Fallen Angels 01 - Covet (53 page)

After all, he'd been the first car to stop when she'd had that near miss in traffic after the service today. Which suggested he'd been right behind her.

How often had he followed her home? Had he come to the Iron Mask?

On a cold shiver, she wondered...had he killed those men she'd been with?

The whole thing didn't exactly make her glad for the kind of man her ex-husband had been. But she appreciated the precautions she'd taken because of Mark.

From out the front windshield, the offices of the
Caldwell Courier
Journal
flew by and she squeezed Vin's hand. “Almost there.”

His lids lifted. Those gray eyes that had first captivated her did the trick all over again: Staring into them, she felt as though she were tripping and falling and didn't have a clue where she was going to land.

Although that was no longer true, was it. She knew exactly the sort of man he was, and he was
not
the kind she had to look out for.

He was the man she needed in her life. Wanted in her life.

Leaning down to him, she smoothed his hair back, stroked his five-o'clock shadow, and looked into his eyes. “I love you,” she said, bending down and kissing his lips. “I love you.” His hand cranked down on hers. “Love you...too.”

Boy, that croaking voice lit her up from the inside. “Good. We're even then.”

“We...are....”

The ambulance bumped over something in the road and everything from the machines to the medic to Vin on the gurney got tossed up.

As he sucked in a vicious hiss and squeezed his eyes shut, she went back to looking out the front window again, anxious to see the ambient glow of the St. Francis Hospital complex...hoping that somehow her making visual contact with their route would speed things along.

Come on...come on....

All at once the ambulance up ahead put its red lights out and slowed down to the speed limit, and the one she and Vin were in caught up quickly...then passed its leader.

“Why did they slow down?” she demanded as the medic repositioned the EKG monitor. “Their lights are off.
Why are they slowing down?'

The shake of the head she got in response was not a surprise. It was a tragedy: You needed to rush only if the person were alive. Which was why no one had attended to Saul after he'd been pronounced dead.

Death left you with an eternity to deal with bodies. No hurry there.

Marie-Terese dragged in a breath, and as tears came to her eyes, she let go of the stable bar and brushed them away. The last thing she wanted was for Vin to crack his lids and see her upset. “ETA two minutes,” the driver called out from in front.

The medic picked up a chart. “Ma'am, I forgot to ask you. Are you his next of kin?”

Wiping her eyes, she pulled herself together for Vin's sake and knew right off there was no way in hell she was going to risk getting sidelined when it came to his care. Acquaintances and friends got only so far when it came to ER doctors and nurses.

“I'm his wife,” she said.

The woman nodded and made a note. “And your name is?” She didn't even pause. “Gretchen. Gretchen Capricio.”

***

Two hours later, those hell-yeah words were spoken to Vin as his admitting physician snapped off her bright blue surgical gloves and tossed the pair into an orange biohazard container.

She was so right. All it had taken was local anesthesia and some stitches to close up the entrance and the exit wounds. No bones busted up or tendons sliced or nerve damage. That bastard with the gun had hit nothing but meat, which was gross and a good call.

Vin had been really lucky.

Unfortunately, his response to the good news was to curl over and throw up into the pink bedpan next to his head. And the fact that he moved his torso made the pain in his shoulder go rock-star... which made the vomiting worse...which made the pain worse...and around and around he went. And yet still he had to agree with the woman in the scrubs. He was lucky. The luckiest bastard on the face of the planet.

“You cannot handle Demerol, however,” she said.

Thanks for the newsflash, Vin thought. He'd been hurling since they'd given him the shot about thirty minutes ago.

After his latest bout of gagging lost its enthusiasm, he settled back against the pillow and closed his eyes. As a cool hand towel-wiped his mouth and his face, he smiled. Marie-Terese—Gretchen, actually—

was still terrific with the terry cloth.

And God willing, she wouldn't have to put that skill set to use on him again anytime soon.

“I'm going to give you an antinausea injection,” the doctor said, “and if the vomiting subsides, we can release you. Stitches need to be removed in ten days, but your internist can do that. We've given you a tetanus shot and I'll write you a prescription for oral antibiotics—but we have some samples here, and we've already given you one of them. Any questions?”

