One wood shelf had smacked his head and he lay
unmoving. Shelves and shoes covered him in a heap, so that only his feet
showed. Eve was bizarrely reminded of the red-and-white-striped stockings of
the Wicked Witch and half expected his toes to curl.
“Eve!”
Slowly Eve looked to the stairs, sending the room into
a spin. Noah was leaping, taking four stairs at a time. He rushed to her side,
pale, holstering his gun.
White knight
, she thought as he grabbed
Pierce’s knife from the floor and cut the twine that bound her feet. Then she
saw movement behind him and screamed, hoarsely.
“Noah.”
Pierce had risen from the shoes and was running to the
stairs. In two steps Noah was on him, gun drawn. Then Eve heard a sickening
crunch, metal to bone. Noah dropped to his knees and Pierce remained standing,
holding a shovel like a bat.
Pierce swung again, but Noah rolled, the shovel head
hitting his shoulder instead. A moment later, Noah tackled him and Pierce went
down.
On his hands and knees, Noah blinked hard, trying to
see. Pierce was on the floor, scrabbling backward. He plowed a fist into
Pierce’s face, feeling satisfaction when the cartilage in Pierce’s nose yielded
like butter. But Pierce rolled to his feet, standing behind him. Noah twisted,
found himself looking into the barrel of a .22 with a silencer.
“Hands out, Noah,” Pierce said. “I want to see them.”
Noah held his hands out. His own gun was three feet
away, dropped when he’d been hit by the shovel. Too far to grab. He watched
Pierce, waiting for the time to move.
“This is the way I always wanted you to die,” Pierce
said with a smile, even though blood gushed from his nose. He stood over him,
staring down. “On your knees, looking up at me.”
Noah was breathing hard, his ears still ringing from
the blow. “There are police surrounding this place. If you kill me, you’ll
still go down.”
“But I will have killed you,” Pierce said, reasonably.
“And I have a hostage.”
Noah didn’t think he’d ever adequately describe the
expression that crossed Pierce’s face next, a combination of surprise and…
annoyance. Noah leapt, wresting the gun from Pierce’s hand, but he didn’t have
to exert much force. Pierce slumped to his knees, then fell flat on his face,
Eve falling with him. Her hands were still bound and she wore nothing except
the satisfaction on her face. Her left hand still clutched Pierce’s knife as it
stuck from his back, blood soaking his tan overcoat.
“No, you do not have a hostage.” She lifted her eyes.
“Are you all right?”
Noah crawled to her, checking her for injuries. “I’m
fine. What did he do to you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, dully. “What did he do to
me?”
“He hit you. Oh, Eve.” She looked like Brock had on
Sunday night.
She grabbed his arm, clumsily. “My face. Did he cut my
face?”
Noah wiped the blood away from her cheek. “Not much.
Nobody will be able to tell.” It was then the shoes sank in. “Oh my God. Micki
was right. The shoes.”
Eve blinked slowly. “He killed all these women.
They’re under us, right now.”
He’d deal with that later. She looked like she was
going into shock. He tried to stand up, but came back hard on his knees. The
room was spinning so he crawled to get a blanket on the floor next to the bed.
He wrapped Eve in it, then pulled her to his lap, holding her close, giving her
his warmth. “You’re like ice.”
She stared at the knife protruding from Pierce’s back.
“Did I kill him?”
“I hope so,” he said fiercely.
Olivia came down the stairs, her gun at her side, then
stopped short. “Holy shit,” she muttered. She knelt at Pierce’s side, put her
fingers to his throat. “Alive, but barely.” She took her radio from her belt,
called the all-clear and requested three more gurneys, then knelt beside Noah,
reaching for Eve. “Let her go, Web.”
Noah shook his head, sending the room spinning again.
“No.”
“Noah,” she said gently, “you’ve got a huge gash in
the back of your head and you are bleeding a river. In about three minutes
you’ll be flat on this floor yourself. Let her go so I can cut this twine.”
Reluctantly, Noah let go. Olivia efficiently cut the
twine from Eve’s hands as the medics thundered down the stairs. Eve met his
eyes as the medics lifted her to a gurney. “He killed his wife. She’s under the
floor. They all are. Jeremy Lyons, too.”
