Chapter 16 #2
“I came in through the woods behind her backyard and went low. I needed to see in the basement window, needed to see Sassy and make sure she was . . . okay. But what I saw was not okay. She was . . . strung up by her wrists and Eli was staring at her, sitting there holding a remote in his hand as if he were watching TV. But I saw the wires attached to Sassy and strung to an explosive device and I knew the remote was a detonator.”
“What did you do then?” Ms. Kimble asked in a quiet, curious voice.
“Then I called to let Dane and Cap and Joe know the status and I waited.” He turned to Sassy. “But I swear on my Bible that I would have gone in on my own if backup didn’t arrive within ten minutes.” He took another breath and Dane was proud of how the kid calmed himself.
“Joe got there within ten and we checked again. No change. It was odd though because Cap had said that they hadn’t spotted Whitey or Sassy’s car anywhere near the church. Now we know why. He’d left early to set up his bomb.
“When we finally got the word that Whitey was at the funeral, we knew we had more backup coming in. I wanted to go in then, but Joe made me wait. He convinced me that with only two of us someone was likely to get hurt.” Ronnie snorted.
“As it turned out, it ended up that only Joe and I went in. I went in the front down the stairs while he watched the window. At the exact second I barged in the room, Joe took a shot at Eli, hitting him in the shoulder. Then he came in through the bulkhead and we got Sassy down and Joe dragged Eli out of there. He was wounded in the shoulder so we didn’t bother cuffing him.
We felt a need to get out of the basement fast in case there was a bomb on a timer or another booby trap. Turns out that was a big mistake.”
“You didn’t know he was . . . attached to Whitey, kid.
You didn’t know he was going to react like he did, like a maniac, to take vengeance against Shana on Whitey’s behalf.
He probably thought I’d killed him.” Dane needed to ease the kid’s conscience on that point.
Dane hadn’t guessed the true nature of their relationship right away.
“They were . . . together?” Sassy sounded surprised.
“Lovers,” Dane said. “Or sexual partners, maybe obsessed, because it’s not certain that sick sociopaths are capable of love. Not really.”
“And you observed Dane kill Eli Hughes to save Shana?” Kimble asked.
Ronnie nodded and told her what he’d seen. His account was exactly the way Dane remembered it. Kimble looked satisfied.
“Okay then. I have some papers for you to sign, Mr. Blaise, and then we can leave. But I would like a word alone first.”
Sassy looked reluctant. Ronnie looked all business. They left.
“What’s the verdict?” Dane said when they were alone. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be inside the cell with me?”
Ms. Kimble wrinkled her nose. “It’s not a rule. I’ll pull up a chair. You don’t mind, do you? I have a . . . thing about being inside jail cells.” She flushed.
If he weren’t so impatient to get out of there, he’d ask about whatever bad experience she had, but that could wait for another day.
“To answer your question, I get you off. The DA is already talking about reducing the charge to manslaughter, but we make a compelling argument that you feared for Ms. George’s life, that you assumed Whitey would stab her because he hadn’t dropped the knife when Captain Lynch demanded it.”
Dane wondered what the hell kind of lawyer she was making rash promises about getting him off. His gut told him he was his kind of lawyer.
“What about when I shot him in the face?”
“We’ll need the ME to confirm that he would have died regardless of that second shot, that you’d fatally wounded him and he was as good as dead. It all happened very fast so we can also argue that the second shot was part of a single cohesive act.”
Dane nodded. “Good one. When can I leave this place? I have to get out of here now so I can—”
“Now. Governor Douglas has assented to have you released under his recognizance. Helps when you have friends in high places.”
She didn’t sound like she approved, but he didn’t care. Everything in him started buzzing with anticipation, his juices began flowing as if his physical functioning had been in sleep mode, waiting to be rebooted.
She took a breath. “It will be my pleasure to try this case if we have to, because I believe in your innocence, but we may be able to get a judge to agree to our demand that all charges be dropped.”
“I hear an unspoken but,” he said.
“But the governor isn’t the only one bringing pressure on the DA. I hear that someone from the FBI office in Boston has called.”
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“Captain Lynch was kind enough to inform me.” She paused a beat.
