by Ren Benton
She hoped Houle didn’t shoot her and erase the recording before anyone heard it.
Lex headed toward the bar in the far corner of the living room.
The gun tracked him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Leading you away from me.
“I want a fucking drink. You can’t use the hot-headed drunk story if I’m dry, can you?”
Houle let himself be led. “Good thinking, but I’ll bartend for you. I wouldn’t want you to drop a glass in the dark and cut yourself.”
Gin moved on a parallel course to keep Houle within range of the microphone. That path put her closer to the office, but Houle and his gun were closer, too.
Lex stopped in front of the fireplace. “Right. Have to leave a beautiful corpse, except for the bullet wound.”
Houle stepped behind the bar. “Truth be told, Lex, I’m more worried ol’ Bobby has a gun squirreled away back here that I couldn’t find but you know all about.”
Houle dumped alcohol into a tumbler and handed a glass to Lex.
Too bad he wasn’t a smoker. A flick of a lighter and a spray of alcohol could blow a fireball in Houle’s face. With the goggles, even if he dodged the flame, at least he’d be blind.
Blind.
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
Lex’s heart dropped as Gin sank toward the floor, her silhouette a dark ball against the window.
Please, baby, don’t give up.
“So who’s the murder and who’s the suicide? Tell me the headline.” He raised the glass to his lips to feign a drink. Whiskey fumes made his stomach heave, but the addict at the base of his brain whispered, Drink it. Might as well die happy. “Do I get drunk and murder the woman who’s already endured so much tragedy, or does she snap and blow my brains out because I relapsed after promising I’d changed?”
Houle came out from behind the bar. “My preference is that she kills you, realizes she can’t get away with murder twice, and turns the gun on herself.”
Lex backed away from him. Something hard poked him in the hip, and he groped in the dark to identify it.
It was the iron rack holding the ash shovel, brush, tongs, and poker.
Weapons.
Houle carried on as if he couldn’t hear the adrenaline crash into Lex’s system. “But Ginny’s the story expert. Any flaws in the plan, sweetheart? Oh, I forgot. Mute.”
Lex did his best to compensate for her inability to vocalize the most macabre scenario possible. “Will her arms be long enough to reach the trigger for a self-inflicted wound?”
“Well, damn. We might have to measure your arms before we commit to a plan, Ginny.”
Lex felt the handles, one by one, trying to remember the layout of the tools. He would get only one chance, and hitting a gunman with a tiny broom would be a waste of it. “Give her the gun so she can test it.”
“Right, right. Or I could go put the barrel in her mouth and stretch out her arm to check the fit. If she fights me and causes an accident, that’ll settle our dilemma.”
Houle stepped toward Gin, presenting his back to Lex.
Lex grabbed a handle in each hand and prayed one of them would hurt.
Then all hell broke loose. A bright beam of LED light erupted from Gin, whiting-out Lex’s vision like oncoming high beams. Houle — equipped with goggles to magnify minimal illumination — shouted in pain at the same onslaught. The gun discharged.
Gin.
Lex drew his weapons and swung blindly, connecting with solid flesh. His vision cleared enough to show Houle clawing one-handed at the strap fastening the goggles to his head. Lex swung at his arm to keep him blinded.
The hook of the poker caught on Houle’s sleeve. Yanking it spun Houle — and the gun — toward Lex.
Better him than Gin, wherever she was. She’d left the light, but she had the car keys. Lex hoped she was using them.
He released the poker and got a two-handed grip on the shovel, chopping at Houle with the side of it. He might not be inflicting anything but bruises, but it kept the son of a bitch from aiming the gun he refused to drop.
Lex didn’t have to win. He just had to stay alive long enough to buy Gin time to drive to safety.
The alternative filled him with rage that roared from his mouth. Startled, unbalanced, Houle flung his arms outward. The gun fell from his hands.
Lex swung at his head. Houle’s feet lifted off the floor as if he’d been launched. He toppled backward, cracking his skull against the stone hearth.
Lex stood over him with the shovel raised, panting, just waiting for the bastard to twitch and give him an excuse to swing again.
It took a full minute to identify the heap under Houle’s legs as Gin. He looked toward the light, which remained at a much safer distance than the woman who’d crawled into a fight to trip a man bent on murdering her.
Later, much later, he would lecture her ears raw about self-preservation. For now, he was preoccupied with getting her loose and holding her.
His foot slipped on a wet patch where he’d dropped the whiskey. He flung Houle’s limp legs in the puddle and dragged Gin away. “It’s okay, brave girl. It’s over.”
She winced.
“Are you hurt?”
A soft grunt told him nothing, but Lex assumed being stepped on by a man twice her size did damage to some part of her. She shoved him toward the office, reminding him it wasn’t over until the police report said it was.
He kicked Houle’s gun toward her. “Try not to touch it, but if he moves, shoot him.”
He didn’t want to leave her in the dark, so he grabbed her phone from the table by the front door and ran back to the office, retracing the shadowy footprints he’d left on the floor.
In the furthest corner of the room, he found service and dialed John Raymond from Gin’s contact list. He didn't want to leave her alone with Houle long enough to explain the whole situation to a 911 operator.