A second medic was pushing Noah to a gurney. “Wait.”
He blinked at the floor, saw a handle. “Open it.”
Olivia yanked, then gagged when a concrete slab rolled
back. “Oh my God.” She covered her mouth as she stared into the pit. “That’s
his wife, Ann Pierce.”
A man’s hand stuck up out of the dirt. “Jeremy Lyons,”
Noah whispered. “Kane was right. So was Micki.”
Olivia pulled the slab shut. “You can tell them
yourself, once you’ve had stitches. Take him,” she said to the medics. “Don’t
let him argue.”
Noah let the medic roll him to his side to tend to his
head. “Do me a favor.”
“The ER docs’ll give you a local when they give you
the stitches,” the medic said.
“No.” Noah pointed to Pierce’s barely breathing body.
“His bus? Drive it real slow.”
Thursday, February 25, 6:15 p.m.
“Oh, Eve.”
From her hospital bed, Eve turned to see Callie
standing in the doorway, distress on her face. “You should see the other guy,”
she said, trying for light, but her voice still too hoarse.
“We tried,” Callie said, utterly serious. “But they
wouldn’t let us in the morgue. Sal wanted to be sure he was really dead, but
the ME said we’d have to take his word for it. Good for you, girl.”
Carleton Pierce had bled out as the helicopter
transporting him had touched down on the hospital’s roof. “I don’t feel bad,”
Eve murmured. “I suppose I should, but I don’t. I feel pretty damn good.”
Callie carefully sat on the edge of her bed. “As you
should. Where’s Noah?”
“On the phone.” She smiled, gingerly. Her face still
hurt from Pierce’s fists. And his knife. She fought back the shudder and
thought of good things. “Jack woke up. The first person he asked for was Noah.
They’re talking now.”
Callie squeezed her hand gently. “That’s good. Maybe
Jack will pull it together. Listen, you’ve got a crowd waiting to see you. Are
you up for visitors?”
Eve raised her hand to her throat, knowing what it
looked like. Pierce had cut away her choker, exposing what was still a nasty
scar. Then she shrugged. “It is what it is,” she said. “Let the visitation
begin.”
“I went by your place, grabbed you some clean clothes,
a robe, and this.” Callie reached into her pocket and pulled out another
choker.
Eve’s eyes stung. “Thank you. For knowing it would be
important.”
“Don’t start crying or you’ll have me crying again.”
She busied herself helping Eve into the robe and fastening the leather choker
around her neck. “Sal will be chomping at the bit. He closed the bar so he
could be the first one here. He only let me in first to get you presentable. He
was the pillar of strength, keeping everyone’s spirits up, taking care of your
Chicago friends.” She dropped her voice. “Then when he got the word that you
were okay, alive, he broke down. Cried like a baby. So did Jeff Betz.”
Eve sniffled. “That’s so sweet.”
“And your friends from Chicago? They wanted to be here
when you woke up, so Jeff gave them a ride in his cruiser, lights flashing.”
“David’s was the first face I saw when I woke up from
the surgery to sew up my leg.” Eve made a face. “It was like a bad rerun. His
face is always the first one I see when I wake up from an attack by a homicidal
lunatic.” But it had been such a relief. Max and Tom had been on the other side
of the bed. Her family had rallied.
“You could certainly wake up to a lot worse,” Callie
said. “As wakeup-to faces go, David’s would be the one I’d choose, every time.
So, you ready?”
Eve drew a breath. “Let ’em in.” No sooner had she
uttered the words than Sal was there, his arms around her, hard and safe. He
was trembling, she realized. No, he was crying. The tears she’d blinked back
burst free. “I’m okay,” she said, patting his back. “Totally okay.”
He nodded, his face pressed against the curve of her
neck. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he grunted. He pulled back and wiped at
his eyes, unashamed.
Callie handed her a tissue. “Or he’ll fire you. He
said that on the way over, about six times.”
Sal shot her a dirty look. “I was emotional.”
