Natural Law(55)

“I’ve been fortunate,” the police sergeant said at last, her voice a quiet murmur. “I haven’t had to do this that often. But when I have, I’ve always wondered how platoon leaders do it in war zones. Watch their men go down, knowing that if they’d done one thing or another, it wouldn’t have happened. Even when you send them out in the line of duty, you still did the sending.”

Violet lifted her head. The early afternoon light was coming through the window in the nook, throwing Rowe’s profile into relief. She was hearing a tone of voice she was sure the woman rarely used, because a sergeant couldn’t afford to second guess herself, not with a squad of men and women depending on her confidence. But the quiet of this out-of-the-way part of the ICU against the boiling activity just outside it, the strain of keeping watch here in separate solitude for hour upon hour, left time only for contemplation and bitter hindsight, apparently for both of them. Violet was glad for the distraction, she realized, because her own thoughts were eating her alive.

“There were other ways he could have conducted this case,” Darla mused. “He was pushing himself to the forefront from the beginning. He said he wasn’t her target victim, but I think he expected to be made by her, so he could make himself her target.

He didn’t seem at all surprised when she left a note on the last body, telling him he was next.”

“She…what?”

“The bitch addressed it to him.”

“And you didn’t pull him off the case, then?”

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“No, I didn’t.” Darla leaned forward in the chair, propping her elbows on her knees, looked steadily at Violet. “I trust my people’s judgment, Officer.” Violet saw her high regard for Mac in her face, heard the pride. “What I didn’t see, however, was that he was pushing too hard, and he was already tired. He was way overdue for vacation time. I trusted his instincts, but in this case, you’re right, I should have pulled him off the case. He knew what he was doing the whole time, and knew this could happen. It had become too personal.”

“Yes, it had,” Violet said abruptly. “He was determined not to have another person’s trust betrayed, their life taken. And you couldn’t have stopped him from trying, exactly because it was so personal.” She was furious, knowing Mac had taken the risk, but she understood him enough to know he wouldn’t have let it go down any other way. He was that damn stubborn.

“Well, I expect he’ll get that vacation now.” Her voice cracked slightly. She tightened her jaw, looked toward the window.

“Yes, he will.” Darla leaned back in her chair, studying Violet in that way that was starting to get on her nerves, so she turned her head, met the sergeant’s look head on.

“Is there a problem?”

“My niece has converted to the Wiccan faith.”

Violet blinked. “Excuse me?”

Darla shifted, uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them with the right leg on top this time. “I’m fond of her, and so of course I did some reading on it. It’s a very alternative type religion, if you’re familiar with it at all?” Violet nodded, drawing her brow together in confusion.

“It attracts some nasty fringe elements, as the road less traveled often will. But at its core, it’s a lovely faith, with principles that draw from…” A smile touched her lips that Violet did not understand. “…From natural law. People live in a very unnatural world, Violet. Those who walk outside the lines of that unnatural world, seeking their natural place, the way their instincts call them to be, they often walk a road of high risks for themselves. Doesn’t make them wrong, just a bit braver, or perhaps more foolish, than most of us.” She let her gaze travel down the hall, toward the open door to Mac’s room.

“I don’t claim to understand the path that calls to the two of you, but I do know it’s a hell of a risky lifestyle for two cops.”

“All relationships have risks, Sergeant Rowe,” Violet said at last, not sure what the woman was after, but giving her the simplest, most honest answer she had.

“So they do.” Darla rose, her expression unreadable. “I’m going to go make my rounds, see who’s still around, give them a status. What should I tell them?”

“Tell him he’s an oak. And oaks survive what no one else can.” Darla reached out, closed her hand on Violet’s. Turning her hand over so their palms met, Violet laced her fingers with the sergeant’s, gripped hard. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the emotional connection and eye contact as well. She just 192



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squeezed, and Darla squeezed back, a silent communication of what the man twenty feet away meant to both of them.

Then she pulled away. Violet waited until Darla’s footsteps retreated to raise her lids, which she suspected gave both of them the necessary time to compose themselves.

