Fallen (37 page)

He managed to lift the footboard from the floor—maybe a quarter inch—but it dropped back onto the carpet with a muted thud before he could slide either restraint down enough.

Ryan cursed in defeat, eyes closed and chest heaving as his head fell back weakly against the rails. He tried to find his breath as a wave of despairing heat fell over him.

He had to try again.

*

Bewilderment and terror clawed at Lydia as Molly forced her through the kitchen entrance, her right arm wrapped around her neck like a restraint collar and the gun pressed to her temple.

I had acid to throw in your smug face.

She went rigid, grasping onto the counter’s edge to anchor herself as it came within reach.

“Move,
bitch
.” The pressure on her throat intensified, making her wheeze until her fingers released their hold. If this was the police shooter … was Ryan dead? Tears leaked from her eyes.

Molly continued to propel her forward until they stood in front of the oven.

“Reach out your hand and turn on the eye.”

Her stomach twisted in sick realization. Molly was going to burn her.

“
Do it
.” She pressed the barrel painfully against her skull. “Or you stop breathing
now
.”

She had no choice. Lydia’s fingers shook as she hesitantly reached out to the dial, turning on the gas. Disbelief sent waves of hot and cold pulsating through her.

“You’re insane!” she managed to croak out, struggling.

“On high.”

She did as told, her legs wobbly and heart skittering in frantic beats as she stared at the dancing circle of blue fire. Molly’s hold on her throat was the only thing keeping her standing. Dread churned inside her. She didn’t understand any of this—why this woman had followed her in the garage that night with the intent of harming her, why she hadn’t just finished her already with a bullet to her brain.

“P-please! Don’t do this—”

“Did you think I was going to make it easy for you?” Standing behind her, maintaining her tight grip, Molly rocked Lydia’s perspiring body back and forth. “
Poor thing
. You’re a doctor. You know how disfiguring burns can be.”

Lydia moaned softly. Dizzy, she felt more blood trickling down the back of her neck.

“Don’t worry. You’ll see Ryan one last time. I want him to have a look at the pretty, new you.”

He was still alive, then.

Lydia’s hand bumped against a bulge in the right pocket of her lab coat. Her EpiPen. She’d taken to carrying it directly on her after the wasp incident.

Her blood rushed in her ears. It was the only chance she had. She wasn’t going to just let herself be maimed! Gut clenching, she inched her hand carefully into her pocket, trying to gain control over her trembling fingers as Molly continued her verbal attack.

“I’ve dealt with women like you before.” Her breath rasped against Lydia’s ear. “Thinking you’re better than me. That you can have any man you want. You came into Frank’s place and
stole
Ryan like he still belonged to you! You threw him away until you thought he could be interested in
me
! Was that fun for you?”

“N-no!”

Gasping against the crushing pressure on her throat, Lydia managed to flip the cap from the carrier tube using her thumbnail. Then tilting it sideways, she slid the injector out into her pocket. She tried to pull off the safety release in an awkward, one-handed move but failed, losing her grip as Molly began forcing her forward at the waist, tightening her hold on her throat even more and making it impossible to draw air into her lungs. Fresh panic set in.

“You can fight, but you’re going to faint eventually,
runt
,” the taller woman said, grunting with effort. “And I’m going to hold you down until I can smell your flesh cooking.
Delicious steak Lydia
.”

The lack of oxygen was weakening her quickly, the circular flame growing unfocused in her watery vision. Lydia’s muscles jumped under her skin, her heart squeezing. She did her best to twist her head away from the hot flame as she was pressed closer. Lydia’s chin-length hair hung down. It would catch fire first. Nausea swept through her at the heat radiating onto her skin.

Her lungs screamed for air. Black spots danced in front of her eyes as Lydia discreetly removed the injector from her pocket. Gripping it in one hand, she pulled off the safety release with the other.

Molly kicked the back of her knee, nearly collapsing her face-first onto the stove. “You’re going to need a closed casket, you stuck-up—”

Now.

With a burst of energy, she blindly plunged it up and behind her. Molly shoved her away with a howl.

Coughing and gasping, Lydia whirled. She’d hit Molly in the throat. She stumbled away, knowing she hadn’t been able to hold it there long enough to deliver the full dose of epinephrine. But Molly was bent over, grasping her neck, the gun pointing downward and Lydia’s makeshift weapon on the floor. Lydia bolted from the kitchen, hoping she’d hit the jugular or carotid, doing damage. But the stomach-turning
thwap
of the gun’s silencer a few seconds later confirmed she’d missed her mark. Wall plaster exploded near her shoulder, making Lydia cringe as she reached the crossroads between the living room and hallway.

The front door was a dozen feet away but a direct target, out in the open. Molly was coming for her. Limbs shaking, she turned sharply and, scooping up her backpack in the hall, ran into the closest room on the right. Slamming the door closed, she locked it as another bullet made splintering impact with the wood. She sobbed in terror, crouching behind a metal tower that held a set of free weights. Ryan was here somewhere, probably injured. But he was
alive.
Molly had said so. Lydia couldn’t leave him.

“You fucking bitch!” Pounding on the door, Molly screamed vile threats that made Lydia’s blood curdle. Jaw clenched, her breath rasping sharply, she dug through her backpack for her cell phone and key chain that held the canister of pepper spray.

Like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Tears flooded her eyes as she willed her fear-clumsy fingers to punch the numbers on her phone.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

“Please help me!” she pleaded, panting as Molly continued her assault on the door. “I’m at a house on Candler Street. It’s a white ranch with pine trees all around. There’s a woman with a gun. She’s shooting—”

“What’s the street address?”

