Just Enough Light (33 page)

“Thank you,” she murmured as she began to breathe more easily. “This is exactly what I needed.”

“You’re welcome.” Dana smiled. “Have I told you how hot you look tonight?”

Kellen felt herself blush. “All that matters is that you’re happy.”

“Very, although it’s difficult to keep my hands to myself. Do you think you can survive another couple of hours or do you need to sneak away?”

Slowly, Kellen shook her head. “No, I’ll stick it out. But I was thinking—maybe on Sunday we could take a drive into Denver.”

“Sure, if that’s what you want. What’s in Denver?”

“Susan, Bogart’s vet, has an eight- or ten-week-old rescue pup. A border collie. Only thing wrong is she’s underweight, and I was thinking the girls—”

Dana smiled and lightly brushed her lips against Kellen’s. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. In the meantime, will you at least let me get you something to help with that headache?”

Kellen was aware yet another person was coming up the path toward them, and sighed. “I will if it gets any worse.”

And then her heart began to beat faster.

The person approaching was a big man, dressed to fit in with the occasion in a tuxedo and a dark cashmere coat. Clean shaven, his dark hair clipped short and touched by gray at the temples. Surrounded by numerous men dressed similarly, he was unremarkable and would have aroused no suspicion, had anyone thought to compare him to any of the photos the FBI had distributed.

But his resemblance to Tommy Lee Broussard was unmistakable.

*

Dana watched the stranger as he slowly reached the bottom of the front steps to the clinic, hands in his coat pockets. He didn’t say anything. He simply remained silent as he looked up and watched Kellen. Calm and patient and quiet.

She couldn’t say she recognized him. But as she felt Kellen stiffen beside her, Dana released a muffled sound of shock and she suddenly knew who he was.

Douglas Broussard. The man who had sworn to kill Kellen.

Dana was too surprised to say or do anything. And then it was too late.

“Hello, Kellen Ryan.” His voice was flat. “I’ve wanted to meet you face-to-face for some time now.”

Kellen didn’t respond, but Dana saw her flex her fingers, watched her burying all her emotions in that one gesture. Turning back, she saw Broussard’s stance. Saw the dead, empty look in his eyes. It was the look of someone who had nothing left to lose. Somebody who didn’t have to think anymore.

Too frightened to even blink her eyes, Dana wondered where Grant and his sharpshooters were. She wondered how Broussard had gotten this close and why he was still standing, mere feet away from Kellen. She wondered if this was really happening.

An instant later, she stopped wondering. Stopped thinking. Stopped breathing.

In that moment, Broussard pulled his coat open and everything else going on slid into the background as she saw he’d strapped a dozen or more cylinders to his chest.

Dear God, she thought, as her fingernails pressed into her palms and she swallowed reflexively. Pipe bombs?

“This is a compression switch in my left hand. A dead man’s switch,” he said, clearly addressing Kellen. Once again, he sounded calm. Like ice water ran through his veins. Like he wasn’t wearing death.

“Show me how bright you are, Ryan, and tell those FBI sharpshooters protecting you to back off. If one of them thinks he wants to take me out, I suggest they think again. If I release this, at a minimum, you and I go. Your girlfriend beside you goes with us. But that won’t be all. I’m certain I’ve got enough explosives packed in here that quite a bit of this clinic and a lot of people inside will go as well.”

Dana stared at him. Well past frightened now, she moved into a surreal stage, where nothing really registered anymore. Nothing mattered except—

“Please,” she said, hands out, palms up. “Mr. Broussard, you don’t want to do this.” She’d witnessed enough working in emergency departments to know what harm people could do to people. But those other times and other situations hadn’t threatened the only woman she would ever love all the way to her soul.

The silence stretched. Thinned. Snapped.

*

Kellen didn’t think she had enough energy left to feel frightened.

She had a past so dark that at times it could still make her flinch, but her mind struggled to make sense of what her eyes were seeing—a man in a tuxedo, wearing a suicide vest, was threatening to destroy everything that meant something to her.