Vin opened his lids and looked not at the doctor, but at Gretchen. She loved him. She'd said so, in the ambulance. He'd heard the words from her very own mouth.

So nope, he didn't have any questions. As long as he knew she felt like that, he was good to go on pretty much everything else.

“Just shoot me up, Doc, so I can get the hell out of here.”

The woman snapped on fresh gloves, uncapped a syringe and put the needle right into his vein. As she hit the plunger, he didn't feel a thing, which made the hurling almost worth it. “This should ease things immediately.”

Vin held his breath, not really expecting—

Holy shit. The effect was lickety-split, as if his belly had been blanketed in a whole lot of whoa-nelly-easy-there-big-boy. On a shuddering breath, his entire body went loose, giving him a clear idea, as if the upchucking hadn't, of exactly how green he'd felt.

“Let's see if that holds,” the doctor said, recapping the syringe and tucking it into an orange box. “Just rest here, and when I release you, we'll get you and your wife a cab.”

He and his wife.

Vin brought Gretchen's hand up to his mouth and brushed her knuckles with a kiss. “Sound good to you?” he asked. “Honey?”

“Perfect.” A smile lifted her lips. “As long as you're ready to go.

Dear.”

“I so am.”

“All right, I'll be back to check on you.” The doctor went over to the curtain that separated Vin's bay from the rest of the ER. “Listen, the CPD is asking to see you. I can tell them to contact you—”

“Send them in,” Vin said. “No reason to wait.”

“You sure?”

“What's the worst that can happen? I start throwing up again and use the guy's pockets instead of my bedpan? I'm willing to risk that.”

“Okay, you got it. If it goes on too long, hit the nursing button and we'll intervene.” The doctor nodded and swept the drape back. “Good luck.”

As the curtain swung shut, Vin squeezed Gretchen's hand with urgency, because he didn't know how much time they had.

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

“Always.”

“What happened with Jim? Did he...?”

The hard swallow she took before she answered told him everything, and to spare her from having to put out the words, he kissed her hand again. “Shh, it's all right. You don't have to say it—”

“He was your friend. I'm so sorry—”

“I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to.” Vin rubbed the beating pulse at her wrist with his thumb. “I'm so glad you're still here. For your son. For me. Jim did an incredibly selfless, heroic thing, and as much as I wish he hadn't died because of it, I'm very grateful for what he did.”

She dropped her head and nodded, her curling hair falling forward. As he drew circles over the fine bones of her wrist, he traced the glossy waves with his eyes. Jim's final action on earth had left one hell of a legacy, namely a life to be lived...and a son who still had his mother...and a lover whose heart hadn't been shattered by loss.

A fine legacy.

“He was a real man.” Vin cleared his throat. “That one...was a real man.”

They sat in silence together, he flat on the gurney, she on a plastic chair, their hands linked tightly —just as the man who had saved her life had put them together over his chest.

On the other side of the gray-and-blue curtain, people rush-rush-rushed along, their voices overlapping, their shoes shuffling by, their shoulders brushing the drape and causing it to swing from the metal hooks it hung from.

He and Gretchen, on the other hand, were motionless.

Death did that to a person, Vin thought. Stopped them in their place in the midst of the great tumble and scramble of their life, isolating them in still silence. In the instant it took hold, it changed everything, but its effect was like that of a car slamming into a wall—what was inside kept on going because the shit didn't know better...with the result being utter chaos: All the clothes the person had worn became some kind of history exhibit to be cleaned out by a weepy nearest-and-dearest...and their magazine subscriptions and account reports and dental reminders went from “correspondence” to “junk mail”...and the place where they lived went from being a home to a house.

Everything stopped...and nothing was what it had been.

God, when the news hit that someone you knew died, you got a small shot of what the deceased was getting a whole boatload of: You stopped short and pulled out of the business of life as the ringing of the bell resonated through your mind and your body. And because humans were a pain in the ass, usually the first thought was,
No, it
can't be.

