B007S2Z1KC EBOK Read online

  “What’s he doing here, anyway?”

  Her eyes popped open. “What? Who? Richie?”

  “No, the Boothe kid, Tyler. What’s he doing?”

  Clare stiffened and pulled away. She wasn’t used to her own unsettling sensual response or to Matt’s lightning quick changes of mood. It was disconcerting, contemplating sex with a man who could shift so quickly into professional mode.

  “Working,” she said. “It’s a condition of his probation. He and Richie have appointments with the court counselor tomorrow afternoon.”

  Matt nodded, staring over her head at the boy by the fence with Alma. The Big, Bad Detective was back in force. She wondered if he even remembered she was there.

  “It’s a good idea, if you can trust him.” His voice implied he did not. “Keep an eye on him.”

  She tried to feel amused by his protective preoccupation and almost succeeded. Straightening, she brushed her palms over the seat of her jeans. “I will. I thought he could paint the fence.”

  “Uh huh. Kid’s had a lot of experience painting things. Tell him no snakes this time.”

  She planted her hands on her hips, both entertained and exasperated. “Tyler’s not about to paint gang graffiti on a neighborhood project!”

  “No? He did on your shed.”

  “You need a course in art appreciation. Or glasses. He and Richie painted produce. Tomatoes, remember? Peas, carrots. You got the paint.”

  “And who vandalized the shed in the first place so that you had to cover it up?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Sure, it matters. Somebody’s got it in for you, Clare. You need to be careful.”

  She shook her head. “Are you always like this? Looking for the bad stuff, thinking like a cop? Tell me something, if and when we finally do make love, are you going to stop and check for burglars under the bed?”

  She was joking. She thought she was joking. But Matt was looking at her somberly, seriously considering his reply.

  “Yeah, I think like a cop. I act like a cop. All the time. So, if and when, sugar, I’ll check for the burglars first. And after that...” The expression in his dark eyes, hot and heavy-lidded, arrested her breath. “After that you’ve got my undivided attention.”

  Chapter 10

  The air contracted and thickened, enclosing them in a bubble of awareness. Details assumed huge proportions: the dark prickle of beard along Matt’s stubborn jaw, the tender hollow just below his strong throat, the lines of pain or humor that bracketed his sensual mouth.

  Clare drew a deep breath. Her blood drummed in her ears.

  Vaguely, she was aware of a long white sedan cruising around the corner, a pair of teens shuffling and shoving, and Reverend Ray moving out of sight behind her to get a drink. Dimly, she heard a man joke and a woman laugh and a car backfire.

  And then Matt’s face changed and hardened, and a second pop followed the first, and the bubble around them shattered.

  “Down! Get down!” he shouted.

  His shoulder caught the middle of her chest. She fell flat, his hard arm pinned between her and the churned up ground. The sky spun. Someone screamed. An engine roared as a car accelerated away.

  Clare struggled against Matt’s weight, trying to sit up. She didn’t have to understand what had just happened to know it was bad.

  “Dammit, stay down! Are you okay?”

  “I’m squashed. You’re squashing me. Matt...”

  He scrambled off her, his knee connecting painfully with her ribs as he pushed himself over her shoulder and away. Clare rolled to her side and up on her elbows, tracking his ungainly sprint toward the white oak tree and the tall black man lying on the ground.

  Reverend Ray.

  The minister had his hand pressed to one shoulder and a surprised look on his face. Between his fingers, dark blood seeped and stained his white sweatshirt.

  A woman sobbed quietly. Other voices drifted to Clare like smoke on the wind.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  “Did you see the son of a bitch?”

  “Ray!”

  Alma, her proud face contorted, pushed through the milling bystanders and fell to her knees beside her husband.

  “It’s all right,” Matt said, reassuring her. He was already bending over the reverend, turning him, lifting him gently. “Give me your shirt.”

  The minister’s wife stared at him for a moment before tearing her matching white sweatshirt over her head. Her dark hair tumbled as she mutely handed it to Matt.

