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Wallace looked at Marlowe after the attendants had helped him get onto the gurney. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he apologized.
“For what?” she asked.
Wallace appeared genuinely distraught. “For not being able to protect you.”
Although his hand was far larger than hers, she picked it up and squeezed it. “He got the drop on you. It could have happened to anyone,” she insisted. “And it all turned out well in the end, which is all that really matters, don’t you think?”
“If you say so, ma’am,” Wallace responded.
“You do what the doctor tells you, big guy,” Bowie instructed. “I’ll be there to check in on you in the morning. Meanwhile, I’m just glad you’re all right,” he added with sincerity.
The chief had been standing by quietly while all this was taking place. Once the ambulance attendants had left with Wallace for the hospital, Barco turned toward the two people who were still in the room.
“Well, if there’s nothing further, I’ll be going, too. I’ve got to book that SOB,” he told them. Then he confided, “I’m going to be looking forward to having the judge throw the book at him for all the emotional grief he caused, not to mention that he killed your security guard.”
Bowie nodded. “I think that makes three of us,” he told the chief.
Bowie waited until the chief had finally left to join Donovan before he slipped his arm around Marlowe’s shoulders.
“
It looks like it’s finally over,” he told her. And then he looked at her, surprised. “Marlowe, honey, are you shaking?” She knew he was aware how much she didn’t like having attention drawn to any display of weakness, but her reaction had apparently caught him off guard. “What’s the matter?” he asked Marlowe. “We got the bastard. He can’t hurt you—or anyone else—anymore.”
Because she had always come on like gangbusters, he evidently had no idea how to handle this new, vulnerable side of Marlowe.
“I don’t know,” she cried, upset and self-conscious over her behavior. “I guess it’s just a reaction to everything.”
She had managed to hold it together while it was happening, but now that it was over, now that she thought of how close she had come to being kidnapped or even killed, how close Bowie and Wallace had both come to the same fate because of her, Marlowe just couldn’t get herself to stop shaking. Her baby’s life had been in danger, too—and she had nearly lost Bowie forever.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, turning away and waving her hand at the whole thing. “This isn’t me.”
Bowie put his arms around her, drawing her close as he held her. “Well, until the real you turns up, I’ll just hold on to the fake you if you don’t mind. Just until she stops shaking.”
Marlowe made a disparaging, self-conscious noise. “That may take a while,” she confided. She was still avoiding looking into his eyes.
Bowie spun her back around gently and, placing his index finger beneath her chin, forced her to look at him.
“That’s okay,” he assured Marlowe, stroking her hair. “I don’t have any place to be—except the ER while the doctor checks you and the baby out.”
“I already told you, I’m fine,” she insisted.
“I’d like a professional opinion confirming that,” he told her.
“But—”
“Shh,” he told her as he ushered her toward the door. “Humor me. That baby is half mine.”
* * *
Because he felt that Marlowe could benefit from being in familiar surroundings, when they finally left the ER, Bowie took her to her condo in the city rather than to his own place.
Though she tried to disguise it, she still seemed rather shaky to him. He spent the night doing his best to comfort Marlowe and reassure her that at least this threat was over, even though the larger, more involved mystery involving Ace was still ongoing.
They talked about a variety of things until, exhausted, she finally fell asleep.
* * *
When Marlowe opened her eyes the next morning, the first thing she saw was Bowie’s face. He was lying in bed beside her, awake and watching her sleep. She had the impression that he had been like that throughout the whole night.
