by Sharon Sala
Even though her bed and her clothes were wet, she was still asleep, oblivious to how close, once again, she’d come to dying.
Trey touched her arm, listening to the steady beeping of the machines measuring her heartbeat and blood pressure. They were as constant as they’d been before he’d run into the hall. When he laid the back of his hand against her cheek, he realized he was shaking.
Twice in one day they’d come so close to losing her. The thought made him sick. He touched her hair, lifting a stray wet lock away from her forehead, then took a deep breath, exhaling softly.
Her lips were slightly parted, the lower one somewhat swollen. There were scratches on the side of her cheek and a longer one on her forehead. She looked as if she had gone ten rounds with a wildcat and come out the loser.
And she’d never been more beautiful to him.
He pressed his lips to her cheek, then to her forehead, before he pulled slightly back. He was only inches from her face—from her lips. He could see her eyelashes fluttering, and the slight flare of her nostrils as she breathed in and out.
“Oh, Livvie… you’re getting under my skin again, and you don’t even know it,” he said softly, then leaned down one more time, and this time, touched his mouth to her lips. It was little more than a brush of skin against skin. When he pulled back, there were tears in his eyes.
He took out his cell phone as he moved toward the door and, hospital regulations be damned, made a call to Chia Rodriguez. When she answered, he heard the sleep and anger in her voice.
“Whoever this is, it better be good,” she said shortly.
“Chia, it’s me, Trey. I’ve got your shooter.”
Now he had her attention. She rolled over to the side of the bed, then sat up.
“What do you mean, you’ve got him?”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s lying on the floor out in the hall in my handcuffs. Hospital security is with him now, but since it’s your case, I thought you’d like to take him in.”
“What in hell happened? How did you—”
“He came to the hospital to finish the job. I caught him in Olivia Sealy’s room with his hands around her neck. I’ll fill you in when you get here.”
9
Dennis Rawlins tried to pray on the way to the police station, but he felt empty. No matter how hard he listened, he couldn’t hear God anymore. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but back when he was little, if his mother got mad at him, she wouldn’t talk either, so he figured God was mad at him, too. Truth was, Dennis couldn’t blame him. He’d been messing up his own life for years now; it seemed inevitable that God would finally have gotten disgusted.
When they booked Dennis into jail, he had nothing to say. Trying to explain why he’d tried to kill Olivia Sealy made his head hurt, and he sure wasn’t going to tell them about the bombing of the abortion clinic. He knew he was obsessive, but he wasn’t dumb.
While Dennis waited for a court-appointed lawyer to show up, in another part of the city, Foster Lawrence sat on the side of his bed, wondering what to do next.
Maybe he would go to Florida.
He’d always thought about living where it never got cold. Of course, he’d planned to have money to live in luxury when he got there, but that had taken a very disappointing turn. Just thinking about his million dollars going up in smoke made him crazy. Winding up with the police after him again was a nightmare. He couldn’t go back to prison. He wouldn’t go back to prison.
And while he was making those vows, he couldn’t help but think of what had put him in prison to begin with. If he hadn’t let emotional ties sway him into getting mixed up in the Sealy mess, there was no telling how different his life would have been. It was for damn sure he wouldn’t have been in prison. He’d always been too smart for that.
But the day he’d gone to the old lake house and seen that little kid, he’d been stunned. Then, learning that she’d been snatched, had been a nightmare. He could still remember how she’d walked around the house, holding her blanket and crying for her mommy. He’d had himself a big fit, which had done no good.
But once he’d seen her, he’d been torn between whether to turn in one of his own or just say nothing. If he left without reporting to the authorities where the kid was, he could automatically be charged with aiding and abetting. To add confusion to the whole mess, he’d found out that no ransom call had been made, nor was it going to be. He’d cursed and raised all kinds of hell, unable to understand that kind of thinking.
Looking back, he wondered why in hell he’d stayed. Even more, what devil had gotten inside his mind to make it okay to ask for the ransom for himself when he’d had nothing to do with the crime. All he could remember was that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. He had known nothing about any murders until news had hit the papers, but by then, he was in too deep.
Outside his hotel, it started to rain. He heard it hitting the window on the other side of the room and was reminded of the night he’d picked up the ransom. It had been raining then, too.
God.
If only he’d never made that ransom call. If only he’d just taken the kid and dumped her off at the mall, then left Texas without ever looking back. He’d had a good woman in Amarillo back then. He couldn’t help but wonder how his life might have been different if he’d gone back to her and not let greed pull him under.
He stood up and walked to the window to look out on the streets below. The speeding cars splashed water up onto the sidewalks as they passed, washing everything clean. He wished he could be washed clean.
He laid his palm on the window, imagining he could feel the impact of the raindrops hitting the window on the other side, and wondered what ever happened to that girl in Amarillo. What was her name? Linda? No, Lydia. That was it. Lydia. Lydia Dalton. She’d been a little bitty bird of a thing, but she’d had a great laugh.
Lydia Dalton.
He turned away from the window, walked back to the bed and lay down. There would be time enough tomorrow to decide what to do next. Right now he just wanted to sleep and forget that the past twenty-five years had ever happened.
