room.
Chapter 27
When Savannah awoke in the recovery room, she thought she had rheumatic fever again.
In her pre-Granny Reid days, when she had been five-years-old, she’d suffered a particularly bad bout of it, and she would never forget what it felt like to lie in bed, every inch of her body aching, weak, afraid, and alone.
She remembered what it was like to have her body failing, under a terrible attack, and losing the battle.
But, even though the pain was far, far worse than it was all those years ago, and in spite of the feeling of her life energy ebbing … it wasn’t quite so bad this time.
She wasn’t alone. Someone was holding her hand.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty’s awake!” Dirk said as he jumped to his feet and bent over her bed.
He kissed her on the forehead. “How are you feeling?”
She gave him a weak smile. “Like … alligator’s … chew toy.”
“Does it hurt pretty bad?”
“Yeah. Bad.” She looked around the room, trying to orient herself. “Am I sick?”
“No, honey. You were hurt.”
“How?” Every word caused an awful pain in her chest.
“You were shot.”
“Shot?” She looked down at her body. She saw bandages around her wrist. She could feel bandaging above her breast and below it, more on her abdomen, and still more around her thigh.
She groaned. “Oh … five GSWs … me.” She looked up at Dirk. “Who shot me?”
“Tammy’s ex-boyfriend. Remember?”
She nodded slightly. “Yes.” The nightmarish events began to flood back into her mind. She recalled seeing Chad’s dead eyes staring at her. “You … kill him?”
“Yes, I did. I pulled into your driveway and saw your front door open. You were on the floor, and he was pointing his gun at … well … Yeah. I killed him.”
She squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
She glanced down at the hospital gown and the bandages. Sharp, searing pain radiated from so many
places deep inside her. She had never felt so weak, so cold, so vulnerable … not even when she’d had rheumatic fever.
“I’m … torn up,” she whispered.
“You look beautiful to me.” He reached over and stroked her cheek with his forefinger. “I never saw anything as lovely in my life as you opening your eyes just now.”
“No,” she said. “Inside. Really … torn up.”
“You’re going to be okay, Savannah. Do you hear me?” He leaned over until his face was inches from hers. His eyes filled her vision. “You’re strong, and you’re loved, and you’re going to fight, and you’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t know, Dirk. I can tell. It’s bad.”
“Well, I know! I just got off the phone with your granny, and she said to tell you she’s getting on a plane to come see you, and she’ll be praying the whole way here. And you know what a praying saint she is!”
Savannah’s eyes flooded with tears. “Take care of her … for me. Please.”
“No! I will not. You’re going to take care of her yourself.”
She started to shiver as the cold numbness went deeper and deeper. “My heart …” she murmured. “If it goes into my heart …”
“What, baby? If what goes into your heart?”
“The cold. Dirk, I’m so cold.”
She was only vaguely aware of him lifting her and moving her to the side of the bed. And she wasn’t sure what was happening when he lay down next to her and pulled her close, aligning his body with hers.
With one arm beneath her head and the other gently around her waist, he cuddled her against him, kissing the top of her hair, her forehead, her cheeks.
“Just rest, baby,” he said. “I’ve got you, and I’m never gonna let go. You rest and heal.”
As he held her, she felt a blissful warmth radiating from his body into hers. It was chasing the awful cold away.
And she felt something else … something powerful and life-giving. As she faded off to sleep, she realized what it was.
It was love.
When Savannah awoke, she felt a hand holding hers. But this time it wasn’t Dirk’s big, rough hand. It was a smaller, infinitely soft hand. And before she even opened her eyes, she knew.
A Decadent Way to Die: A Savannah Reid Mystery Page 24
