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He lunged and she stepped to the side. “You bastard,” she cried, kicking at him as she began to fall.
“Nikki!”
Another blast from a gun, the charge roaring in her ears as her attacker fell. Screaming, she felt strong arms surround her, saving her from sliding down the cliff. Trent dragged her back to safety. “You’re all right,” he whispered, his gun outstretched in one hand, his other arm a steel band around her middle.
“Oh, God, Trent!” She clung to him, sobbing, holding him as a spreading stain of dark red seeped from beneath Crowley’s man. He groaned in pain and writhed.
“Don’t move!” Trent warned him, and Nikki, collapsing, buried her face in his shoulder. He smelled of leather and sweat and gunpowder and he was shaking as violently as she. “Hang on, Nikki, I’m here,” he whispered across her crown. “And I always will be.”
She couldn’t let go. Trembling, she clung to him as if to life itself. Time stretched endlessly, the minutes ticking by, her heartbeat slowing, the man on the ground moaning pitifully.
She listened to Trent’s uneven breathing as, in the distance, sirens screamed loudly, people shouted and eventually the police and neighbors arrived. The events played out in slow motion in Nikki’s mind. She remembered Trent talking to one of the officers, taking a drag from a cigarette and pointing toward the house.
A female officer took her statement, and Nikki was surprisingly calm as she gave it, though her mind seemed disjointed and she kept watching Trent. She was aware of the helicopter and the paramedics who life-flighted the attacker away, over the serene waters of the lake, to be deposited in a nearby hospital, but the events seemed surreal and confused and she was grateful when Trent helped her into his Jeep and they drove to the police station.
Under the harsh lights, answering harsher questions, Nikki drank several cups of bitter coffee, explaining over and over what had happened. There was talk between the officers, as if they found her story preposterous then finally believable. The man in the hospital had been willing to spill his guts, it seemed. He was going to survive, and his story corroborated Nikki’s and Trent’s.
According to the would-be assassin, Crowley had known that Nikki had followed him to Salvaje with the express purpose of gathering information to expose him. Crowley had ordered the “accident” to end her life even though he knew her father. Nikki was too determined, too dogged and Crowl
ey recognized her for the enemy she was. The senator had learned of her obsession to expose him from a friend of his…good ol’ Max who worked at the Observer and was jealous of Nikki’s ambition and hard work.
Eventually, hours later, she and Trent were allowed to go home.
“You all right?” he asked as he tossed his jacket over her shoulders.
Bone weary, she offered him the shadow of a smile. “I think so.”
He helped her into the passenger side of the Jeep, then slid behind the wheel, but he paused before jamming the key into the ignition. Closing his eyes for a second, he turned to her, and when his blue gaze caressed hers, he sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, touching her cheek.
“For?”
“Everything. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“You didn’t have a choice. I had to go to work. I have a life. You couldn’t have followed me minute by minute.”
“I should have.” Guilt slid stealthily over his features. “I’d hoped you’d come back, but I wasn’t sure, so I left the door open and went to your apartment. When you didn’t show up there, I got worried, returned home and saw Crowley hightailing it out of there. Your car was in the drive and I thought…” his jaw clenched convulsively “…I thought I might be too late. Nikki, if anything would have happened to you…” He leaned heavily back against the seat. “That bastard will pay. He’s come up with an alibi, you know. Good old slippery Diamond Jim.” Trent’s lips curled into a line of satisfaction. “However, his alibi isn’t that airtight. I know the guy who claims to be having drinks with him, and he can be persuaded to tell the truth.”
“How?” Nikki asked.
“The man has a gambling problem. Connected to the wrong circles, owes a lot of money. I know, because I used to deal with him those few weeks when I worked for Crowley. Jimbo’s slipping. He could’ve bought himself a better story, but he didn’t have a lot of time. He didn’t know you’d be at the house or that you’d recognize Rodriguez as the man who’d tossed you over the cliff on Salvaje.
“Besides, Jim thought you wouldn’t escape this time. He wanted it to look like an accident, just like before.” Turning, he gazed deep into her eyes. “We’ll nail them, Nikki. Together. You’ve got yourself the story of a lifetime.”
The story of a lifetime. Proof that she could be “one of the boys” at the Observer. Why did it seem so little? “And you. What did you get?”
“I’ve got a monkey off my back. At first when I worked for Crowley, I thought he was honest and upright and the best man to represent the people of this state. But I found out he was dirty and crooked and I’ve spent the last few years determined to bring him down.”
“So now your life’s quest is over,” she said, attempting to sound lighthearted when her insides felt weighted with stones.
“Yep. Suppose so.” He stepped on the throttle and twisted the ignition. The Jeep’s engine caught, and within a few minutes they had merged into the slow stream of traffic heading away from the center of the city.
Through the night, Trent drove to her apartment. He parked, and without asking, helped her up the stairs and inside. “Why did you come back to see me?” he asked as she slid out of her jacket.
“I thought we needed to have it out.”
“It?”
“Everything.” She snapped on the lights, trying to break the intimacy, the spell of being with him. She looked into his eyes and wished that things were different between them. “You lied to me.”
