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When he’d caught her, Tyler had felt the warmth of her flesh against him, the beating of her heart. A shudder had racked him so that for a moment he hadn’t known who was shaking worse, him or her. As he’d cradled her in his arms, with the child in hers, those blue eyes had looked up at him, humbling him by what he saw there. What he’d earned through patience and luck but would never deserve.
You said you’d catch me if I fell.
He understood that she’d always believed herself cursed, his angel. That she lived on stolen time. That she deserved nothing, even though she had clawed and scraped her way out of the dark morass of her memories by herself, a nightmare that would have made Sylvia Plath read like a Disney tale. But for a handspan of time, the few precious weeks they’d shared, he’d seen something come to life in her eyes, something that made him mad to protect her, to nurture that part of her, see it come to life permanently. Do as Natalie’s mother had done, wrap himself around her and never let her from his side again, never let her experience harm.
He forced himself to focus when Mac repeated something to him. The sooner he got this out of the way, the sooner he could get her out of here. He’d get her somewhere she could receive the care she needed. He wouldn’t let her be alone. Never again.
Marguerite watched Tina and Natalie leave, just shadows in the back of the police car. When the car turned onto a side street and disappeared from view, her gaze shifted.
The coroner had pronounced her father dead, finished his on-scene paperwork and now they were preparing a body bag to transport him. Soon she knew she would be asked what she wanted to do with him. His only living relative.
A blackness rose up in her, foul and putrid, like rot that had festered in a wound for so long it was going to drive her mad. Maybe it already had.
She started walking toward that body. Tyler was nearby, talking to Mac. The moment she moved, both men’s attention shifted to her. Since she had to move at a slow pace, they made it to her in several strides. She stopped, swaying, but when Tyler reached out she shook her head. “I’m fine. Your gun. ” The syllables echoed strangely in her head, as if there were nothing else there. There was only this moment, just as all the philosophies she’d explored had taught
her, the universal truths.
“What?”
“I want to borrow your gun. ” She managed it this time in her most polite tearoom voice. “The large one. ”
She couldn’t form the words to explain, could only hope by the expression in her eyes she was conveying what she was after. That the unusual ability he had to understand the breadth and depth of her, places she’d been unable to go herself, would be there. Her gaze shifted to her father’s body and then back to him.
“Mac. ” Tyler turned to the other man, who was frowning. “I think I understand what she wants. The coroner’s already pronounced him dead and he’s about to go to the morgue. Can you tell your men it’s okay? Please?” Mac’s attention moved between them, to the dead man, back to Marguerite. She simply waited.
“You owe me for the paperwork,” he muttered to Tyler. “Mountains of it. And a job if they fire me. Wait right here. ”
He turned, went to the other officers on scene, spoke to them. After a few moments of deliberation, of raised eyebrows and raised voices, he glanced over his shoulder, nodded.
Tyler gave her the Desert Eagle, butt first. “Do you remember how to use it?” She nodded. She felt all their eyes on her as she turned, walked across the crime scene toward the being who had spawned her. Who had nearly destroyed her mind but not quite, thanks to good friends, the strength that she had found in herself and Tyler.
Especially Tyler.
“It has a heavy kick,” he reminded her. He’d stayed right with her, just a step behind, protecting her back. She closed her eyes a moment, then slowly opened them, fixed them on her father.
Impassively she observed how death had frozen the monstrous features into permanence. He’d soiled himself, a fragility even he had not been able to escape. It would have been her all those years ago if not for David’s arms around her, his body beneath her to take the force of the concrete. Just as Tyler had done, he’d been there to catch her as she fell. David, Tyler and Mac. A monster of a father should have destroyed her faith in men according to any psychological textbook, but men like that had broken the theory, stole its power.
She felt Tyler’s heat and presence, a comforting wall. Mac had moved to her peripheral vision. She understood he was trying not to hover, but was likely concerned about allowing a rather emotionally uncertain woman to handle a weapon.
The dark rage in her soul rose, screamed for this one last thing before she could go home. She lifted the gun from her side with her right hand, pointed it down at his body cavity. No. There was no heart there. The gun shifted and her finger squeezed the trigger.
He was right. The gun did have a kick. It put the bullet into the concrete, knocking a chunk loose, spraying rock. She almost lost her grip on the butt. Tyler grabbed her, spun her away to shield her as Mac backed up, cursing. The other officers moved closer, voices rising.
“Tyler, damn it…” Mac’s voice, warning.
She sobbed in frustration but then Tyler was behind her, holding her, guiding her arms.
“Two-handed, baby. ”
She sucked in a breath as he began to guide her left arm up, pain radiating through her shoulder. Adrenaline had fled and now there was only pain. Tyler stopped, gently pressed her arm back down.
“I want to do it. His face. I want his face gone. ”
“Okay. ” His voice was soothing. Putting his right arm along the outside of hers, his chest against her shoulder blades, he covered her fingers on the butt. As she stared down the barrel, his left hand came into her vision, settling over the tips of her fingers and overlapping his own. She was holding the gun still, but his hands curled over her one in a two-handed grip that had become three-handed.
Holding her steady, just as he had done the day on his personal shooting range. It reminded her of the peace of that day and the other things she’d shared with him. The puddle stomping and the chapel. Those memories, as much as his touch, gave her the ability to steady herself.
“Go. ”