“I-I don’t know!” Lydia’s stomach squeezed at the sudden, eerie quiet in the hall. “It’s two properties from the MARTA stop on the corner of Barfield. There’s a black Ford Explorer and a silver Volvo parked in the driveway! Please, hurry!”

She tugged at her hair, her voice breaking. “We need an ambulance, too. There’s … a police officer here. He’s hurt.”

“We have cars en route. Stay on the phone with me, ma’am. What’s your name?”

She rocked in place. “Lydia. Dr. Lydia Costa.”

“Where are you in the house? We need your location …”

The dispatcher’s words faded into dust, replaced by a rising buzz in Lydia’s ears. She heard a click and saw the doorknob turning. Horror washed through her. Molly had found the key.

Lydia screamed, shielding her head with her arms as the door swung open and hit the wall with a whack. Molly stalked into the room with the gun raised, her eyes glinting with fury. Sparks flew as a bullet ricocheted off the iron weights. Lydia scrambled backward on the floor, her pepper spray gripped in her hand.

She would die here. Her heart went weak as Molly stood over her, smiling coldly, the gun aimed at her face.

The booming explosion deafened her.

Lydia watched, stunned, as Molly’s head snapped sideways and she dropped to the floor in a red mist, legs sprawled out, the mane of hair partially hiding her face.

“Take the gun.”

Ryan’s hoarse voice pulled her gaze from the body. He entered from the hallway, still in shooting stance, his steps sluggish. Lydia’s heart beat painfully.

“Ryan …” she croaked out.

His face was ashen, the right side of his half-open shirt soaked with crimson. The amount of blood frightened her. She wasn’t sure how he was standing. Lydia managed to crawl timidly forward and pull the gun toward her, although there was no doubt Molly was dead. Her mouth hung open, her green eyes staring out unseeingly through flaxen hair. Lydia swallowed hard at the globs of brain matter sitting amid skull fragments.

She looked back at Ryan. She cried out as he collapsed against the wall, his back leaving a bloody smear on the way down.

“Ryan!” She went to him on her hands and knees. Her lungs squeezed as she pressed two fingers firmly against the side of his throat. His pulse was weak but existent, his breathing shallow and fast. His skin was cold. Clammy. With a sob, Lydia tore his shirt open the rest of the way and saw the hole in his side. With shaking fingers, she grabbed for a T-shirt Adam had left hanging on the bench press and pushed the cotton deeply into the puncture, then used her hands to provide direct pressure over it. She noticed his abraded wrists and the plastic cords encircling them. Her body shivered as she heard the approaching wail of sirens.

“Hold on, Ryan,” she pleaded to his unconscious form, a hard ache inside her throat. Tears obscured her vision. “Please don’t leave me.”

A minute later, she screamed out their location as first responders entered the house.

Chapter Thirty-Two

More than a
week had passed, and while Adam was no longer in the ICU, he remained in a step-down unit. He looked like hell, Ryan thought. Noticeably thinner and pale, with the telltale scar of open-heart surgery peeking from the top of his hospital gown.

But he was miraculously alive.

Ryan sat in a chair beside his bed, still hospitalized himself. He hoped to be released as early as tomorrow, however, and had felt strong enough to make the journey from his own room to Adam’s without assistance.

“I didn’t sleep with her, you know.” Adam adjusted the IV line inserted into the back of his hand, then attempted to disentangle it from the other wires attached to him.

Leaning forward to help, Ryan shifted carefully, feeling the tug of sutures covering his own healing wound. For the last several days he’d foregone the standard hospital apparel, instead wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt under a robe Lydia had brought him from home.

“I don’t think it mattered,” he said. “She’d lost control. In the end any perceived slight was reason enough for retribution.”

Deep hollows were forged under Adam’s eyes. “God. To think I wanted you to ask her out.”

“She fooled everyone,” Ryan reminded soberly.

“I could always tell she was sweet on you, but …” His head against the pillow, Adam appeared remorseful. “Who knows what I told her about Lydia.”

They were still learning about Molly Renee Babin, including the fact that she’d departed California not long after her boyfriend there, a Los Angeles police officer, had died from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. The LA coroner had ruled the death a suicide, but in light of the Atlanta shootings, the case was about to be reopened. Not that it would make much difference now, Ryan thought, other than to give his family some closure.

“What?” Adam asked.

He realized he’d been staring at his brother, still marveling at his survival. Ryan’s voice roughened. “I’m just glad you’re still here.”

Adam released a weak huff, bluish stubble shadowing his jaw. “I still can’t believe that bitch told you I was dead.”

Even in his current condition, some of Adam’s intensity had begun to return. Ryan wanted to tell him not to call her that, but he didn’t, aware he’d had the same powerful feelings.

The APD had gained access to Molly’s mental health records, which revealed that she had been treated for a persistent borderline personality disorder in California. Perhaps even more telling, her father had been the police chief in a small town in Idaho, where Molly had lived until running away to the West Coast as a teen. Mack Babin had abused her sexually throughout her childhood, she had revealed to psychiatrists. There was some loose evidence to support her claims, although no charges had ever been filed.

In the days before her final rampage, Molly had flown to Idaho, apparently to visit her father’s grave.

The headstone had been vandalized with spray paint.

Ryan wondered if Molly’s fixation on law enforcement had started with the father who pretended to love her but clearly hadn’t. If what she’d claimed was true, he had exploited her in the worst possible way. It was possible her vengeance on the men who failed her had been a subconscious act against the one person who should have been her protector.

Once he was released from the hospital, Ryan would be scheduled to attend a hearing in front of the department’s shooting board. He dreaded it, even though he had already been told it was basically a formality. What he’d done had been necessary to save a life.

Still, he didn’t take killing someone lightly.