you gained in me… and then some.' She leaned forward and kissed Erin's mouth. Her lips were soft and lingering. 'Keep that in mind, girlfriend.'
Connor made a rumbling sound in his chest. 'Hey. I appreciate your help, and this eternal sisterhood stuff is touching, but it's been a tough day. You can stop fucking with my head anytime now. Anytime.'
Tamara laughed in his face and poked him with her lightning bolt fingernail. 'Toughen up, McCloud,' she said. 'You're such an easy mark.' She rose and hiked up her skirt to holster her gun. 'This place is going to be full of cops in a while, so I'll just be on my way. Cops make me itch. Except for you, of course, big boy.'
'I'm not a cop anymore,' he said.
Tamara's eyebrows lifted. 'Once a cop, always a cop. I'm out of here.' She smiled at Erin. '
'Any other goons to worry about?' Connor demanded.
She shook her head. 'He was keeping a very low profile. The only ones in the house were Silvio and Nigel. They probably bolted when they heard the gunshots. The rest are scattered around the city. They'll evaporate soon.' She dug her toe into Tonia's buttock as she passed. 'Stop sniveling, you stupid cow. You won't bleed to death. Apply direct pressure with the heel of your hand and shut up.'
'Tamara?' Erin called.
Tamara turned at the door.
'Thank you,' Erin said. 'I owe you one, too. You know how to find me if you need me.'
Tamara's brilliant smile flashed. 'Till later, then.'
She vanished into the dark. The two of them huddled together in the dim room between two blood-soaked corpses. Tonia's miserable whimpering grated on her raw nerves. Connor was saying something. Repeating it. She wrenched her mind into focus.
'… still got that cell phone on you someplace, sweetheart?'
'In my purse.' Her teeth chattered. 'Around here somewhere.'
'I'll find it,' he said.
She started to shiver uncontrollably when he took his warmth away to search for it. She heard his voice, getting further and further away. 'Hey. Nick. It's me… yeah. Shut up and let me talk. I need an ambulance. I've got Novak and Luksch… come see for yourself. They're dead. You can ID them at your leisure, and then you can arrest me, if you still want to. There's a woman down with a gunshot wound to the thigh, one of Novak's… hell, I don't know. I was unconscious when they brought me here. Hold on.' He crouched down in front of Erin, and patted her face. 'Baby, what's the address of this place?'
She gasped it out through chattering teeth. Connor repeated it to Nick. 'Hurry,' he said into the phone. 'Erin's going into shock.'
He tossed the phone aside and peeled off her blood-drenched blouse. He took off his own shirt, wrapped her in it, and pulled her onto his lap, hunching his warm body around hers.
She felt the fear in his fierce, tight embrace. Part of her longed to comfort him, to tell him how sorry she was for not believing him. How grateful that he'd come to save her anyway, against all hope. He was heroic and beautiful, and she loved him.
She couldn't say it She was shaking apart. She vibrated in his arms, teeth rattling. All the horrors that could have happened coexisted in her mind, an explosion of dreadful time lines radiating out from one crushing blow like the cracks in a shattered windshield.
Something inside her was screaming, and could not stop.
That was how Connor's two brothers and his friend Seth found them. They glided like silent shadows into the room and looked around, speechless at the carnage. They pried Connor's arms away from her and draped her in a man's leather jacket, still radiating heat. Connor pulled her into his arms again. She huddled there with her eyes shut.
The lights came on, the room filled with people, noise, a hum of activity. She could've cared less. Connor carried her out of the place.
She was turning inward, coiling up tight in total silence. Bright lights, the sting of a needle. A wailing siren. Then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Connor parked the car, killed the engine, and sat there aching for a cigarette. There was no good reason not to just go buy himself some tobacco and some rolling papers. He'd given them up to please Erin, but he wasn't her boyfriend or her husband, or even her bodyguard, so what the hell? He wasn't her anything. Damn. That called for a smoke.
But he couldn't, as if that promise were the last tenuous bond he had left with her. Lighting up a cigarette would be admitting that he was never going to have her. He couldn't face that. Not quite yet.
Erin hadn't made a move toward him since the bloodbath, over a week ago. She'd dumped him very definitively before that, so he figured the ball was in her court. But he wasn't going to be able to wait much longer. Carrying an engagement ring around was wearing down his nerves. He felt like he had a bomb ticking in his pants pocket.
He got out of the car, rubbing the muscle in his thigh that cramped whenever he was stressed, which was pretty much all the time these days. He gazed up at the grim bulk of the state prison. The place made him tense, in much the same way that hospitals did. He guessed that was probably the whole point.
It was a long, tedious wait. He'd stuck a few scraps of paper into his pocket to fold into origami animals, a vain effort to keep his mind too busy to dwell on the dumb-ass thing he was doing. How much false, useless hope he might be pinning on it.
Finally his name was called. He had a sickly, nervous feeling in his stomach, almost like he was going to see a doctor or a dentist.
He met Ed Riggs's dark eyes through the heavy panes of glass. He was limping more than usual. He forced himself to walk more smoothly.
Erin had gotten her wide-set brown eyes from him. Weird, to see those eyes, so similar and yet so different on Ed's stone-hard face. Riggs picked up his phone and waited.
Connor picked up on his side. 'Hi, Riggs.'
Riggs's gaze was grim. 'McCloud.'
There were many ways to approach it. All of them sounded stupid.
Riggs grunted impatiently. 'They don't give you much time, so if you've got something to say to me, spit it out.'
He took a deep breath. 'I'm going to ask Erin to marry me.'
Riggs's eyes went blank. He stared through the glass at the younger man. 'Why are you telling me this?' he asked slowly.
There it was. The million-dollar question. He'd been trying to answer it for himself for days, ever since the marching orders to go talk to Riggs had come over him. 'I'm not sure,' he admitted. 'To clear the air, I guess. You're her father. I wanted you to hear it from me.'
Riggs let out a bark of bitter laughter. 'Man to man, huh? Are you here to ask for my permission?'
Anger twisted and burned, the sour, familiar pain of betrayal corroding his gut. He breathed it out and let it go. 'I don't need your goddamn permission,' he said. 'And neither does she.'
Riggs shook his head. 'You self-righteous son of a bitch. You always did piss me off.'
Connor shrugged. 'There's a limited amount of pissing off that I can do to you through a telephone and bullet-proof glass. Look on the bright side. You're never going to have to drink beer and talk football with me over the barbecue.'
Riggs's mouth twitched. 'Fuck you, McCloud.'
'Fuck you, too, Riggs,' he replied.
They were silent, eyes locked. Seconds ticked by. Riggs's eyes flicked away. His shoulders slumped. 'Barbara was in here last week. She told me what happened. What you did for Erin and Cindy.'
Connor waited. Riggs leaned his face in his hands. When he looked up, the frustration of a trapped animal burned in his eyes. 'Damn it, McCloud, what do you want? You want me to thank you? You want an apology? Forget it. This place is punishment enough.'