The only time she could remember feeling this disassociated was the day her father had come home in an out-of-control rage and began beating her. It happened shortly after he’d knocked her to the floor. Even as she’d tasted blood in her mouth, he’d pulled out a knife and sliced open her bright yellow T-shirt—

Kellen shuddered and forced herself to think of the present, not the corrosive past.

One thing she knew for certain. This situation, rightly or wrongly, had started with her when she’d trained Tommy Lee. And now she needed to finish it. She owed that much to the people who had unknowingly already played a part in this drama and paid for it with their lives, all because she had failed to die when Broussard first tried to exact his revenge.

She couldn’t afford to make a mistake. Not here. Not now. Not when everyone and everything she cared for was at risk, starting with the woman beside her whom she loved more than she’d ever thought possible. Cody and Ren were also nearby. As were Annie and Leslie. Senator Parker and his wife. Liz and Michelle. Gabe, and the other members of her team. This was her
family
Broussard was threatening and he had to be stopped. She needed to stop him.

She drew in a breath and turned her full attention to the man standing at the bottom of the steps. As her eyes locked with his, her breathing hard, emotions roiling, chills rippled over her skin in primal recognition of the truth, and Kellen accepted that whatever was going to happen would happen.

But if she was going down, she would go down fighting. In spite of all the curves she’d been thrown, life had only scarred her. It had never managed to break her will to live. Not Kellen Ryan. And that was who she was.

She slowly eased forward until she was positioned between Broussard and Dana.

“Stop right there.” Broussard raised his right hand and Kellen found herself staring at a gun.

“All right.” She did as she was told, knowing she didn’t have any other option, and her world in that instant narrowed to one goal—not getting killed. She shivered from the cold, felt a flicker of energy surge back into her system, and recognized it for what it was. Adrenaline. She didn’t think it would hurt, and it might just help her get through the next few minutes.

“Do you know I’ve thought about this moment a thousand times in the past year? I’ve thought about killing you a thousand different ways.”

The pleasure in his voice stripped all the moisture from her throat, leaving behind a desert. “I imagine you have.” She bit her lip. “So what are you waiting for? Why don’t you go ahead and shoot me and be done with it, if that’s what you want?”

She heard Dana’s shocked hiss, knew she couldn’t afford to be distracted. She reached, grabbed Dana’s arm, and squeezed. But she kept her gaze fixed on Broussard, watched as his features tightened.

“Are you saying you want to die?”

She saw something in his changing expression and realized she’d surprised him. “No, not at all. But you might as well shoot me, because I’m not about to let you walk into this building filled with people I care about and set off your bombs, no matter what.”

He laughed then. A harsh, rasping sound. “You know you can’t stop me.”

She considered that for a minute. “Maybe, maybe not. But maybe you can help me understand. Is it because
you
want to die? Like your son? That you can’t survive knowing he died even though he was doing something he believed in and loved?”

For a second or two, Broussard seemed to waver, to lose focus. Then he squared his shoulders once again. “It doesn’t matter. The only question is how many others I am going to take with me. That is the one choice—the only choice—I’m leaving to you.”

Kellen knew the agents protecting Senator Parker would have weapons trained on Broussard. But she also knew he was too close to the clinic and everyone in it, and they couldn’t risk shooting him. Not as long as his finger was on the detonator. The resulting explosion would take him out. And her. That much was certain. But he had said it would likely take part of the clinic and a large number of innocent people as well. None of them could afford to hope he might be wrong.

“In that case, I guess it’s just the two of us. Why don’t you and I go for a walk and—”

“Kellen, no.” Dana grasped her hand, stopping her forward motion. “Are you crazy? Tell me you’re not planning on going anywhere with him.”

Kellen turned toward Dana. In spite of the darkness pressing in all around her, there was just enough light. She could see the fear on her face. But she could also see the love in her eyes.

She wished there could be another way.

Broussard might yet kill her. If he was quick enough. The odds were against it, but the chance still existed.

It was a chance she had to take.

“Dana, believe me when I tell you I don’t want to die. But I won’t let him hurt the people that matter to me. All I’m asking is that you trust me.”

