Kathleen Creighton - Lazlo’s Last Stand

Behind Corbett the door whooshed open. In the sudden silence, a voice spoke calmly…quietly. Another voice he knew well.

“Madam DuMont, Corbett didn’t shoot your son,” Lucia said. “I did.”

Corbett felt himself go cold from his scalp to the pit of his stomach. There was a moment when he was literally frozen in place, unable to move, unable to think. Unable even to decide how to feel. On the one hand, he could have throttled Lucia himself if it could have prevented her from uttering those words-words that amounted to her death warrant.

But then again…what was this strange shimmering, vibrating warmth now beginning deep inside his chest and spreading slowly through him? Was it admiration?

Because, by God, he had to admit she was magnificent. She put him in mind of an avenging goddess, wrapped in an EMT’s blanket, barefooted, the torn remnants of her golden gown swirling around her scraped and dirty legs, red-brown curls gone wild as if they had life and energy of their own.

Or was it something else that made his heart quiver so oddly? Something else entirely-perhaps the fear in her deep blue eyes contrasting so poignantly with the determined set of her mouth and the smudges of dried blood on her smooth, soft cheeks…

The frozen moment-and that’s all it was, a moment-passed. Movement resumed with an explosion of sound and fury. And after that things happened the way they do during times of disaster-quickly but at the same time seeming to move in slow motion: Cassandra shrieking like a wounded leopard and lunging toward Lucia; Adam brushing past Corbett to intercept her once more; Corbett moving in the opposite direction, moving through the breath-stopping pain in his ribs to grab Lucia and shove her behind him.

Before the echoes of Cassandra’s initial scream had died, while she was still drawing breath for a new assault, the elevator doors swished open. A doctor in surgical scrubs, face mask dangling from its neck straps, stepped out. Confronted with the strange tableau in the foyer, he halted as if he’d hit a wall.

Four faces turned toward him, and then once more, all motion, all sound, stopped.

The doctor’s uncertain gaze traveled from one emotion-wracked face to another. Paused at Cassandra…focused on Corbett.

“Are you the parents of Troy DuMont?”

And time resumed its normal cadence.

Too dazed to do otherwise, Corbett simply shook his head, while Cassandra DuMont whirled, tearing herself out of Adam’s grasp.

“ I am! I am his mother. Tell me-my son-is he…” Her voice was the terrible croaking of a mother in terror.

“He’s still in surgery at the moment,” the doctor said in calm, British-accented English. “He’s come through quite well, thus far. If you’d care to come along with me, there’s a place upstairs where you can wait more comfortably.”

Cassandra threw a look back at Lucia. Corbett waited with muscles tense as she hesitated, the battle between a madwoman’s thirst for vengeance and a mother’s love for her child played itself out, the struggle written in anguish across her face. Then she gasped and bent forward as if she’d taken a blow to her stomach, and began to move backward toward the elevator as if pulled against her will by an irresistible force. In the doorway she paused, made a V -sign with two fingers like the forked tongue of a snake and stabbed them at Lucia.

“Chienne! Tu es fichue…”

The words were in French, but the venom in them was unmistakable in any language. Bitch! You are dead.

For several seconds after the elevator doors had closed there was utter silence.

Adam broke it first with an explosive laugh. “Always was a charming wench. Did I understand her correctly? Did she say-”

“Later.” Corbett’s face was grim as he jerked his head toward Lucia. “We’ve got to get her out of here. Cassandra won’t wait for the outcome of the boy’s surgery to make good on that threat. How’d you get here?”

“Caught a cab, actually, since the other lads weren’t inclined to wait around to give me a lift.”

“That’ll have to do. See to it, will you?” The grip on Lucia’s arm tightened.

As she allowed herself to be steered toward the exit doors, she watched in a kind of numb bemusement as Adam turned up the wattage of his smile and swooped in upon the poor desk nurse, who’d been hovering behind her counter like a mouse behind a leaf, and was looking more confused than alarmed. She stammered a bit as she announced that she’d already summoned security, and blushed when Adam told her cheerfully to cancel that and summon a taxi instead.

Lucia thought it interesting that the girl who’d been steadfast in facing down a wildly distraught mother’s demands, seemed completely flustered in the presence of Adam’s Aussie charm.

As for her own feelings, they were in such turmoil she felt all but paralyzed. Though oddly, not with fear. It was anger she felt, and an irrational sense of betrayal. Irrational, because what right did she have to be jealous of anyone Corbett chose to involve himself with? But jealous she was. And this was even more odd because she’d never minded-well, not terribly -the parade of nubile beauties he’d “dated” briefly on and off over the years.

But this? A son?

For there to be such passionate hatred now, she knew, there must once have been an equally passionate love.

The automatic doors whisked open to admit a gust of cold misty air. Its effect on Lucia was like a slap in the face, and while it did nothing to lessen her misery, it did serve to snap her out of her sleepwalking state.

“It is December,” she said in a voice that matched the weather, and gazed pointedly at Corbett’s chest, which was quite bare and still trailing an assortment of tubes and wires. “You might want to put on some clothes.”

She didn’t mention her own state of undress, but drew some satisfaction when his startled look took in the thin blanket she was clutching around her. Noting the fact that it didn’t come close to covering her legs, and that those legs were clad only in torn nylon stockings.

His mouth hardened and his brows drew inward. Still dragging her with him like a recalcitrant child, he made a swift U-turn and headed back to the E.R. Doctors and nurses immediately surrounded them, scolding and warning in two languages of the irresponsibility and dire consequences of their actions. Which Corbett, of course, ignored, and instead demanded his clothes. A nurse, looking troubled, nevertheless scurried to fetch them. With equal imperiousness, since Lucia’s clothes were unavailable, Corbett demanded she be provided with something to wear in their stead. Another nurse hurried to obey.

None of this surprised Lucia in the slightest. It was simply the way things were done with Corbett Lazlo.

A short time later, still clutching the blanket but now dressed in nurses’ scrubs and squeezed between Corbett and Adam in the backseat of a cab driven by an apparently suicidal Haitian, Lucia listened to a conversation in which her immediate future was being planned. It was a two-way dialogue, without any input at all from its subject.

“We’ll need a chopper,” Corbett began as soon as they were seated, destination given and the taxi in motion.

Adam’s response was brisk. “Already on it, boss. It’s warming up as we speak.” There was a brief pause before he added, “I’m assuming a safe house?”

“I don’t trust any of our ‘safe’ houses. There’s only one place I know of where I can be certain Cassandra can’t get to her.”

Tempted to thrust her hand in the air like a first-grader, Lucia cleared her throat and said, “Excuse me?”