You Can Run... (29 page)

“Willow, come to me,” Diana yelled, stopping to catch her breath, the pain in her hip and the ache in her head muddling her sense of direction. She couldn’t tell exactly from where Willow’s voice had come. “Come to me
now,
sweetheart. I’m not mad at you—I just want to be with you,” she shouted, knowing it was important not to frighten the child with the fear of anger or punishment.

“I’m gonna see Mommy!” Willow’s voice sounded closer. “My guardian angel is gonna take me to see Mommy!” Willow emerged from the woods wearing her blue pajamas and the fuzzy slippers Diana had bought for her. She ran to Diana and grabbed her hand. “It’s supposed to be just me, but the angel will prob’ly take you, too, if I ask—”

A gunshot split the silence of the night. Birds suddenly screamed and flapped up from their nests, as Willow sucked in a mouthful of air and flung herself against Diana. A second shot ripped through the air, so close that Diana heard it whiz past her head. She dropped to the ground, pulled Willow down, and rolled on top of her. Willow started to scream but Diana put a hand over her mouth. “Be quiet. Your voice might be letting the person know where to shoot.”

Another shot, right above them, and Willow tried to shriek beneath Diana’s hand. Diana lowered her head, wondering frantically who could be shooting at them. Willow must have been the main target.
I just got in the way,
Diana thought. And the person trying to kill Willow was the same person who’d tried to kill her in the explosion on Friday night.

A fourth shot, coming from a closer distance, missed them by only inches. Diana thought of trying to reach the cover of the woods, but the edge was about ten feet behind
them. She couldn’t scoot backward and also keep her body over Willow’s, and right now Diana’s body was Willow’s only protection.

Diana heard shoes moving through the tall, damp grass. They were easy targets, two figures flattened on the ground, just waiting for Death to walk right up and claim them. Diana had an impulse to raise her head, to look their killer in the eye before he fired the fatal shots. But she did not want her last sight on earth to be of the face of their murderer.

“Close your eyes, baby,” she whispered to Willow. “Close your eyes and think of the prettiest place you’ve ever seen in your life. Remember the colors and sounds and how you felt. Make that your world right now. That’s your only world.”

Amazingly, the child’s body went totally still. Under Diana’s hand, Willow’s facial muscles moved as she scrunched up her face, shutting her eyes as tightly as she could. Diana did the same. She thought of a lake she’d seen in New England—a big lake on a beautiful, sunlit day. A grassy knoll sprouting daisies and Queen Anne’s lace had run down to the bank of the lake, and the water had been so smooth it reflected the sky and fluffy clouds like a giant mirror. She’d been happy that day. So happy . . .

Another shot tore through the night air, but this one seemed to be coming from farther away. Then another. Diana couldn’t help opening her eyes, her vision of the beautiful lake dissolving into the sight of wet grass and darkness and suddenly light—artificial light—from inside the house, and the landscape lights set all around the terrace. She heard Simon yelling from what seemed miles away, she heard another shot coming from what must have been halfway between her and the house, and finally, she heard the pounding of feet that couldn’t have been more than a yard away from her. She imagined she could feel the ground vibrating as their potential killer charged toward the woods. Another shout from a voice that wasn’t Simon’s. Another shot.

Then nothing, until a man bent over her and said gently, “He’s gone. You’re safe now, darlin.’ ”

Diana raised her head and looked into the perspiring, distraught face of Tyler Raines. Just as she rose up to throw her arms around him, Willow, weeping, cried, “Badge! You always save me, just like Mommy said you would!”

“Badge?” Diana mumbled. Then she looked at the weapon lying on the ground beside him. “You have a permit to carry a gun in West Virginia?”

“In all states,” Tyler said softly. “Diana, I’m a New York City undercover cop.”

“Was the person outside your window a man or a woman?”

Willow, sitting on the biggest, most comfortable couch in the library with a cup of hot chocolate beside her, looked at Tyler in frustration. “It was my guardian angel. I already told everybody.”

The police had left fifteen minutes earlier. Willow had attempted to give them a description of the evening, but between tears, shuddering, and a case of hiccups, her story had been nearly incomprehensible. Tyler had decided that since she’d calmed down a bit, they had to try again while the events were fresh in Willow’s mind.

“Was the angel a man or a woman?”

