The razor-sharp chisel hit her arm. The stabbing pain made her drop the gun.
Francis was already on it, raising it with a wicked laugh.
The door behind them flew open. Francis turned, his gun’s aim shifting. Higgins was the first in the door. Keren dropped to the floor as Higgins fired.
Francis’s body jerked and staggered into a wall. Higgins fired again. The smell of sulfur was like brimstone, overwhelming everything in the room.
Paul ran into the room. Keren noticed he had her gun, the one Francis had knocked out of her hand when they’d found Rosita, tucked in his waistband. O’Shea was right behind him with his sidearm out and ready.
Francis sank to his knees, clutching his bleeding chest. Blood poured from two bullet wounds. He turned to look into Keren’s eyes, the evil fading.
Keren ignored the chisel in her arm and crawled to his side. “It’s not too late.”
“Yes, it is.” Francis’s chest was soaked and red. He slid sideways against the wall until he slumped onto his back. “I made my choice. I lived with it, and I’ll die with it.” A look of horror crossed over his face as if now he was realizing just what his choice meant for him, for all eternity.
“Francis, please, listen to me.”
Suddenly Francis’s eyes popped open, and a look of pure satisfied evil was on his flaccid face. A voice, deep and ugly, came from Francis, even though his mouth didn’t move and his chest had quit rising and falling.
“Francis isn’t here.”
Paul lifted Keren away from the dead man and pulled her into his arms.
“Be careful of her arm,” O’Shea shouted.
Higgins was calling for an ambulance.
Paul carefully picked her up and strode out of the room.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and cried.
CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN
Keren still couldn’t stand the thought of going back to her apartment, and she hadn’t had any luck finding a new one, so she worked all day and kept long hours at night with LaToya. The coma wasn’t as deep as before and LaToya occasionally stirred and responded to sound without fully waking up, but Keren hoped and prayed it would happen soon.
Keren’s arm, where the chisel had stabbed her, was healing.
The lieutenant had put her on sick leave, but she’d prevailed on him to let her do something, using the argument that she would go out of her ever-loving mind if she didn’t keep busy.
For now she was assigned to desk duty. She’d been forbidden from anything active until her doctor released her.
The long days and short nights caught up with her as she kept her bedside vigil.
“Keren?”
Keren’s eyes flickered open. Her vision was filled with Paul. She hadn’t seen him for days.
“How’s the arm?” His movements as gentle as his voice, he lowered himself into the chair beside Keren.
“Fine, if I’m careful.”
“Which you never are.” Paul sounded grumpy, but he didn’t have much room to talk. He’d stayed with her at the hospital until she’d been treated, then he’d vanished. It had been four days.
Keren straightened in her chair and ran a hand over her face in case she’d been drooling in her sleep. She couldn’t imagine what a mess her hair must be.
Which reminded her… “You put a tracking device in my hair tie?”
“Yeah.” He smirked, completely unrepentant.
“Why didn’t you just tell me it was there? Why the sneaking around?”
“You’re stubborn, and it was pretty obvious that Caldwell had decided to come for you and Rosita at some point. I gave Rosie the necklace and told her to keep it on at all times.”
“Why didn’t you do that for me?”
“I didn’t trust you. You’re kind of bent on taking care of yourself.”
“When did you put it on me?”
“That morning.” Paul rubbed both hands over his face. “I thought I had time. I knew you were at risk, but I was being a coward. I was hiding. I had the tracker, but I hadn’t even given it to you yet. I almost left it too late.”
“Just that morning?” Keren’s eyes narrowed. “When you kissed me? You kissed me as an excuse to get close enough to—”
“No, I didn’t kiss you for any other reason than because I wanted to. But I’d intended to get it to you somehow that day. I’d have just flat out told you if I couldn’t figure out a way to sneak it into your barrette. I had it made so it matched one of the pins that held the barrette in.”
“Why didn’t you have one on?”
“I did.”
She fell silent at that and stared and thought how much she’d missed his faith and support, and even his strange split personality.
“What?” he asked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You smiled.”
“Oh, did I?” Keren said in a sleep-roughened voice. “I was just thinking of Pastor Jekyll and Detective Hyde.”
Paul furrowed his brow. “Who?”
“You. How are you doing with your split personality? Did you get yourself back? Did you ever figure out who ‘yourself’ is?”
Paul sprawled back in his chair. “It took some doing. I spent days in prayer, trying to rediscover the calm, unselfish Pastor P.”
“Any luck?” Keren knew she couldn’t be with the calm, unselfish Pastor P. Her life would destroy him. And she didn’t want to be with Paul the cop. He was a jerk.
Paul leaned forward to brace his forearms on his knees and turned his head sideways to look at her. “I never exactly found him. I don’t know for sure if I really wanted to.”
“Why not?” Keren crossed her arms and relaxed back into her chair with her legs stretched out in front of her.
Paul quit looking at her and stared at the floor between his splayed knees. “I refuse to believe that Pastor P wasn’t real. He was. I needed to serve with my whole heart for a while after I left the police force. But all this taught me there is strength in my anger. You remember when I came charging into that room with you and Caldwell?”
“Yes, my knight in shining armor, racing to my rescue.” Keren grinned.
Paul turned to look at her with a squinty-eyed glare. “Except Higgins got there first. Higgins saved you—what a grandstander.”
“I kind of like him. I mean, he did save my life.”
Paul shook his head. “I had your gun.”
“I noticed.”
“I picked it up in that room where you dropped it.”
“Excuse me,” Keren said with a stern frown. “It was knocked out of my hands. I would never
Paul nodded and tried to look serious. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t forget it,” she growled.
“I wanted to use it. I was frantic, furious, completely insane worrying about you.”
“Poor baby.”
