Читать книгу: «The Lawman Who Loved Her», страница 3
Old grief and pain ripped through her like a straight razor and her voice shook with passion and fury. “Because of you. You walked into that courtroom with your head still bandaged, so weak you had to lean on a cane, just so you could prove to the world that Cody Maxwell was tough enough to put him away.”
She took a shaky breath. “He almost killed you. Your job almost killed you. It did kill my baby. And I am never going through that pain again!”
She gasped at her own words. It was the first time she’d ever said it aloud, to him, and she saw the effect of her words etched in the new lines on his face.
An anguish too profound to bear washed over his features, draining the color from his face. But then, anger replaced the anguish, and he vaulted up from the chair and grabbed her arm with his good hand.
“Our baby,” he ground out between clenched teeth, his face so close to hers she could feel the heat of his breath on her mouth, could see the darkness behind his blue eyes. “It was our baby, not just yours. I came home from the hospital to find out my wife was divorcing me and the baby we’d wanted so badly was never going to be born.”
He took a ragged breath and released her arm, pushing her away. “So don’t talk to me about pain. Pain is something I know all about.”
He whirled and stalked out of the kitchen, his naked back and bare feet not detracting at all from his stiff, oddly dignified exit.
It was true. By the time he’d come home from the hospital, she might as well have already been gone. Then when she had moved out, he’d never questioned anything. He’d just gone along with whatever her lawyer wanted. At the time she’d thought he didn’t care. She’d never even considered how he might be feeling.
No. She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to cry. She could not let him get to her. She’d promised herself a long time ago she would never cry again, not for him, not even for herself. She’d already cried all her tears.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen until the stinging at the back of her eyes subsided. She realized she was still holding the mug—his mug. She set it down so hard she was afraid it might break, but it was tough.
She smiled grimly. Tougher than she was. The mug had made it through their two years of marriage with only a tiny chip in the rim. She hadn’t fared as well. Her heart and soul had been scarred, and she wasn’t sure those scars would ever go away.
She followed Cody into the bedroom and found him standing in the middle of the room, looking around. As she watched he went over to the bed and crouched down.
“What are you doing?”
“This is where you keep your jewelry case, isn’t it?” he asked without looking up.
“Cody, do you mind? This is not a crime scene, it’s my bedroom. Your shoulder is bleeding again. Aren’t you going to go to the doctor?”
He stood and held the jewelry case out to her. She looked up to find his blue eyes regarding her with a mixture of impatience and triumph. “It is a crime scene, chère. Take a look. There’s only one earring in there.”
She jerked the box away from him. “Don’t you want to preserve the fingerprints?” she asked acidly.
“Fontenot’s too smart for that. You couldn’t even tell he’d been in here, could you? You said there was nothing out of place.”
Dana tried to remember walking into her apartment the day before. She’d been distracted, thinking about how she was going to tell her boss she’d just walked out on his biggest client. The apartment could have been turned inside out and she probably wouldn’t have noticed.
“No…” she said tentatively. “No. I’m sure. I’d have noticed.”
Cody looked meaningfully at the jewelry case, so she sighed and opened it. Nothing looked out of place, except that there was only one coin earring. She picked up her pearls and pushed aside a bracelet. The other earring wasn’t there.
“I must have lost it,” she said in a small voice.
Cody laughed. “You never lose anything. Remember the time I thought I’d lost my wedding band? You had put it where I always kept it. I didn’t find it because I’d already looked there.”
The grin slowly faded from his face. “That was early on, before I found out nothing ever gets lost around you. You won’t allow it.”
For some reason, Cody’s words embarrassed her. He’d always made fun of her orderly ways. His teasing had been endearing once. Anger and embarrassment crowded into her breast, along with a peculiar longing for that long-ago time, before Cody’s dogged determination to save the world alone had turned her neatly ordered life into chaos.
“Why are you so sure he got into my apartment? Nobody just waltzes into an apartment, finds a hidden jewelry case and takes one earring. That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous if his purpose is to show me how close he can get to someone I—to you. You wore those earrings every day. You wore them in the courtroom. Fontenot doesn’t miss anything. He saw them. He knew I’d understand the significance.”
“The significance. And just what is the significance, Detective?”
“The significance is that he can go anywhere. He can do anything. The man is psychotic, but he’s brilliant. He could just as easily have been waiting for you here.”
