Killing Me Softly (27 page)

A thump from the bedroom, springs squeaking. Dawn!

He had to set the gun down long enough to dig into
Rico's pocket for his key ring. He knew his friend well. He found a generic handcuff key, along with Rico's car keys and a dozen others. No time to free himself, though. He pocketed the keys, then headed upstairs, trying to move as fast and keep as quiet as he could.

He reached the bedroom door, leveled the gun and sprang inside. Nick was on top of Dawn, choking her life away. Bryan leveled the gun. “Get off her! Get the fuck off her!
Now!
”

Nick turned, one hand snatching his own gun from where it lay on the nightstand, aiming it at Bryan. Bryan desperately wanted to fire, but he was afraid of hitting Dawn, and in that moment of hesitation, Nick got off the first shot.

Bryan ducked, then rose and aimed again, but Nick was already clambering out the window. Bryan got off one shot, not knowing if he hit the man or not, and then ran to Dawn, kneeling on the bed beside her. “Baby! Dawn, come on. Be okay. Be okay.” He untwisted the stocking and pulled it away from her neck, wincing at the deep red mark it had already left there, and then he patted her cheek firmly and shook her. “Dawn, dammit, wake up. Talk to me. Show me you're alive, baby, come on.”

She choked but didn't open her eyes.

Bryan let go of her, relief flooding him that she wasn't dead. Nick hadn't killed her. Thank God.
Thank God
.

But Nick was still out there, the bastard. And he was armed. And he had nothing to lose now.

Bryan rose from the bed and ran to the window, to look out and see where Nick had gone. But the man was nowhere in sight.

“Dammit!”

Rushing back to the bed, he shook her shoulders. “Dawn. Dawn, you gotta wake up. Come on. I need you.”

She blinked, opened her eyes, focused on him. “You're alive….” Her voice was hoarse and choked, and it made him furious.

He helped her sit up, handed her the gun. “Watch my back while I get these cuffs off.”

She nodded jerkily and sat up straighter, steadying the gun. He wrestled the keys from his pocket and tried to unlock himself, but then she took them from him. “You hold the gun. I'll unlock you.”

In seconds the cuffs sprang free, and then she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.

“Okay. Okay, baby, I know. I know.” He hugged her back, keeping one eye on that window, then nervously glancing at the door. “But we have to get out of here.”

“I know.”

“Where's Olivia?”

“I told her to take the boat and go for help. She took her phone, but I don't know. In this weather, I just don't know. I hope she made it. Rico…oh, God, Rico…”

“I know. I know. I saw. Come on, we have to go, baby. We have to get out of here.”

“But he's out there. He's still out there!”

“We have to go.”

“No! No, we don't. We…we can lock ourselves in here. Just wait for him to try to come in and…and…and shoot him.” She reached over to the bedpost and pulled a shotgun from beneath the bathrobe that hung there. “Just close the window and lock the door and—”

“And he'll wait us out. Or burn us out. We have to get out of here, baby. We have to.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“I know.”

She pressed her hands to his cheeks. “I love you, Bryan. I love you, and I mean that, and I'll never, ever run away from you again. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I hurt you. I swear, it'll never, never happen again. Please, believe that.”

He nodded and felt a bigger flood of emotion than he could ever have imagined. So big he couldn't speak. So he held her a little tighter, kissed her gently, then pushed her away. “Come on. We have to get away.”

“He'll be waiting.”

He kept an arm around Dawn and moved to the window, glancing out. He didn't see Nick. Or his car.

“Did he leave? Did he…did he leave?”

“I don't know. Maybe.” Bryan held her close to his side and turned toward the bedroom door. He peered out, reluctantly taking his arm from around her. Then he handed her the .44, and gently took the shotgun from her. “I've got Rico's keys in my pocket,” he said. “We're gonna go out the back door, get in Rico's car and get the hell out of here. Okay?”

“Do you think Olivia—do you think she made it in this storm?”

“I think she's fine. Come on.”

