CLOSE TO YOU: Enhanced (Lost Hearts) (43 page)

             
They were dressed casually, as they had always dressed, and both observed him, their eyes as intelligent and perceptive as those days when he'd been younger and not quite so . . . he cut off the thought. He wasn't
evil
. That was an old-fashioned concept, like heaven and hell and sin and redemption. If he believed in that stuff, he'd have to believe that, when he died, he was going to burn in hell. That was nonsense. Ridiculous nonsense used to pull money out of a man's wallet and put it in a church's coffer.

             
Why were they here?

             
"Who is that?" George still pointed at the body.

             
But the Prescott children paid no attention.

             
"Who do you think it is, George?" Lana's voice sounded the same as it always had: clear, calm, warmed by a hint of Texas accent.

             
"It looks like me," he said. "But it can't be. I'm here."

             
"You
are
here," Bennett said, "in the one place you never wanted to be."

             
"You talk like a preacher," George sneered.

             
"Where do
you
think you are, George?" Bennett's voice wasn't as kind as Lana's. Bennett sounded harsh, as if he hadn't forgiven George's transgressions.

             
Damned parsons were all the same. They couldn't practice what they preached.

             
"Look around you, George," Lana invited. "Our children can't see you. They're turning away. They're hugging each other." She smiled to see them so intertwined. "They're hugging their husbands, their loved ones. Listen, George. Listen to what they're saying."

             
He didn't want to, but he had to. It was as if he could hear nothing else.

             
"I can't believe . . . it's finally over. I can't believe . . ." Hope put her head on Zack's chest and cried.

             
The others gathered around her.

             
"All those years." Pepper's voice shook. Dan held her, her back to his front, his arm crooked around her chest while she stroked Hope's hair. "All those years I thought Daddy and Mama had abandoned us. All those years I hated them, and they . . ."

             
"If Daddy and Mama"—Kate cleared her throat, as if the names unsettled her—"if they were the good people you say, they would forgive you for anything you thought. They would understand."

             
George looked at Bennett and Lana, and they were nodding. Their eyes shone as they watched their children, and their hands stroked the aura of love around them, strengthening it, making it pulse with gold.

             
And Kate . . . Kate stood there in the center of the family. Those damned Prescotts. Every one of them smiled at her, hugged her, exclaimed over her. Kate looked awkward and uncomfortable, as if she didn't know how to deal with these strangers.

             
She would be happier with him. With George. Kate was
his
.

             
Bennett seemed to read his mind. "Not yours, George."

             
Almost
his. Like Lana. Almost his. Kate would have been his, except for that bastard Ramos. She had her arm wrapped around him. She murmured loving words as she tried to look at his wound. She didn't seem to suffer any guilt at all about committing murder.

             
George's own murder.

             
"I can't be dead," George said loudly, as if saying it would make it true. "It's not possible."

             
"Look around, George." Evelyn's voice spoke from behind him.

             
Spinning around, he faced his wife.

             
She didn't look nearly as peaceful as Bennett and Lana Prescott. Her eyes were fierce and cold, and she wrung her hands over and over, as if nothing could ease her distress. She had bruises on her legs and her arms from falling down the stairs. A bloody cut opened her cheek, and her head sat oddly on her body.

             
Broken neck.

             
"I've been waiting for you, George." She waved at her grave with the double tombstone he had so lovingly had inscribed:

             
Dutiful daughter

             
Beloved wife

             
Dear companion

              The other half of the stone was blank, awaiting another name.

             
"You bought the grave beside me. You had a politically correct tombstone placed between the graves. But you didn't plan on using it. You thought you'd be laid to rest beside your
new
wife. But your body will be here with me."

             
The grave was open.
His
grave was open. It looked as if someone had laid a coffin-sized rectangle over the green grass, a rectangle of black that blotted out all color, all light.

             
"Go and look, George," Evelyn commanded.

             
Her head had tilted sideways like a flower on a broken stem. The skin over her bruises peeled back. Still she stared at him, her eyes unforgiving, while she wrung her hands. "
Look
, George!"

             
George glanced at the Prescotts. Ramos had fallen. The Prescotts gathered around him, giving first aid. But George couldn't quite hear them. They seemed distant somehow, as if they'd moved away from him.

             
That man's body seemed to lie farther away, too. It seemed smaller. A fly had landed on the open wound and . . .

             
George flinched and turned his head away.

             
The grave was still open, a shaft of the blackest black he'd ever viewed. It was impossible, of course, but it appeared to lead down to . . . nothing.

             
He took a step toward it.