“I don’t want to…” She turned away, frightened by the intensity of his gaze.
He caught her arm. “Listen to me. Ever since they let him out of prison, things have been happening. Little things at first, but escalating.”
“Th-things?” she stammered, against her will.
“A cup of coffee on my desk from Mintemans, my favorite place. And I didn’t order it. Then my car was on empty one night when I got home, and full the next morning.”
“I don’t…understand.” She was lying, of course. She understood, too well. Cody had always maintained that Fontenot was diabolical. He’d been obsessed with putting the man away. Dana knew what Cody was telling her shouldn’t make sense, but it did. It made frightening sense, because it meant that Cody was right about Fontenot. A horrible, shivery feeling skittered up her spine.
“Then, yesterday morning,” Cody continued, “I opened my car door, and this—” he dangled the earring in front of her eyes “—was on the driver’s seat.”
“How…?” She bit her lip. She did not want to know how he’d gotten shot, but she couldn’t help herself. “How did you get shot?”
For a split second, an unguarded look appeared in his eyes. A look of fear. Dana’s heart pounded. “Cody?”
He shook his head angrily. “I was…distracted.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, Dana. I guarantee you, you don’t want to know.”
“You’re right, but I’m afraid I need to.”
“I’m late. I’ve got to get out of here.” He looked around the bedroom. “Is there an old sweatshirt of mine around here? Or a T-shirt?”
Dana started to press him for the answer, but her pounding heart was stealing her breath. He was right. She didn’t want to know.
Reluctantly she went to her dresser and pulled out his police academy T-shirt, the one she slept in. She smoothed her palm over the soft material before she handed it to him. It was sad, in a ridiculously sentimental way, to give it up. His shirt had comforted her on many a lonely night. Somehow, she felt safe when she slept in it.
“My academy T-shirt. I thought I’d lost it. I should have known you’d still have it.” He grinned at her as he shook it out, preparing to pull it on over his head. “Do you have anything else that belongs to me?”
Dana’s face burned. “No,” she snapped, a queer regret settling into her heart. When he left, taking his mug and his shirt with him, she wouldn’t have anything that belonged to him. “Absolutely nothing. Aren’t you ready to leave yet? I’ve got plans for this weekend.”
“You’ve got plans for every moment of your life,” Cody remarked dryly as he prepared to don the shirt.
She wanted to turn away. She didn’t want to watch his lean muscles undulate as he pulled the T-shirt over his head. She certainly didn’t want to see him wince as he lifted his wounded left arm. But somewhere along the way her will had gotten lost, so she stood helplessly, her eyes filled with the sight of the shirt molding his chest and abdomen.
With a grunt he finally got the shirt on and smoothed his hands down the front of it. She swallowed nervously. That T-shirt had clung to her breasts so many nights. Her own hands had smoothed the material across her belly, seeking comfort when she lay alone in bed.
His hands had once roamed over her like they now ran down his own body. No. Not exactly like this. This was a natural grooming gesture. He was just making sure the shirt was in place. His hands on her had been different—gentle but insistent, seeking, touching, teasing, and always, always strong.
She licked her lips and dragged her gaze away from the word Academy stretched across his chest.
“I’m going to check your apartment and take a look around outside.”
“What?” she asked, distracted.
“I’m going to take a look around,” he repeated. “What’s the matter with you?”
She quickly turned away, pretending to look for something on the dresser. It wouldn’t do for Cody to get a good look at her face right now. She was sure every thought, every emotion inside her was written in her expression.
“Fine. Fine. Just get out of here. And go to the doctor, if you can manage to find the time, what with saving the world and all. You’re going to have an awful scar there if you don’t.”
“It’ll go with the rest of them.”
“God knows you’ve got enough.” She glanced up at his mirrored image, regretting her words, but not able to stop them.
“You’re a cold woman, Dana,” he said, shaking his head, a touch of sadness marring his features.
She turned around and looked at the man who had once meant everything in the world to her, and wondered if he would ever know how wrong he was. “I have to be. Otherwise I’d never stop hurting.”
Cody’s eyes changed, darkened. He took a step toward her, but she backed away.
“Don’t…” she snapped, holding up a hand defensively. “Just go.”
He shrugged, then winced when the movement hurt his shoulder. “No problem, counselor,” he said flatly. “Send me a bill for services rendered.” Then he turned on his heel and left.
