AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gus braced himself, but she merely shook his hand, vigorously. “Gus, is it? Welcome. Any friend of the Etheridge boys is a buddy of mine!” She looked down at his hand in hers. “You do know you’re bleeding, don’t you? Mac, did you realize your friend was bleeding?”
Neither of them had. There was blood all over Gus’s hand, and now Patsy’s.
“Damn!” Gus checked his pockets for a handkerchief with which to clean himself up. The blood must have soaked through the bandages. “I’ll fix it on the way…we haven’t time—”
“We’ll have to make time. I’m not having you bleed all over Bessie’s upholstery.”
“Here, let me have a look,” Zeke said, grabbing a first aid kit from the helicopter. “Mac—you help Pat take out some of her food supplies so there’s room for the two of you.”
Once Gus had removed his jacket, Zeke inspected the wound and cursed at Mac for what was apparently a “lame-ass job” of bandaging it. He sprayed Gus’s forearm with antiseptic and stitched it—all in the space of about five minutes without once asking how he sustained the injury or why they needed to fly to Dallas.
Gus tried not to look at what Zeke was doing to his arm in case he disgraced himself by fainting. Instead, he watched Mac and Patsy remove boxes packed with preserves and pickles from the helicopter. It was surreal—like the bloody County Women’s Association was going to war. He half expected one of them to disembark a plate of scones.
Mac took a call from Sam and Caleb. It seemed they had managed to “take the enemy” alive and were holding them at the Ponderosa. “Do me a favor, Caleb,” Mac said checking his watch. “Wait a few hours before you call the police. I’ll call you from Dallas. Just hold them.”
“You can trust us, Mac,” Caleb replied. “You can trust me.”
“What—” Gus began.
“The police will allow them to make a phone call. I’m a bit concerned about who they’ll call.”
“All done,” Zeke announced. “I’ll take the stitches out in a few days. If you’re not back by then, just snip the knots off the ends and pull them out yourself.”
“Thanks, Zeke.” Gus held up his arm to have a closer look at Dr. Etheridge’s handiwork.
“I’ll send you my bill—you’d better get going. Patsy’s got to be back to get her kids ready for school.” He unbuckled his shoulder holster and handed it and its contents to Mac. “I assume you’ve stepped out undressed again… You might need this.” He looked back at Gus. “What about the Aussie?”
“I don’t know how to shoot a gun,” Gus said, alarmed. He looked at Mac. “Unless you want to be accidentally shot again—”
“Oh, I don’t think Mac’s actually ever pulled a trigger either,” Zeke said sadly. “Not since Mom shot him, anyway… PTSD I expect. Still, you don’t want the enemy or the ladies to think you don’t have the equipment, even if you can’t use it.”
“For God’s sake, Zeke, shut up!” Mac growled. He handed Gus the gun he’d wrestled from Shaw. “It’s not loaded anymore, but just so you look the part.”
“You boys want to keep chatting or are we going?” Patsy climbed into the cockpit. “Saddle up.”
The helicopter’s interior had been customized in the same glam-camouflage style in which Patsy was attired. Mac sat beside Patsy; Gus climbed into the back beside a water purifier and a steel lockbox.
And then they were in the air, Zeke and Horse and the floodlit tennis court receding as Bessie climbed into the night sky. The rhythm of the blades in rotation had a rocking effect. Gus wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep—he must have—because it seemed like minutes before they were landing again in what seemed to be a paddock.
“Where are we?”
“Just out of Tulsa,” Patsy said taking off her helmet. “Sit tight and we’ll be refueled and then landing in Dallas in a jiffy.”
CHAPTER 39
Theo flattened herself against the wall so that she did not block the flow of foot traffic out of the hotel. She felt a bit guilty when she saw how frightened some people were, but she resisted the impulse to comfort them, to say she was sure it was a false alarm, which, of course, she knew it was.
She needed to find a place to hide—she wasn’t sure for how long, but she knew that they would come for her, cancel her research trip, and she would never escape. Day Delos had turned her into a ghost, and they needed her to remain a ghost.
Theo had once let herself believe she could replace everything with her writing, that the life she’d been offered would compensate for the one she’d had. But it wasn’t enough. She missed her family; she missed Gus; she worried about him. The months he’d been in the hospital had been more agonizing from afar. The agency had kept her informed; she had sat by the phone monitored by Day Delos through every surgery, cried through every setback, and celebrated when he’d finally been discharged. She’d even seen his physio and rehabilitation reports. But she hadn’t been allowed to be there, to sneak pizza into the hospital, to do his washing, to cheer him up or help him fight. Day Delos and Associates had sent their lawyers to work behind the scenes to ensure Gus had never been charged and to free Mac. They had made sure Gus’s insurance company had covered the fire, though he’d missed a payment or two when he was in hospital. She owed them a great deal. They’d given her a new life, a publishing contract, a place to hide. And all she had to do was write…and continue to hide.
But Gus’s lawsuit had changed everything.
The murder of Mary Cowell had never been officially solved; the case had been abandoned more than closed. Theo’s confession had simply stopped the prosecution of Gus Benton. There had been no real evidence to corroborate her confession and it had not fully exonerated him.
That knowledge had rendered her unable to argue with whatever Day Delos decided. Gus’s freedom was dependent on the agency’s goodwill. Now that he had decided to sue them, they would no longer protect him, and a little part of her was afraid that they would take more proactive action than simply removing their benevolence.
Sometime in the past year, Theo had begun to wonder about the knife and the key found at Gus’s house. She had not for a single heartbeat believed that Gus had had anything to do with Mary Cowell’s murder, and so someone must have planted that evidence. Alexander Wilson and Day Delos and Associates had appeared at just the right time to save her, but she wondered if perhaps that was a time of their own making. Had they exploited the death of Mary Cowell to recruit Theo on their terms? Was that what Dan Murdoch had meant when he said Day Delos was not the right agency for her? Had he signed on those terms…and if so, why?