Arm in arm, they moved slowly into the hallway, eyes open and alert, listening for any sound, watching for any movement. Bryan could feel Dawn's entire body shaking, and her breaths weren't breaths at all but hic-cuplike sobs. She was on the edge of hysteria.

There was nothing in the hallway. No sound, no presence.

Step by step, they moved to the top of the stairs. He couldn't see any sign of Nick. God, please, let him have gone. Let him have gone. Let him have gone.

They began to walk downstairs. First one step, then the next. And then another. Still no sound, nothing but silence from below. And the smells—the gunpowder and fresh blood.

He did his best not to look at Rico, but when he glanced at Dawn, he found her gazed fixed on the dead man. “Don't look there, Dawn. Keep alert. Watch for Nick.”

She nodded and tore her eyes from the body.

They moved through the living room. The front door still stood open. It was nerve-racking to go the other way, toward the back, through the open archway, into the kitchen area, half expecting to be jumped from behind with every step. But they weren't.

There was only the patter of the rain on the roof. The mournful whining of the wind through the pines. The falls' roar, almost lost behind noises of the storm.

They crossed the kitchen, and he scanned every inch of space. Nothing. No one.

And then they moved on to the French doors that led to the deck.

He hesitated there, looking out. He could see Rico's car, right where it was supposed to be. Across the deck, four steps down and a dash of maybe five yards to the vehicle.

It was murky and dismal outside, the sky obliterated by the storm clouds and visibility further diminished by the pouring rain. Even so, it wasn't quite the deluge it had been earlier.

Bryan wanted to flip on the outside light, to illuminate whatever might be out there. But if Nick hadn't really left, that would give away their position and their intent. It would allow Nick to get in between them and their only means of escape.

So the light was off-limits.

He opened the door and pulled Dawn with him as he stepped through it. She planted her feet, resisting.

“We just have to make it to the car. Just to the car, baby.”

“No. No. Bry, no. I don't want—”

“I think he's gone. Come on, hon, it's only a few yards. Come on.”

She was shaking even harder than before, and he didn't think she could hit the broad side of a barn with the handgun. So he picked up the pace as he pulled her along beside him across the deck. They made it to the
steps and down to the grassy lawn. Bryan pointed the key ring and hit the button to unlock the car.

She burst into a run then. Racing across the grass to the car, jerking open the passenger door, Bryan no more than a step behind her.

And that was when Nick rose up from the other side of the car, leveling his gun at her.

“Not so fast, sweetie pie.”

“Nooooooo!”
Bryan lunged even as Nick pulled the trigger. He pushed Dawn to the ground, firing the shotgun as she went down and feeling the white-hot bullet rip into his chest.

“Bryan!” Dawn shrieked his name, crawling over the wet grass to him. He felt his blood pulsing, felt his life ebbing.

“Dawn—Nick. Careful.” And then there was only darkness.

 

Bryan
.

All she wanted was to stay by his side, but she knew what he'd been telling her, knew she had to creep around the car and see whether Bryan's frantic shotgun blast had hit its mark. Whether Nick was dead—or waiting to finish his gruesome task.

She let Bryan's head rest on the ground and then, cradling the .44, crept on her knees along the side of the car, shaking from head to toe. She reached the front and peeked quickly around. Then crept farther, inching along the grille, to the other side. And finally, shaking so hard she could barely believe she could still move,
she darted forward, took a furtive peek, then jerked back again.

Nick was lying on his back on the ground.

Holding the gun, pointing it ahead of her, she leaned forward again. His arms were spread out on the grass above his head. His gun lay several feet away from them. There was a massive hole in his chest. She didn't think anyone could survive such a blast.

But she pointed the gun at his head, just in case, and without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

Assured now that he was dead, she scrambled back to Bryan. But what she saw stopped her in her tracks.

Bryan was standing there, smiling, holding out his hands to her.

But his body was still on the ground.

