A Gift of Time (Tassamara) (28 page)

She had no idea how long it would take Travis to get help. An hour? More? The house was big, but it couldn’t possibly be so big they could all stay hidden indefinitely. And with five of them hiding, Thompson only needed to get lucky to catch one of them. This was a game of hide-and-seek they were destined to lose.

But what if they were playing Ghost in the Graveyard instead?

Not literally, not with the children chasing Thompson, but the outside world offered more scope for getting away. He wouldn’t be able to corner her, speed would count as much as size, and in the dark night, hiding could even be a matter of standing still in the shadows. Once upon a time, she’d hidden from her brothers for a solid twenty minutes by standing pressed against the house in the corner by their garage.

Unless going outside was horror movie stupidity equivalent to splitting up.

Oh, wait. They had split up.

Natalya wished her brain would shut up as she reached the main staircase and headed down.

She’d get to his car. Smash the window if it was locked, honk the horn as loudly as she could. If she could force Thompson to come outside, maybe she could even lead him away from the house and the children. All she needed to do was distract him until help arrived.

At the bottom of the stairs, she paused, uncertain. She could leave the way they’d entered, but… snakes. And Thompson wanted to drown her. If he caught up with her next to that pool… she didn’t want to drown one way or another, but she definitely didn’t want to be fighting for her life in that slimy, murky water.

Decision made, she headed in the other direction. She’d find the front door.

Seconds later, she did. It was locked.

Deadbolted, with no key in sight.

She rested her hand against the wood of the door, trying to catch her breath and not to scream with frustration.

It was a big house. It must have a garage, with a door leading to the outside. Teeth gritted, she headed in the direction she thought the garage must be, ignoring the pain in her face and the cold surrounding her.

Despite her fear, she couldn’t help noticing the house was beautiful. She’d dismissed it as a McMansion from outside, but the interior was actually stunning. Not the fake glamour of a nouveau riche home, with marble and ostentatious chandeliers, but lovely hardwood floors, plain walls, lots of windows overlooking the lake. She passed through the kitchen and paused.

Had she heard something?

“Hello?” she said the word softly.

A door opened. One of the twins stuck his head out. “What’s happening?” he hissed.

She pointed at him. “Stay hidden,” she ordered. “Travis is getting help. Barricade the door if you can and don’t come out until the police come find you.”

He nodded and disappeared behind the closing door.

She took a deep breath. Was she making the right choices? She couldn’t help worrying as she hurried through the kitchen. Were the boys safer in hiding than they would be if they came outside with her?

She started through a sunroom and paused for a split second. This room would be incredible to paint in. All the windows, light from multiple directions, the view of the lake—and French doors, thank God. They were bolted, too, but with the type of bolt that could be opened without a key.

She crossed to the doors and slid the lock to the side. Opening the doors, she stepped outside. Surprisingly, it felt warmer, as if the exterior air were more temperate than the interior air. The sunroom led onto the patio that held the outside pool, so she stayed as far away from it as she could as she worked her way around to the door that led outside the enclosed space.

The moment she stepped onto the path leading around the house she realized her mistake. She wasn’t wearing shoes. The builders must not have finished the landscaping because the path was gravel, not paved and so was the driveway. Swearing under her breath, she winced her way to Thompson’s car.

It was an old four-door sedan and he hadn’t locked it. She pulled the driver’s side door open and leaned on the horn. The sound blared into the night, sounding as loud as a siren. She relaxed her push, then leaned on it again. And again. And again.

When should she run? When she saw him at the door or sooner? But even as she asked herself the question, it was too late. He stepped out of the darkness from the pool side of the house, so close.

Too close.

She yelped and jumped away from the car. Her foot landed hard on sharp gravel and her yelp turned into a cry of pain as the stones dug into her flesh.

Thompson’s voice was rich with sorrow as he said, “Satan’s minions oppose our heavenly Father’s plans. I did not ask for this burden, but I must bear it.”

Natalya scowled at him. “That’s bullshit.”

Thompson paused in his advance.

