But no—he wasn’t finished yet. The love thing was just the warm-up. Now for the question. The Big Question. Breathe, you idiot. “Will you marry me, Mazie?”
Not the most romantic spot. They were sprawled atop the grave of a maiden lady who’d died more than a hundred years ago and had been buried with a misspelled tombstone. As proposals went, though, it wasn’t the lamest. His best buddy back in Quebec had popped the question via a plane towing a banner above a baseball stadium and the name on the banner hadn’t been his girlfriend’s name. Bob Schultz, his cameraman buddy, had proposed to his girl atop a rooftop garden, after which he’d fainted and fallen off the roof. His stitches hadn’t come out until after the wedding.
Ben looked at Mazie, waiting for her answer, unsure what it would be, because with Mazie, you never knew.
“Ben, I—”
He waited, aware suddenly of all the reasons she was going to say no.
“I’ve got to pee,” she said.
“Not exactly the response I was looking for.”
“It’s your own fault,” she hissed. “For making me laugh so hard.”
“So, just go in the grass.”
“It’s not as simple for females. Turn your back.”
“Mazie, I’m about to become your fiancé—I hope—it’s okay if I see you pee. Wait—don’t do anything until I check that the coast is clear. Notice how self-sacrificing I am here, risking my neck to make sure my woman is—”
“Shut up and turn around.”
“Wait—where are you going?” Ben said in alarm as Mazie scuttled away on hands and knees, dangerously exposing herself to lurking Skulls.
“I can’t pee on Ida’s grave.”
“She won’t care.”
“It’s disrespectful.”
He turned his head, heard a soft hiss, and turned back just in time to get a flash of her naked butt—Thank you, God; now I can die happy—before she pulled up her panties. Granny panties. Dear God, he loved them.
“What happened to your jeans?” he asked when she crawled back into his waiting arms.
“I had on a skirt.” She snuggled up against his chest, sending his heart rate spiking. “But it was practically glow-in-the-dark, so I ditched it.”
The night they’d nabbed her husband’s killer, Mazie had slithered out of her evening gown and run around in a bra and panty hose. When she’d been in the Miss Quail Hollow beauty pageant, she’d been reduced to wearing a bra and Bo Peep pantalets. He was planning to marry a woman who inevitably ended up running around in underwear.
Not that this was a bad thing. He kissed her neck. “Still on hold for an answer here.”
She shifted so that she was leaning on his chest, facing him. She gave him a light, teasing kiss on the lips. “I love you, too, Ben. I love you for the way you make me laugh even when I’m mad at you. And you really are noble and self-sacrificing and heroic and—I loved you even before you were the sexiest man alive.”
“Umm … we’re not going into that whole thing again, are we?” He kissed the soft, tender skin inside her elbow. “What about the getting married part?”
“I don’t know, Ben. Maybe we’re tripping on adrenaline. Maybe tomorrow—assuming we’re still alive—this won’t seem like such a great idea.”
“Yeah, it will. We can elope. Find a justice of peace who’ll forget about blood tests for an extra fifty bucks—”
“If you think for one minute that Marie-Claire Labeck is going to forgo her only son’s big, fat French-Canadian wedding, you don’t know your mother. She’ll drag you into a church by the heels.”
“You’re probably right,” he said gloomily, imagining his mother’s reaction if he phoned her with the news that they’d gone ahead and gotten married. How was it that Mazie understood his mother better than he did?
“Do you really want to get married?” Mazie asked, and her casual tone didn’t fool him; this was important to her.
“I want to wake up every morning with you next to me for the rest of my—”
His cell phone rang. The sound was loud and clear, because he had it set at maximum volume.
They stared at each other, horror-struck. Frantically Ben fumbled in his pocket, but the phone rang twice before he managed to shut it off.
Down at the bottom of the hill, someone shouted, and then the Skulls were pounding up the slope toward them.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
One of the idiots started firing his gun, and Mazie and Ben flung themselves flat onto the grave as bullets peppered the tombstones. Suddenly one of the men howled in pain, probably hit by a ricocheting bullet. Abruptly the shooting stopped.
