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idn’t scream enough, but we can fix that. We’ll have to make this quick, though, Holly Anne; it’s kind of public around here. Exciting, though, isn’t it?” His grin was loose and wet and horrifying. “I sat there all night with you in that car, you know, wondering if I should take you over to that field and do you there for your friends to find. If you’d followed me out there, I don’t think I could have stopped myself.”
I shut my eyes because there was nothing I could do now. I was wounded, and he had the knife, I had nothing at all. Not even hope.
Andy. I love you, I always loved you, I am so sorry I even doubted it …
At least we could be together, somewhere beyond all this. Somewhere far from the pain and the sharp bite of the blade as it touched my arm, widening the bullet wound. Cutting my life away. I heard myself scream, but I focused on retreating into a place of silence, of peace, of Andy.
I love you. I’m so sorry for hurting you. You’re the only thing that ever really mattered to me, the only man who ever touched me in my heart, and I love you, I will always …
“I know,” Andy Toland said. I thought it was in my head, I really did; reality had come undone. I opened my eyes. It wasn’t Andy crouching over me, it was the killer, Greg, with his totally normal blue golf shirt underneath, and his totally normal face with a wolf’s eyes and a shark’s smile like some horrible accident of nature …
But it had been Andy speaking. He was standing right behind Greg. Pale as death, stark as an ink drawing, built of flesh and blood and bone and rage.
And below all that, there was love, oh God, so much love it mended my shattered heart into an unbreakable whole.
He pumped his shotgun one-handed and put it to the back of Greg’s head. For a second, Greg froze; his predator’s eyes turned frightened, and his smile faltered. Then he dropped the knife and held up his hands. “Please don’t shoot,” he said. “I surrender. I won’t give you any trouble.”
He must have thought that would do it. I could have told him different because Andy Toland was never a policeman, was never a lawyer; he grew up in a world where, sometimes, the only judge, jury, and justice was to be had in the flash of a gun.
And this was personal.
I turned my head just in time before he fired the shotgun. Both barrels.
Andy had angled the shot up, but some of the blood and … other things … fell on me. I expected to feel Greg’s lifeless corpse sprawl across me, but Andy had hold of his collar, and he pitched him off to the side like trash. Then Andy dropped to his knees and clamped both hands on my shoulder.
I still felt the pull of the dark, but this time I realized that it wasn’t Andy fighting that tide. It was me. “Holly Anne,” he said. “Holly, you listen to me. Listen. You’re not leaving. I ain’t allowing that. You just listen.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt vague and distant now. “I was angry you didn’t tell me. You understand? I didn’t mean to let you go.”
“All done now,” he said in his most smooth, soothing voice. His buttery voice, the one he used to lie to my boss to get my day off. Oh Jesus, I was going to die on my day off. That was just sad. And I hadn’t gotten my reports finished.
Andy cursed in a soft, trembling voice, and fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone. He punched 911, but I didn’t hear the conversation. I was busy thinking how odd it was to be looking at him from so great a distance. He had a nice nose after all, even if it had been broken once. I couldn’t understand why he was crying. “Did you have a shotgun in your bag?” I asked. “Because that must have been really heavy.”
“Shut up, my love, please Jesus—”
“I love you,” I said. It was important to say it.
And then I closed my eyes and with a great sense of relief, let go.
And Andy Toland held me, hovering there, suspended in the dark, tethered to him by the unbreakable chain of our love.
* * *
It took two surgeries and three weeks in the hospital to put my arm back together properly, and Andy never left my side. I think there might have been some violence involved in his defiance of visiting hours, but by the time I was conscious enough to really know, he and the medical community had achieved a cautious truce.
The police chief showed up to formally shake my other hand and present me with a certificate of appreciation, which was nice. There was a check for my services, too, which was even better. My boss sent flowers.
Andy looked good on the evening news, telling all them reporting sons of bitches to go to hell. I almost choked on my chicken broth.
But the best thing … the best of all … was going home with Andy, and being carried over the threshold, and smelling the astonishing scent of his potion brewing in its final stage. “I made sure it wasn’t so smelly for you,” he said. “Got a surprise, too.”
I breathed in Holly’s Balm and rested my head against his shoulder. “No more surprises,” I said. “Promise me.”
“All right then.” He smiled, put me on the couch, and pulled up a chair. He pulled from his pocket a thick sheaf of papers, which he unfolded. “You need to sign these.”
“What is it?”
“Company papers.”