Dana heard his shoes on the hardwood living room floor, then heard the front door open.
“Dana.”
She sighed in irritation and stepped through the hall to the living room. “What?”
“Be careful, and call me if you notice anything strange. Anything, you understand? Fontenot isn’t a man to mess with. I’ll have a patrol car check the apartment.” He turned to go then turned back one more time.
“What, Cody? What now?”
“Why don’t you go over to Pensacola? Visit your sister. Get out of town for a day or two.”
“No. I told you, I have plans. Your life, your quarrels, your ex-cons full of revenge, don’t have anything to do with me. I divorced you so I wouldn’t be subjected to this. I have a life, a nice, quiet, boring life. No danger, no heroics, no guns. I like it just fine.” She folded her arms tightly and scrunched her shoulders, pulling in, away from his searing blue gaze.
She’d had more than she could take of Cody for one day—for a lifetime. His presence was opening wounds that hurt too much to be borne. “Please go away and stay gone. I don’t want to know when you get killed, thank you.”
A dark hurt shadowed his face briefly, then his mouth quirked in a wry smile. “Oh, you’re welcome, my dear ex-wife,” he retorted. “I guess I’d better change ‘next of kin’ in my official personnel file. But, Dana, just remember this. When I die, it’ll be for something good, instead of dying of boredom, a day at a time, like you are.” He slammed the door.
She stared at the door, peculiarly stung by his words. He held her sane, safe life in such contempt. Sometimes she couldn’t figure out why he’d married her. Sometimes she wasn’t sure why she’d married him.
Oh, she knew why she loved him…had loved him. Cody was easy to love. It had to do with the kind of man he was. He was an honorable man, a good man. A modern-day hero, a superman in jeans and a leather jacket. He truly believed that he could make a difference in the world. He’d been raised to be a cop, to spend his life keeping the world safe for others.
He believed in what he did. And therein lay the problem. Cody believed he was invincible. He believed the good guys always won. Moreover, he believed the good guys had a responsibility to the world.
Oh, Cody.
She closed her eyes and tried to feel relieved that he was gone, but all she could find inside her was a faint apprehension and a hollow sense of loss that had been there ever since she’d left him.
Chapter Four
Cody stomped down the steps. Dana was just as irritating as she’d ever been. Sometimes he wondered how he’d stood her rigid insistence on order for even two years. When they’d first met, she was so focused on getting her law degree, that he’d have to coax her to take an afternoon off. In her life, there was no room for spontaneity, no room for joy. Everything had to be just so, from the way the toilet paper rolled to the way they planned their vacations. The only time she let down her guard was when they made love.
The thought of her beneath him, her body covered with a sheen of sweat, her eyes filled with passion, her lips parted and swollen with kisses, hit him unawares. He almost stumbled on the last step.
“Hell,” he muttered.
That part of it had always been good. Not just good…great. It always amazed him to watch the transformation he could bring about in her with just a touch.
Never, before or since, had a woman responded to him the way Dana had. Not that there had been many since, he thought wryly.
Somehow it wasn’t the same anymore. The edge, the wonder, wasn’t there like it had been with Dana, so he’d found himself withdrawing, until he’d just about become a monk.
Cody shook his head to rid his brain of the distracting thoughts. What he needed to do was make sure Fontenot hadn’t done something else, like booby-trap Dana’s car. A sick fear gnawed at his insides. If anything happened to her…
He looked up and down the street, but there was nothing going on. It was Friday morning, and the only people stirring were businesswomen and men leaving for work.
He walked around her car, his eyes and his thoughts focused on noticing anything unusual, anything strange. He reluctantly dropped to the ground with a grunt, wincing as his shoulder throbbed with pain, and crawled underneath the car, looking for wires, or anything else that looked out of place. Nothing.
He dug his key, which he’d never given back to her, out of his jeans, and opened the car door, moving carefully, deliberately, listening and watching. The bastard wouldn’t catch Cody Maxwell off guard again.
DANA REALIZED SHE’D BEEN staring at the apartment door ever since Cody had slammed it. She shook herself mentally. He was gone. He wasn’t her problem anymore.
Then why did his hurt blue eyes still haunt her? Why did she feel like she’d just been treated to a brief moment in the sun, then had it snuffed out, leaving her alone and cold?
