Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

She nodded and brushed at her tears, relieved to be getting off Rob’s floor, away from the able-bodied deputies. She needed something to eat, a break. She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself. She wasn’t the one lying in the I.C.U. And what kind of compassion did she expect from a bunch of armed federal law enforcement officers? They were doing the best they could.

The elevator doors opened again, suddenly, and Juliet Longstreet stepped in. She put up a hand to Sarah, stopping her before she could get started. “I’m a jerk. I’m sorry. What I said in the waiting room-it was stupid.”

The older doctor moved to the front of the elevator car, letting Juliet take his spot. Sarah felt an immediate urge to ease some of Juliet’s obvious guilt. “It’s a difficult time for everyone.”

But Juliet refused to cut herself any slack. “For you. You’re Rob’s twin sister. I’m only a colleague.” She didn’t mention their past relationship. “I was just trying to look tough in front of Nate. I’m sorry I mouthed off at your expense.”

“No harm done.”

“Sure there was. You must have felt like the kid sister at the big kids’ party.” She smiled crookedly. “I’d say belt me one, but you’d probably have a half-dozen marshals jump on the elevator and pin you against the wall in two seconds flat. We’re all in rotten moods. But, hey, you see some of those guys? Very buff.”

Sarah fought a smile of her own, her first, she thought, in many hours. “Nate Winter-I just met him.”

“Yeah. I can tell. Most people run when they meet him. You’re not the first. He’s a total hard-ass.”

“You’re very irreverent, aren’t you?”

Juliet smiled, relaxing some. “Helps in dealing with things like two marshals getting shot in Central Park. At least the news on Rob is positive. Barring complications, he should be back on the streets before too long.”

Sarah tried to let Juliet’s optimism sink into her psyche, tried to visualize Rob back on his feet, with that lazy grin of his, that way he had of making people think he was a hundred percent on their side. “What about Deputy Winter?” she asked. “How’s he doing?”

“He’d like to get his hands around the neck of whoever shot him.”

“But physically?”

“Just enough of a wound to piss him off.”

The medical personnel all got off at the cafeteria floor, leaving Sarah and Juliet alone in the elevator. “I keep picturing the two of them leaving the news conference yesterday and walking into the park,” Sarah said. “Why did they do that? Do you know?”

“No, I don’t.”

“The news conference-did a lot of people know about it in advance?”

“The world. That was the whole idea. It wasn’t thrown together at the last second.” Juliet frowned at her, then smiled gently. “Now, come on, don’t you start. The best investigators in the country are on this thing. In fact, Joe Collins called me while you were in with your brother. He wants to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding? After the bombshell you dropped?”

Sarah winced. “President Poe was calling as a friend-”

“Exactly.”

“I almost wish I’d told you it was another Wes on the line.”

“Nah. It’s better this way. Get it out in the open. Your relationship with the president isn’t something you’d want Joe Collins stumbling over on his own. He’s in a private meeting room down the hall from your brother. He’ll have food. Collins always has food.” Juliet hit the button for Rob’s floor and sighed. “And you look as if you could use something to eat.”

Neither of them had been in the mood to eat that morning at Juliet’s apartment-actually, an apartment she was borrowing from a well-heeled friend, because, she’d explained, even as small as it was, she couldn’t afford Manhattan’s upper west side on her government salary.

“All right,” Sarah said. “I’ll talk to Agent Collins. Then, please, go back to your normal duties. I can book a room at the hotel where we were last night. Tell your boss it’s what I want.”

“You just don’t like my plants and my fish.”

Juliet hadn’t exaggerated-her apartment was a jungle of plants and had at least four fish tanks. But Sarah shook her head. “Your apartment’s great. I’m just used to being on my own.”

“Now that I understand.”

She sank back against the cool wall of the elevator and closed her eyes. “I don’t want you here if I’ve got someone shooting at me.”

But how could she go home? She imagined herself on her front porch, drinking her sweet tea punch and feeling the soft breeze as if nothing had happened.

Given her family’s predilection for not leading quiet lives, she’d been prepared for anything when she returned to Night’s Landing-but not this, she thought. Not her brother getting shot in Central Park. Not the possibility that he could become another Dunnemore who died an early, tragic death.

She stopped her negative thinking in its tracks.

Stay positive.

The elevator opened on Rob’s floor. “Come on,” Juliet said. “Let’s go see Special Agent Joe and talk to him about your Tennessee neighbor.”

Nate didn’t follow Rob’s sister, but he was tempted-and duty and chivalry had nothing to do with it. The feel of her slim waist when he’d grabbed her, the blond hair, the gray eyes, the tears.

Damn.

He stood next to Rob’s bed. “Your sister’s prettier than you are.”

He was awake, but not by much. “Smarter, too. What time is it?”

“About nine in the morning the day after the shooting.” Which Sarah Dunnemore had told him before she’d stepped on Nate’s toes and ran off crying.

“I don’t…” Rob’s red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes tried to focus. “I don’t remember.”

The doctors had warned Nate that Rob might never remember the shooting. His body had poured all its energy into keeping him alive, not in remembering what had happened. “That’s normal. How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“The nurses are going to get you up today if they can. They like to do that.”

He wasn’t paying attention. “Sarah should go back home.” He coughed, shuddering in agony, his voice weaker, raspier, when he resumed. “She doesn’t belong here.”

His concern for his sister was palpable. “She’s with Juliet right now.” Nate assumed Longstreet would be trying to make amends for her ill-advised remark. “Just because you were shot doesn’t mean she’s in any danger.”

“It wasn’t random. The shooting. I was the target. He was after me.”

“Rob-”

“I know it. I have…this certainty.” He shut his eyes, and he seemed to sink deeper into the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Get some rest. Don’t worry about anything.”

Rob was done for. His mouth opened slightly as he fell back to sleep. He looked dead lying there in the bed. Nate checked the monitors, just to be sure. He glanced at the stone-faced guard, felt the dull ache in his arm where he’d been shot. He could have been the one shot in the gut.

But he wasn’t. Rob, just four months in New York, was.

Nate had to stifle a wave of guilt and regret-he should have prevented this. Somehow, some way. He should have kept his and Rob’s presence at the news conference quiet. They shouldn’t have gone at all. He should have seen something in the park, sensed it, known they were in danger.

Dead-end thinking.

Better to concentrate on his anger. It was sharp, focused, explosive, not a slow burn, not a simmering kind of fury-and yet there wasn’t a damn thing he could do with it, except go home to Cold Ridge and climb mountains and eat Gus’s orange eggs.

He thought instead he’d check on the gray-eyed sister and see if she’d forgiven Longstreet for being such an ass.