by Katie Ruggle
His hand caught her ankle before she connected, and he jerked her forward. She stumbled, and the sheriff yanked again, knocking her onto her back. The air rushed out of her lungs when she hit, leaving her gasping. He followed her down, pinning her again, and then he swung.
His fist hit her face with such force that all her training disappeared. The only thing that remained was the pain and the bewildering knowledge that someone—the sheriff!—had hit her. She was used to grappling and punching bags, but none of that had prepared her for the brain-shattering reality of a true hit.
When her mind cleared and the pain faded enough for her to have a rational thought, she realized that Coughlin’s hands were around her throat. As she struggled against his hold, she stared at his face, at his normal impassive expression. The scariest part of everything was his lack of emotion. If he was about to kill her, he should at least be raging. There was nothing, though. His eyes were empty.
“This actually worked out for the best,” he said evenly as his fingers tightened around her throat. “You had to go next anyway. I hadn’t figured out how to cover up Deputy Jennings’s death, but now it can be a murder-suicide, a tragic possessive-lover kind of thing. It’s a shame. He’s a good cop. Too bad he’s so infatuated with you.”
She tried to fight, to shove him back, but his hands held her still. It was so wrong, that people would think Chris had killed her and then killed himself. Her training finally kicked in, and she grabbed his right arm with both hands in the first step toward freeing herself from his hold. The lack of air was already making her limbs clumsy and unwilling to follow her directions, and her fingers couldn’t keep their grip.
As her struggles weakened and her vision narrowed, all she could see was the sheriff’s emotionless face, and she thought of how unfair it was to be killed right after she’d finally managed to leave her house. To have a life. In a final burst of strength, she yanked at his wrists, trying to free her airway from his compressing hands. It was like his arms were made of concrete, though, and her weakening, air-starved muscles were no match for him. Her hands went limp and fell to the floor, and a gray cloud darkened her vision.
A loud boom was quickly followed by two more, and Coughlin’s face was covered in a waterfall of blood. She squeezed her eyes closed as it spattered onto her skin, right before his forehead crashed against hers. His hands had fallen away from her neck, and she sucked in air, trapped under his weight.
Then he was gone, pushed to the side, and she opened her eyes to see Chris’s face—battered and bloody and grim, but still more beautiful than anything she’d ever seen in her life. Something was running into her eyes, making them sting and water. When she touched the side of her face with her fingers, though, she winced and reconsidered any kind of contact.
“Dais.” He reached toward her with shaking hands and then pulled back, as if he was afraid of hurting her. “God, Daisy. I thought you were dead. I thought I was too late.”
“Hey, Chris.” It hurt to talk, but it also hurt to not move, so she figured she might as well say something. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” It was an obvious lie. She just had to look at him to see that, but at least he was conscious and talking and not dead. “Where are you hurt? Is any of this your blood?”
She blinked. Her lashes felt gummy, and she didn’t know why. “What?” Raising her head, she looked down her front. Her hoodie had been light blue, but blood stained the top half, leaving it wet and sticky against her skin. If she continued to think about that, she’d throw up again, so she concentrated on Chris’s question, instead. Everything was aching and sore, but she didn’t feel anything that felt critical.
“Keep your head still,” he warned, pressing a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t move until Med checks you out.”
Lowering her head to the floor, she watched as Chris yanked out his phone and tapped the screen. As he held the cell to his ear, he let his other hand brush her cheek so, so lightly. Although she knew something was off, that she was too calm, Daisy just lay still and enjoyed the feel of his fingers on her skin as he talked to Dispatch. She realized how scared she’d been that she’d never get to experience his touch again.
The ceiling was spatter-painted with chunky red, and she couldn’t keep looking at that. Hoping that Chris was too occupied with the call to notice, Daisy turned her head. Inches away from her face were the sheriff’s dead eyes. Caught by his vacant stare, she couldn’t look away, couldn’t even blink, until hands straightened her face, gently turning her gaze back toward the bloody ceiling.
To her relief, Chris’s face blocked her view of the sprays of blood and…other stuff. “You still with me, Dais?”
“Yes.” Her voice was flat and as hoarse as a pack-a-day smoker’s. “Did you shoot him?”
He nodded. “Three times in the top of the head. It was the only target available to me.”
She tried to nod, but his hold prevented it.
His forehead touched hers, and she held back a wince. The throb of pain was muted, though, and she didn’t want to lose the contact with Chris.
“I didn’t hesitate this time,” he said, so quietly she barely heard him. He didn’t sound like himself, and she wondered if he was in shock. Daisy was pretty sure she was. It wasn’t normal to be that calm. Maybe being terrified for so long had fried all the fear receptors in her brain.
Lifting a hand, she stroked the back of his head, trying not to think of how she was getting blood in his hair. “Thank you.”
“That’s twice, Dais. Twice in two days that you almost died. Don’t do it to me again.”
It was a choked hiccup of a sound, but Daisy still couldn’t believe he’d actually made her laugh—here, covered in a murderer’s blood, lying next to the sheriff who was missing the back of his head. There really was something wrong with her brain. “I’ll try.”
“You better. I love you too much to lose you.”
