clever.” He twitched his injured left arm, pictured Fitz’s face as she’d launched herself at him. His lips thinned. “Just trust me when I tell you I’m in one hell of a crappy mood right now.”
“WE’RE ONLY GUESSING, ROMANA. Maybe North’s guilty, maybe he isn’t.” Catching her chin, Jacob gave her a hard kiss. “Stay behind me, and don’t offer him a target.”
Romana’s knees were still wobbly from the near miss at the intersection. Even twenty minutes later and recreating the incident in her head, she didn’t know how Jacob had avoided a collision with the minivan, because all the driver had done was cover his face and plow his foot down hard on the brakes.
Looking up and around, Jacob murmured, “I don’t see any lights. He could be gone.”
Romana pictured Fitz’s blood on the too-large college sweatshirt she’d been wearing. University of Houston. Patrick had been born in Houston. He’d admitted to being in love with Belinda. He’d also said she hadn’t loved him back.
The door swung inward when Jacob tried the knob. “On three,” he told her.
Romana angled her gun skyward and waited through the count.
No sound came from inside, only the sickly creak of hinges as the door rocked in the gusting wind.
Jacob swung into the foyer, made a half circle with his gun. Still nothing moved, and no sound emerged.
Was it a trap? Romana wished for light, but knew it was better this way. While darkness might hide Patrick, it also concealed their presence.
The college logo flashed like a neon sign in her head. Her conversation in the park echoed and overlapped. A sensation akin to hysteria tickled her chest. She could deal with that, but with the memory of Fitz, bloody and pale as death, not so much.
Five feet into the foyer, Romana detected a soft scrape. When she tapped Jacob’s arm, he nodded.
“Back there.”
She made out a doorway, black and imposing, twenty feet ahead, possibly a portal to death. But only if Patrick was lying in wait. On the other hand, if the knife Fitz had been clutching had hit its mark, the portal might simply lead them to a corpse.
“I smell food,” she whispered. “Old grease, chili spices, green peppers.”
“Blood,” Jacob added.
“I was trying not to notice that.”
“I know. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” She double-handed her gun. When he kicked the door and hit the switch, she mirrored his swing across the threshold-and felt her stomach roll. “God, I hope some of this is chili sauce.”
Jacob straightened. “Probably most of it is.” He held out a hand to hold her back. “Cover me, okay? I want to see what’s behind the table.”
She took note of a long chain with a pair of handcuffs fastened to the end. The cuffs, a sleek, glossy black, were covered with spikes and looked totally kinky.
When Jacob swore, she forgot the cuffs and snapped her gun down. “Something?”
“It’s Critch.”
Shock led the emotional parade, with disbelief close on its heels. “Critch? Here? In Patrick’s house? Why?” Then she shook herself and skirted the table leg. “Is he alive?”
“Barely.”
Jacob shoved his gun into his waistband. Romana kept hers out as she reached into her pocket for her cell phone.
“Ambulance is coming,” she said, a minute later. “Was he shot or stabbed?”
“Shot in the stomach.”
Within the shadows to their left, a sudden flurry of footsteps erupted. A split second later, a round of bullets discharged. Before Jacob shoved her head down, Romana spied Patrick’s bone-white face framed by a door in the corner.
It had to be the basement door. She smelled the mold and mildew of a damp cellar. He must have run down there when they’d come in.
He stumbled toward the front of the house, firing blindly. His teeth were bared in a grimace, and the ratty bathrobe he wore had come untied. The belt dragged along behind him. Twin smears of blood stained his T-shirt with other, smaller spatters circling them.
“Stay with Critch,” Jacob told her.
“Jacob, I’m not going to sit and-” but he was gone before she finished “-do nothing,” she said to the air in his wake.
She started to stand and would have gone after him if Critch’s fingers hadn’t clamped like steel talons around her wrist. She let out a quick hiss of surprise before he yanked her back down-with far more strength than she would have anticipated.
“It was North,” he managed to whisper. “North killed her.”
“Yes, I know.” Romana pried ineffectively on his fingers. “Critch, you’re not helping here. Jacob’s gone after Patrick alone. If anything happens…” She set her teeth, rephrased. “He needs backup.”
The faintest of smiles played on Critch’s lips. “Not Knight. Damn good cop alone. He let me catch him-in the alley- just stood there and let me point my gun at him. Didn’t fight back, only spoke a few words. That had to mean I was right, didn’t it?”
Romana considered striking his hand with the butt end of her gun, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “Let go.” Even using her fingernails, she couldn’t pry her wrist free. “I don’t care how good a cop Jacob is, Patrick’s unstable, and that makes him doubly dangerous.”
“Tell me about it.” A wet laugh gurgled up. She glanced at the door, then back down at his sweat-pearled face. “Damn you.” Snatching a wad of paper napkins from the table, she pressed them to his stomach. “Why are you here?”
“Came to talk. North worked with Belinda. Thought he might know something.”
“About what?”
“I was so sure.” Critch’s eyelids fluttered. “So damn sure Knight did it. Had to be him. Had to be…”
She kept a firm pressure on his stomach. “Didn’t you ever think it might be someone else?”
He stared up at the ceiling now instead of at her. “Not at first. But after a while, it didn’t seem so cut-and-dried anymore. You spend time alone. You want it one way, but you start to doubt. Seeds blow around, get into your head. Mine were slow to take root, but time passed and…” He faded out.
“Critch!” Romana used a seat cushion to elevate his head. “Stay with me here. Did you have any idea what you were walking into tonight?”
He gave another burbling laugh. “Hell, no. Thought he might know something is all. People talk to coworkers. Pulled a gun before I even asked the question. No need for talk after that.”
“Did he tell you he murdered her?”
“Think so. Doesn’t matter. Truth’s out now.”
“It would have been nice if you’d gone looking for it a bit sooner.” She slapped his cheeks lightly to keep him conscious. “Come on, Critch. You’re tougher than a little bullet.”
But his eyes rolled back in his head, and his jaw went lax.
Outside, sirens wailed, both police and ambulance. Blood saturated the napkins and Critch’s breathing grew shallow.
Romana bent closer. “Critch, can you hear me?”
“Really cold,” he rasped.
“The paramedics are almost here. Just hang on, okay? Two more minutes.”
“You should want me dead.”
Did she? In spite of everything, Romana couldn’t wish for that. “You loved Belinda,” she said. “Love isn’t always logical. Mostly isn’t logical,” she amended and battled a shudder when she envisioned Jacob chasing down an injured killer. “Maybe a lot of us would snap under similar circumstances.”
Boots and wheels clattered into the foyer. “Back here,” she called to the rescue team. “Straight ahead, in the kitchen.”
Removing the sodden wad of napkins from Critch’s stomach, she pushed upright and reached for her gun. “You’ll be fine, Warren. Just keep breathing.”