“While I don’t agree with his actions in this case, having you arrested and charged this way—some have accused me of being a diehard defense attorney although in less flattering terms--I have to admit that he’s been very cooperative. More so than is strictly necessary.”
“If that were the case, he’d have left the cell unlocked and I’d be at the hospital at Shana’s side right now where I ought to be.
” Dane didn’t bother keeping the outrage from his voice.
The vitriol roiling around in him at being held captive at this crucial moment had to leak out somewhere, sometime, or he’d go damn crazy.
“Yes, well, you’re out now. Sign these.” She handed him papers and a pen. He put the papers against the cement wall and signed. Ms. Kimble went to the wall near the stairs and took the key off the hook and came back to open his cell.
“That’s it? What about the governor? Aren’t I supposed to be his responsibility?”
“Another irregularity that Captain Lynch is accommodating for us. The governor will arrive later. He had to return to Boston last night to take care of some business. We thought you’d want to get to the hospital now, as you said.”
Dane stepped from the cell and almost grinned. He looked at the woman, and although he felt the need and impatience to get out of this place growing in him to a feverish pitch, he paused.
“Thank you, Ms. Kimble. I owe you.”
Then he pushed past her and rushed up the stairs.
“Wait. You’ll need a ride,” she called after him.
He heard her rushing up the stairs in her sensible pumps.
He knew his way out of the station. He could go out the back door, past Cap’s office, or out the front door through the lobby.
He hesitated a beat while Ms. Kimble caught up to him at the top of the stairs.
In the past, there would have been no question that he’d stop by Cap’s office to check in before leaving, but in the old days he wouldn’t have been put in jail by the man for murder. In the end he decided he had no time to deal with Cap right now—maybe he never would again.
So with Ms. Kimble keeping admirable pace, he jogged through the lobby past a few astonished men and women in blue, some of whom clapped, and out the front door.
Luckily Ms. Kimble didn’t mind driving faster than the speed limit as Dane directed her to the hospital, where they pulled up into the emergency bay. It was the quickest way to get inside.
He jogged the entire way to her room, through the halls and up the stairs because he didn’t want to wait for the elevator.
He’d lost Ms. Kimble while she parked the car.
Someone shouted at him to stop running. He didn’t even give them a look, cared nothing about breaking the rules today.
He needed to get to get to Shana before they took her into surgery. For the second time.
When he found her room, he slowed a fraction of a second then pushed the door open and went inside, knowing he’d find her with nurses or attendants or doctors. He didn’t give a damn.
She was surrounded, lying flat on a gurney and ready to go into the operating room. Dr. Aoki was there and Dane met the doctor’s eyes, pleading his case for a moment without speaking.
“It’s all right. Give him a minute.” The doctor cleared the room.
Dane went to Shana’s side, bent and gave her a kiss on the lips.
They were curved in a slight smile and cool and yielding against his own, but he was quick.
He lifted his head from hers so he could see her, talk to her, tell her she meant everything in the world to him, that she was more important than his own life. Because it was true.
But before he could get out any of the words bottled up in his heart, she spoke first.
“I thought you’d left me.”
Dane collapsed to his knees at her bedside then and held onto her hand. All the pent-up fear of loss gushed from the hole in his heart. He felt like he was bleeding, willing all his life force to go from him into her.
“No,” he said. It was all he could manage.
“They say there’s internal bleeding,” she whispered. He didn’t want to hear it. “They say I need another surgery.”
Dane pulled himself together, standing. “For the record. I would never leave you.” He felt the weak squeeze of her hand.
Wanted to, but refused to squeeze his eyes shut at the sight of her pale face, the bags of IV fluid and blood hanging beside her, the weak dullness of her once vivacious eyes.
They would be bright with her liveliness again.
He had to believe that. She had to be all right.
“Neither would I.” she rasped, “For the record.”
He wanted to hold her then, kiss every part of her, give her all his life blood, energy, karma, his very heart and soul, if he could. But all he could do was get out of the way of Dr. Aoki and the others when they came back into the room to take her away to surgery.
