CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) (42 page)

             
The headlights flashed. It was unlocked.

             
Oberlin kept pacing toward her, his gait stiff-legged and resentful. "Pastor Prescott told me he'd found my changes to the accounting books. He told me I had to return the money right away. I tried to explain my plan, that when I was a senator, the church would be rich, but he wouldn't listen to reason. He was going to steal my livelihood."

             
"Your livelihood?" She couldn't comprehend Oberlin's audacity. "It sounds like you didn't have a livelihood."

             
"You sound like
him
. You sound like your father!" Oberlin held his hands out as if he was desperately grasping for reason, only to find it slipping away. "I couldn't be a senator without that money. I hated being invisible, hated my father-in-law sneering at me. I needed to be a senator, and Bennett Prescott would not let me!"

             
Kate stopped slinking away. "So you killed him."

             
"I picked up his stupid piece of wood and knocked him across the head." For one second, Kate shut her eyes. Oberlin had killed a man—had killed the father of four children, a minister and a good man,
her father
—because he wouldn't allow Oberlin to steal money from the church treasury.

             
When Oberlin spoke again, he stood two feet away. "You understand. It was necessary."

             
Opening her eyes, she stared at him.

             
He appeared noble and important and sorrowful, like some politician forced to agree to a prisoner's execution.

             
"And my mother?" Kate's lips felt stiff.

             
"I still feel grief about that. She came in. I wasn't expecting her."

             
"No. I don't imagine you were." Somehow, the cool breeze had turned corrosive. It lashed at Kate's skin. It hurt her lungs.

             
"But she knew I was out there, so it turned out for the best." A murderer's logic.               "Did you hit her with the same piece of wood? The present my father was making for her birthday?"

             
"She didn't know . . . she thought he fell. . . . She was kneeling beside him . . . but she turned at the last moment and saw me and I—"

             
"For pity's sake!" Kate put out her hand to stop him. She couldn't stomach anymore.

             
Oberlin grabbed her fingers. "Kate, you understand. It was necessary."

             
Desperately she tried to extract her hand.

             
"It was all necessary." He held tight, uncaring that he ground her knuckles together, that the joints strained and bruised. "When I saw you, when I recognized you, I realized I'd been given a second chance. That you had been sent for me."

             
"No, I
haven't
." She twisted her fingers free. Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she pulled out her phone and opened it as if to make a call.

             
"No!" Grabbing the phone out of her hand, he smashed it against a standing headstone.

             
She recoiled. Her mouth grew dry and her mind froze.

             
She was here with him. She was alone. And she had denied him.
She had said no.
              "You can't do that." Blood vessels burst and crimson crept into the whites of his eyes. "You can't call
him
."

             
From far away, she heard a siren. Finally. Thank God.
Finally
someone was coming.

             
Her brain started working again. She had keys in her pocket. Keys could be a weapon.

             
Before she could reach for them, Oberlin grabbed her wrist. "Did you betray me with
him
? Did you?"

             
"I didn't betray you." She stood still and stared into his eyes. "I am not yours."               "That cheap womanizer. Ramos is nothing but the son of a whore."

             
She jerked as his words hit home.

             
Oberlin saw her reaction, pressed his advantage. "You didn't know that, did you? He didn't tell you that. God knows who his father was. One of a thousand. One of a million."

             
The sirens were louder.

             
"You're hurting me," she said.

             
Oberlin looked at her wrist gripped tightly in his hand. With an expression of surprise and horror, he released her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have . . . but you have to listen to me. You're meant for me, not him. You'll be the jewel on my arm."

             
"I have my own jewels and my own arms." She fell back, rubbing her wrist. Slowly she dipped her hand into her pocket. She slipped one key between each finger, then clenched her fist around the key ring. In a polite tone, she added, "But thank you."

             
"You think you're in love with Ramos, but you can't be. He's a liar." Oberlin's chest heaved as he followed her, palm outstretched. "He tells girls he's a magnificent lover, but he's not."

             
She didn't mean to. It was a stupid thing to do. But she was nervous. She knew the truth. So she laughed.

             
Oberlin's control exploded into shards of insanity. "Bitch." He slapped her, a fast, backhanded blow that whipped her head around and brought tears to her eyes.

             
He lifted his palm to slap her again.

             
She blocked his hand with one upraised arm. Brought the other out of her pocket and stabbed at his face. The keys ripped into his cheek in two long scratches. He jolted backward. His fingers flew to his face. Came back bloody.

             
A police car came screaming into the parking lot, lights flashing, siren roaring.               Oberlin started for her again.