  It was not all right, Clare thought numbly. It was like her dream, only worse. Because this time she didn’t have to imagine the shock and the noise. She didn’t have to close her eyes to feel the confusion. This time the blood was real.

  But Matt, with quick, competent movements, was already folding the shirt and pressing it to the wound. “Okay, Reverend, we’ll have you fixed up in no time. I’m just going to call for an ambulance, and you’ll be fine. You understand me?”

  Face gray, he nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, that’s fine. That’s good.” Matt braced the older man’s barrel-shaped torso forward. “Mrs. Carter?”

  Alma, tight-lipped, looked up.

  “Would you hold your husband just like this, ma’am? That’s right. Let him lean back against you. And you need to hold this now—press it—against the wound. Just like that.”

  The minister groaned, and Clare’s heart stuttered.

  “I know that’s not too comfortable,” Matt said calmly. “But you’re doing great. You’re both doing great. Clare?”

  She flinched. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t move. There was blood on his hands, on his shirt, on the ground.

  Without turning his head, he called her again. “Clare!”

  His confidence in her propelled her forward. She swallowed the bile that burned her throat. “Here.”

  “I need you to apply pressure to the entry wound,” he instructed her, “while Mrs. Carter holds him and stops the bleeding from the back. Got it?”

  She couldn’t do it. Images of Paul, pale on the ground, swam in her vision. But she didn’t want Matt to see her weakness. Not if he needed her strength.

  “I need a bandage. A towel or something.”

  Glancing around at the immobile church members, Matt swore softly and stripped off his own T-shirt. “Here. Like that. Down here. Come on, Clare!”

  His tone, matter-of-fact and edging into impatience, prodded her forward. She stumbled to her knees, wedging her small hands in beside his big ones, overcoming her involuntary wince at the dampness and smell of blood.

  “Good. Now you just take it easy a second, Reverend. I’ll be right back. Come on, folks, stand back. Move back, please.”

  Lumbering to his feet, Matt ran stiffly in the direction of the truck. Concentrating on maintaining steady pressure on the wound, Clare was only dimly aware of him rattling off a string of numbers and the street name.

  She reminded herself to breathe. Through her mouth, slowly. Looking up, she met the reflection of her own fear in Alma’s eyes.

  “Is he going to die?” the minister’s wife asked.

  Clare’s stomach lurched. Under her hands, she felt the ominous wet spread of blood. “No.”

  “Of course I’m not going to die,” Reverend Ray scolded gently. “You heard the Sergeant. I’ll be...” A spasm crossed his face “Fine.”

  “Shut up, Raymond,” Alma said tenderly. Her straight dark hair swung forward as she laid her cheek against the top of his head. “Just shut up.”

  Unwilling to intrude, unable to take her hands away, Clare glanced over her shoulder for Matt. He strode back from his truck, swinging his straight right leg awkwardly from his hip. Had he hurt it when he’d tackled her? Limping, bare chested, bloody, his face streaked with grime and his eyes blank with professional preoccupation, he looked like an avenging action hero.

  She’d never been more glad to see anyone in her life.

  �
��I don’t know how hard to press,” she said worriedly as he knelt beside her. “I don’t want to hurt him, but he’s losing blood.”

  “Here.” His hands nudged hers aside. “Mrs. Carter, can you lean forward a little? We want to keep that shoulder elevated until EMS gets here.”

  Alma shook back her hair and complied. “How long?”

  “Not long now. Couple minutes. How are you doing, Reverend?”

  “I’ve done...better.”

  “Yeah.” Matt’s grin flashed. “Getting shot is way down on my list of favorite things.”

  Of course, Clare thought, wiping her sticky palms down denim-clad thighs. He’d been shot, too. It was practically part of his job description. How many months since he’d lain, bleeding, in pain and shock, waiting for the ambulance, waiting for relief? No wonder he knew what to do and what to say. He was familiar with all the things that terrified her.

  She couldn’t stand it.

  She pushed to her feet. “What can I do?”

