Ace in the Hole (21 page)

He spied a movement in the corner where the orchestra gallery met the wall. It was no more than a shadow, really, and a tiny flash of red, but it was enough. He took the shot, sending a double tap of two bullets up at the shooter.

“Get Jack off stage!” he shouted at Christian, who was now lying on top of the senator.

Someone from the balcony grabbed one of the band member’s microphones and yelled, “She’s dead up here! Cease fire, for God’s sake! The shooter’s down!”

Stone holstered his weapon and ran over to secure the senator. A pool of blood was spreading fast beneath Christian and Jack.
Which one was hit?

His entire possible future life with Christian flashed before his eyes as he reached for the man he loved in slow motion. Courting romantically. A small wedding with family and friends. Maybe a couple of kids someday. A little house on the beach. Lazy days and long nights stretching out in a lifetime of companionship and joy—

Christian rose to his feet, the front of his tuxedo soaked in blood. Stone grabbed him by both shoulders. “Don’t move. I’ll get you to a hospital—”

“I’m not hit. Jack’s shot.”

Stone looked down as a doctor emerged from the screaming, fleeing crowd to kneel by the senator. He wrapped Jack’s head in his own tuxedo coat. Another guest, presumably another doctor, tended to a wound in Jack’s belly.

“Ambulance will pull around to the ocean side of the ballroom. They’ll be here in one minute,” somebody reported.

Jill came rushing up the steps onto the stage, and Stone leaped forward to intercept her. He knew better than to let her see Jack like this. Everyone would need her to be strong for a while and make some decisions. And she would fall apart if she saw Jack’s blood.

“Let me go,” she ground out.

“Trust me, Mrs. Lacey. Doctors are with Jack. He’s alive but injured. Right now I need you to go with me to the ambulance. They’re going to need some information from you so they can help Jack.”

Christian closed in on Jill’s other side, and the two of them gently but firmly escorted her off the stage and toward the line of french doors. The first ambulance crew was already rushing toward them, pushing a wheeled gurney. More sirens were screaming their imminent arrival.

Stone threw the doors wide open for the medics, who rushed past them. Christian guided Jill to the front seat of the open ambulance and crawled in beside her. That was when she broke down. She sobbed on his shoulder, and Christian held her tightly.

“Get it all out, now,” he soothed. “You’ll be busy later.”

She nodded and cried even harder. Stone backed away and ran for the ballroom, this time heading upstairs to the orchestra gallery. Police were already there.

“Stand back,” one ordered him. “This is a crime scene—”

“I’m the security guard who shot the assassin. I suspect you’re going to need my weapon and to take me in for a statement. But first I’d like to see the assassin if I could.”

He surrendered his weapon to the cops, who bagged it as evidence before escorting him over to where several more policemen were standing. A woman lay crumpled on the floor, a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight still clutched in her hands.

“Have you got an ID on her yet?” Stone asked.

“Valerie Micklethwaite.”

Valerie? Was this the mistress Jack had been in cahoots with? Apparently she’d taken the plan to fake his assassination a tiny bit more seriously than Jack had. Or maybe she’d found out about his little cruise with Chesty.

“Thanks, guys. If someone could take me to the station so I can get going on the paperwork, that would be great. I’d like to get over to the hospital to check on the senator as quickly as possible.”

Which was to say, he wanted to get back to Christian to lend him and Jill his support.

The police were pleasant, particularly after they verified his identity and bona fides with Wild Cards, Inc.

The company’s law firm had an associate in Miami who arrived at the police station before Stone had even finished writing out his official statement of what had happened. He had to agree to stay in Miami until the police cleared him to go, but in under two hours, he walked out of the station a free man. The attorney gave him a ride to the hospital, and the radio on the way reported that Jack Lacey was in surgery and rumored to be in critical condition.

C’mon, you son of a bitch. Don’t die.
It was a purely selfish thought based on his fierce desire not to lose a client on his watch. Even if he hadn’t been Lacey’s bodyguard, the guy’s death would still reflect poorly on him. And he had to admit, he liked Jill Lacey too. She was strong and stubborn, but she had a good heart.