“God gave you free will and a set of commandments,” Natalya continued, her voice rising. “Thou shalt not kill. There’s no way around that one. It’s not optional. He didn’t put any outs in there, no wiggle room. Thou shalt not kill. Period. End of the law. You don’t get to say, well, he didn’t really mean that, this time it’s okay. No, it’s not okay.”

Thompson rubbed his hand across his face. He sounded confused as he muttered, “The devil quotes scripture.”

“Oh, I am not,” Natalya snapped. “I couldn’t even tell you what book the Ten Commandments are in.”

She ought to be afraid. She ought to be running for her life. But the feeling heating her veins was rage. Why hadn’t this man gotten help the moment his symptoms started getting out of control? Why hadn’t anyone noticed he was spiraling into insanity? Bipolar disorder was a treatable illness. A nice hefty dose of lithium and none of them would be here.

“Get away from her!” Travis’s voice was hoarse, ragged with misery.

Natalya looked beyond Thompson. Travis stood by the corner of the garage, both hands gripping the gun, its barrel pointed in their general direction.

“Travis, no,” Natalya shouted. And then she froze. Her foresight had kicked into action, exactly the way it used to. She knew everything that would happen in the next five seconds. But she had no way to stop it, no way to avoid it.

Thompson roared with rage as he turned toward the boy.

Travis pulled the trigger.

It felt like slow motion to Natalya. That gun—it was so ridiculously large. Where the hell had Travis found a gun so big?

The bullet tore through Thompson.

Through and through, in and out, the blood already staining his shirt, black in the night. Maybe hit a lung, thought the analytical part of Natalya’s brain. Passed right through, tissue only, no deflecting off any hard bones.

But the expression on his face—the wide eyes, the lips parting with shock—how could she have forgotten that? How could she have not remembered that sight? Why hadn’t it starred in her nightmares for years?

Her hands fluttered toward her chest. It was going to hurt. Oh, hell, it was going to hurt.

But she was already falling backward as the bullet broke through her skin, penetrated her tissue, lodged deep inside.

It was hot. Shockingly hot. The pain exploded inside her, agony running along her nerve endings. How had she thought her bruised cheek hurt? That was a sparkler compared to a mortar, a gentle rain to a hurricane.

She pressed her hand against her chest.

The blood, so sticky against her fingers. So warm. She could smell it, the metallic earthiness of it. Salt and sewage and death.

She turned her head. The gravel looked huge, gigantic jagged white rocks, like a surreal moonscape.

She let out a breath.

Oh, how it hurt.

Leaves on water.

Clouds in the sky.

But oh, it hurt.

She hurt.

“Got a shot fired on Elsinore Lake,” Colin radioed in, keeping his voice calm. He was driving slowly, searching for a driveway. It wasn’t marked on his GPS and there were no streetlights showing the turn, but it had to be close.

“10-4, Sheriff. You requesting backup?” Rudean sounded eager to send all units blazing to the rescue.

Colin didn’t respond immediately. He’d spotted the entrance, a gap in the trees opening into a long dirt and gravel driveway. Turning in, he coasted along the road, his overhead lights off, his siren silent. He didn’t want to alert the shooter to his presence before he had to.

The sound he’d heard might mean nothing. Guns were fired all the time around these parts. Not after midnight, usually, but a local homeowner might be scaring off raccoons messing with the garbage cans. Or the sound could have been a firecracker, set off by someone celebrating the New Year a little too early. While fireworks weren’t technically legal in Florida, giant loopholes in the law meant they’d be going off all over the county in about twenty-four hours.

But the scene his headlights revealed had him picking up his transceiver. “Copy, Rudean, I need backup here. And rescue. One down, one injured, and an armed shooter.”

His vision had a surreal clarity, as if his car’s headlights had become halogen spotlights. In a glance, he took in the license plate of the car in the driveway; the woman who lay next to it, her dark hair spread out in the gravel; the size and shape of the man standing, blood staining his shirt; the African-American boy beyond him with a gun in his hands, shock in his face.

He kept talking, his voice not shaking. “Confirm BOLO on the vehicle, subject is present and injured.”

Four missing boys. Could there be another shooter, somewhere out of sight?

