“Nice alliteration,” Gracie said.
Rob stopped.
“Sorry,” she said. “Go on.”
“But,” he continued, “I feel like I’m fully awake for the first time in . . . forever. In my previous life, I lived in two dimensions. Now I live in three. Life seems simpler. More basic. Yet it’s richer, more complex. If that makes any sense at all. I’m seeing things with renewed clarity. Experiencing my life, truly living it. Maybe for the first time. You are the one who brought me there.”
The lump in Gracie’s throat made it difficult for her to swallow back the impending tears.
“You and I come from different worlds that in all probability cannot mesh.”
“Probably not,” she whispered, and bit her lower lip to stop it from quivering.
“But I do love you,” he said. “Everything about you. I love that you’re doing something good in this world, especially saving my worthless English arse.” Rob’s eyes twinkled back at her. “I love your fearlessness. Your strength. Your absolute lack of pretense. I love your smile. Your incredible eyes.”
A single tear slid down Gracie’s cheek and dripped onto her uniform pants.
Rob leaned forward so that his mouth was right next to her ear. “Do not change,” he said, his voice breaking. “Do you hear me? Do not let this world change you.”
Gracie leaned over to rest her head against Rob’s. “Yes.”
“No matter what happens, Gracie,” he whispered. “You’ll always be with me. You’ll always be a part of me.”
“And you’ll be a part of me,” she whispered back, choking back a sob.
He pressed his lips to her hair. Then he rose and, with feet silent on the carpet, walked out of the room.
Gracie sat in the silent room, head bowed until gradually her body stopped shaking. Then she shuddered in a long, painful breath and blew it slowly out.
The main door opened, then closed. Gracie felt rather than saw Ralph sit down in the chair beside her.
She lifted her head and looked over at him.
Before Gracie realized what he was doing, Ralph leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.
She sat up, eyes wide with surprise. “What was that?”
“Whatever you want it to be, Gracie girl.”
Gracie stared unblinking back at Ralph, her best friend, the man who made her feel warm and calm and safe, the one person who had never let her down, the one person who, she knew without a doubt, would always be there for her.
Gracie smiled at him.
The blue-gray eyes crinkled. “Ready to go?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“I’m ready.”
• • •
AN AUTOPSY OF Cashman’s body had revealed injuries consistent with a traumatic fall, the cause of which was undetermined. Tristan Chambers’s death was attributed to massive internal injuries and blood loss due predominantly to a severed aorta.
No trace of Diana Petrovic was ever found.
The curved knife was never recovered.
Rob never regained full memory of what had transpired up on the rock promontory.
And somewhere in the depths of the canyon, the body of Radovan Milocek, “The Surgeon,” lay buried in its frozen tomb until early summer and the melting of the last of the high-country snow.
The story of Rob Christian and Grace Kinkaid became yesterday’s news, and Gracie’s life reverted back to something resembling normal. Her contusions faded from purple and black to green and yellow. Her punctures and cuts healed to pink scars. Her clavicle and arthroscopically repaired shoulder ligaments mended.
The emotional bruises took longer to heal.
And eventually, months later, Gracie wept for Steve Cashman.
Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) Page 23
