Dodge's pistol out of reach, then bent over Caroline and struggled to pull her off Dodge. 'Shut up! Get back over there!'
Berry gave the side of Oren's knee a vicious kick. It buckled and he howled, but he didn't release Caroline, who held on to Dodge, still wailing his name.
Oren doubled his efforts to haul her up.
Berry bicycled her legs against him, striking him as hard as she could with her bare feet.
He let go of Caroline, spun around, and aimed his pistol down at Berry's face. 'I said I would kill you!'
Then there were two loud claps in rapid succession. Before Berry could even register Oren's surprised expression, he dropped to the floor with two bright blooms of red on his chest.
Ski burst into the room, pistol drawn. Other officers rushed in behind him and swarmed over Oren's prone form. Ski bent over Berry, who was struggling to stand up. 'Help me.'
He pulled her up, supporting her as she stumbled over to the couple huddled on the floor. Hands still manacled, she awkwardly dropped to her knees beside them, joining her mother's mournful chant of her father's name.
One of the deputies called out, 'Starks is dead, Ski.'
Berry barely registered that. Her concern was channeled strictly to Dodge. She released a sob of relief when he eased Caroline off him and came up on his elbows. In his right hand was a small, blunt-barreled pistol.
Caroline threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. She was openly weeping. 'You scared me half to death!'
Looking up at Ski, he wheezed, 'Motherfucker was resisting arrest.'
'You had no choice. He would have killed Berry.' Ski gave him an arch look. 'You failed to tell me about the second pistol. Ankle holster?'
Dodge, still struggling for breath, nodded.
'Well, you faked him out,' Ski said. 'Especially with the heart attack.'
Caroline, who had been anxiously studying Dodge, suddenly realized the truth of the matter and gave a startled cry.
Dodge gasped, 'I wasn't faking that.'
EPILOGUE
I'M CALLING ABOUT DODGE HANLEY,' SKI SAID TO DEREK Mitchell's polite but firm personal assistant who had told him that Mr. Mitchell was unavailable. 'If he's there, put me through. If he's not, tell me where I can reach him.'
Ski was asked to hold, and seconds later the attorney came on the line. 'Deputy Nyland? This is Derek Mitchell. Marlene said you were calling about Dodge. What is it? Is he all right?'
'I'm afraid not, Mr. Mitchell.' Ski delivered the news forthrightly, which he figured the attorney would appreciate. 'It was a bad one. He arrested twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. CPR kept him alive. Barely.
'I didn't call you sooner because I didn't have anything solid to report until just a few minutes ago, when the cardiac surgeon came out to give us the lowdown. Dodge held on through the surgery, but the doctor used words like
'Which is what? How bad?'
'Chance of survival, fifty-fifty. And the surgeon said that's optimistic. Dodge is at risk to suffer another heart attack or a stroke. The surgeon said he'll feel a lot more confident of his survival if he's still alive forty-eight hours from now.'
The silence on the other end was ponderous. Derek Mitchell's concern was palpable. He cleared his throat twice before he was able to speak. 'You said 'us.' The surgeon came out to talk to 'us.''
'How much do you know about the situation here?'
'Only that Dodge went down there to help out his daughter, whom he hadn't seen since the day she was born. I talked to him today, asked how it was going, and all he would say was 'fine.' He was crotchety and evasive, but that's typical.'
Ski had to smile. 'Yeah, I know.' He gave the attorney a brief summary of the events that had led up to Dodge's going into the lake house to negotiate with Oren Starks. 'Dodge insisted. Said he would go in with or without my sanction. Said I couldn't stop him with a team of wild horses or a Sherman tank. Said he would save those two women or die trying.'
The grim irony of his vow hadn't escaped Ski. 'Berry had the presence of mind to keep Starks talking, but Dodge and I were wasting precious time arguing over his plan, so I agreed to it. He was confident that he could play Starks and get him to release Berry and Caroline and then to surrender. He almost pulled it off. He faked everything except the heart attack.
'When I saw him lose his pistol, topple, I almost had a heart attack myself. I thought it was over. And it was for Starks. Dodge hadn't told me he was packing an extra handgun.' Wryly he added, 'He played me, too, I guess.'
'Ankle holster?'
'How'd you know?'
'He's never without it.'
'I know that now.'
Ski glanced over at Berry, where she sat with Caroline at a table in the hospital cafeteria. The surgeon had said it would be a while before anyone could see Dodge, so they had come down for coffee. But he noticed that their cups had been left untouched. On the tabletop, their hands were tightly clasped, as if they were both dispensing and deriving comfort from the contact.
Sharing a common urgency, the two men wrapped up their conversation. 'What did he say?' Berry asked when Ski rejoined her and Caroline at the table.
'Thanked me profusely for notifying him. He's going to charter a private jet to fly him and his wife here. Soon as he knows where they'll be landing, he'll text me. I'll dispatch somebody to pick them up, bring them straight here. It'll be the wee hours, probably, but he didn't want to wait until tomorrow.'
None of them questioned the reason behind Derek Mitchell's haste.
Berry said, 'Dodge will be glad they're here. He talks about them all the time. He loves them.'
'Gauging by Mitchell's reaction, I think the feeling is mutual.'
'In Dodge's mind, he doesn't deserve to be loved.'
They looked at Caroline, who'd spoken in a soft voice, made even gruffer from crying. Up till then, Ski hadn't been sure she was even following their conversation. Berry leaned across the table. 'What makes you say that, Mother?'
'His father told him so, by the way he treated him if not in actual words. Dodge believed him. Up to the day you were born and I ordered him out of our lives, he'd been trying to earn everyone's respect and acceptance. Everyone's love.' She looked down at her hands, which she was twisting together. 'Ever since that day, he's been trying to kill himself for being unlovable.'
Ski agreed with Caroline, and he figured Berry did, too, although they weren't going to say so, because that would lay unfair blame at Caroline's doorstep. Dodge had willfully cheated. By doing so, he had thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to him. Caroline had taken a position and refused to back down. Neither had won.