The police chief picked up on the third ring. Before he uttered a greeting, Lex blurted, “Houle is here. Gin needs an ambulance.”
“I’ll make the call. I’m on my way.”
Lex rushed back to the living room. Gin had pulled herself up against the couch. She held a throw pillow pressed against her thigh. Her fingers were stained dark, matching the smear on the floor.
Not whiskey. Blood.
Just a smear. Not a fountain. She wasn’t unconscious. She wasn’t dying. She was going to be fine, goddammit.
He dropped to his knees at her side and applied pressure on the pillow for her. “Help is on the way, polar bear. Hold on.”
A few minutes later, blue and red lights flashed against the wallpaper covering the windows.
He let Raymond kick the door open rather than let go of Gin.
The emergency room wasn’t designed for the chaos that descended with their arrival. The two guys waiting to be stitched up from their bar brawl watched raptly as doctors and nurses barked at police who were barking at the local news crew that was barking questions at anyone who might give them a quote.
Lex hunched over Gin’s stretcher, both hands clasped around the one of hers that the EMTs hadn’t shoved an IV into. The soothing touch of her fingers against his cheek was the only thing keeping him from grabbing the nearest distracted doctor by the throat and screaming, Fix her!
The only attention they received was from a young cop, not one of Raymond’s small force. “I need you to tell me what happened, Ms. Greene.”
“Garth Houle shot her is what happened.”
They’d taken him from the house in a separate ambulance. Lex hoped they took him straight to prison.
“You can’t speak for her, sir.”
Someone had to, and Lex was happy to volunteer. “She lost her voice. Get her a pen and paper if you need a statement right this minute, while she’s lying here bleeding from a fucking gunshot wound.”
The cop puffed up. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”
“Son, I’m John Raymond, ch
ief of the Grayson P.D.” Raymond thrust his right hand toward the young officer; the left fell heavily on Lex’s shoulder, preventing him from vaulting over the stretcher and giving that young officer plenty of paperwork to fill out. “These folks are under my jurisdiction. I assure you, I have the situation under control, but thank you for your diligence.”
A team wearing scrubs pried Gin away from Lex and wheeled her behind a curtain for examination.
A nurse with steel-gray curls to match her voice raised a finger in the offending officer’s face. “Back off my patient or I’ll have you thrown out.”
Lex would have used a different finger, but he’d concede her choice was more diplomatic.
She ushered him to another exam area and whipped the curtain closed.
“I’m not a patient.”
“Honey, if you saw a face like yours on someone else, you’d call an ambulance.”
As if on cue, his legs gave out. He grabbed the exam table for support.
She hooked a wiry arm around his waist and helped him sit. “Your girl is in good hands. Let’s take care of you so you don’t scare her next time she sees you.”
He stared at the curtain surrounding Gin while the nurse tightened a blood pressure cuff around his arm. “She can’t talk.”
“If she can nod and shake her head or flip her thumb up and down, she’s a better communicator than half the patients that come through those doors. We don’t need her life story to patch up a gunshot wound, but if you know of any medications, allergies, blood disorders, or other potential complications, you’re more than welcome to speak on her behalf for our purposes.”
After checking his vital signs and cleaning his abrasions, Nurse Janet gave Lex some water and offered him a sedative, which he declined.
While he slouched in a chair waiting for the doctors to finish with Gin, he used her phone to call Maisie, who promised to pass the news to Ethan and be on the next flight to Denver to lend her support. He talked to his mother, who sent her love to both of them and said she’d be waiting by the phone for an update on Gin’s condition. He texted Liv; he wasn’t sure she’d see it, but she would want to know. He left a brief message for Jim, cutting himself off before he said, Tour’s canceled so I can take care of Gin.
It might be a scratch. She might not need his care.
The doctors were taking a long time for a scratch.
He had a nagging feeling he should notify someone else but couldn’t remember who. He put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Simone.
He didn’t look for her number. As Gin’s mother, she might have a right to know her child was in the hospital. As the attention-starved accomplice who made it easy for a murderer to shoot another hole in Gin, she could go straight to hell.
What the fuck is taking so long?
“How’re you feeling, Perry?”
Lex slitted his eyes open to regard Chief Raymond. “I’ll let you know when I hear about Gin.”
Raymond nodded. “Houle has a fractured skull. They’re working on him.”
“If you want me to express remorse if he dies a slow, agonizing death before he can come after Gin a third time, I have bad news for you.” Lex held up his hands, wrists together, happy to be cuffed and thrown in a cell for his aggression.
“Nobody’s taking you to jail.”
He lowered his hands to his lap and stared at Gin’s blood on them.
“When the adrenaline wears off, do you have somebody to talk to?”
Gin lived with a decade of guilt because she believed she’d killed Jeremy Fogle, even though he murdered Ryan and nearly did the same to her. It seemed unlikely at the moment, but Lex’s descent into violence might feel less righteously glorious at a later date. “I’m sure my shrink will appreciate the new material.”
Raymond nodded again and walked away.
Lex should leave a message for Dr. Ogawa and get an appointment on the books ahead of any forthcoming crash.