“Angels aren’t boys or girls. They’re just angels,” Willow explained with a pained expression. “How come you don’t know that?”

Tyler sighed. “A lapse in my religious education, I guess. Okay, honey, tell me exactly what happened earlier tonight.”

“I already did. And I told the policemen who came.”

“I know you did but I’d like for you to tell me again. Please, Willow.”

“Yes, dear,” Clarice said when the little girl looked like she might go silent out of pure annoyance. “I didn’t
understand everything you said to the policemen. My hearing isn’t so good.”

“But your gran’girl Katy says you’ve got ears like a bat and bats hear great.”

Clarice looked affronted while Diana and Tyler tried not to grin. “Katy is only thirteen and she doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does,” Clarice replied tartly. Then she drew a breath and smiled at Willow. “Please tell the story again so I can hear all of it.”

“Oh, okay.” Willow snuggled deeper into the same afghan that Clarice had earlier wrapped around Diana. “I was sleepin’ and then I woke up real slow ’cause some-thin’ was makin’ a sound at the window. Christabel heard it, too. She was lookin’ at the window. I got up and looked out and I saw the angel.”

“How did you know it was an angel?” Tyler asked. “What did it look like?”

“I didn’t know it was an angel at first. It was dressed in a long, white robe—not a robe like you wear over your ’jamas but a flowy robe with big, flowy arms—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Diana said, “but by
flowy
do you mean flowing, or draping like a cape or a cloak?”

“I mean flowy,” Willow returned irritably. “And a light shined on its face and its face glowed!”

“It glowed?” Simon repeated doubtfully.

“It
glowed,
Uncle Simon. Why can’t anyone understand what I’m sayin’ tonight?”

“We’re sorry. We’re just very tired and we were very scared for you. We’re not thinking too clearly,” Simon said, trying to soothe the exhausted, frightened, and cranky child. “Have another sip of your chocolate while it’s still warm and then go ahead with your story and we promise not to interrupt you again.”

Willow slurped hot chocolate, then somewhat mollified, continued. “I slid up my window. I just looked ’cause I was scared. Then it said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Willow. I’m your guardian angel and I’ve come to take you to your mommy.’
I said, ‘But I’ve never seen you before,’ and the angel said, ‘People don’t see me till they really need me. Now come outside real quiet and I’ll take you to see your mommy.’ Christabel was standin’ on her back legs beside me. She saw the angel, too, and she’d tell you about it if she could talk. Then I said to the angel, ‘I’m not s’posed to go outside at night by myself.’ And the angel said, ‘You won’t be by yourself. You’ll be with me.’

“I knew the angel was right and that no one could get mad at me for goin’ out at night ’cause I was with my angel. So I put on my slippers and I shut my bedroom door so Christabel wouldn’t follow me. I could hear her meowin’ inside my room and scratchin’ at the door and I felt bad, but I remembered Diana sayin’ Christabel could get lost in the woods and might not come back for ages.

“I tiptoed down the stairs and all the way to the back door and I unlocked it and opened it and went outside, thinkin’ the angel would be right there waitin’ for me. But it was farther away from the house. I thought it was leavin’ without me ’cause I’d been too slow, but then it turned and waved to me, you know, like to follow it. So I did. Then it went in the woods and I went after it, but I couldn’t find it. I kept runnin’ around the edge of the woods ’cause I don’t like to go way back in the woods at night, but I didn’t see it.

“Then I heard Diana callin’ to me and I ran to her and told her maybe she could come to see Mommy, too, and then . . .” Willow broke off, her face paling, her hands starting to tremble as they’d done earlier. “And then someone started shootin’ a gun at me and Diana, and she pushed me down on the ground and rolled on top of me.

“There was more shootin’ and she told me to close my eyes and think of the prettiest place I’d ever been. I thought of a while ago when Mommy and Badge and me climbed to the top of the hundred steps in the park and saw the rose gardens with roses in every color, all bloomin’ just when
the sun was goin’ down and the sky was sorta dark blue and had pretty pink and orange streaks. Then there was more shootin’ and Uncle Simon yellin’ and lights comin’ on and then there was Badge.” Willow ran down like a clock slowly stopping. She smiled sweetly at Tyler and asked, “How come you’re here when you’re s’posed to be a secret?”