A shiver, like a cold rigor, slid up her spine. She pushed her maudlin thoughts away as she brushed her hair back from her face, and walked into the kitchen. She could still drive up to the lake and spend a quiet couple of days. If she’d thought she needed a relaxing weekend before, now she was even more convinced. And it was obvious she wasn’t going to get any rest around here with Cody playing cops and robbers.
She picked up the two coffee mugs to rinse them, then stared at her hands.
Cody’s mug. Her fingers spasmed and she almost dropped it.
“Damn it, Cody,” she muttered. “Why didn’t you take it with you?”
She didn’t want the rickety, chipped thing around. It was silly to have kept it all this time. She should have thrown it away years ago. She touched the little chipped place.
He’d made fun of it when she brought it home, but every time she’d tried to throw it away he’d insisted on keeping it.
“Once you get used to the way it wobbles,” he’d told her, “it’s a pretty nice mug.”
She washed it carefully and dried it. Stupid sentimentality! Well, if Cody wanted the worthless thing she’d mail it to him or something. She set it beside her purse.
Looking at the clock, she hurried into the bedroom and threw some clothes into a travel bag. She didn’t need anything fancy. She wasn’t going to see a soul.
She stepped into the bathroom to get her makeup and nearly tripped over the pile of bloody clothes and towels. With a grimace of distaste, she picked up the towels. Underneath was Cody’s leather jacket.
She picked it up half-reluctantly. The brown leather was creased and cracked, with scrapes and tears that Dana was sure Cody could identify without missing a one. She knew several of them herself.
That huge scrape on one shoulder was where he’d been thrown out of a car going about sixty miles an hour. The tear in the cuff—
“Stop!” Dana yelled out loud. She wasn’t going to get caught up in useless reminiscing. Without realizing it, she’d hugged the jacket to her breast. Deliberately catching it between finger and thumb like a dirty diaper, she went back into the kitchen.
There was no way Cody was going to insinuate himself back into her life. She didn’t care if he’d gotten himself shot again. She didn’t care if Fontenot was out of prison. Cody was wrong. It had nothing to do with her.
She avoided thinking about her earring.
She’d just take the cup and the jacket by his apartment on her way to the lake. That way he wouldn’t have any reason to contact her.
After making sure her apartment was secure, the coffeepot was turned off and the timer was set to turn the lights on at dusk, Dana grabbed her travel bag and Cody’s stuff and let herself out.
AFTER CODY HAD SATISFIED himself that he’d checked everything, he positioned his car at the corner of Dana’s street, where he could see her front door, but she’d have a hard time seeing him, then he dialed Dev’s cell phone.
“Dev, where y’at?”
“Trying to keep your sorry butt out of trouble, as usual. The captain’s hot. I convinced him to let you alone last night, but you’ve got to make a statement.”
“I know,” Cody acknowledged. “I’ll be there in about an hour. Just as soon as Dana leaves for work. I want to be sure she’s not followed.”
“Code, my man, this little booby trap here at your place is pretty slick.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you guys that Fontenot’s a freaking genius. What’d you find?”
“What you’d expect. Nothing. It’s a common .38 special. A street piece, no ID. We can run it through, but ten to one its pattern won’t be in our files.”
Cody shook his head. “Yeah, I know. And there are no fingerprints, and the cord was from my kitchen drawer.”
“You got it, my man.”
Cody flexed his shoulder and groaned. “Look, Dev, I’m headed to the doctor as soon as I make sure Dana gets to work okay. Then I’ll be on over. See if I can spot anything you guys missed.”
He held the phone away from his ear and grinned as Dev let loose with a string of colorful Cajun expletives that described in vivid detail what he thought about Cody finding anything he’d missed.
“Yeah, right. See you later.”
“Hey, buddy. The captain’s got a place on his wall where he’s planning to hang what’s left of your ass after he chews it. I’d get over here sooner, rather than later.”
“On my way.” Cody cut the connection, and briefly debated the advisability of taking the time to run to the doctor. His damn shoulder was throbbing like hell, and Dana was right, he probably did need stitches. He checked his watch. If Dana hadn’t changed her habits, she’d be leaving for work in a few minutes. And he had to get to his apartment before the captain had a stroke.