             
She ran toward the parking lot.

             
Before she had gone three steps, he caught her by the shoulder. Turning on him, she slashed at him again, but he held her off with the length of his arm. "Don't touch me," she shouted. "Don't you ever touch me! I won't let you kill me like you killed
my mother
."

             
The police car's horn blasted. The driver whipped around like a maniac, took aim—and jumped the curb.

             
He drove right at them, over the well-tended grass, over the flat gravestones.

             
Oberlin glanced over, but instead of panic she saw deadly satisfaction. "It's him," Oberlin said.

             
Teague
. She saw him, too. Teague was driving— straight at them.

             
Reaching into his breast pocket, Oberlin pulled out a gun. Feet braced, he aimed at the windshield.

             
With a banshee shriek, she leaped at him.

             
He fell sideways.

             
The shot shattered the glass. The car careened wildly. Skidded in a circle, grass flying. Smashed into a standing headstone and came to a halt.

             
Kate ran to the driver's side and jerked open the door. Teague slumped sideways onto the seat, blood pouring from his scalp.

             
"Teague!" She leaned into the car.

             
The sirens still screamed. The lights still flashed. From the parking lot she heard more brakes squeal. Heard people shout.

             
She didn't care. "Teague. Teague, please."

             
In an awkward motion, he flung his arm up, knocking her away.

             
She staggered backward.

             
He launched himself out of the car with sudden, gawky motions.

             
He was alive.

             
She was glad.

             
He was wounded.

             
She was terrified.

             
George Oberlin stood laughing, his pistol pointed at Teague.

             
Men and women raced across the grass, yelling, but they wouldn't get there in time.

             
Teague moved into the open, away from the car. Turning his head, he looked at her. Blood smeared his pallid face. His eyes looked swollen. Sliding his jacket back, he pulled out a pistol. He lifted the pistol, squinted at Oberlin.

             
He couldn't aim.

             
She knew it. Oberlin knew it.

             
He offered himself as a decoy to draw Oberlin's fire.

             
She glanced at the senator. He set his feet again. Prepared to shoot.

             
Teague was going to die.

             
In the police car. A shotgun. Leaning in, she pulled it off the rack. She pumped it.               Oberlin followed Teague with the barrel of his pistol. She saw his eyes narrow.

             
She lifted the rifle to her shoulder.

             
Out of the corner of his eye, Oberlin glimpsed the motion.

             
His head turned. His mouth opened. He screamed, "No, Lana!"

             
Kate fired.

TWENTY-FOUR

              George didn't see how Kate's shot could have missed— but it did. He was still standing, staring at Kate.

             
The whole terrible group of Prescotts and their mates ran up, helter-skelter, their pistols out.

             
Silly Kate. She didn't know how to fire a shotgun. How stupid of her to think she did. To think she could kill him. He smiled. He was going to kill them all. Wipe every Prescott off the face of the earth.

             
He raised his own gun . . . but he wasn't holding it. He looked at his hand. It was empty. In his fright, had he dropped the weapon?

             
Moreover, the Prescotts weren't staring at him, they were staring at the ground near his feet. Hope—he recognized Hope—had her hand over her mouth. Pepper—he recognized Pepper, too—looked sick.

             
Only Kate stood with her chin up. "I'm a reporter. I've seen such sights before," she murmured, "but I've never been glad before."

             
"Kate." Ramos stood still, swaying, his arms extended.

             
She went to him.

             
He hugged her, his head on top of hers.

             
What sights? What did she mean?

             
George looked down on the ground to see what they were talking about.

             
A man's body lay there. A bloody wound split his chest. A gun, George's gun, lay inches from his splayed fingers. Crimson spattered his outflung arms, his belly, his chin . . .

             
"What . . . ?" George pointed a shaking finger. "What . . . ?" His own
face
was on that body. His body rested on the green grass. Rested there as if he were . . . dead.

             
Dead! No, that was impossible.

             
He pointed at the body. "Who's that?" He looked up at the Prescotts.

             
They didn't answer him. They acted as if they didn't hear him. They gathered around Teague and Kate. They acted as if they had been reunited after years of toil and grief.

             
As if George wasn't still there and dangerous.

             
"Who's that?" He spoke louder, and he used his senator-addressing-the-press voice.

             
Then he realized that two people had joined the Prescott children.

             
He stared so intently he could almost see through them. He shuddered, a bone-splitting shudder, when he recognized them. He hadn't seen them for twenty-three years, but there was no mistaking them.

             
Bennett and Lana Prescott, and they looked . . . they looked
alive
.