“Get off me,” Mazie whispered, because Ben had thrown himself on top of her body.
“Shh,” Ben said.
“Shh yourself. What’s happening?”
Peering out through the tall grass, Ben reported, “One of ’em’s down. There’s only two left.”
“Two? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I think most of them slunk away a few minutes ago. Probably just wanted to save their own skins before the cops got here. Can you hear sirens?”
“Not with you squashing my head into the ground.”
He shifted his weight and then Mazie did hear them—sirens, getting louder by the second, the wails mingled with the deisel horn blasts of fire trucks.
Ben went rigid. “Two guys are coming this way—one of ’em’s real tall and one’s wearing a bandanna.”
“Reaper and Sonny.”
“I think we better move.”
Keeping low to the ground, Ben and Mazie slipped between gravestones until they’d reached the highest point in the cemetery, where the monuments were so ancient they were crumbling. They shrank into the shadows beneath Mortimer Dooley’s gravestone. From this vantage point they could look down on the scene below. The asylum building was visible, now fully engulfed in fire, flames shooting from the tower a hundred feet into the air, a beacon for miles around. Half a dozen police cars were parked on the road and more were arriving every second. They could see gang members racing their bikes toward the entrance gate in a mad scramble to escape. But something was blocking the gate—hard to tell at this distance, but Mazie thought it might be the giant SUV with Papa Yatt inside. It had crashed into the gates, creating a blockade.
Callously leaving their wounded comrade moaning on the ground, Reaper and Sunny began hunting through the gravestones, carefully inspecting each grave. They were getting closer, their voices carrying clearly.
“I’m telling you—we can’t leave until we take care of the woman,” Sonny said querulously. “She can identify us as her kidnappers. You get nailed for kidnapping, they send you up for life. She’s got to be somewhere close by here—go check those grave markers over on the right—”
“Screw you, Sonny—you don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Look—she was here!” Sonny bent over Ida Luckett’s grave. “The grass is all crushed.”
“Yeah, I see it.”
Peering out from behind Dooley’s tombstone, Mazie and Ben watched as Reaper, who was only a few yards away, suddenly swiveled, took aim, and shot Sonny in the back. Sonny fell without a sound, landing across Ida’s grave.
“I found out it was you that snitched out Tatum,” Reaper growled. “The cops catch you, you’d snitch me out, too, you little weasel. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Stunned at what they’d just witnessed, Ben and Mazie stared at each other, their faces clearly visible beneath a glowing sky. Reaper turned from Sonny’s body and began stalking through the gravestones, his face set, a man intent on finishing an unpleasant job.
“Ma-zie,” he called out in a high, mocking voice. “Ally ally in free. Come out, come out wherever you are.”
Mazie and Ben ducked back behind Dooley’s marker as Reaper moved closer. He passed the grave of Maude Pringell; he kicked over the headstone of Hiram Diefenbacher; he stomped through the tiger lilies surrounding the resting place of Ephraim M
urdoch. Now he was only two yards away—in seconds he would be on them.
Labeck flung a chunk of chipped granite from Dooley’s crumbling gravestone. It pinged against the Murdoch grave, causing Reaper to whip around and fire off several fast shots. Ben exploded out from behind Dooley’s stone, launching himself at Reaper from behind, pinning his arms and getting a chokehold around his neck.
Oh, the idiot! If Ben got himself killed, Mazie thought, she was never going to forgive him! Locked together, the two men lurched around like drunken Frankenstein monsters, Reaper attempting to break Ben’s grip and bring his weapon up. Shifting his weight, Ben rammed Reaper against the Murdoch grave marker so hard that Mazie heard a bone break. Reaper screamed and the gun shot out of his hand. Mazie was after it in a flash, and if she’d been familiar with firearms, she might actually have threatened Reaper with it, but guns terrified her. Besides, her hands were shaking so much she was afraid she’d accidentally shoot Ben. She flung the deadly-looking thing into a distant patch of weeds.