He knew Fontenot was no fool. He wouldn’t be within ten miles of Dana’s apartment this morning, and he sure wouldn’t go back to Cody’s. He wouldn’t take the risk of being caught at the scene of the crime.
Still, Cody didn’t like the idea of Dana going anywhere without protection, even work. He picked up his cell phone again, to call and arrange for someone to keep an eye on her, when the door to her house opened.
Dana came out, a bundle of something in one arm and her purse and a travel bag slung over her other shoulder. What was she doing? It was obvious she wasn’t going to work.
She hurried down the steps toward her car.
For an instant, Cody thought about waylaying her, but he decided he’d just follow her. She must have decided to go to her sister’s after all. He’d just make sure she made it out of town safely, then he could get over to his apartment and see if there was anything he could spot that would connect Fontenot with his shooting.
As he shifted in the car seat, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt his shoulder, he studied his ex-wife. She hadn’t combed her hair or changed out of the faded jeans that hugged her shapely bottom so nicely. He squinted in the early morning sun. The bundle she carried was his leather jacket.
Cody raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his jacket, but his mind had been on other things. He wondered what she was going to do with it. His mouth quirked in a mocking smile. Probably taking it to the cleaners. That would be just like her.
On her way out of town under threat from a dangerous criminal, Dana Charles Maxwell stopped at the cleaners to leave her ex-husband’s leather jacket to have the bloodstains removed.
He pulled out behind her, keeping a safe distance so she wouldn’t spot him, and at the same time watching to be sure nobody else was following either of them.
DANA PARKED IN FRONT of Cody’s Rue Royal apartment, trying her best not to feel nostalgic. They’d lived here together for the two years they’d been married. As she dashed up the stairs, she wondered why he’d kept it, after she moved out. Of course, he’d always loved the old place. She had too, back then.
Early on, she’d rushed home every evening, anticipation quickening her heart, knowing Cody would be there soon, knowing the evening would end in tender, urgent lovemaking.
But after he’d been shot the first time, the anticipation began to turn to apprehension. Reality washed with the color of Cody’s blood, slammed her in the face. Cody’s job would always be like the ultimate cops-and-robbers game to him. As she’d watched him take more and more chances, she’d accepted that one day he would end up dead.
So she’d begun to withdraw, and eventually, the thrill of being with him, the love they’d shared wasn’t enough to make up for the old, familiar fear that gnawed inside her every time he was late, or the phone rang at odd hours of the night. She knew how awful the silence of an endless night of waiting could be. Would she have married him if she’d known she was letting herself in for a replay of her early life, waiting for her father to come home?
As she got to the third floor, she saw the yellow Police Line tape across Cody’s door and the uniformed officers milling around.
Her heart slammed into her throat, and her knees buckled. She had to grab the stair rail to keep from falling.
“Oh, no!” she breathed. Cody!
The man crouched in front of the door looked up. It was Dev, Devereaux Gautier, Cody’s best friend and partner. His trademark scowl darkened his even features.
When he recognized her, the scowl deepened, and his black eyes flashed dangerously, then he stood and smiled, his white teeth shining behind the dark beard that shadowed his lean cheeks. “Dana! What are you doing here?” he said, his voice infused with false cheer. He walked toward her casually, but Dana wasn’t fooled. Dev was trying to shield the scene with his body.
She grabbed his muscular arm. “Dev? What is it? What’s happened? Where’s Cody?”
He didn’t answer, just put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her away from the door. The grimness behind his false smile sent terror streaking through her.
“Dev, answer me! Is it Cody? Is he…dead?” Dana stared up into Dev’s black eyes, praying he wouldn’t say what she was deathly afraid of hearing, praying that Cody wasn’t lying inside that police barricade dead. He’d been in her apartment less than an hour ago.
“Cody’s okay. He’s been shot, but you know the tough guy, there ain’t no bullet that can bring him down. Bullets, they bounce off him.” Dev tossed his head. His longer-than-regulation black hair immediately settled down on his forehead again.
“Shot? You mean again?” Dana clutched Cody’s jacket in her fists, willing herself to be calm, not to care, but her heart didn’t listen. It beat so hard and fast it was painful to breathe.
Dev cocked his head and looked down at her. “So he told you about the booby trap? That surprises me.”
