Avenger (Impossible #3) (12 page)

“I shot Hector Garcia,” I reminded him, my voice tripping over the dead man’s name.  “You told me that I did what I had to do, that I’m not a murderer.  You’re not either, Sean.  You did what you had to do.  And you didn’t even choose yourself over him.  You chose
me.
  You chose to shoulder the burden of another man’s soul in order to save my life.  It was a selfless act, Sean, not murder.”

He looked at me in wonder.  “How can you be so good to me, Claudia?  After everything I’ve done?  Knowing everything that I am?”

“It’s
because
I know everything that you are.  Better than you know it yourself.  You’re always telling me what a good person I am, but you can’t see that you are too.  I need you to believe that there is goodness inside you, Sean.  I need you to see what I see.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he said hoarsely, shaking his head slightly.

I smiled at him gently, stroking away the creases in his furrowed brow.  “Then I’ll show you.  I’ll remind you of it every day until you finally give up and agree to see things my way.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up in that lopsided smile that made my heart flutter.  “So you play the long game, huh?  Do you really think that you can manipulate me, little one?”

I cocked my head at him, considering.  “I can try.”  I smiled slyly.  “I’ll have plenty of time to learn from the best.”

“Do you really mean that?”  He asked, his eyes shining with hope.  “How much time do we have?  I want to be with you, Claudia.  Will you stay with me after all of this is over?”

Beaming, I flung my arms around his neck, hugging him to me tightly.  “Yes, Sean.  I want that more than anything.  I love you.”

He returned my embrace with equal ferocity.  “I love you too.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing that,” I declared happily.

“You had better not,” he said playfully.

We held each other for long minutes, and I gloried in his warmth, his scent, his touch.  I could hardly believe that this was real, that somehow I had survived and Ronan was no longer a threat.  Sean and I were finally free from his father.  The feeling of lightness that spread throughout my being was incredible.  What had seemed an insurmountable weight of grief had finally been lifted.  The sadness at the loss of my parents and Clayton would always linger, but it would no longer control my life.

Clayton.

Something was hovering at the edges of my mind.  I thought back over my memories of the night before.  I knew that I was missing something important.  Reluctantly, I pulled away from Sean.

“How did you find me?”  I asked.

A wide grin split his face.  “I have a surprise for you.  Let me call the nurse so that the doctor can give you the all-clear.”  He pressed the call button before I could protest.

“But how did you find me?”  I persisted.

He kissed my forehead tenderly.  “I promise I’ll explain everything.  Just be patient for a while longer.”

I rolled my eyes at him, exasperated.  Why couldn’t he just tell me now?

“Watch it, little one.  You know that I don’t like it when you roll your eyes at me.”

The nurse entered the room before I could deliver a retort.  She checked me over thoroughly before telling me that my vitals looked good.  “You’re very lucky that we got you the naloxone when we did,” she told me.  “It helped counteract the overdose.  You should be good to go.”

I pulled on my clothes after she left the room, relieved that I was allowed to leave.  Even though I was a doctor, the idea of being a patient in a hospital didn’t sit well with me.  It put me in a position where people could boss me around, and I hated that.  A doctor came in briefly and gave me the all-clear.  I couldn’t wait to get out of there and get home.  Then maybe I would get some answers out of Sean.

When we left my room and entered the elevator, he surprised me by taking us up two floors instead of back down to the lobby.  “Where are we going?”  I asked, curious and a bit peeved that I wasn’t going to leave the hospital.

Sean just smiled down at me.  “You’ll see.”

I frowned at him and put a hand on my hip.  “I don’t really do cryptic, you know,” I informed him.

His smile remained in place.  “Well, I like surprises.  And I’ll spring them on you until you learn to like them too.”

“Who’s playing the long game now?”  I muttered, but I was more amused than annoyed.  No one had arranged a surprise for me in years, and I honestly couldn’t remember if I liked them or not.  Maybe I could learn to.  It didn’t look like Sean was going to give me a choice in the matter anyway.

When we exited the elevator, Sean led me a short way down the corridor before knocking lightly on one of the doors.

“Come in.”  My heart skipped a beat.  That voice…  It couldn’t be.