“No…” The gun fell from her limp hands to the wet ground. “No, no, no. Bryan, don't be…”

A trembling hand flew to her lips as her gaze shifted from the Bryan lying on the ground to the Bryan standing before her, semitransparent and perfect in every way.

“No. Oh, no no no no.”

“I love you, too,” he said. The words echoed and whispered, as if they were part of the rain-soaked morning. “I never stopped. You need to know that. I need to tell you that.”

“Bryan…you listen to me! You get back into your body
right now!
You aren't leaving me, do you hear? Come back. Bryan, please, please, come back to me!”

He looked down at his own body, then back at her,
shaking his head sadly. A bright light appeared just beyond him. Blindingly bright. She'd never seen anything so bright before, she thought. And she cried out, “No! No, you can't have him! No!”

And then she heard the chopper blades, and the light got closer and began sweeping the ground.

“Oh, God, it's a helicopter. It's a helicopter. Bryan, it's…”

But he was gone. His body still lay in the wet grass, but he no longer stood before her.

She fell on her knees beside him, sobbing, clinging. “Don't leave me. Please, don't leave me.”

And then she felt something amazing. One of his hands rose, weakly, then landed in her hair. And that was all.

T
here were press everywhere as Dawn helped Bryan into the car outside the hospital. She supposed it was appropriate. The biggest case Vermont had ever seen had just been solved by a rookie cop.
Her
rookie cop. And everyone wanted to know what he was going to do now.

She was more curious than any of them.

Thank God Olivia had managed to make it far enough out on the lake to get a weak signal, even in the storm, and had called for help. When she'd told them an officer had been shot, all hell had broken loose.

And it was a good thing. Bryan wouldn't have survived his gunshot wound if he'd had to wait any longer for treatment.

As for Olivia, her secret remained just that. The only people who knew her true identity, besides the two of them, were dead. And they had vowed never to tell. There had been no more hang-up calls, and Olivia thought perhaps she was still safe in her false identity, after all.

Dawn helped Bryan out of his wheelchair, waved at the reporters and said a cheerful “No comment” as she reached past him to open the passenger door of his Mustang, which they'd finally reclaimed.

But Bryan didn't get in. He turned, one hand on the top of the car door, and held up the other hand. “I guess we can take one or two questions. Uh, you there, with the baseball hat.”

The reporter in the hat met Bryan's eyes and winked; then, with a huge smile, he shifted his focus to Dawn. “Ms. Jones, my question is for you, actually.”

“Hello, Mr. Brown. Good to see you again,” she said.

“Good to see you alive,” he replied. “So, do you plan on staying here in Vermont, now that all this is over?”

She smiled, but she was puzzled and couldn't hide it. “Oh, I'm staying. This is my home.” And she meant it. She hadn't seen any more ghosts since seeing Bryan's. She didn't know if she ever would. Bryan thought her gift had transferred itself into a heightened sense about things, but she wasn't so sure. What she
was
sure of was that it didn't matter. She would never leave him again. No matter what she had to face in order to stay by his side.

“And a follow-up, if I may?” Mitch Brown went on.

“Of course.”

The reporter grinned wider. “As long as you're hang
ing around, would you consider marrying this hero cop?”

She blinked in shock as the words processed through her brain, and then she frowned hard. “What?”

“He asked if you'd marry me.” Bryan pulled a ring from his pocket and held it in front of her nose. “I told him to.”

She melted right there in front of the car, so thoroughly that she was surprised not to find herself blinking up from a little puddle on the ground. Then she smiled, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him senseless, saying, “Yes!” repeatedly, in between kisses. And then she stopped kissing him long enough to hold up her left hand.

Bryan slid the ring onto it. She blinked through a rush of hot tears at the sparkling little stone. And then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him some more.

“I think that's a yes, guys,” the reporter shouted.

A great big cheer went up as Bryan deepened the kiss, bending her backward and holding her closer. She'd been given a second chance at life. They both had, thank God. And she wouldn't blow it. Not this time.

Not ever again.