Eve patted his cheek. “I think you’re sweet,” she
said. “But fiscally irresponsible. I can’t believe you closed the bar. There’s
a game tonight.”
“Nobody was there anyway,” Noah said from the door,
and as always, he took her breath away. It didn’t seem to matter what kind of
doorway he stood in, the result was the same. “It appears they’re all
downstairs, waiting to see you.”
Sal twisted around to stare at Noah, then looked back
at Eve with a satisfied smirk. “So I suppose you’ll be taking that bottle to
Trina’s on Sunday after all?”
She met Noah’s eyes and in them saw everything she’d
ever wanted. “I suppose I will.” She struggled to sit up. “Now, how about those
visitors? I hope they brought flowers. I haven’t had flowers since the last
time I got kidnapped.”
Thursday, February 25, 8:30 p.m.
Olivia gratefully wrapped her hands around the cup of coffee Kane had coaxed
from the vending machine in the hospital’s waiting room. “Thanks, I needed
this.”
“You need to go home, Liv,” he said gently.
“I will. I just want to check on Liza and Eve first.”
“Is Micki still at the scene?”
Pierce’s basement had been a hellacious discovery,
branded into her memory. “Yeah. Probably will be for days. If you don’t mind, I
don’t want to talk about that now.”
“Okay.” In true Kane fashion, he was quiet until she
was ready to talk again.
“I called Social Services,” she finally said. “Got a
nice place for Liza.”
“That’s good.”
She looked away, too close to tears. “Kane. The bodies
in that pit… it was horrible.”
He brushed his big hand down her hair. “See the
ladies, and I’ll take you home.”
“You’re a fine chauffeur. You got your lights smacked
out today, too. I’ll be okay. But thank you.” She drew a breath. “Let’s go.”
They went into Liza Barkley’s hospital room where the
girl lay, grimly coherent. She remembered everything, Olivia knew. Liza had her
arms crossed and stared straight ahead. She was alive, but her sister was not,
and that put the girl on a long, lonely road.
Tom sat at her side, quietly, not touching her. He
stood when Olivia and Kane entered. “I was with Eve, but she had a crowd.”
And Liza was all alone. Olivia stood by her bed,
touched her shoulder. “I found a really nice place for you to go when they let
you out tomorrow. The woman that runs the home is a personal friend of mine.
She’ll take good care of you.”
Liza looked up, her eyes dead. “Thank you,” she
murmured. “For everything.”
Olivia met Tom’s eyes, saw the helplessness there and
knew how he felt. “You both have my number. Call me day or night if you need
me. I’ll let you rest now. I’ll be back tomorrow when they release you.”
Olivia was at the door when Liza spoke again.
“Detective. Did he live?”
It was, perhaps, the one bright spot. “No.”
Liza’s eyes flickered wildly, but her voice was calm.
“My sister. Did you find her?”
“Yes.” And she could see it in her mind. Probably
always would.
Liza nodded. “I understand.”
“You two did good. We might not have found him in time
without that license plate. Try to sleep now. Tom, I’ll see you later.”
Outside, she slumped against the wall and shuddered.
“There wasn’t anything left of her sister, was there?”
Kane asked.
“No,” Olivia said hoarsely. “Just bones.”
“Jennie’s downstairs, waiting for me.” Jennie was
Kane’s wife. “You’re coming home with us. You’re not going to be alone tonight,
Liv,” he added sharply, when she tried to argue, then he smiled to soften his
words. “I’ll carry you out of here if I have to.”
Olivia nodded wearily. “Okay. Just for tonight.” She
didn’t think she could be alone tonight. “Let’s go by Eve’s room. I’ll make it
quick.”
Thursday, February 25, 8:45 p.m.
They’d all come, Eve thought, still a little stunned. Fifteen minutes before
she and Noah had been sitting in her hospital room, Noah sporting a thick
bandage on his head and she with her leg elevated, the bullet hole wrapped and
treated.
And then, the horde had descended.
My family. They
came
. Dana and Ethan, Caroline and Max, Mia and her husband, Reed. David
had called them and without a second thought, they’d come. They were noisy and
laughing and joyful.