Lazlo’s Last Stand

turned off the waterworks. Not that he minded being cast in the role of comforter, but his usual methods of dealing with female tears seemed far too dangerous in this particular circumstance.

“That’s all right.” She sniffed, blew, wiped, then asked, “How soon will we know something?”

“Haven’t a clue. But no worries, Laz is gonna be fine. He’s just got some busted ribs. They’re probably running tests and monitoring his condition to make sure there’s no damage to his heart. He took a pretty good hit to the chest, you know. Bullets can do some damage, even with a vest on. Believe me, I know.”

She just looked at him for a moment with those aquamarine eyes of hers-reminded him of the color of the water off the Great Barrier Reef from the air-then said in a voice he could barely hear, “I know all that. I was asking about the boy.”

Adam actually rocked back a bit when she said that, as if she’d gobsmacked him. “The boy-you mean the shooter? You’re askin’ me about the devil that almost killed-”

“He’s not a devil, Adam, he’s not even a man. Didn’t you see him? He’s just a kid.”

“Yeah, a kid with a bloody big gun.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Could he be wrong about her feelings for Laz after all?

“Corbett didn’t want him dead,” she went on in that hushed, almost fearful voice. “What if he dies, Adam? What if I killed him? Corbett’s going to be so angry with me.”

He snorted. “I seriously doubt that. Especially considering the alternative.”

“The…alternative?”

“Yeah-you dead instead of ‘the kid.’” He shoved himself to his feet, because he felt as if some sort of giant spring inside of him was getting ready to let go. “Look-you stay put. I’ll go and see what I can find out, okay?”

All he knew was he had to get away from her before he said or did something that was going to embarrass the hell out of both of them.

He found Corbett in a curtained cubicle, hooked up to a monitor of some sort and looking none too happy about it.

“Thank God,” he growled when he saw Adam. “I was about to abandon all hope of rescue. Help me up, will you?”

Adam was about to question the wisdom of that move but changed his mind when he saw the look on Corbett’s face and instead simply offered his arm.

Corbett gripped it hard, gritted his teeth and got himself hoisted up into a sitting position and turned with his legs hanging over the side of the gurney. “I don’t know why they insist on all this-” he waved a hand at the wires attached to his arms and chest “-for some broken ribs and one hell of a bruise. It doesn’t require a medical degree to tell me I’m going to be damn sore for a while.”

“Yeah, you are. So you sure you want to be doing whatever it is you’re about to do?”

“Look, I’m going to hurt no matter where I am. I’d just as well do it at home. At least there I can-” He broke off, swearing under his breath, to glower at Adam. “Fill me in. How’s Lucia? Is she-”

“She’s fine-a bit shaky, but she’ll be okay. She’s here, by the way-out there in the waiting room. Worried sick about the shooter, if you can believe it. Worried she’s killed him. Thinks you’re gonna be cranky with her if she did.”

Corbett jerked and managed to whisper, “Good Lord,” through the resulting hiss of pain.

“Yeah,” Adam said, refraining from any comment that could be construed as sympathy. “I told her it was him or her-not too much she coulda done but what she did.”

Corbett’s mouth tightened and his eyes got the stony look Adam knew all too well. “What’s his condition?”

“They won’t tell me much, given I’m not family. All they’ll say is, he’s in surgery. I’m thinkin’ it’s probably too soon to tell if he’s gonna make it.”

“Damn. Bloody mess…” Corbett lifted a hand to scrub at his face. Finding himself still tethered to the monitor, he tore the wires from his arm and chest in a rare fit of temper. “We should have had transport there on the spot, dammit. We should have gotten him out of there before-did we at least get an ID? Do we know who the bastard is?”

Adam cleared his throat. He’d had happier moments facing a dentist’s drill. “Sorry, boss. Didn’t have time to go through his pockets. Lucia had her hands full just tryin’ to stop the blood. If they’ve ID’d him-” He broke off, swearing, as his words were drowned out by sounds of a commotion of some sort drifting in from beyond the curtain. “What the bloody hell-”

The voice, now risen to clearly audible levels, was French accented, harsh and strident, almost as deep as a man’s but somehow unmistakably female. It bulldozed right over the attendant’s murmured response. “I want to see him. Now! He’s here-I know he’s here!”

“Whoa, someone’s not a happy camper.” Adam tweaked aside the curtain to have a look, but the speakers weren’t visible from where he stood. He threw a glance over his shoulder. “Maybe I should go-” He broke off, due to the fact that the man he was speaking to appeared about to take a header off the gurney.

“Laz? Here, mate, what-” He managed to get to him just before he toppled over, while out in the lobby the woman, whoever she was, ranted on.

“Tell me how he is, damn you! Don’t tell me you cannot! I am telling you, I am his family. I am his mother! ”

“Are you all right, man? Crikey, you’ve gone as white as a sheet. Here-lie down.” Bloody hell, Adam thought. If it was his heart after all…“I’ll get the nurse.”

“Help…me up, dammit. Got to see…” Corbett’s grip on Adam’s arm would have done a croc proud.

I know that voice.

It couldn’t be. Just wasn’t possible. But there was no mistaking it, even after almost twenty years. Corbett could hear its echoes resounding through the halls of the emergency wing, strident, raw, crackling with emotion.

Her voice.

“You will pay for this, Corbett Lazlo! Everything you care about, whatever means the most to you, I will destroy. If it takes the rest of my life, I swear I will…make…you…pay!”

He told himself it wasn’t her, but he had to see with his own eyes.

With one arm across Adam’s shoulders and the other across his ribs, he managed to stand erect. Dark splotches were floating through his field of vision. He shook his head to clear it…concentrated on breathing deeply. Evenly. Relax…tensing up only makes the pain worse.

Bloody hell. He’d never felt so feeble and woozy. Somewhere in the distance he could hear Adam swearing at him, but he couldn’t spare the energy it would take to tell him to can it. He needed every ounce of strength just to take those first steps.

Out in the emergency entrance, the woman’s voice had quieted to a raspy, throaty sound, like a lioness purring. And Corbett remembered that one, too, as clearly as if it had been yesterday…

Murmuring words of love to me in a tangle of sweaty sheets on a stolen afternoon in the hot little room in Montmarte…Saying my name in a way no one else ever has, before or since, giving it the French pronunciation: Cor-bay…

Speaking of betrayal, as we sat together on a rooftop in London, watching the fog swirl around the chimney pots, with that particular intensity in her voice and in her eyes, that hint of violence and danger that made me wonder sometimes whether she was not quite sane. “I give you fair warning, mon cher. I love with passion and I hate the same way. Do not ever make me hate you…”

He’d been young then, and had laughed off both of them-the words of love and the warnings-and he’d known in his heart it was the danger that made her so irresistible.

Just as he knew in his heart now that it was not only possible, it was true. The voice was hers. He knew it even before he heard the words that erased all possibility of doubt.

“Yes, that is right. I am Cassandra DuMont. His name is Troy DuMont. He is my son. Now will you tell me where…Yes, yes, I understand he is in surgery…”

Corbett didn’t hear the rest. The initial shock of hearing her voice, recognizing it, had blocked the significance of her words from registering on his consciousness. Now, as he pushed through the double automatic doors into the triage area, he found himself face-to-face with the woman he’d tried so hard to expunge from his memory. He’d even thought he’d succeeded. Hoped he had. Now he knew how foolish he’d been to even try. Knew he should have