Her timing was good, for as she opened her eyes, the nurse came out of the room, nodded at her. No change, a good thing at this point.

Violet rose, went back to the room. She paused in the doorway a moment, looking at him there. He was such a big man, his feet all the way at the end of the bed, those long arms lying pale and unmoving on the covers. That beautiful chest, the hair she loved completely shaved from it for surgery. But that didn’t matter. Sinking down by his side, gripping his hand again, she imagined that the strength and love she’d felt in Darla Rowe’s touch would soak into him with her own, reinforce the fight going on inside to keep him with them all.

In the raw clarity that the strain of the past hours had brought to her, Violet knew why she’d been so determined to have him the first time she’d seen him, when she’d sensed he was a cop. A part of her had believed it was a sign, that she’d found the fairy tale, someone who would share her life as well as her bed, someone who understood what she was, who she was. All the corners and rooms. Now, denied his strength, she still wanted him with all her heart, wanted him to live, to be with her, to see if they could make a go of it.

The mother who had held her son through the night when he first had to take a life had died several years ago. The brother had been killed in the line of duty a decade past. She knew they were here, sitting in this room, helping Mac find his way back to her. His living family was right here. Her fingers tightened on him.

She was so tired, but she couldn’t close her eyes. Each time she did, she saw it in slow motion, Kiera knocking her on her ass, her head hitting the wall. The struggle to stagger to her feet, her head ringing from the impact. The squeezing panic in her chest, knowing she was going to be too late. She’d thought the terrifying roaring had been in her head, but then Mac had ripped the bench loose by throwing his body to the side and rolled, coming to his feet. That gorgeous mangled broad back shielding her as he charged forward. She’d heard the scream tear from her throat, knew it was not going to stop him. The jerk of his body was the only pause he made, and she saw the bullet punch out of his back, no more than an inch away from his spine, and thud into the wall by her head.

At the time her mind had shut down, refusing to acknowledge it, because she’d needed all her adrenaline to focus on taking down Kiera. But in the helicopter she had seen it replay over and over in her mind, and waves of terror came with every rewind, until she was praying silently over and over for a miracle, praying for the copter to go faster. Praying to go back in time so she could be faster and make it not happen.

There was no worse place to be shot. Dr. Hilaman knew it. Every cop knew it. But she believed in Mac more than in medical science. She believed in his indomitable will, which had resisted her so strongly from the first and yet kept him fused to her, despite 193



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his fears of accepting his true nature. Knowing the alternative was unthinkable, she had to believe he would survive.

She knew now that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. At that moment when she had answered Kiera, when her eyes had locked with his, there had been nothing but the truth of their hearts. No time, no shields, nothing but the simple honesty of two lives stripped down to the last breathing moment together.

“Mackenzie.” She laid her cheek on his large hand, rubbing against the coarse hair, the rough knuckles. “Wake up. I need you so much.” The tone of the monitor stumbled, made her heart jump three beats. She straightened to glance at the machine. In her peripheral vision, she saw the nurse in her blue scrubs standing in the doorway.

“I think it was just a skip,” Violet said. “Damn thing keeps scaring the shit out of me, every time it goes irregular.”

“Well, let’s see if we can’t make it a bit more flat line.” Violet spun.

It was Tamara, not a nurse, standing in the doorway. Kiera’s sister, composed as a cold statue, leveled a .38 directly at Mac’s chest. Her finger squeezed the trigger.

It was ten feet to the door. There wasn’t time for Violet to reach for her ankle piece or do anything but throw her body over Mac’s upper torso, curling herself over his chest and head, her own skull an obstacle the bullet would have to shoot through to get to his.

The first bullet ripped through her shirt at the waist, burning her. Violet flinched at the staccato sounds of shots, her heart hammering so loudly against her chest she couldn’t tell whether it was her own heart making her jerk, or slugs tearing through her flesh. Mac’s hands moved, confused, scrabbling, his subconscious responding to shots the way any conscious cop did, even if he didn’t have the physical ability to protect himself. He found her body, gripped, and she held onto him, kept him covered, unable to move even as she heard shouting, running feet, thuds.