***
Marcus Sealy was asleep down the hall from the room where he’d put Anna.
Anna had unpacked her bags, said hello to Rose, had a meal with Marcus, then gone to her room. By the time she’d come out of her shower and was ready for bed, she had lost track of her world. For a time, she didn’t know where she was or why she was there. When she began to remember, it came in bits and pieces. She knew she’d promised Marcus to look after Olivia, but she couldn’t find her. She walked the halls of the mansion for hours, looking for the baby and listening for her cries.
Finally, too weary to look anymore, and lulled by the rain coming down outside, she fell asleep on a sofa in the library.
***
Olivia woke just before daylight. She heard rain hitting the windows. That was good. They’d been needing a rain. Then she opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was Trey, asleep in a chair by her bed. She didn’t know why it was him and not her grandfather who’d kept the vigil, but she was moved to tears by the sight.
For the longest time she just looked at him—at the long sprawl of his legs and the way the fabric of his jeans hugged the muscles of his thighs. She remembered how those long legs felt wrapped around her, and the weight of his body as they made slow, quiet love in the dark. She remembered all too well the tug of want in her belly, just watching him walk, and how a ghost of his smile would make her dizzy with joy.
But that was years ago. Now he was only inches away from her bed, and they’d never been farther apart. It seemed forever since they’d shared the banana split, and she wondered how long it had really been, how long she’d been asleep. If only she had gone with him instead of going home. If she’d stayed with Trey, she wouldn’t have eaten lunch alone and most likely wouldn’t have gone to Anna’s. She wouldn’t have been on the freeway in just that spot at the very moment somebody tried to ki
ll her. Trey had wanted her to stay with him, but she’d edged away, just as she’d done all her life, and look what she had to show for it.
She gazed her fill of him then, wondering how the boy’s body had changed since he’d become a man. Wondering if he still rolled up in a ball when he went to sleep. Wondering if he still ate peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches at midnight. Wondering how long he’d hated her after she’d knuckled under to Grampy’s wishes, then knew it couldn’t have been as long as she’d hated herself.
She sighed, and even that slight motion brought her pain. She bit her lower lip before glancing nervously at him again. When she did, she realized he was awake and had been watching her face.
Her heartbeat accelerated, and she heard the break in the monotonous beeping of the machine beside her bed. Within seconds, he was at her side.
“I’m here, baby,” he said softly. “Do you hurt? Want me to get a nurse to give you something for the pain?”
When he cupped her face in the palm of his hand, she rested against it, unashamed of the tears that fell.
“You stayed,” she said.
Trey saw the question in her eyes but wondered if she was ready for the answer.
“I needed to know you were going to be all right,” he finally said.
“Part of the job?”
He hesitated again, then sighed.
“No, Livvie, this isn’t part of the job.”
“Is it too late?” she asked.
“For what, honey?”
“Us.”
Trey’s pulse upped the count as a cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. He thought about how close they had come to being too late for everything. Even if he got another kick in the teeth from stepping into a world where he wasn’t wanted, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her no.
“You want there to be an us?” he asked.
She nodded.
“And your grandfather?”
“Will love you, too,” Olivia said, and then sighed and closed her eyes. It took too much strength to stay awake. Besides, now that she knew Trey was here, she felt safe.
Trey thought about what she’d just said. Love me, too? Did that mean Olivia still had feelings for him, or was it just a figure of speech? Only time would tell. For now, just having her alive and breathing was enough.
But as he sat and watched Olivia falling back to sleep, he thought about the cold case they were working and wondered how, if at all, Dennis Rawlins played into that. Trey didn’t think he was old enough to have been involved in a murder twenty-five years ago, but stranger things had happened.
It made no sense that the man had wanted Olivia dead, but he was beginning to suspect that good sense had nothing to do with Rawlins. If Trey wasn’t mistaken, the man was missing a large dose of sanity. It wouldn’t be the first time that some nutcase got involved in an ongoing crime without having had anything to do with it. If this was the case now, all Rawlins had done was put a muddy spoon into an already murky pot. It would be up to Chia and her partner, David Sheets, to sort out Rawlins’s culpability. He still had the Baby Jane Doe case to deal with.
***
Marcus woke up with a start. One glance at the clock and he panicked. It was almost 9:00 a.m. He had called hourly when he’d first come home, then had fallen asleep and never called back. He sat up on the side of the bed and reached for the phone. Within moments, a nurse was assuring him that Olivia was stable. Breathing a sigh of relief, he asked if Detective Bonney was still there, and then relaxed even more when he learned it was so. It was all he needed to know to give him a breather before going to see Olivia. He had no idea how Anna had fared. He flew out of bed, made a quick trip into the bathroom and came out with his hair damp from a hasty combing. He pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, stepped into some tennis shoes sans the socks, and dashed across the hall to Anna’s room.
She wasn’t there, and the bed hadn’t been slept in.
“Oh no,” he muttered, and headed for the stairs.
Rose was in the kitchen when he got there.
“Anna’s bed wasn’t slept in. Have you seen her?”