“I love you, too, Chris.” Her hand paused on the back of his head. “Did you see? I left the house.”
“I saw. Knew you could do it.”
“I threw up on the porch.”
He made a sound very similar to her earlier parody of a laugh. “It’s okay. I’m proud of you.”
“Tyler burned my house. He’s on the porch, too.”
“What?!”
Before she could explain, the sound of booted footsteps came from the direction of the front door, followed by two voices calling out, “Sheriff’s department!”
Chris raised his head, revealing his newly blood-streaked forehead, and Daisy propped herself up on her elbows so she could see. Two deputies charged into the room, guns out. The gory scene brought them up short, and they stared in silence for a frozen second.
“Dad?” A bloody-faced Tyler appeared in the doorway behind them. One of the deputies turned, holstering his gun, and used his body to both stop Tyler from entering and to block the boy’s view of the room. “Dad! What’s wrong with him? What’d they do to him? Dad!”
As the deputy backed a still-screaming Tyler toward the front door, the other cop finally shifted his shocked gaze from the sheriff’s body to Chris. “What the fuck happened here, Jennings?”
Chapter 23
If Daisy had known how long it would be before she got to go home, she might’ve reconsidered leaving her house. But then an image of Chris’s limp body flashed through her mind, making her shake her head. Even if she’d known she’d never get to return home, nothing could’ve stopped her from heading to his rescue.
“Daisy?”
“Dad?” She blinked at the bearded face peering around the curtain that made up the wall of her cubicle. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard about what happened on the radio—well, the basics, at least. They didn’t mention you, but I called to make sure you were okay. When you didn’t answer your cell phone, I tried Jennings. Hi
s went to voice mail, too, so I drove to Simpson. The fire chief told me they’d taken you to Connor Springs in the ambulance.” He eyed the scrubs a kind nurse had found for her to change into when her gory clothes had been taken away in evidence bags. “He said you were covered in blood.”
“Not mine,” she explained. “Except for some bruising on my face and…well, pretty much everywhere, I’m okay. The EMTs insisted I come here, though.” Under the cover of their professional calm, she’d been able to tell that the amount of gore she’d been wearing had freaked them out. It had taken a while to convince them that they weren’t missing a gushing injury.
“How’d…” He rubbed a hand over his mouth and started again. “You’re out of the house. Was it the fire?”
“No.” After all the horror and shocks of the night, her trek through the burning house and across the street had been pushed to the back of her mind to deal with later. “I saw the sheriff attack Chris. I had to go.”
That time, she was pretty sure his face swipe was to wipe away tears. Gabe caught the back of a chair like it was a cane and lowered himself onto it. Propping his elbows just above his knees, he stared at the floor.
“That’s…good, Daisy. Really good.”
From her spot sitting on the padded table, she reached over and patted his rounded shoulder. “Thanks, Dad.”
For a while, they sat in silence. Daisy had to fight back her threatening tears at the sight of her hard-as-nails father crying. Eventually, he gave his face a final, two-handed rub and leaned back in his chair, stretching his work boots out in front of him.
“Where are we going to live?” she asked, wanting to break the silence that had grown awkward.
Cutting off his laugh in the middle, he shook his head. “Don’t worry about that right now. We’ll stay at the motel if we need to.”
“I wonder how Chris is doing.” She was tempted to start a search of the hospital to find him.
As if he’d been waiting for an excuse to move, her dad stood abruptly. “Want me to check on him?”
“Sure. That’d be great. Ask”—Gabe was already gone, so she sighed and finished her sentence under her breath—“if I can see him.”
And she was left alone again. Although she understood that she was low priority for the medical staff, Daisy wished someone would let her know she was free to go, so she could track down Chris and see with her own eyes that he really was okay. She wouldn’t be able to relax until she felt his arms around her again.
When the curtain moved, she looked up, expecting her dad, but a strange man entered instead. Daisy stiffened, and he apparently saw her unease, judging from the way he lifted his hands, palms out, as if to show he wasn’t a threat.
“Daisy Little?” he asked.
As she nodded, she watched him warily. He wasn’t a big man, but he exuded authority. His dark hair was tidy and his clothes neat, although fairly casual.
“I’m Paul Strepple.” He didn’t reach out to shake her hand, and Daisy was grateful for that. Still uncertain of him, she definitely didn’t want to touch him yet. “Investigator with the Colorado BCA.”
Pulling his ID out of his pocket, he held it out to her. Although she wouldn’t know authentic BCA identification from something created by a five-year-old forger, Daisy examined it closely. “Because of the circumstances, we’ve been charged with investigating.”
“Weren’t you already?” she asked, remembering Chris telling her about the state’s involvement in the Willard Gray case.
“We’d been assisting,” he said, returning his ID to his pocket. “We’ll be heading up the investigation from this point on.”
She nodded, waiting for his questions. It didn’t take long. He asked about the usual personal information—full name, date of birth, address—and then he paused, eyeing her closely.
“So, Ms. Little. What happened tonight?”