Life, however, didn't come with a rewind button and it sure as fuck wasn't interested in opinions from the peanut gallery.

The curtain pulled back, revealing a stocky man with dark hair and dark eyes. “Vin diPietro?”

Vin jerked himself to attention. “Ah...yeah, that's me.”

The man stepped inside and took out a badge. “I'm Detective de la Cruz from Homicide. How you doing?”

“Haven't thrown up in about ten minutes.”

“Well, good for you.” He nodded to Gretchen and gave her a little bow. “I'm sorry we have to meet again so soon...and under these circumstances. Now, can you guys give me a quick version of what happened? And listen, neither of you is under arrest—but if you'd rather talk with a lawyer present, I understand.”

Mick Rhodes hadn't been called yet, and he'd no doubt advise against saying anything without him, but Vin was too tired to care—and anyway, it didn't hurt to be nominally cooperative when you'd acted within the bounds of the law.

Vin shook his head back and forth on the pillow. “No, it's fine, Detective. As for what went down...we were upstairs in the bedroom with...” For no good reason, an overriding instinct told him not to mention Eddie—one so strong that he felt powerless to resist it.

“...with Jim.”

The detective took out a little pad of paper and a pen, all Columbo-style. “What were you doing in the house? The neighbors said that usually there's no one in it.”

“I own the place and I've decided to finally do it over for resale. I'm a real estate developer and Jim works...worked...for me. We were there discussing the project, you know, going through the rooms.... I guess I'd left the front door open and we were upstairs when it all happened.” As the detective nodded and made notes in his pad, Vin gave him a chance to get it all down. “We were in the bedroom, talking, and the next thing I know I hear this gun go off. It happened so damn fast.... Jim jumped in front of her and took the bullet.... I was by the dresser with my back to the door, and I went for my piece—

which, by the way, is registered and I have a license to carry. I shot the guy with the gun and he went down.”

More notations in the pad. “You shot him a number of times.”

“Yeah, I did. He wasn't getting a chance to let loose any more rounds.”

The detective backed through his notebook, the inked-up pages making a crackling sound. When he looked up again, he smiled briefly. “Right, okay...so why don't you try it again and tell me the truth this time. Why were you in that house?”

“I told you—”

“There was salt poured everywhere and incense in the air and the window upstairs in that bedroom had been broken. The sink on the second floor was filled with some kind of solution, and there were empty bottles of things like hydrogen peroxide all over—and the circle drawn on the floor in the middle of that bedroom you were in was also a nice touch. Oh...and you were found with your shirt off and no shoes on, which seems like an odd wardrobe if you were gum-flapping about business. So... although I'm inclined to believe you about the shooting part, because I can trace the paths of bullets as well as the next guy, you're full of crap about the rest of it.”

Right, pin-drop time.

“I think we should tell him the truth, honey,” Gretchen said.

Vin looked over at her and wondered, Exactly which truth would that be, dear?

“Please do,” the detective said. “And look, I'll tell you what I believe, if it'll help. The guy you killed was named Eugene Locke, alias Saul Weaver. He's a convicted murderer who got out of prison about six months ago. He was renting the house next door and he was obsessed”—the detective nodded at Gretchen—”with you.”

“This is what I can't understand...why—” Gretchen stopped. “Wait a minute, how do you know that? What did you find at his house?”

The detective looked away from his notes, focusing on a middle ground. “The man had pictures of you.”

“What kind of pictures,” she asked in a flat tone.

As Vin rubbed her hand, the detective met her eyes. “Wide-lens, telephoto stuff.”

“How many.”

“A lot.”

Gretchen's palm tightened against his. “You find anything else?”

“There was a statue upstairs. One that actually had been reported stolen from St. Patrick's Cathedral—”

“Oh, my God, the Mary Magdalene,” Gretchen said. “I saw it was missing from the church.”

“That's the one. And I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but she looks a lot like you.”

Vin struggled with the urge to kill the guy all over again. “Could this Eugene...Saul guy... whatever his name was, be responsible for those deaths and beatings in the alleys?”