“Make sure you get her back to me,” he said to Dr. Aoki, putting a menacing hand on his shoulder. The doctor widened his eyes for only a moment, but then instantly recognized Dane for the desperate man that he was.
They wheeled her out of the room. To surgery. To save her life.
Utterly depleted, Dane slept in the waiting room, in spite of the discomfort of the undersize couch. Exhausted when his adrenaline had finally run out, he had no energy or will to keep his eyes open while Shana was in surgery. It was a merciful sleep, if short.
He woke when Joe touched his shoulder. Sitting up, he checked his watch and saw that only a half hour had elapsed.
Coming to full awareness, slower than he usually did, he saw Peter standing there with Madeline.
After she hugged him, she sat next to him.
All his friends and Shana’s arrived one or two at a time to wait with him while the doctors operated on her.
The love of his life. His reason for being.
After an hour, he looked around. They were all there. Except Cap.
One of Dane’s friends must have warned Cap not to come. His money was on Joe. Joe was on Dane’s side in thinking Cap had been wrong to arrest him and that was in spite of the fact that Joe was a fellow state law enforcement official. Technically.
Peter was decidedly on the fence, waffling precariously.
Sassy had a soft spot for Cap and faith that he knew what he was doing and that all would end well for Dane.
Ronnie was on Dane’s team all the way. The kid wished he’d been there to do the shooting himself.
In Ronnie’s youthful black-and-white world, he thought it was an unforgivable betrayal by Cap.
Each of them had expressed their opinion about Cap arresting him and the charges against him in one way or another. That had been earlier, when he’d been in jail. Now they all sat or paced, waiting somberly.
Dane stood, waking fully from the exhausted sleep, now aroused by the tension of waiting for news of Shana’s surgery, the full import of it hitting him again with a fresh punch to the gut.
As he paced by the doors to the operating room, he stopped, willing the doctor to emerge.
But he was still surprised when the door swung open and Dr. Aoki finally came out, ripping off his gloves and mask and walking directly up to Dane.
His heart banged against his chest wall, his whole body clenched in anticipation while the doctor, a full foot shorter than him, stuffed the cotton mask into his pocket. He looked up directly into Dane’s eyes and spoke.
“We found the bleeding and stopped it. The next few hours will be crucial, then she should have a full recovery. But it’s going to be a slow, precarious process. She’ll need to do the one thing I know she won’t want to do.”
Dane’s smile cracked his face and his heart felt like it had spread wings and flown to his throat. He couldn’t speak for a beat, so he nodded. Then, with Peter at his side, he said, “You want her to do nothing?”
The doctor grinned. “Right. Total and complete bed rest.”
“For how long?”
“Six weeks minimum. Four with good behavior.” Then the doctor added with a serious voice, “Both of you will need to behave.”
Dane gulped. He’d never been a nursemaid, but this was one assignment he was not going to mess up since everything that was right with the world, with his world, depended on it.
“Can I see her?”
Dr. Aoki nodded and said, “Follow me.”
Dane followed the doctor into the nearby post-op room where Shana lay under pristine white sheets on a hospital bed, tubes and wires attached to her.
But her mane of newly red hair and her beautiful profile warmed him to his core.
He hadn’t realized he’d been so cold. He went to her and touched her arm.
Her eyes opened and she turned to look at him.
It took a beat while their eyes met in silent communication, where Dane spoke volumes of love poems in his look, laying everything bare, all his love, passion, adoration, and need, the soul-deep need for her to see.
Then she smiled. The soft expression transformed her face from pale and weak so that he could see that flash of passion in her, the love and forgiveness. Most of all, Dane saw the understanding.
He bent to kiss her before the doctor could object, touching his lips to hers, needing to transfer some of his passion and energy to her with the physical contact. Then while the doctor voiced his predictable objection, he stood.
“I’ll be back, love.”
“Dane,” she whispered.
He held his breath waiting to hear what she would say.
“Don’t be long.”
She hadn’t said it. Hadn’t said she loved him too, that she forgave him for everything. But she would. He knew it. Had to believe it. He walked to the door when it was the last thing he wanted to do, but the doctor had insisted on good behavior and he needed to man up.
Before he left the room, he said, “I’ll be back before you wake up again.”