“No.”
He put the gun to her head.
A shot rang out and Shauna fell to the ground. Her head and shoulders were covered in blood and she was surprised death didn’t hurt.
Thank you, God. I’m glad it doesn’t hurt. A small blessing, I suppose, for being dead. Watch over my brothers. Dooley. Sam.
Sam. She didn’t want to leave Sam. She wasn’t ready to die.
But I can see my mom again.
Her head throbbed and she was lying on the hot, rough concrete of the parking garage. Someone called her name. St. Peter?
“Shauna, Shauna!”
Arms were wrapped around her and for a moment she thought of her mom, welcoming her to heaven. She wasn’t sure how she skipped purgatory, but maybe being murdered was a plus in her favor.
“Call an ambulance!”
Sam’s voice.
“Where are you hurt? Shauna?”
She opened her eyes and stared at Sam. She wasn’t dead. Her head hurt, but not from being shot. She’d hit her head hard on the ground when she fell.
There was so much blood. All over her. Pooling beside her.
It wasn’t hers.
She looked at the ground next to her. Austin lay there, dead. The back of his head was missing. She dry heaved and clung to Sam.
“Sam?” She swallowed and buried her face in his chest. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
He held her tight. “Oh, God, Shauna, I’m so, so, sorry.”
“I’m okay,” she repeated.
Shauna looked up and saw John Black and Dean Hooper emerge from the shadows of the garage. Agent Hooper had a rifle slung over his shoulder and a grim expression on his face.
She said, “You shot him.”
Sam said, “We had to wait until Hooper had a clean shot. There was no other way.”
“We were in the limo when we drove past and turned into the garage,” John said. “We didn’t have a lot of time to set up.”
“Thank you,” she said to Hooper, though she didn’t know if that was the right thing to say to a cop who had to kill someone.
Sirens cut through the night. People were lining the street across the way, and the father who had probably saved her life by slowing everything down was standing guard. John went over to talk to him, and Shauna planned on sending him a big present. Maybe flowers and a season pass to the River Cats.
Her heart was still racing, but she took a couple deep breaths.
“Are you hurt?” Sam said, inspecting her. “This isn’t yours—” He was looking at the blood.
“No, not mine,” she assured him. Blood had never bothered her before, but now all she wanted was to shower in scalding water for an hour. She didn’t know if she’d ever feel completely clean.
She continued. “All he wanted was the Babe Ruth baseball. He said there’s a code in it.” She looked around, her heart racing. “Where’s Jason? That bitch didn’t hurt him, did she?”
“Jason is unharmed,” Hooper said. “Amelia Shepherd surrendered. We’re going to put everything together and a lot of people are going to prison.”
“Let’s get you away from this.” Sam helped Shauna stand up. “Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” she repeated. She took several steps to prove it. Sam had his arm wrapped around her waist.
“I was worried,” Sam whispered as they walked over to where the limo was parked in front of the entrance, blocking all traffic into the immediate area. “If anything had happened to you—just don’t scare me again.”
Hooper asked Shauna, “How did Davis know you and Jason were working for us?”
“He bugged my dress.” She looked down and scowled. “One of these beads is a microphone. I really, really want to take this damn thing off.”
Chapter Twenty
Saturday
Shauna woke up to voices downstairs. Sound traveled well in her old house.
She padded downstairs in shorts and a T-shirt, the same USMC shirt she’d worn the other night when Sam came over and they first made love. When she’d fallen asleep last night, Sam was in her bed. Now, he was entertaining in her dining room.
She enjoyed having him around.
When Sam saw her he jumped up, concern darkening his eyes. “Did we wake you?”
She shook her head. “It’s ten in the morning. I never sleep this late.”
John Black and Dean Hooper sat at the table drinking coffee and eating donuts. She sat on her couch and asked, “Did you figure out what the code in the baseball was?”
Sam handed her a cup of coffee, sweet with no cream. She smiled and sipped. Perfect.
Hooper said, “Mack had given his daughter a coded book of all the laundering he did for Austin Davis. He’d sewn into the baseball the code breaker. The head of white-collar crimes has been debriefing Missy Polk all night. She turned the book over to Pete Coresco, not someone pretending to be a Sacramento PD detective. We found the book in Coresco’s apartment and my team is currently working on deciphering the text. It appears that not only had Mack been keeping track of his own activities, but other things the law firm was up to.”