Then Sean pushed the door open, and my knees went weak as shock tore through me.  “Clayton?”  I breathed as Sean gripped my upper arms, preventing me from falling.

Clayton grinned at me from his hospital bed.  “Hi,” he said brightly.  “You’re looking better.”

My eyes remained glued to Clayton’s blue ones as Sean guided me to the chair beside his bed.  I collapsed back onto it as soon as he released me.  I looked up at Sean.  “Are you sure we’re not dead?”  I asked him faintly.

“Nope,” Clayton answered, drawing my attention back to him.  “All three of us are alive and well.”  He grimaced slightly.  “Mostly well.  I kind of hurt all over, but other than that, I’m good.  The doctors say I’ll make a full recovery.  You know, if I stop leaving the hospital without authorization.  They were pretty pissed when I showed back up with half of their work undone.”

My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.  “How…?”  My voice stuck in my throat.  I swallowed and tried again.  “What the hell is going on?  You were
dead
, Clayton!  I watched you die.”

He frowned, anger flickering in his eyes.  “No, you didn’t.  You watched me lose a shit ton of blood.  I didn’t die, Claudia.  Well, technically my heart stopped for six minutes, but we’re not counting that.”

How was he so nonchalant about all of this?  Didn’t he know what he had put me through?  I was suddenly furious.  “If you weren’t clearly already in pain, I would punch you in the face,” I informed him hotly.  “I was at your funeral, for god’s sake!  I saw your…  Oh, god, your parents!  How could you put them through that?”  I demanded angrily.

Clayton’s easy smile was gone, his expression anguished.  “I’ve contacted them to let them know that I’m okay.  I think they’ll come around to being pissed at me, but right now they’re just so relieved that I’m alive that they’re still talking to me.”  He looked at me intently.  “I did something stupid, Claudia.  Several years ago, I told the FBI that if I was ever severely wounded they could stage my death so that I could go in deep cover somewhere.  Like what Santiago is doing with the Latin Kings.”

“You’re right,” I said seriously.  “That was stupid.  No gangster is ever going to believe that some corn-fed boy from the Midwest has any street cred.”

He smiled self-deprecatingly.  “Fair point, Dr. Ellers.”  His expression sobered quickly.  “When I woke up in the hospital and they told me what had happened, I was furious with myself.  I should have signed off from the program when I became your handler.  You were still in danger, and I was powerless to protect you.  I wanted to come to you immediately, but it turns out a bullet to the gut isn’t something to take lightly, even if it did miss all of my major organs.  Yesterday I was finally strong enough to escape, ah, I mean leave.  So I went straight to your house to check on you.  Sean told me that you had returned to work but that they hadn’t successfully arrested Ronan or Bradley.  Incompetent, irresponsible idiots,” he muttered.

“Agreed,” Sean said coolly.

“Hey,” I rushed to Sharon’s defense.  “If anything, it’s my fault.  I insisted that they let me go.  It was stupid.”  I glared at Sean.  “And don’t you dare say ‘I told you so’.”

He held up his hands, placating.  “I didn’t say a word.”

“I could hear you thinking it,” I accused.  He just shrugged, unapologetic.  I supposed I deserved that.  But I would never admit as much.

“Well, when I found out, I tried to call you to make sure you were okay,” Clayton continued.  “I got worried when you didn’t answer, and I made Sharon go into the clinic to check on you.  As soon as she told me you weren’t there, I tracked the location of your phone.  Sean recognized it as an address where the Westies sometimes deal.  We called it in, but we didn’t wait for the cavalry to show up.  If we had waited, you would probably be dead right now.”  Something darkened in his eyes as his gaze turned inward.

I reached out and tentatively touch his hand.  I marveled at the solid warmth of it beneath my fingertips.  Clayton was alive.  My friend was alive.  And his actions had saved my life once again.  Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, and for the first time since I could remember, they were tears of joy rather than pain.

“Thank you,” I choked out.

“Anytime,” he said, smiling as he squeezed my fingers reassuringly.  I gave a shaky laugh and wiped at my wet cheeks.

“But don’t think I’m not still mad at you for letting me think you were dead.”

Clayton gave me a long-suffering look.  “Damn.  I was hoping saving your life might make up for that.  And taking a bullet for you.  And keeping you out of jail.  But you know, who keeps track of these things, really?  It’s all water down the drain, apparently.”