  Black eyes met hers briefly in unspoken complicity, with unquestioning confidence. “Ask everybody to stay put. We’re going to have some questions in a minute. I don’t want to lose any witnesses.”

  She nodded. And this was the other side of what he did. Succor the victim, and then chase the bad guy. The police had failed to obtain the evidence to convict her husband’s killer. She’d lost faith in the legal system after that, preferring to fight her demons and her battles in her own way. But this... She was grateful for Matt’s competent, solid presence.

  Reverend Ray coughed, squeezing his eyes shut in agony. Alma soothed him as Matt talked, calming and encouraging. Clare pressed her lips together. She would do whatever she could to help.

  The sirens began, first one, then others joining in like a pack of hounds on the hunt. Trigger howled in response. The rising noise rippled through the milling bystanders. Unexpected violence had broken their cheerful, sweaty workforce into distinct knots of shocked, grieving, angry onlookers. But no one seemed about to leave.

  By the nearly completed swing set, one of the church moms had an arm around Richie. Two girls held each other, openly crying. Clare’s gaze went from Tyler, pretending nonchalance, to Isaac, twisting his navy cap in his hands.

  She threaded through the fringes of the crowd to approach her crew leader.

  “Isaac,” she said gently, “did you see anything?”

  He looked down and away. “It happened real fast.”

  Too fast, Clare thought. Just like the last time. Always too fast.

  A patrol car swung in by the curb, an orange-and-white Emergency Medical Service vehicle screeching behind. Lights blinked on two sides of the lot, blue and orange. Doors opened. A patrolman in navy, paramedics in blue and gray, rushed on the small group huddled by the tree. Dimly, under the wail of approaching sirens, Clare heard Matt’s terse explanation as he slid his big body out of the way.

  “I have a male in his forties, conscious, shot in shoulder, possibly with a twenty-five caliber automatic pistol.”

  “Okay, we’ve got it.”

  “This is Mrs. Carter. She’ll ride with you to the hospital.”

  “Right. On my count. One. Two. Three.”

  Through the boil of activity, Clare watched as they loaded the reverend onto a gurney and into the ambulance. Clear lines of oxygen and fluid were already being fitted to him as they wheeled him away. She remembered the tubes, the useless tubes, the silent machines, by Paul’s bed in the hospital room. DOA, they’d told her, in hushed, oddly impersonal tones. Dead on arrival. She shivered, clutching her elbows.

  An officer’s voice cut through her momentary abstraction. “Hell, Dunn, you look like shit. You okay?”

  Her attention jerked back to Matt, hauling himself painfully to his feet on the other policeman’s arm. Recognizing the officer who’d questioned Tyler and Richie, Clare looked around for the boys. Tyler hung back behind Benny. Richie knelt by Trigger, giving and receiving comfort.

  “Fine. You the primary officer, Stewart?”

  “Looks like it. My beat. You see anything?”

  “Not a damn thing. My back was to the street.”

  “Drive by?”

  “Yeah.”

  Three more black-and-white patrol cars pulled up, circling the lot, blocking the street. Uniforms jumped out, voices raised, radios crackling. Beside her, Isaac shifted from foot to foot, hunching his shoulders to his ears. A perfectly understandable reaction, Clare thought. He’d been detained before, chased off and moved along often enough to be wary around so many cops.

  But when he pulled his cap down almost to his eyebrows, she put her hand on his arm. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Isaac?”

  “I got nothing to say.”

  She’d missed the officers’ brief conference under the oak tree. A blond patrol woman started unrolling yellow crime scene tape. A fresh-faced male officer took pictures. Officer Stewart and another policeman were already moving through the bystanders, talking, asking questions. Phrases buzzed around her, laden and persistent as wasps in autumn.

  “We’ve got one shell in the ground.”

  “Who saw the whole thing?”

  “Give your name to the officer.”

  Clare brushed her hand over her face, as if she could shoo her doubts away. “I think I saw the car,” she volunteered.

  Matt loomed beside her. He’d borrowed a jacket from someone, she saw, hanging open over his naked chest. “Stewart! We got a description of the vehicle.” He turned back to Clare. “Did you notice the make or the model?”