“It was time for me to stop being a secret, sweetheart,” Tyler said gently. “Your mommy wouldn’t want me to be a secret anymore.”

After Simon and Clarice had taken Willow and her feline companions up to bed, Diana said softly, “I know Willow is your daughter. I’m not judging you, Tyler, but it’s so obvious. She looks like you.”

Tyler took her hand and looked deeply into her eyes. “She looks like Penny.”

“Willow loves you,” Diana went on calmly. “It’s clear you’ve been around for as long as she can remember. Penny told her to keep you a secret, but I should have guessed a powerful tie existed between you by how frantic you were at the explosion site. You weren’t horrified the way a stranger would be—I knew it at the time. Then Willow came to you in the woods after hiding from everyone else. Whenever I ask her about you, she gets very cagy. I told you she was collecting sparkle bugs for her mother. Everyone else asked what sparkle bugs were, but not you. You
knew
she called fireflies sparkle bugs.” Diana drew a deep breath. “I’ve finally realized you and Penny were—”

“Siblings,” Tyler interrupted. Diana had been so close to saying
lovers,
she went completely blank, nearly gaping at him. “Oh, we weren’t related by blood, but we might as well have been,” he said earnestly. “When I was fifteen and she was thirteen, she came to live in the foster home where Child Protective Services had placed me.”

After Diana’s first stunning surprise, she asked incredulously,
“You were in the same foster home? That’s your connection to Penny?”

“Yes, Diana. But our ‘connection,’ as you call it, went deeper.” He smiled at the memory. “She was a pretty little thing, but she nearly drove me nuts because she just attached herself to me and I didn’t want a thirteen-year-old girl trying to hang out with me all the time. It wasn’t cool, and I thought I was the height of cool. Then I got used to her. Later, to my horror, I realized I loved her—not in a romantic way, but the way I would have loved a little sister if she’d actually been my sister by birth. Probably more, because my sister wouldn’t have been Penny, and I think you know how irresistible Penny is.”

Suddenly, Diana’s words came in a flood. “She told me she was an only child. I didn’t know she was a foster child until Jeffrey Cavanaugh told us, but he didn’t say anything about you. If she’d remained close to you, why wouldn’t she want Jeffrey to know about you? Why did you have to stay a shadow in her and Willow’s life?”

Tyler took a deep breath as if debating how much to tell her. He began slowly. “I told you I had an uncle who was a cop. That was true. I admired him and wanted to be just like him. When I turned eighteen and left the foster care system, I’d already finished a year of college—I majored in criminal justice—and I’d decided I wanted to work undercover. I wanted Penny to go to college, but she was too impatient. She wanted to go out and
live,
as she always said. Anyway, she worked in stores and was a waitress for a while. When she was twenty-one, she began the exotic dancing. By that time I was beginning to work undercover, and considering how many lowlives she came in contact with, we decided it would be safer if no one knew she had any connection to me, although I don’t use my real name on the job.”

“But after she married, why did you want her to keep your identity a secret from Jeffrey Cavanaugh?” Diana asked. “He’s not a lowlife.”

“Isn’t he? Exactly how much do you know about the guy?”

“Well, not a lot except that when his father died he took over the company and—”

“And there the saga begins. Do you want to hear the whole story or do you want to go curl up in your bed and sleep for the next ten hours?”

“I couldn’t sleep if you paid me,” Diana said ruefully. “Aside from hurting all over, I can’t remember anything about yesterday until I woke up in the hospital. I have no idea who was trying to murder Willow and me in my own backyard. I’m afraid Jeffrey Cavanaugh is going to storm in here and take Willow away and I’ll never see her again. My best friend is dying a slow, ghastly death. . . .” Diana’s voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. “In short, I’m a nervous wreck.”

Suddenly Simon’s voice came from behind her. “Then what you need is an ice pack for your head, one for your hip, one of your pain pills, a mild tranquilizer, and a nice glass of—”

“Wine? Please?”

“Warm milk.”

“Oh that should finish me off,” Diana said between crying and laughing. “I
hate
warm milk.”

“Nevertheless, it will do you good,” Simon said authoritatively. “Clarice and I will have you medicated and comfortable in fifteen minutes flat, then we shall retire and you two can sit here and talk all night long. And Tyler?”