Catherine Coulter - Eleventh Hour

Nick froze, expecting Weldon to pull out his own gun and shoot both of them. There’d already been one shot, why not more? But he didn’t have much time. Nursing home staff would burst in there in just a couple of seconds. She had to protect the old man. She raced around in front of Captain DeLoach’s wheelchair.

But Weldon didn’t try to shove her aside, didn’t draw a gun to kill her. He just ran out through the glass doors, yelling back at her, “You’ve made the worst mistake you’ll ever make in your life!”

Seconds later, Nurse Carla, a cop behind her, burst in to see Nick Jones racing out the glass sliding doors, a gun in her hand.

Captain DeLoach was sitting in his chair. He was smiling, looked happy as a clam, singing “Eleanor Rigby.”

Nick saw Weldon racing toward a small black car, Japanese, she thought, maybe a Toyota, but she couldn’t be sure. Where was that cop who was supposedly out here smoking a cigarette? She didn’t see anyone. She yelled, “Stop, Weldon! Or I’ll shoot, I mean it!”

But he didn’t. Nick raised the gun, then realized she didn’t need to fire at him. She aimed at the tires of the black car just as he flung open the driver’s-side door and threw himself in.

She fired, hitting both back tires just as he gunned the engine and roared out of the parking spot, rubber and smoke spewing out of the tires. Soon he’d be driving on the rims and that wouldn’t last long.

Weldon was keeping his head down, afraid she’d shoot him. She saw the instant he knew she’d hit his tires. The car swerved madly to the left. As the rubber was finally stripped away, the god-awful screeching of steel against concrete filled the air.

Nick kept firing until she’d shot ten of the fifteen rounds in the SIG. She stopped, to save the remaining bullets. She’d hit the two back tires; that had to at least slow him. She started running. She wanted more than anything to pull him out of that car.

The car swerved wildly from side to side. The tires were smoking, grinding, the steel beneath raw on the concrete, tearing it up. The stench of burning rubber filled her nostrils.

She watched him suddenly jerk the car to the right and head it directly into the pine woods that began about forty yards from the east side of the rest home. He crashed it into a pine tree. Smoke billowed up, black and thick, and then it was quiet.

She saw him dragging winter clothes out of the car and running into the woods.

“Stop!”

Nick headed after him, the SIG still in her right hand. She realized then she wasn’t wearing warm clothes. She’d run out of Captain DeLoach’s room with nothing but her V-necked red sweater over a white blouse, jeans, and boots.

She didn’t care. She wasn’t going to fail now, she couldn’t. This madness had to stop and she was the only one there who could stop it. She heard him crashing through the undergrowth ahead of her. How far? Twenty feet?

She saw Father Michael Joseph’s face in her mind’s eye, a beautiful face, open, rich with intelligence and humor. He was laughing at something he’d just told her about King Edward. And now, because of Weldon DeLoach, no one would ever see that smile again or hear that laugh. So like Dane, and so different, but not in the ways that counted. Both put themselves on the line for others, both had a core of honor. She realized in that instant that she didn’t want to let Dane out of her life, ever.

Weldon had to be just ahead, not that far. Wait, she couldn’t hear him crashing through the trees anymore. Had he fallen? Was he hiding, lying in wait for her?

Before she could react, he grabbed her around the neck and hauled her back against him. His other hand was on her arm, trying to pull the SIG out of her hand. But she wasn’t about to let go. She pulled and twisted, but he pulled his arm tighter. “Damn you, be quiet. Let that gun drop. Now!”

Nick yelled at the top of her lungs, jerked as hard as she could, and drove her elbow into his stomach. He yelled, his hold loosened just a bit. She jerked the SIG down and pulled the trigger. She shot him in the foot.

He screamed, released her. He was dancing in place, trying to grab his foot, his eyes wild with pain.

Sherlock, Savich, and Dane saw the dance, saw her standing there, the gun dangling in her hand, breathing hard, staring at Weldon DeLoach. Flynn and Delion came up to stand beside them.

“Jesus, woman,” Dane said, reaching her first. She turned, white-faced, and he forgot every curse word he’d stored up. “Ah, dammit, Nick,” he said, and pulled her against him. “Just look at you. You’re freezing, you twit.”

“No, I’m not,” she said against his shoulder. “Be careful, Dane, you might hurt your arm.”

“My arm? You’re worried about my arm?” He couldn’t help it, he started to laugh. He saw Flynn and Delion pull Weldon DeLoach to the ground, Flynn pulling off the guy’s boot to wrap his parka sleeve around the wound.

Flynn looked up, grinned at her. “Congratulations, Dr. Campion, you brought down the perp. They don’t exactly teach you that a foot wound is the way to go, but hey, I’m not about to argue with success. Okay, Weldon, shut your trap.”

“You know,” she said.

“Yeah,” Dane said, “we know, but it’s not important now.”

“It hurts, dammit!”

“Yeah, I’ll just bet,” Flynn said, and came down on his haunches beside Weldon. He looked straight down into that face, and read him his rights.

“No, I don’t need an attorney. I didn’t do anything. You’ve got to listen to me.”

Savich, who was standing over him, said in a quiet voice, “So now you didn’t do anything?”

“I didn’t commit those script murders! Yes, I came up with the idea for the series, but I had nothing to do with those murders. They’re horrible. I don’t know who’s responsible. It may be someone at the studio, someone who worked on the series. But I don’t know who.”

Sherlock said, “I see. So it has nothing at all to do with the fact that you seem to be trying your best to murder your father?”

“No, dammit. Do you have any idea what he’s done to me all my life?”

Weldon looked ill, but he held on, sucked in a deep breath.

“No, no one knows anything,” Delion said. “Listen, Weldon, someone murdered four people in San Francisco. You hired that moron Milton to kill Nick at the funeral because she saw you in the church. Then there’s Pasadena. It’s times like this I’m really glad I live in California and we’ve got the death penalty. They’re gonna cook you, Weldon.”

The pain was glazing his eyes. He was holding his foot, crying, pleading. “No, listen to me, I wouldn’t kill anybody. I’m not like that.”

Savich said, “Tell us exactly why you tried to kill your father. This time in nice plain English.”

Weldon’s voice was soft now, so quiet it was like listening to him again on the video. He was getting himself back in control. He’d finally managed to regain some calm, control the pain in his foot. “I can’t. There’s too much at stake here.”

“That’s not a very good start, Weldon,” Dane said.

Weldon lowered his head and moaned at the pain in his foot.

Delion snorted, stood, his hands on his hips. “Sherlock has called on her cell phone and rounded up a doctor for you. Let’s get you back to the parking lot. Detective Flynn and I will help you.”

Weldon DeLoach tried to get up on his own, but ended up moaning again, clutching his foot. Flynn and Delion got him up and half carried him back to the facility.

Dr. Randolph Winston, a geriatrician, was waiting for them at the front entrance to attend to the foot, a thick black eyebrow arched. “A woman shot him in the foot? Here, at Lakeview?” The eyebrow went even higher when Detective Flynn just shrugged.