27. Juliette
Chapter 27
Juliette
T he first crack of gunshot stopped her heart. The second made her belly clench so hard that bile burned at the base of her esophagus. But she hadn’t seen a muzzle flash. Shouldn’t she have seen one? Had Daniel shot him in the gut? Through the back of his seat, into his heart?
Oh god. She couldn’t see. Too dark at the back of the lot. It was all so damn dark .
Tears stung her eyes. The officer raised his hands from his spot in front of the door, a spindly guy with thick fingers and a permanent scowl that deepened when Juliette plowed straight into him. She sidestepped his stocky legs and hit the jamb. He stumbled, reached for her again, but apparently decided better of it as she flung the door wide and escaped into the night.
“Ronan!”
Her scream echoed through the lot. She hadn’t seen any other officers from inside the motel, but they were sure as hell there now, rushing from the other rooms toward Ronan’s car. The redheaded man from the room beside hers was fastest of all, racing past the streetlight as a bright yellow ambulance shrieked around the side of the building, sirens blazing.
“Ronan!” she shouted again, but she couldn’t hear the word over the terrified voice in her brain: Please don’t be dead. Please don’t let him be dead. Please, please, please.
The paramedic parked at the front of the lot and leaped out—tall with dark, curly hair. The ambulance’s headlights were aimed at Ronan’s car, turning the scene into a stark tableau of harsh light and deep shadow. Juliette stopped beneath the streetlight. Why wasn’t the ambulance parking nearer the back? Was it already too late?
Panic froze the blood in her veins. Her face was wet—she felt the dampness on her neck. Oh god, Ronan’s been shot, Daniel killed him.
The redheaded man skidded to a stop beside Ronan’s car—the one in the Van Halen T-shirt. Gun aimed at the window. He flung open the backdoor, shouted something. Then a body was sliding out, birthed from the backseat, slimed with blood.
Even from here, she could tell that his right arm was wounded, a massive chunk of flesh missing above the elbow. Gore covered the right side of his shirt from ribs to shoulder. But his face was still aimed at the asphalt.
Her lungs filled with acrid air, her jaw releasing, but her heart was throbbing so hard that she could barely breathe, definitely couldn’t swallow. She watched as the officer grabbed the man on the asphalt and clipped the cuffs onto his wrists, injured arm be damned.
The redhead finally flipped the man onto his back. “You have the right to remain silent…”
The officer went on, but she could no longer hear him. Daniel .
His face was splattered with blood, but it was definitely him. She’d recognize that scowl anywhere.
“Get the gurney,” someone called across the lot just as the front door opened. Her breath caught.
“His legs ain’t broken,” Ronan said to the redheaded cop, emerging from the driver’s seat. “Make him fucking walk.”
Relief flooded Juliette’s body, turning her legs to jelly, but she stumbled closer as if to verify that what she was seeing was real, that her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
He’s alive. He’s alive. Oh god, he’s really okay!
“Also… ‘Yeah, you better be’?” Ronan rolled his eyes about the officer’s earlier comment, and this made the redhead smile as Ronan kicked his door shut.
Daniel was still lying on the asphalt, eyes staring at the sky or perhaps at the medic, who was now kneeling at his side. The redheaded officer waved her off and jerked Daniel’s shirt, hauling him to his feet.
Daniel groaned, and a high-pitched bark of laughter burst from her core—years of pent-up fury and terror exploding in a single moment of pure joy. The medic glanced over, eyes wide. Juliette clapped her hands over her mouth.
He could still get away with it. But she didn’t think he would. Daniel had spent years breaking her spirit, making her feel helpless, worthless, and Ronan had stoked what little spark of hope she still had into a full-fledged wildfire. Daniel was fucking finished. She’d never been so certain of anything.
Juliette stepped nearer, fear dissolving as she approached the front bumper. Daniel glanced over. His eyes narrowed. Then his lips peeled back in a snarl, and he lurched forward, spitting and cussing.
Juliette’s muscles tightened, ready to fight, ready to kill him if it came to that, but the redhead jerked him back, sending Daniel crashing to the ground. He landed on his ass.
“I told you—he’s fine,” Ronan said, stepping on Daniel’s fingers as he made his way around the car, pulling another round of spitting and howling from Daniel’s lips.
She couldn’t tell if it’d been purposeful. She hoped it was.
Daniel was still snarling at her as Ronan popped the trunk. Juliette raised her hand. Then her middle finger.
“Jesus fuck.” The heavy Irish drawl boomed around the open trunk as the officer climbed from inside. Short and stocky, bright orange hair. Ronan’s partner.
They’d used Daniel’s own trick against him—shot him through the backseat from the trunk. And this had been the most logical place for Daniel to come—the only place he might believe he could take care of Ronan quickly and quietly.
But narcissistic villains never skipped the opportunity to tell you how smart they were—she hoped that meant he’d confessed. Though they’d had to dismantle Ronan’s trunk to make it work, added a metal panel behind the driver’s seat, she had the feeling Ronan didn’t care one bit.
She couldn’t suppress a smile as Ronan headed back around the car toward her. Her heart was still throbbing against her ribs, but slower, calmer now that Ronan was in her line of sight—now that she knew he was safe. But he glanced away as another man approached.
“Did you get it?” Ronan asked the officer— no . The badge on his chest was different. The chief?
The gray-haired man nodded, one hand resting on his thick gut—not cheeseburger thick. Muscular thick. “Damn right we did.” He cut his eyes at Juliette and her hackles rose—was he going to arrest her?—but then he turned away and headed off into the dark beyond the ambulance.
Ronan raised a hand to his head, rubbing at his ear. Probably half-deaf after that gunshot at close range. No wonder he’d been talking loudly enough for her to hear from across the lot.
“Hey.”
She resisted the urge to fold herself into his arms and gestured in the direction the chief had vanished. “So… what did you get?”
Ronan grinned. “Enough to put Daniel away for Waylon’s murder, for one. He even showed his face to the traffic cams after you almost burned out his retinas.”
Her heart sank. “Even if the cameras show he was there, you can’t convict him on circumstantial?—”
“Between your testimony, Eli Dawson’s statement, what Ortega found, and the confession we got from a second bug embedded in the seat… ” He said the last part extra loud.
Daniel, now halfway to the ambulance, jerked around and tried to lunge out of the redhead’s grasp once more. The officer yanked hard, and Daniel took another stumbling step toward the gurney.
“Stop antagonizing this dickbag,” the redhead shouted. “He’s got two bullets in him.”
“You never let me have any fun,” Ronan fired back, but he was still smiling when he turned back to Juliette.
“What did Ortega…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t even matter. Are you telling me that it’s over? Really over?”
“You’ll have some things to answer for, but I’ve already talked to the authorities in Ravenbrook. They aren’t interested in prosecuting you—they’ve got egg on their face with their own sheriff being a killer. They’ve also agreed to allow Ortega to examine the body they found this morning under your mother’s porch.”
“Sanchez?” she asked, but she knew the answer before he nodded.
“Yo!”
They both turned as Ronan’s partner clapped him on the back— Paddy, right ?
“Welcome back to the force.” The man winked.
But Ronan looked at Juliette. “Speaking of that… I think it’s time for me to shift gears.”
Paddy’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? After all that? I mean, you’ve got a pension coming, brother. Just twenty more years and you’re home free. If you end up with too much spare time, you’ll grow hair on your palms. Take it from me.”
Paddy clapped his back again, but Ronan didn’t flinch. His eyes never left hers, the liquid heat in his gaze warming the space around her heart—the place where only panic had lived for so long.
Ronan smiled. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”