Rose handed him a cup of coffee as she answered. “She’s asleep in the library. I found her like that early this morning. She’s all right, I imagine. Maybe she wasn’t comfortable sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.”
Marcus sighed with relief and then took a sip of his coffee, savoring the caffeine kick.
“Do you want breakfast?” she asked.
“No, coffee will do this morning. I want to get back to the hospital and check on Olivia, but I don’t know what to do about Anna.”
Rose waved him away. “Oh, go on with you. Don’t worry about her. She’ll be fine here with me.”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “She’s a little bit—”
“I know,” Rose said, interrupting. “I saw. She gets a bit mixed up from time to time. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll make sure she doesn’t come to harm.”
“Thank you so much,” Marcus said. “I’ll just go check on her before I dress for the hospital. I’ll be gone most of the day, so don’t fix any meals for me.”
“Yes, sir,” Rose said. “And you give Olivia my love, now. Tell her I said everything is going to be fine.”
Marcus eyed the tall, stalwart woman with relief and affection.
“Yes, I will,” he said quickly. “And about Anna… if you need me, just call my cell phone.”
Rose frowned. “When the day comes that I can’t handle one ditzy old woman, then it will be time for me to turn in my resignation.” Then she added, “Not that ditzy is bad… just a fact of life for some.”
Marcus smiled, then took his coffee with him as he went.
He looked into the library long enough to see Anna sprawled out on the oversize sofa. Thoughtfully, Rose had covered her with a blanket and left her to sleep.
Marcus stared at Anna’s face, trying to find the woman he’d known for so many years, but without success. The vibrant young thing with flashing blue eyes and a zest for life was missing and, he feared, lost. All that was left was a confused and aging shell.
He returned to his room and began to dress, and as he did, realized that in the upcoming days, he was going to have to face more than Olivia’s recovery and the dissolution of Anna Walden’s mind. All of this mess was bringing Terrence Sealy back into his life, which would inevitably open old wounds and bad memories—things Marcus could just as easily have done without.
Still brewing about Carolyn and Terrence’s imminent arrival, he finished dressing and was just getting ready to leave the house when the phone rang.
It was Trey.
“Detective Bonney! I was just leaving to come to the hospital.”
“I’m still here. I was calling to see when you were coming in.”
“I should be there in about thirty minutes or so. Will you still be there?” Marcus said.
Trey could tell by the way Marcus was talking that he hadn’t been watching the morning news and didn’t know about the second attack on Olivia’s life. He wondered why the department hadn’t called Marcus, then guessed that Lieutenant Warren must have assumed Trey would call.
“Yes, I’ll be here,” Trey said, then added, “Sir… have you been contacted by the Dallas PD this morning?”
Marcus frowned. “No. Why? Has something—”
“No, no, don’t worry,” Trey said. “Everything is all right. Olivia is fine.”
Marcus relaxed. “For a minute there I thought you were going to tell me bad news.”
“On the contrary,” Trey said. “We got the man who shot Livvie. He was arrested last night.”
“Why, that’s wonderful news!” Marcus cried. “Why didn’t somebody call me?”
“Just a mix-up, I’m sure,” Trey said. “They probably thought I would do it, and I assumed the two detectives on the case would call you after they’d booked the suspect.”
“Who is he? Why did he do it? Did he tell you anything?”
/> Trey sighed. “His name is Dennis Rawlins. We don’t know his motive and he hasn’t said anything that makes much sense.”
“At any rate, it’s over,” Marcus said.
“Yes, well, there’s something I need to tell you. You’ll hear it on the news, anyway, so I think you should hear the whole story from me.”
Marcus’s elation was tempered by Trey’s tone. “What?”
“The man we arrested for shooting Livvie and causing her accident…”
“Yes?” Marcus said.
“He came here to the hospital last night to finish the job. Set a fire on the ward to distract attention and got into her room.”
“Jesus, God almighty,” Marcus muttered, and sank against the wall. “He didn’t hurt her?”
“She never even knew he’d been there,” Trey said.
“Are you sure?” Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
Marcus started to ask another question when suddenly the answer dawned.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who caught him.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a long moment of unbroken silence, then Marcus spoke. The tremor in his voice gave away the emotions with which he was struggling.
“I owe you more than you will ever know,” he said.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Trey said. “I was doing my job.” Then he added, “But just so you know, if I’d let anything happen to Livvie, I couldn’t have lived with myself.”
“I see,” Marcus said.
“Sir, I sincerely hope you do see,” Trey said. “Because a while ago I sort of gave my word to Livvie that we’d give our relationship another try, and I’m not the kind to break a promise.”
“She regrets the lost years, doesn’t she?” Marcus asked.
Trey sighed. “No more than I do, sir.”
“It’s all my fault,” Marcus muttered. “I didn’t know… I didn’t realize that—”
“Look… we were kids,” Trey said, then added, “But we’re not anymore. I don’t want to cause trouble between you and Livvie, but I won’t walk away again.”
“Olivia is a grown woman, fully capable of making up her own mind,” Marcus said. “And trust me, the last thing I would ever do is knowingly cause her pain. You’re obviously an upstanding man, and I owe Olivia’s life to your diligence.”
