Summer Shadows (45 page)

Finally he came to. His head ached fiercely, but it was his ego that had taken the greater hit. One thing he knew: Before the night was over, she would pay for that attack.

You think you’re clever enough to get her if you couldn’t manage it when she was right in front of you? You are such a loser, Sean! Just like your mom and dad
.

McCoy! Sean took a deep breath.
The night’s still young, McCoy. Just you watch! And I am not my parents!

After endless minutes, he found his gun, half buried
in the sand where she must have thrown it. Why hadn’t she used it? McCoy would have. He would have. She just threw it away. Idiot woman. She deserved whatever happened next.

He stood at the waterline and stared at the waves. They were out there somewhere. He fired a couple of random shots just to put the fear of God in them, then began moving down the beach toward town. She had to get out of the water sometime. She’d try and get to help, to the lighted houses filled with sympathetic people who would call 911 for her. But she had to cross the unlit beach before she found people, and he’d be there when she tried it.

We’ll
be there when she tries it
.

Sean stiffened. For years he’d kept that voice stilled.
McCoy! Go away! I’m doing fine on my own
.

Sure you are. That’s why you have a car buried in the Pines, an aborted letter-writing campaign, and the wrong person injured
.

Sean closed his mind and refused to respond. He raced along the tide line, eyes scanning the water. Where were they? Shouldn’t he be able to see their dark forms against the white spume? He paused, caught by a new thought. Maybe they had drowned. Now there was a happy thought, a solution that would save him lots of time and trouble. It’d save him from becoming McCoy too.

The more he thought about them drowning, the more enamored he grew with the idea. They would just sink to the bottom and rot or float off to wherever corpses floated off to. He didn’t know that much about how the sea dealt with its victims. The best part of drowning would be that he wouldn’t be the killer. The Atlantic Ocean would be the culprit.

Squeaky clean Sean M. Schofield, gentle physician, charmer of women, about-to-be-appointed chief of staff. In spite of McCoy’s strident mockery, that was the person Sean wanted to be once again.

What price are you willing to pay, Sean, old boy-o?

Any price, McCoy. Any price. The prize is worth all
.

McCoy’s shout of triumph filled his mind.
Just what I needed to hear
.

He felt the shift, the breaking, the reforming. He felt both ripped apart and recreated as the splintering he had fought for years came to pass.

He was still shuddering from the cataclysmic event when he spotted her sitting in the shallows, holding the man out of the water.

He raised his gun in anticipation. S. McCoy Schofield was not going to lose this round.

A
BBY RESTED HER
cheek on Marsh’s head, releasing a groan that came all the way from her toes. All that work, and here he was again.

Lord, this isn’t the help I wanted at all!

“You won’t get away this time!” Their pursuer, his voice shaking with his intensity, assumed a position just like the cops on TV shows.

Abby looked at him, too weary to feel fear. “Why?”

He ignored her at first, standing tense, poised to pull the trigger. Then he eased his stance. The gun was still at the ready, but he wouldn’t shoot her this second.

“Why do you think?” he asked.

“The hit-and-run.”

He nodded.

“What about the letters?”

“I want you to know that I never wrote them.” He sounded defensive.

Great. He was going to murder her, but he wouldn’t dirty his hands by writing nasty, damaging letters. What a skewed sense of ethics, morality, whatever. She was so tired she couldn’t think what the right word was.

“The letters were to put you under a cloud of suspicion as far as your character went. Then, if you remembered the accident, your word would be suspect.”

She nodded. “I see.” Clever in a warped way.

“It was too bad it didn’t work out,” he said. “If it had, I wouldn’t have to protect myself like this.”

Ah, the whole situation was her fault. She should have known. “Your letter writer made a mistake by accusing me of things I couldn’t have done. Bad sense of timing.”

“Why did I ever think she would do it right?” he muttered, his voice full of disgust. “I should have done it myself.”

She? Abby caught the pronoun, but her mind was too foggy for her to think it through at the moment.

“Do me a favor, will you?” She wrapped her arms more closely about Marsh as a dog began to bark in the distance. She thought wistfully of Fargo. “Pull Marsh out of the water after you shoot me? Call 911 anonymously. There’s no reason he should die. He didn’t do anything.”