When he got to the hospital, he was admitted to the family waiting area as soon as he gave his name. Christian had apparently told the police to let him through the phalanx of cops providing security and privacy.

Christian was staring out a window in the waiting room. Stone walked up behind him, and Christian must have seen his reflection in the glass, for he turned silently and stepped into Stone’s arms. They embraced, hugging hard, for a long time.

“You okay?” Stone asked. “You’re sure you weren’t wounded? Shock can make people not notice even serious injuries.”

“I’m fine. I promise. What about you?”

“I have on a bulletproof vest. And besides, I’m Superman. Bullets bounce right off me.”

“That’s not funny,” Christian ground out. “When I saw that red dot, and it was pointed at you, and you were out there trying to protect that bastard alone….” A long pause, and then he whispered, “I died.”

“But I didn’t get hit. I’m fine.”

Another long, hard hug.

“How’s Jill?” Stone asked eventually.

“Pissed as hell. Apparently the mistress did it. Jill has known about her for years and has always been totally fine with the arrangement. Jack thought he was sneaking around behind her back, and Jill tolerated the mistress as long as Valerie was discreet and didn’t flaunt her relationship with Jack.”

Stone shook his head. “So the bastard dodged having a jealous wife but not a jealous mistress. If he doesn’t make it, this will be a fitting end for him.”

“Please, God, don’t ever say that in public—”

“Never fear, Christian. I understand what a nightmare a comment like that would be for you to handle. A guy on the radio reported that Jack was still in surgery and in critical condition. Any updates?”

“He took a bullet to the left side of his head. It’s not a fatal wound. Winged him, mostly, I guess. The bad one is the gut shot. Bullet lodged in his spine.”

Stone winced. “Jack’s philandering days are going to be over for a while if he took a spinal injury.”

Christian lowered his voice even more. “Surgical nurse who’s been bringing us updates said it looks like Jack’s going to be paralyzed from about the waist down and need extensive rehab. And the part of his head that took the hit is the speech part of the brain.”

“Does Jill know?”

Christian nodded. “She’s gone to the chapel to pray and asked for a few minutes alone. When she gets back, we’re going to talk about what comes next.”

“She’s lucky to have you,” Stone said sincerely.

“Things could get pretty crazy for a while. I don’t know how much time I’ll have….”

Stone got the message. He was being dismissed. Real life had overtaken their silly little fantasy of a future in which they could be together and happy. He needed to go back to being an invisible body guard, and Christian needed to give his full attention to the business of helping Senator Lacey’s wife through this crisis.

“No problem. I understand. You do what you have to do.”

He turned around and walked out of the waiting room. And damned if he didn’t feel something hot and wet on his face as he stepped back into the night.

CHRISTIAN
stepped back into Senator Lacey’s office in Washington, DC, with a heavy heart. He’d gotten back to town last night and had put off coming here until this morning. The disastrous trip to Miami seemed like a distant nightmare, but then he stood in the doorway and looked at Jack’s empty desk, and it all came back to him, far too real.

Senator Lacey was in Switzerland with Jill, who was setting him up in a long-term care and rehabilitation facility. She was due back in the US sometime today.

If Jack cooperated with his doctors and therapists and got lucky, he might be able to stand or even walk after a fashion in the next year or two. He would likely never speak aloud again. Swelling and an infection in Jack’s brain had finished the destruction of his speech center started by Valerie’s bullet. The therapists in Switzerland hoped that, in time, they could train other parts of Jack’s brain to produce language. Although they’d warned Jill not to pin her hopes on more than halting and limited speech at best.

As for Jill, she was going to serve out the remainder of her husband’s Senate term. And there was already talk—a lot of it—that she should run for Jack’s seat herself in two years. Money had been pouring in ever since the shooting, donations earmarked for “the other Senator Lacey.”

He had no idea if she would run for office. She was pissed off enough at her husband to do it just to spite him. Jill had attended Valerie’s funeral and made sure the woman got a decent burial, almost as if Valerie might have done her a favor. Who knew? Maybe she had.

“Good morning, Christian,” Jill said behind him.