“Booby trap? What booby trap?” Dana scooted past Dev and looked in the door of the apartment. What she saw there stole the last dregs of her sanity. “Oh, my God…”
Right inside the front door was a chair with a revolver tied to its ladder-back. The cord coiled around the hammer and down to the trigger. More cord hung limply between the open door and the gun. Even more tangled piles of cord coiled around the chair legs. Dana looked down at the floor. Several black spots marred the wood finish. Cody’s blood.
Dev put his arm loosely around her shoulders. “Gruesome, eh?” he remarked, indicating the booby trap with his expressive hands. “He must have pushed the door open and felt the resistance, then thrown himself sideways.”
Dana looked at the intricate setup, and knew the terror Cody must have known when he opened the door and realized he’d stepped into a booby trap.
“Too slow,” she whispered in shock, looking back at the drops of blood on the floor. She could see it in her mind’s eye as if it were happening right in front of her in slow motion—the bullet traveling through the air, tearing into his arm, then bursting out through the skin on the other side. She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth.
“You got that right,” Dev said, shaking his head. “The tough guy should have beat that bullet, I guarantee. Must have had something on his mind.”
“Something on his mind,” she repeated, and a hollow laugh escaped her lips.
Dev looked at her strangely.
Her earring. “He was thinking about me.” That was why his reflexes had been too slow to dodge the bullet. Her stomach heaved alarmingly and she grabbed at Dev as she swayed.
“Dana? Here, why don’t you sit yourself down.” Dev gently tried to push her down to the floor.
“No,” she said, licking dry lips. “I don’t want to sit down. I knew Cody was shot. He came to my apartment last night. But he didn’t tell me about the booby trap.”
“So he’s on his way over here?”
Dana shook her head, staring at the gun barrel. “I don’t know. He didn’t say where he was going.” The black hole from which the bullet had emerged looked bottomless. She turned around slowly.
“Dana? You okay?”
“Cody said he heard the bullet hit the wall behind him,” she muttered. Sure enough, imbedded in the wall was a bloodstained bullet. Dana’s legs almost gave way again. She leaned on Dev.
“Olsen, get over here,” Dev yelled. He nodded toward the wall. “There’s your bullet,” he said coldly.
The other officer turned pink, then took his knife and dug into the wall.
Dev turned his attention back to Dana. “You and Cody spent the night together?” His black eyes held amusement and affection.
She shook her head. “It’s not what you think. He left this morning, furious.”
Dev shook his head in wonder. “When are you two going to quit fighting and get back to loving? You’re perfect for each other, you know.”
“Don’t, Dev, please.” Dana swallowed, fear and heartache tasting like acid in her mouth. “Do you…?”
Dev raised his brows.
She tried again. “Do you think Fontenot did this?”
Dev’s black gaze held hers for a long heartbeat. “Cody thinks so.” He shrugged. “So that’s good enough for me.”
Dana laid a hand on the big detective’s forearm. “Help him, Dev. Help him catch that bastard. Don’t let Fontenot kill him.”
“Hey, now…” Dev pulled her into the circle of his arm and gave her a quick hug. “Me, I care about the guy, too.”
She didn’t even protest the implication behind the word “too.” She just squeezed her eyes shut and accepted his comfort. “It’s just that…he thinks he’s invulnerable, you know? I’m so scared that one day…”
“Don’t worry, sugar. I swear I’ll—” He paused and looked past her down the hall.
“There’s the man now. Where y’at, Cody?” he called out in a broad Cajun accent.
Dana looked up to see Cody striding toward her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he barked.
She flushed and pulled away from Dev’s reassuring strength, and thrust the jacket toward Cody, feeling a bewildering mixture of fury and relief to see him whole, or nearly so, after her imagination had run wild.
“Here,” she said shortly. “All I wanted to do was give you your jacket back. I didn’t know I’d be treated to the spectacle of how Cody Maxwell, defender of the universe, got himself all shot up!” She licked her lips and swallowed hard.
“I see now why you didn’t want to tell me. My God, Cody, if you’d been a split second slower, the bullet would have caught you right in the chest….” She’d started out accusing him, but saying it somehow made it more real, and the edge of her vision turned black. Her fingers tingled, grew numb. The sounds around her turned to a soft buzz, fading in and out as the room began to whirl.
“Come on chère, sit down,” a voice was coaxing her, buzzing in her ear like a pesky bee. She waved at it, trying to frighten it away.
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