“I meant to shoot you, not him.”

She nodded. “I figured that out.”

“I didn’t mean to hit Karlee.”

“Of course you didn’t. Everyone knows that.”

“Now my whole future’s on the line.”

“How so?” She wanted to understand his motivation. If she had to die, it would be nice to know why.

“I should be appointed to the governor’s panel on ethics in medicine next week. I’m also due to become chief of staff at the hospital.”

He was going to sit on a panel on medical ethics, but he was going to murder her to guarantee the honor. He was going to oversee the saving of lives at a hospital of reputation but only if he took hers.

“My whole life is at stake here,” he said, apparently seeing no irony in the situation.

“So’s mine.” She rested her head against Marsh’s again. Just holding him like this was somehow comforting. Her fingers sought his carotid.
Still beating, thank God
.

“Hey, bracelet lady, isn’t it a bit cold to be sitting in the water?”

Abby and the man in black, equally startled, looked at the vision who walked off the beach to stand beside Abby.

“Clooney!” His baseball cap was on backward, and his raggedy sweatshirt cuffs fell over his hands, but when he moved,
his diamond stud glittered in the starlight. What was he doing here? How could she keep him from getting hurt?

“I was hunting stuff.” He held out his detector toward the gunman, moving closer to show him his expensive toy. He seemed to see nothing sinister in a ski mask in summer or a gun in hand. “Didn’t find too much tonight.”

Clooney turned to Abby. “No pretty bracelets to give to pretty ladies.” He shrugged. “So I lay me down to watch the meteors.” He talked to her with ease, like it was everyday common to converse with a woman sitting fully clothed in the water, an unconscious man draped over her legs like a limp lap robe.

Clooney turned back to the masked man. “Did you know that there were meteor showers tonight? Great stuff. I watched for a while, then fell asleep.” He shook his head. Abby could just make out his ponytail swinging beneath the bill of his cap. He yawned and stretched, his hands reaching for the sky, his detector wobbling over his head. “I just woke up.”

“We watched the meteors,” Abby said.

“We?” Clooney asked.

Abby nodded. “Marsh and me.”

For the first time Clooney seemed to see Marsh. “Yo! What’s wrong with him?” He started forward to help.

“It’s okay! Don’t bother!” Abby yelled at the same time the masked man ordered, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

Clooney froze, then turned, arms held away from his body so the man could see he had nothing but the detector dangling from his right hand. “You shouldn’t do this, you know. It’s not very nice.”

“Oh, but I will anyway. And you’re first.” He aimed at Clooney and pulled the trigger.

Abby screamed as Clooney went to his knees. As he fell, he threw himself forward, swinging his detector in a broad arc. It curled behind the man, catching him behind the knees. He staggered, almost falling, swearing violently.

Abby watched, sick with horror as the man struggled to regain his footing. He pointed his gun at Clooney for a second shot.

“Don’t!” she screamed. “That’s murder!”

“Shut up!” He swung the gun toward her, then back to Clooney. “You’re both as good as dead.”

He assumed the position, arms straight ahead of him, when a black shadow appeared out of the night, launching itself at him, growling deep in its throat. The gunman screamed in genuine, well-founded fear as Fargo sent him to the ground and stood growling over him, saliva dripping onto his vulnerable throat. The gun dropped into the sand as the man pushed vainly against Fargo’s chest.

“Get him off me! Help me!”

Clooney looked over at Abby, a hand gripping his arm where blood ran red. “Like we’re going to call off that beast so the man can try to do us in again.” He shook his head. “We’re not that stupid.”

Sirens sounded, growing louder by the second.

“That should be the cops and an ambulance. I called 911 before I showed myself. Always have backup if you can.”

“Clooney!” Tears of relief streamed down her face and clogged her throat. “You’re wonderful!”

He glowed, patting his fanny pack. “I carry a cell phone. You never know when you’ll need it.”

Abby’s tears turned to hysterical giggling. Something about an iconoclast like Clooney carrying a cell phone hit her weary sense of humor dead on. “Are you hurt badly?” she wheezed between giggles.

“Nah. Small stuff, especially compared to your man.” Walking on his knees he came to her side. “Here. Let me help.”