He whirled. “I didn’t expect to see you at the office for a few days, Madam Senator. You should go home and rest. Get over the jet lag—”

“I flew back here in a private jet and got a perfectly lovely night’s sleep. And you and I have a lot of work to do. Assuming I can convince you to stay on as my personal aide.”

He really didn’t know what he was going to do. He worried that if he applied for any job in Washington right now, he’d be tainted by association with Jack and the scandalous trip to Miami.

“I got a call from the Justice Department while I was in Geneva,” she dropped casually.

His gaze snapped to hers. Was he being investigated for the mess in Miami?

“Apparently Stone Jackson forwarded your résumé to someone he knows there. They were impressed and called me to get a recommendation.”

He froze. He’d engineered a cover-up when her husband snuck off with a porn star, and he’d done it by having his gay lover impersonate her husband, thereby putting all their professional and personal reputations at risk.

“I told them you were the most outstanding senior staffer in Washington, not to mention a man of sterling reputation and ethics beyond reproach, whom they would be lucky to have on staff.”

He landed heavily in one of the chairs in front of Jack’s—her—desk. She moved around the desk and sat down at it, running her palms over the burnished cherrywood as if to familiarize herself with it.

“I guess this is mine now,” she commented.

He managed to make some inane gurgle that he hoped passed as a sound of agreement.

“Here’s the thing, Christian. I know you did most of the heavy lifting for Jack. You’re better versed on the issues, on pending legislation, on who’s who in this town, and on who’s got what dirt on whom, than Jack ever was. You have always been the power behind this particular throne.”

Every word was true, but he was wholly unaccustomed to actually getting credit for any of it.

She continued, “I would love to have you stay on, even if for a little while, to help bring me up to speed and get me settled in the job. I’m willing to shamelessly dangle a substantial raise in front of you and name you my chief of staff.”

God, it was tempting.

Funny, though, ever since Stone had walked out of that hospital and taken Christian’s heart with him, the appeal of clawing his way up the Washington ladder had dimmed. He would have been exultant over landing the chief of staff position a month ago, let alone having the Justice Department sniffing around about hiring him. Now he was only vaguely pleased. Mostly he was disappointed that he had no one to share his success with. And by no one, he meant Stone.

“Stay with me to the end of this term. And then I’ll do everything in my power to help you get that dream job as a federal prosecutor.”

It wasn’t a bad offer. Thing was, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to stay in DC. He’d been having wild fantasies about moving to London. Maybe he could hook up with Stone between jobs—

He broke off the thought. It was foolish to think about chasing after a man who’d walked out of his life without a backward glance. By the time Jack had gotten out of surgery and Christian returned to the hotel, Stone had packed up, checked out, and was long gone. A few calls had confirmed that Stone was on a plane bound for London before dawn.

“Oh, and I have one more enticement to offer you,” Jill said. A playful expression hovered about the corners of her eyes.

Oh God. What had she done?

“As you know, Tucker retired when I offered him a bonus large enough to cover the remainder of his son’s college costs. I had to hire a new chief of security. Knowing how you like the big, strong, dangerous ones, I found you one I think you won’t be able to resist.”

She didn’t understand. Stone was so much more than just a big, handsome beefcake. He’d understood Christian all the way down to his soul. He’d seen Christian’s flaws and insecurities and liked him anyway—hell, maybe even loved him a little. Stone had chased away his demons. He’d
loved
Stone.

He was going to have to resign. No way could he stick around here with some other guy trying to fill Stone’s shoes. He probably ought to thank her for making his decision to stay or go easier.

“Thank you for the offer, ma’am. It really does mean the world to me. But I’m going to have to decline—”

She interrupted, “Christian, meet my new chief of security.”

He stood to say hello and good-bye to the fellow standing in the doorway—

Stone.

He stared.

“Stone?” he finally choked out. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I decided I’ve had enough of bebopping all over the damned planet chasing rock stars. I’m tired of always being on the run. I’m ready to plant my butt in one place and put down some roots. I’ve got plans. I want to get a place of my own. Start a family. Can’t do that out of a suitcase.”