“I trust you,” Dana whispered, closing her eyes and momentarily tightening her hold on Kellen’s hand. “But I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for you and I want a hell of a lot longer with you than what we’ve had. So please, just remember how much I love you and come back to me in one piece.”

“I will,” she said, and walked down the steps.

*

Dana’s throat felt completely blocked by the scream that had been rising from her chest since Broussard first appeared. For an instant, she remained motionless. Watching Broussard push Kellen in front of him, while maintaining his hold on the deadly switch in his hand. Watching him lead Kellen away from the clinic and along the path that led into the looming forest.

And then the fear that had her held in its grasp released her, and she took a first step to follow. Almost immediately she felt hands grasp her, abruptly stopping her. She heard Cody, Ren, and Annie calling out to her.

Through it all, she heard Calvin Grant’s harsh whisper. Telling her not to do anything foolish. Telling her to let Kellen go and have faith that she knew what she was doing. By then, Kellen and Broussard had been swallowed by the darkness.

She turned to stare at Grant, trying to decipher the message in his eyes. Aware he was listening to someone on the wireless in-ear receiver he wore, but unable to hear what was being said. And then there was no more time to wonder, as the explosion shot high into the sky above the trees, orange flames chasing smoke.

Dana closed her eyes, while around her, no one spoke. Images flashed through her mind helter-skelter.

Kellen leaning down to her car window on a stormy mountain road, her smile dazzling.

The first time they danced.

The moment their lips first touched.

“Oh God, Kellen, what have you done?” Her throat tight, eyes burning, she stared in disbelief, as a wave of fear washed over her, threatening to drown her. “What have you done?”

She didn’t remember moving. Not really. One minute she was standing on the steps, the next she was rushing down them and onto the path, mindless of the cold and ice and snow. Conscious only of the smell of smoke and the deathly silence that had followed the explosion.

She stopped as she rounded a corner, confronted by a phalanx of FBI agents, while her mind replayed that oh-God moment and tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

“It’s called pink mist.”

Dana turned and stared at the agent that had spoken. “Pardon?”

“Sorry. Pink mist refers to blood being ejected at high velocity. When someone is blown up by a bomb, the only thing left is a pink mist of blood.”

She closed her eyes, but it did nothing to stop the flow of tears. “There should have been another way. She didn’t have to go with him.”

“Yes, I did.”

Dana’s eyes snapped open and she saw her then, standing at the edge of the trees. Her face was white, splattered with red. She was breathing heavily and shivering, walking without assistance, but unsteady on her feet. And then her whole body seemed to sway and she dropped to her knees.

Her heart pounding in her throat, Dana ran to her. Just as she reached her, Kellen lifted her arms, welcoming her against her chest. Inhaling raggedly, Dana tightened her hold on Kellen, an agony of relief rushing through her.

“Kellen.” Dana closed her eyes and let out a shuddering breath. “God, I thought I lost you. I thought you were blown up. Oh God. Thank you for coming back to me.”

Kellen smiled wanly, attempted to wipe the blood from her face, then rested her head wearily against Dana’s forehead. “I was not blown up. And just to be clear, I wouldn’t leave you. Trust me on that.”

“But you’re bleeding. Where are you hurt? Let me see.”

“I’m okay, Dana. I was a little closer than I’d hoped to be, that’s all.”

Dana moved away a little. “That’s why you told me to trust you? This was planned? You knew this would happen?”

Kellen winced. “Not exactly. Special Agent Grant and I, we figured Broussard would show. The plan was for me to lead him away to where the FBI sharpshooters were waiting.”

“You mean they were using you as bait?”

“Not really. Well, kind of. But I’m wearing Kevlar”—she knocked her knuckles against her chest—“so I’d be protected. It’s just that no one anticipated the suicide vest.”

Dana wanted to know how wearing Kevlar would have saved her from a head shot. But when Kellen closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her lids, Dana knew she was still seeing Broussard. Replaying what had happened in her mind. “Kellen?”

“He—he told me to get on my knees. Told me to put my hands behind my head while he walked a few feet away from me.” Kellen swallowed visibly. “I’m not sure, Dana, but I think he hesitated.”