Using Clooney’s good arm and Abby’s waning strength, they inched Marsh out of the water. She slid beneath his upper torso to keep the wound out of the sand and stared at his shoulder. Blood still oozed, but the cold water had slowed it.

“Must be vascular if it’s still pumping,” Clooney said. He pulled his shirt over his head. “Use this for applying pressure.”

She took the shirt and did as he said to both the front and back of Marsh’s shoulder. She looked up. “Thank you for everything. You saved our lives.”

Suddenly they were surrounded by people. Abby watched in a daze as the policeman who talked to her after the hit-and-run—her fuzzy brain would not call up his name—took charge. EMTs appeared and began working on Marsh, hollering things like hypotensive and 60 systolic. Abby didn’t know what it all meant,
but she knew that Marsh was now receiving good care. She was dimly aware of Rick standing behind her and Celia crouching beside her.

But her attention was directed to the man on the ground. She laid her hand on Marsh’s cheek and stroked, careful to stay out of the EMTs’ way. She had to touch him. She had to. If she touched him, he was here, not gone, and he had to be here. He had to be!
Oh, Lord, save him!

The medical team also helped Clooney, who had been grazed in the arm. “I knew he was going to shoot,” he told the police. “I’ve had lots of experience with pistol-toting folks a lot scarier than him. I was an MP in Nam. I threw myself before he pulled the trigger. Is my detector okay?”

Other men tried to take the man in black prisoner, but Fargo’s growls kept them at bay as he loomed over the prone figure, fangs bared.

“Can anyone do anything with this dog?” Greg Barnes—yes, that was his name—asked. “I don’t want to have to call the animal control guys.”

Abby looked at Marsh. He was unconscious, no help with Fargo. Then she remembered the animal leaning against her thigh when she and Marsh were arguing.

She staggered upright and was relieved when Rick’s hand was there to steady her. “I might be able to talk to the dog.”

She went to Fargo but didn’t touch him. “Hello, guy. It’s me, Abby. Puppy’s mom. Remember? You are such a wonderful doggie. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.” She talked to him in a gentle, soft manner, telling him over and over how wonderful he was. He remained frozen in position, but his ears twitched as she talked. The growling slowly lessened, then stilled. His tail trembled.

“Come here, Fargo, baby.” She went to her knees, holding out her hand. “Let the police take care of the bad man. You just come to me and let me hug you.” He looked at her, his eyes filled with emotions she couldn’t decipher. “Come here, guy. I’ll take you to Marsh.”

Whether it was the magic of Marsh’s name or just Fargo’s tiring of guard duty, she didn’t know, but he stepped away from the whimpering man in the sand and came to her. She wrapped her arms around his warm, solid body and hugged him. He rested his
chin on her shoulder, hugging her back.

The man in black was hauled unceremoniously to his feet. Greg ripped his ski mask away. There were gasps all around when they saw who it was, gasps from everyone but Abby, who had known.

She stared up at him. “I probably would never have remembered, you know.”

“We couldn’t take that chance.”

“We?”

“This is about the hit-and-run?” Greg Barnes asked, astonished.

Abby nodded. “Ironically it was him chasing us tonight that jogged whatever was blocking my recall. I do now remember that black car.” She looked into Sean McCoy Schofield’s face. “And the vanity license plate. KID DOC.”

A
BBY STEPPED BACK
as Sean was cuffed and read his rights. As she did so, she lost her balance, strained with Fargo’s great weight resting against her. Rick reached out and grabbed her arm, steadying her. She smiled her thanks automatically, her eyes seeking out Marsh once again.

“It’s all your fault!” Sean suddenly screamed at her.

Abby flinched but didn’t acknowledge the hit.

“Shut up.” Greg grabbed him, pulling him across the sand.

Sean struggled, twisting and turning, bucking and kicking. He screamed over his shoulder, “I was just protecting myself. It’s self-defense! It’s all her fault!”

“I’d like to see him sell that to the judge and jury,” Rick muttered in Abby’s ear.

“It is my fault.” Abby wrapped her arms about herself, trying to get warm. Her shivers made her voice sound wobbly. “He wanted to shoot me, but I lost my footing. Marsh reached for me, and he got shot.” A harsh sob closed her throat. She swallowed. “It really is my fault.” Her voice was a mere whisper.