             
He turned back. Odd. He could still see Bennett and Lana perfectly well. Lana gazed at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she looked as if she were sorry for him. Sorry for George Oberlin, senior senator and one of the wealthiest men in Texas!

             
Bennett looked grave and stern, like a minister of the Almighty who actually
believed
in God, actually
believed
in His commandments, actually
believed
in eternal damnation—and expected to see it done. Now.

             
"Go and look, George." Evelyn paced toward him. The wound on her cheek had broken open. She looked gruesome. And dead. And vengeful. "Look into your grave."

             
He didn't want to, but he didn't want her close to him, either. He didn't want her to know he was afraid, and for some reason, he had to know why that black rectangle was there.

             
He walked closer to that still, waiting darkness. Got within a foot. Stopped.

             
"Look!" Evelyn said.

             
He edged closer.

             
There was nothing down there. It was just . . . black. It didn't smell, it gave off neither heat nor cold, and when he leaned over, he could see . . . nothing. It was like looking into the depths of the universe where no star flickered in companionship, no sun gave warmth and brought forth life. It was a void. A blank.

             
Nothing.

             
"Justice is always done, George." Evelyn's voice spoke right in his ear.

             
He spun to look at her.

             
She looked healed and content. How was that possible?

             
He wanted to slap her. "I killed you. I killed them. I cheated and I lied. I blackmailed the highest men in the land. Justice?" He laughed, and for a wonderful moment he felt like himself again. Like George Oberlin, the most powerful man in Texas. "There's no justice in this world."

             
"You're not in that world." Evelyn sounded happy. Too happy.

             
Something grabbed his foot
.

             
He looked down. A slice of the blackness had wrapped itself around his ankle, obliterating it.

             
He tried to leap away. He couldn't move.

             
"Sometimes justice takes a little time," Evelyn said.

             
Fingers of blackness crept up his leg. Like snakes they writhed.

             
"No!" He tried to shake them off.

             
They were inexorable, slithering, splitting apart, reforming . . .

             
He couldn't see his knee anymore. He couldn't feel his thigh. Parts of him . . . weren't there.

             
And at last he understood. The blackness was obliterating him.
Him
, George Oberlin. He was dead. It didn't matter that he had power, that he had money.

             
He was dead.

             
That
was
his body. This was his grave. He had faced some of the people he had killed. Now the darkness would take him.

             
He screamed.

             
The darkness gave a yank.

             
He flayed his arms. He toppled. He screamed again. The ground came up to meet his face. He clawed at the grass, but he couldn't feel it.

             
He opened his mouth to scream again, but he didn't have a mouth, and it wouldn't matter if he did. There was no sound. Everything was gone. All light, all language. Every dream, every thought. Every sense . . . evaporated.

             
Himself. His soul. Banished.

             
George Oberlin faded into eternal night.

TWENTY-FIVE

             
Teague came awake to the shriek of the ambulance and a single thought.

             
Was she okay? Was Kate okay?

             
He had a vague recollection of seeing Oberlin with a gun, of seeing Kate shoot him, of staggering around a graveyard with people. . . .

             
Kate's family.

             
Was she okay?

             
The strain of trying to remember made his brain feel as if it were bursting. Each rut in the road rattled his bones; some guy in blue fatigues stuck a needle in his arm.

             
Teague exploded into action. "You aren't going to drug me, you bastard. Let me go, I've got to save her!" Before she got shot. Before he had to face the results of his incompetence. His stupidity. For years and years . . all those years, and this time it would be worse. So much worse.

             
"Teague, stop it right now!" A face appeared over the top of him.

             
"Kate?" It was Kate. She was beautiful. She looked healthy.

             
She looked stern. "You're hurt, and they're trying to help you. We're going to transfer to the helicopter to go to Austin, but you've got to calm down."

             
A needle pricked his arm. He could still feel the pain, but as if it was someone else's. The most wonderful sense of well-being lifted him. "Kate, I love you."

             
"Sh." She place her cool hand on his hot cheek. "Not too long now."

             
He did love her. What a fool he had been not to realize it sooner. What else should he tell her? Oh. He knew. "Will you marry me?"

             
Her lips moved, but now, although he heard the words, he couldn't comprehend what she said. Yet he did comprehend one thing. She had only just found her family, yet she had remained with him. She was coming to the hospital with him.

             
He relaxed against the stretcher. He let the paramedics torture him with needles and bandages.

             
Because he'd saved Kate. She was alive and unharmed.

             
For once in his life, he had stopped the bullet and saved the woman he loved.