Gin didn’t have his shrink on speed dial — yet — so he used his own phone this time.
The icon for one of his recording apps indicated a new file. He tapped to play it back.
The time stamp on the recording blurred as his hand shook. “Chief Raymond?”
“Perry.”
“Gin recorded it.”
The sound was muffled and broken, but every word the microphone captured sounded damning to Lex.
Raymond apparently agreed. “I need a warrant to take your phone into evidence.”
Lex thrust it toward him. “You can have it now. Take it.”
“Covert recordings are hit-or-miss on admissibility already. I’m not handing Houle’s lawyer a technicality to help him get it thrown out. I’ll be in touch in the morning. Don’t lose that in the meantime.”
Lex wrapped both hands around the phone and clutched it against his chest. It had just become the second most precious thing in his life. He was almost as terrified of losing it.
He jumped when Nurse Janet tapped him on the shoulder. Her sympathy-softened smile terrified him until she said, “They’re moving her to a room, hon. She’s asking for you.”
He missed the elevator they pushed Gin into and had to take another one. When the elevator stopped at the third floor, he clawed open the doors and chased her down the hall.
He slid into the room just in time to see her grimace as the orderlies transferred her from the stretcher to the bed. Her skin was deathly pale. A tube ran from her arm to a hanging bag of clear fluid.
A nurse bustled past him and shooed the orderlies out. “My name’s Carla, and I’ll be your nurse this evening. How you doing, kiddo?”
Gin’s voice was a weak croak. “Eagerly waiting for the pain pill to kick in.”
Nurse Carla laughed. “I bet. We’ll make you as comfortable as possible in the meantime. Make yourself useful, handsome, and get an extra blanket out of that cabinet.”
Lex leapt to be of assistance. Carla held Gin’s leg, which had a bulky dressing on the thigh, while he folded the blanket in a cube to elevate her foot.
When that part of her body was secured, Carla examined the IV. “Is this comfortable?”
“As a needle in the arm can be.”
“We’ll get it out as soon as your volume’s replenished.” Carla checked her blood pressure and pulse. “Much better. I’ll spare you being hooked up to a monitor.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re scheduled for surgery first thing in the morning. You should try to get some sleep.”
“In the morning?” Lex looked at the dressing on her leg. He thought they’d fixed her, not just covered up the wound like a dirty secret.
“They’re doing something you don’t want to know about to stretch the skin so there’s enough to stitch together,” Gin rasped. “It’s just a meat wound. No important vessels or bone. It will be another hideous scar, but I’ll live.”
He stroked her hair. “Everything about you is beautiful.”
Carla quickly turned her cackle into a cough. “No, you look great. Really.”
Gin grinned at her. “When you’re done here, will you go to the maternity floor and tell them all babies are beautiful?”
“Sometimes you gotta get real philosophical about that. Health, innocence, a mother’s love — these are beautiful even if the kid looks like a gargoyle. You’re not quite that bad, but you want to send your fella to the drugstore for a sack of Maybelline before you hold a press conference.” Carla turned a stern look toward Lex. “You can stay if you let my patient rest. Press that button if you need anything.”
As soon as she left the room, Lex pulled a chair alongside the bed and held Gin’s unpunctured hand. “Rest. Don’t let me staring at you while you sleep disturb you, or Carla will kick me out.”
Pain-fogged eyes stared back at him. “It’s hilarious that you think I’m going to take my eyes off you anytime soon.”
Being the center of her attention suited him fine. “Are you in a lot
of pain?”
A noncommittal bobble of her head at odds with her usual stoic resolve convinced him it was really bad. “Do you think less of me because I took the drugs?”
He’d be pressing the hell out of that button if she wasn’t pain-free in the next two minutes. “You get an exemption from clean living, just this once.” He brushed a curl from her clammy forehead. “If you get hooked, I know a good rehab and can walk you through the twelve steps.”
Weariness dragged at her eyelids. “You saved me, hero.”
“We saved each other.” He had no plan other than brute force; she’d given him the opportunity to use it. He’d needed her on his team.
He brought her hand to his lips. “Can we go on a long, long vacation to some kind of dome where we can be alone for seventy years or so while the rest of the world goes to hell?”
“Sounds good. As soon you finish your tour.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’ll be fine. You can’t let down the band, your fans, Jim.”
He was far more concerned about letting Gin down. He’d come here to do a job for her. He had one day left to get it done. He wasn’t leaving this hospital until she came through surgery and had a bodyguard to stand between her and further danger. She was more important than everyone else put together — but she’d be disappointed in him if he didn’t do what she thought was the right thing.
If he left, he’d fail her. If he stayed, he’d fail her.
There had to be another way. He had all night to find it.
He kissed the delicate skin of her wrist. “We’ll fight about it tomorrow.”
14
The next morning, Maisie arrived at the hospital while Gin was in surgery. To pass the interminable waiting, Lex dumped his problem on her. With cold efficiency, she pointed out there was a chance he could finish the score in one day, and he’d given them so much other music, Gin could find a way to make it work without a theme song. If he could tear himself away from the hospital, finishing the job for her was within the realm of possibility.
