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No!
“Watch out!” Reed’s voice boomed from somewhere behind her.
Morrisette was already swimming toward shore, but she looked over her shoulder and—
Bam!
With a terrifying crack, the boat’s prow rammed into the side of Morrisette’s face.
Blood bloomed across Morrisette’s forehead as she let out a sickening moan.
Morrisette didn’t move.
No. Oh, God, no!
Despite the pain Nikki kicked hard. Using one arm, she fought the current and swam toward the motionless woman. “Morrisette!” she yelled frantically, gulping river water and choking as she swam. “Hang on!”
But it was no use.
Before Nikki could reach the unmoving woman, Morrisette sank like a stone.
CHAPTER 5
“What the hell were you thinking?” Reed demanded, raking stiff fingers through his hair. He was seething, his eyes dark with a deep, underlying worry, as he stood at the end of Nikki’s hospital bed in the emergency room of St. Luke’s Hospital.
The last two hours had been a blur—an ambulance ride after he’d dragged her from the river, doctors and nurses in the ER, checking her, hovering over her while Reed waited impatiently for her diagnosis. He’d been worried sick when he’d pulled her from the river, had been
scared out of his mind that she might not survive, but now that he knew she was going to recover, that she hadn’t lost the baby, his anger was rising. And he wasn’t bothering to hide it. A bad sign.
She slid her gaze away from his. “I told you, I was working on the story.”
“Not good enough, Nikki.” To his credit, he paused, looked away, attempted to contain himself, but he was failing. “I asked you not to go to the crime scene,” he said.
“There was no asking about it,” she shot back, her own temper rising. “You ordered me.”
“And you disobeyed.”
“I don’t remember the whole antiquated ‘obey thy husband’ in our wedding vows,” she threw back, staring at him again. “That wasn’t our deal, remember?” She wasn’t about to put up with his attitude. She felt bad enough as it was. Guilt, ever sharp, needled into her heart.
“No . . . hey, don’t play that game with me,” he warned. “I ‘ordered’ you as a police officer. I ‘asked you’ as your husband.” A vein started to throb near his temple. “And—big surprise—you ignored me.”
“Sometimes the lines get a little foggy, y’know. Indistinct. Blurred between the cop and the spouse.”
“Not this time,” he argued, jabbing a finger at the floor. “This time I was talking to you like a detective who is in charge of a crime scene where a homicide had been discovered, a place specifically off-limits to the public and,” he added before she could cut in, “the press. You know that, Nikki.” He glared at her, then threw his hands into the air. “I don’t know what I have to do to get through to you. And more importantly, you put yourself in danger. Not to mention the baby. And Detective Morrisette!”
Again she felt that painful prick of guilt.
He looked up to the tiled ceiling. “For the love of—What the hell were you thinking?”
“I told you, I was going after a story and . . . and . . .” She let out a long sigh. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” He shook his head, his hair gleaming under the dimmed lights of her room at St. Luke’s.
“It’s my job.”
“Then quit. Okay? It’s too dangerous. No. No, that’s wrong. You make it too dangerous. You, Nikki. Not only for yourself, but for others.” He was beside himself.
“But, Reed. I saw something,” she said. “There was a boat under the willow tree.”