His radio exploded with sound as his deputies responded. Colin opened his car door and slid out behind it, staying low, as he unholstered his weapon. He reached into the car and flipped the switch to turn on his rarely-used speaker. “Drop the gun,” he ordered, his enhanced voice echoing into the night.

The boy looked down at the gun in his hands as if he’d never seen it before. Colin didn’t wait. “Face down on the ground. Now,” he ordered.

His radio crackled. “Where the hell are you, Sheriff?” Rudean demanded. “This damn machine has you out in space somewhere.”

Colin didn’t answer. A dark pool of shadow was spreading along the ground off Nat’s left side. It held his eyes as if they were magnetized. “Drop your gun,” he shouted again.

Wait for backup. Secure the scene. Maintain control of the situation. He knew the procedures.

But that was Nat bleeding out twenty feet away from him.

This shouldn’t be happening.

Couldn’t be happening.

But it was.

The man, Thompson, dropped to his knees. He swayed. Colin could see his lips moving, could tell he was muttering something, but the words were indistinct. The boy hadn’t moved.

“Drop your gun,” Colin shouted again, not bothering with the speaker. He had his weapon free. He could step out from the car and shoot as many times as it took to take the kid down. But he’d never fired his weapon out of fear before.

And that was a kid.

The boy bent and set the gun down on the gravel road in front of him. Colin inhaled, a gigantic gulp of air that felt like the first he’d taken in since he’d seen the blood seeping into the ground.

“Step away from the gun,” he shouted. “On the ground, face down.”

The boy didn’t listen. He turned and ran, disappearing around the side of the house in the seconds it took Colin to step out from behind his car and lift his weapon.

“Where the hell are you, Sheriff?” The radio crackled again. “This thing don’t make no sense.”

Colin grabbed the radio transceiver. “All units,” he barked. He fell into so-familiar official language as he gave his location and demanded two ambulances and backup, but with every word he was aware of the heartbeats that were passing, that were pumping blood into the dirt.

The moment he was through, he ran for her.

He fell to his knees next to the car, ignoring the sharp gravel digging into his skin, the pain that told him this was no dream.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Her eyes were open, alive. One hand covered the hole in her chest, but without pressure. Immediately, Colin dropped his against it, firmly pushing the fingers into the soft tissue.

“Nat.” The nickname said everything.

Her eyelashes fluttered. She pulled them open again as if it were a great effort. “Not Travis’s fault,” she breathed. “Thompson wanted to kill me.”

“Nat,” he said again, his voice broken.

Her lips curved into the tiniest of smiles. “Not how it was supposed to be. Huh.” Her eyes closed.

“Natalya Latimer,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.” He hadn’t cried in so long, in so many years, that he didn’t even recognize the feeling inside his eyes.

She opened her eyes again. “Gotta stop the bleeding,” she whispered, tongue tracing her lips. “I’m so cold. So cold. Not a good sign.”

“The ambulance is on its way,” he promised her.

Behind him, he heard a scuffling noise. Was the boy back? He could be picking up the gun, aiming at Colin’s back, but Colin didn’t even look. He didn’t care. Not while Nat still bled.

It was a breath, not a chuckle, but somehow Nat conveyed amusement through it. “Tassamara,” she said. “Love the place but…” She paused and gasped, pain crossing her face. “Middle of nowhere’s not where you want to get shot.”

“What can I do?” Colin demanded.

She grimaced. “Pressure. No arteries or I’d be dead already. But…” She fell silent.

“Tell me what to do.”

Her head fell to the side. “Not Travis’s fault,” she whispered again. Her eyelids closed. He could barely hear the words as she breathed, “So cold.”

“This isn’t right. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.” He choked out the words, fighting to get them past the knot in his throat.

Her eyes didn’t open.

“You should have moved on,” he told her, not shifting his hands. “Gone to art school. Gotten married. Had kids. Lived the life you deserved to live. This is wrong.”

A tiny flutter of her eyelashes said maybe she heard him, but she didn’t respond.

Colin didn’t move. He just pushed harder, his fingers pressing into hers, into the blood still seeping out of her.

And he waited.