Reaper plunged an elbow back and jabbed Ben in the ribs, effectively breaking his grip. Squirming around, he punched Ben in the side of the head, sending Ben reeling backward into Dooley’s headstone. Ben used the stone as a launching point, catapulting himself at Reaper with a vicious head butt that bounced the Skull into the Murdoch tombstone. Reaper’s head cracked against the granite and he slid down the marker, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Ben put a hand to his rapidly swelling cheekbone and looked to Mazie, grinning, expecting praise. “Impressive, eh?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Mazie blazed. “Jumping a guy with a gun! He could have killed you! You tell me you love me, you want to marry me, and the first thing you do is get yourself killed?”
“Mazie—hey.” He wrapped his arms around her shaking body, held her against him for a long moment. “I’m not dead, okay?”
“You’re so—reckless! I can’t stand to see you putting your life in danger!”
He kissed the top of her head. “How do you think I feel when you do it?”
“He hit you! Are you—”
“I hit him harder. Notice who’s knocked out here, Mazie.”
He sounded so pleased with himself, so cocky and macho and so … so typically Labeck! She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to kiss him, yell at him, or hand him a medal.
There was a distant whap whap whap sound that grew louder. They both instinctively ducked as a helicopter flew almost directly over their heads, a helicopter with FBI in white lettering on the sides. It was followed a moment later by a black helicopter with no insignia whatsoever.
“A little late, aren’t you?” Ben yelled up at them.
They hiked back down the hill, Mazie insisting on stopping in the orchard first to retrieve her skirt. By the time they reached the asylum grounds, things were over and mop-up operations were going on. There’d been a firefight between the well-armed Skulls and the Quail Hollow Police Department, who’d arrived first on the scene and had held back the gang until backup had arrived. The asylum grounds were crawling with armed law enforcement officers. The gang members lay prone on the ground, hands behind their backs, securely handcuffed, awaiting their turn to be loaded into police transport vans. And DEA vans. And sheriff’s department vans. And FBI vans. Mazie and Ben finally found the person who seemed to be in charge and reported to him that there were still three more gang members, dead, injured, or disabled, in the graveyard. Moments later a squad of well-armed law officers were climbing the hill to retrieve them.
“Mazie! Ben!” Magenta caught sight of them, flew over, and hugged both of them. He was sweaty and flushed, his eyes glittering with excitement. “You’ll never guess what I did! Go ahead, try—”
Rico came up behind Magenta, grinning. “The dude shot out the tire of that SUV!”
“Oh my God, I didn’t mean to!” Eyes wide, Magenta fanned himself rapidly. “I’ve never touched a gun. The helicopter pilot gave it to me—it’s the shotgun he always carries around when he flies. When we saw the building catch on fire, Rico and I decided to run around to the front of the property because we were worried that you guys might still be in there. The pilot—his name is Joel, by the way—insisted that I take his shotgun. It’s got twelve gauges or whatever, and he said that all I had to do was point the thing and nobody would mess with me.”
“So when this big honkin’ Skulls mothership comes blasting down toward the gates,” Rico excitedly interrupted, “Magenta’s somehow convinced that Mazie is in there, so he stands up like the fuckin’ Matrix guy and pumps a round into the tires.”
“I didn’t mean to pull the trigger,” Magenta said. “I got overexcited.”
“The SUV crashes into the gate and blocks the entrance,” Rico chortled. “And all the Skulls are bottled up like rats in a trap.”
“But you haven’t even heard the best part yet, Mazie.” Magenta’s face went even redder.
“What—Hollywood wants you as a stuntman?”
“No.” Magenta took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Joel asked me out.”
“Whoo. Way to get a date,” Mazie said, stretching up to kiss Magenta.
“What about Shayla?” Ben asked. “Eddie, the others?”
“They’re all okay—they’re around here somewhere,” Rico assured him.