I slapped him lightly on the arm, confident that he wasn’t injured there.  “Well, when you put it that way, I guess I don’t have a choice in the matter.  Fine.  I forgive you.  But I might not be so magnanimous if you ever pull this on me again.”

He was smiling at me, but his eyes were serious.  “I won’t,” he promised.  “It was really unfair for me to put people through that.  I’ve got a lot of apologizing to do.  I’m pretty sure that dinner’s on me for the entire office for the next decade or three.  Most people weren’t in on the secret.  Sharon, in particular, was rather miffed.”  He grinned affectionately, and I wondered if maybe happiness had been staring him in the face for a long time and he had been blind to it.  I made a mental note to keep an eye on the situation.

“Well, I would say that you deserve it, but it seems that I’m in no position to talk,” I said lightly.  “How long until you’re fully recovered?”

“It’ll be a few months before I’m fully fit again, but I should be able to leave the hospital in a week or so.  Then I can tie up whatever loose ends Sharon leaves and finish de-briefing the two of you.”  He addressed Sean as well now.  “Once we get your preliminary testimony, we’ll need you to go into witness protection for a while until we can round everybody up.  Then we’ll need to prep you to give your testimony at trial.  After that, your lives are your own again.”

I frowned at the mention of
witness protection.
  Hadn’t I been staunchly resisting the idea of going into hiding for weeks now?  I glanced over at Sean.  Maybe hiding out with him wouldn’t be so bad.  Especially if we weren’t confined to the house all the time.  Relocating would give us the opportunity to come and go as we pleased.  I decided that it was a good idea.

“So where are we going?”  I asked Clayton.

“There’s this great town I know in Iowa called Indianola.”

Clayton’s sleepy little hometown.  I returned his grin.  “Sounds perfect.”

Epilogue

A little over two months later, Sean and I found ourselves settling into a happy rhythm in Indianola.  Neither of us had jobs – we decided to wait until we found somewhere to settle permanently – but we had plenty to do to pass the time.  I was rapidly becoming a pop culture whiz, especially when it came to all things nerddom.  I had Sean to blame for that, as he was quite a biased educator.  But I didn’t mind skipping over the chick flicks and soap operas in favor of the
Game of Thrones
TV series and the
Lord of the Rings
movies.  I had devoured the rest of George R. R. Martin’s books, and
Harry Potter
followed quickly after that.  Sean had seen and read it all before, but his eyes shined with boyish delight as he explored the beloved stories anew when he shared them with me.

But we didn’t spend all of our time cooped up in the house.  We primarily had Shelley, our next-door-neighbor, to thank for that.  She had knocked on our door the day that we moved in, offering us a tray of cookies.  I didn’t think that people actually did that in real life.  She was so friendly, and it was easy to pass the time chatting with her.  Before long, she introduced us to several of her friends.  We were all around the same age, and I had to admit that it was nice to spend time getting to know people.  I was still rusty at remembering how to connect with people, but it was getting easier every day.  Now we were on the regular invite list for Shelley’s Friday cocktail hour.

I often wondered what we would do when the final trials were wrapped up and the Westies were put away for good.  Sean and I agreed that we wanted to stay together for a long time into the future, but we hadn’t made any concrete plans about where we would go from here.  Most of the Westies had been convicted by now, including Bradley.  His trial had been hard on Sean, and I knew that his betrayal of his best friend still weighed heavily on him.  But Bradley would have gone down for his crimes regardless of Sean’s testimony; the evidence was heavily stacked against him.  With the multiple counts of drug trafficking, kidnapping, assault, and two counts of attempted murder, his sentence had been heavy.  He was going to spend the rest of his life in prison.  Bradley had cursed at Sean in the courtroom, railing at him for being a traitor.  I held Sean’s hand through it all, providing what comfort I could.  Even though weeks had passed since then, I still caught Sean staring off glumly into space on occasion, and then I would do my best to distract him.

Often these distractions ended with us lying naked in each other’s arms, gasping for breath as residual pleasure thrummed through our bodies.  In fact, a lot of the time that we spent in the house involved such distractions.  A girl can only focus on a book for so long when a gorgeous man keeps shooting her heated glances from across the room.