  Clare shook her head, feeling foolish. “No.” At the time of the shooting, she’d been focused on Matt. Engrossed. Enthralled. Stupid.

  “Don’t worry about it. Nobody does. Well, twelve-year-old boys, maybe.”

  She forced herself to smile, appreciating his attempt to make her feel better.

  “How about the color?” he prompted her.

  “White.”

  “Yeah? All white?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “It had a black vinyl top. And those shiny strips, chrome, on the sides.”

  “Good. How many doors?”

  “Four.”

  “New car?”

  “No.” She couldn’t quite explain how she knew. “It was dirty. Not beat up. It just looked...long.”

  “Okay, that’s good.”

  Officer Stewart murmured, “We can make a sketch. Did you see anything special, any distinguishing scrapes or dents, any features on the wheels or tires, ma’am?”

  “No, not really.” She tugged a hand through her hair, hating her inadequacy. “I’m sorry.”

  “The driver? Passengers?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Were the windows open or closed?”

  “I didn’t notice.” Her voice shook. She bit her lip.

  “It was a Buick.” Isaac spoke up suddenly beside her. Both officers turned to him.

  “You recognize the car, Isaac?” Matt asked softly.

  “Nope.” The crew boss pulled off his navy cap, rolling it in his hands. “I saw it go by on Alston before it turned the corner on Magnolia. Passenger window was down in the front.” He stopped fussing with his hat to meet Matt’s gaze directly. “I recognized the shooter.”

  Clare’s heart thumped. She felt the policeman’s increased intensity, but Officer Stewart never looked up from his notebook. Matt’s voice was almost casual.

  “Name?”

  “Real name’s Kenny something. He goes by Sidewinder.”

  “He’s a Viper?”

  Isaac shifted. “Yeah.”

  “How do you know?” Stewart asked.

  Clare stiffened. She knew how hard her crew chief had worked to put his past behind him. If they tried in some way to implicate Isaac...

  “He knows,” Matt said. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Gratitude flooded Clare as the other cop shrugged. “Okay, Sergeant. Your call. Y
ou know where this Kenny guy hangs out?” he asked Isaac.

  Matt looked up from zipping his jacket. “Try the storefront behind the gas station over on Jefferson. Used to be Willard’s. Know it?”

  Stewart grinned, flipping his notebook shut. “Oh, I know it, all right. Thanks, Mr...?”

  “Do you need his name?” Clare intervened.

  “Got to have it, ma’am. Doesn’t mean we’re going to use it.”

  She nodded to Isaac. “All right.”

  “Mills. Isaac Mills,” he said, and watched while the officer wrote it down with his address.

  “And yours, ma’am?” Stewart asked politely.

  She gave it to him. “Can we go now?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And thank you for your cooperation.”

  Her cooperation? Clare stared back at the officer, cold settling in her stomach. Her husband had been killed during the pretrial investigation of the Vipers leader. Clare had blamed herself then for not knowing enough, for not caring enough, for not being involved enough in his work. But what if all her knowing and caring had accomplished now was to involve another human being, to put at risk another man’s life? Isaac had spoken up in part for her sake. What if the gang came after him now?

  Matt touched her arm. “Come on, Clare. You’re done here. Let me take you home.”

  “No. I can’t go home. I need to know if the reverend’s all right.”

  His hand, warm and strong, urged her toward his truck. “I’ll call the hospital.”

  She stopped. She would not let him make her decisions for her. She could not let her longing for his strength undermine her hard-won self-sufficiency.

  And her heart cringed inside her at the memory of Alma’s fearful eyes. She remembered too clearly what it was like to lose the one you loved and depended on.

  “I’m going to the hospital,” she insisted. “Alma might need me.”

  He never let up his gentle pressure on her arm. “Fine. Then I’ll take you. Richie can walk the dog home. Get in.”

  She found herself swinging obediently onto the seat as Matt untied the dog’s leash and tossed it to Richie.