Her inhale was slightly shaky, and it rasped against her aching throat. She really did not want to relive the evening, but it had to be done. Mentally pulling up her big-girl panties, she told the investigator what had happened, starting from the sheriff’s phone call to Chris and ending with the two deputies’ entrance.
“Gas leak?” he asked when she’d finished, so she backtracked and explained about her malfunctioning stove and Tyler’s quick exit after he’d been alone in her kitchen. “And what did Tyler mean about you seeing his father with King?”
“I’m guessing that the sheriff was the guy I saw hauling the dead body to his SUV,” she said.
Strepple’s eyes bulged, showing surprise—or any emotion, really—for the first time since his arrival. “You saw Robert Coughlin moving King’s body?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know it was him.” After a moment of consideration, she added, “I didn’t know it was definitely a dead body, either. The boot falling out of the tarp made me suspicious, though.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, Strepple said with exaggerated calm, “Why don’t you go back to the beginning and tell me exactly what you saw.”
Daisy did, adding the sheriff’s odd behavior toward her. In the middle of her retelling, Gabe stuck his head around the curtain.
“You okay, Daisy?” he asked, eyeing the investigator with suspicion.
“Fine. Thanks, Dad.” She smiled at him with an effort, so tired that even lifting the corners of her mouth was a struggle. “Did you find Chris?”
“Sort of. He’s getting X-rays, so I found out his general location, but I haven’t seen him myself.” After another glance at Strepple, he turned back to Daisy. “I’m going to run to the cafeteria and grab some food. Want anything?”
Too tired to be hungry, she shook her head and gave him a small wave before he disappeared again. With a silent sigh, she picked up her statement where she’d left off.
“So neither the sheriff’s department nor the fire department had reports on these arsons?” He seemed more bothered by this than the murder. Apparently, missing paperwork was the ultimate crime.
“That’s right.” Daisy swallowed back a yawn. “Ian has his own copies of the calls he went on. It’s not all of them, but it’s a start.”
“Thank you. I’ll ask him.” Since Strepple looked like he was preparing to leave, she assumed the interview was almost over.
“Wait,” Daisy said, and he looked over his shoulder at her, an eyebrow raised in inquiry. “Did Tyler burn down Lou’s cabin, too, or was that really her stalker?”
“Lou’s cabin?” Strepple squeezed his eyes shut as if he was in pain before turning back toward Daisy. “Why don’t you start at the beginning with that one, too?”
By the time she’d finished telling the investigator everything she knew about the Coughlins’ crimes and possible additional wrongdoing, another forty minutes had passed.
“Thank you, Ms. Little.” Strepple moved toward the curtain, looking determined to leave that time. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Have you talked to Chris yet?”
“Not yet,” he told her without pausing. “I’m going to do that now.”
“Oh!” Hopping off the padded table, she hurried after him. “Can I go with you? I just want to see him to make sure he’s okay, and then he’ll be all yours.”
Stopping but not turning around, Strepple was quiet for a second. “Fine,” he finally sighed. “Two minutes, and then you need to leave.”
“Deal.” She followed him through a maze of hallways. Her breathing sped up when she left the safety of her enclosed space, so she focused on the back of Strepple’s jacket and concentrated on making her inhale exactly the same length as her exhale. It worked well enough to keep her from passing out before they reached a curtained cubicle that matched the one she’d just left. Once Daisy passed through the opening into the exam area, she ducked around the investigator and saw Chris lying on his own padded table, looking weary and c
ranky and hurt.
“Chris!” Her voice was embarrassingly close to a squeak, but he didn’t seem to mind. A grin eased the pain lines on his face, even though his swollen mouth pulled his smile in the wrong directions, and he pushed himself to a seated position and held out his arms toward her.
“Hey, Dais. You doing okay?”
Hurrying into his hug, she pressed her sore face into his shoulder. Under the hospital smell was Chris’s usual scent, and she felt herself relaxing against him. “A few bruises, that’s all.” Pulling away just far enough to meet his eyes, she reached a hand toward his swollen, discolored face. “Ouch.”
“I’m fine.” He gave her another painful-looking grin. “I’ll be ugly for a while, but nothing’s seriously damaged.”
His tone was a little too light, and she frowned at him suspiciously. “They didn’t find anything broken on the X-rays?”
“No.” He lifted his hand to run a light finger over her sore cheek, and she caught her breath as she spotted the wicked-looking bruise forming on the back of his forearm. That must’ve been where the baton hit when he blocked. “Dais.” He gently tilted her head so she wasn’t able to see his injured arm. “It’ll be fine. I’m even getting out of here tonight.”
Her laugh was shaky, but she forced it out anyway. “I don’t think it’s tonight anymore. I’m pretty sure it’s tomorrow.”
“It is,” Strepple said, gaining their attention. “I need to get your statement, Deputy.”
“Dad’s here,” Daisy hurried to tell Chris. “He’ll drive us to Simpson once we’ve been released.”
“Okay.” He pulled her down for the lightest touch of lips, which still hurt. Daisy didn’t care, though. It was worth a little pain to kiss Chris. “See you in a bit.”
Reluctantly, she pulled away. It was hard to leave an injured Chris to the mercies of the investigator, but she needed to find her missing father. After all, he was their ride home.