But Mazie wanted to see for herself. With Ben sticking very close to her, she wound her way through the throngs of law enforcement people. The fire made the scene almost as bright as day, and she could see now that the building was beyond saving. All the firefighters could do was try to prevent it spreading to the outbuildings. There were a dozen different departments here—Quail Hollow, Platteville, and several other small-town volunteer fire departments. Law officials swarmed everywhere—SWAT teams, FBI, drug enforcement people—but it was the small Quail Hollow Police Department who were receiving honors of the day for being first on the scene.
Then Mazie heard a woman say something about “wounded officer.”
“Which officer?” she asked the woman.
“I don’t know. He’s over there in that ambulance.”
The wounded officer turned out to be Johnny Hoolihan, who’d been hit in the gunfire exchange with the Skulls. Johnny was sitting up on a stretcher in an ambulance. His arm was in a sling and his shirt was bloody, but he was drinking a Coke. He broke into a smile when he saw Mazie.
“The fabulous Maguire,” he said, “too tough to kill.”
“But what about you—are you going to be all right?” Mazie studied him, worried. He looked pale and hollow-eyed.
“Sure, sweetie—just a scratch.”
Johnny noticed Ben then. “Hey, thanks for the call,” Johnny rasped.
“Call?” Mazie asked.
“Yeah.” Johnny sank back against the wall, closed his eyes. “Him and his—his minions—somehow figured out that you and Shayla were in the asylum. He phoned me to send in the cavalry—just before he took off in a chopper with his own personal SWAT team. I seem to remember telling you not to … uhh … engage the enemy, Labeck.”
“Yeah, well … it was kind of an emergency,” Ben said. “By the way, congratulations. You and your guys did a hell of a job. Outnumbered, too.”
“Thanks.” Johnny opened his eyes. “You two back together?” he asked Mazie.
“We’re getting married,” Ben said, displaying all the subtlety of a sledgehammer smashing a gum ball, taking Mazie’s hand in his.
“Kick a man while he’s down, huh?” Johnny said tiredly. “Congratulations.”
“Ben,” Mazie said. “I think you’d better check on Magenta, see that he’s not hyperventilating or something.”
“Nah, he’s fine, he’s—”
Mazie stomped on his foot.
“Ow.” Ben scowled. “Okay, fine. It’s going to take me thirty seconds to ‘check’ on Magenta. No more than thirty seconds.”
Face like a thundercloud, he jumped out of the ambulance.
Mazie didn
’t waste any time. She put her hands on both sides of Johnny’s face, leaned in, and kissed him. His good arm came up around her back. He returned her kiss with fervor. Johnny Hoolihan might be nearly comatose, but Lord, Lord—he was still a luscious kisser.
Finally they broke apart. They gazed at each other for a long moment, enough time for Mazie to envision the life she could have had with Johnny and to feel a pang of regret. She saw regret in his eyes, too.
“If things don’t work out with him,” Johnny finally said, his voice hoarse, “you know where to find me, right?”
Chapter Forty
“Eww—this is butt ugg-lyy,” Magenta said, gazing around the room. “So über-masculine, the sign of a guy trying too hard. That fake mahogany desk—puhleeze.”
“But the office is nice,” Mazie said. “All those windows, a view of the park—”
“It’ll look fabulous after I get done with it,” Magenta said confidently. “White walls, don’t you think? We’ll shove that swivel chair out to the curb for the trash pickers. Along with the credenza and that hideous brown carpet—or maybe we should just burn the carpet.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I can only stay until three o’clock. Joel—you remember Joel, don’t you?”
“The pilot? The one with the big shotgun?”
“Mm-hmm. He’s picking me up.” Magenta beamed. “He’s giving me flying lessons. This coming weekend we’re flying to Mackinac Island together.”
Mazie felt as though she were flying herself. She still couldn’t believe she was now the possessor of the same office where, only a week ago, she’d been fired. It had all happened with dizzying suddenness. Last Friday, when Leroy the college boy—instead of Mazie—had shown up to deliver meals, Minerva Pfister had phoned the Elder Hearts office to find out why. Informed that Mazie had been fired, Mrs. Pfister had done some investigating. She’d found out about Seymour Steiner’s heart attack and how Mazie had saved his life.
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