Nora Roberts - High Noon

Ten more seconds, Dave thought. Ten more and he'd have been inside, out of her reach.

"Ah, my phone's ringing, Maggie. Let me-"

"It'll only take a minute or two. I've got all these bags. I don't know what I was thinking. The rain's going to start pelting any second. Would you be a hero and give me a hand getting all this inside?" She popped the trunk, sent him a melting smile. "Please?"

"Sure." Sap, sucker, stoop, he berated himself. "No problem."

"It's going to be a wild one." She shook back her hair. "Kind of night you want to be cozied up with a friend and a nice glass of wine." Now he was going to have to avoid the wine, and the friendship, Dave thought as he stepped back down to the walk. The first fat drops of rain pelted down. The wind slapped, shoved, and he cursed as he heard his unlocked door slam open. For one second he hesitated: finish the damn good deed, dash back and shut the door. Even as he pivoted to do the latter, he spotted the man standing across the street.

Blue ball cap, sunglasses, windbreaker. Then the world exploded.

Phoebe didn't know how to feel when she saw Duncan's car outside her house. One part of her was relieved-now she knew where he was, and that he was safe. The other part was just plain pissed that he'd been so uncooperative that morning.

Then she stepped inside, out of the fury of the storm, and heard her daughter's delighted laughter. It was hard to keep a good mad on when she heard her daughter happy.

Then she walked to the parlor and saw Carly, Carter and Duncan sprawled on the floor playing Monopoly. It looked like Carly was slaughtering both men.

"I can't have landed on you again," Duncan complained. "These dice are loaded. This is b u l l… malarkey."

"You were going to say the's word."

He smiled thinly at Carly. "What's word?"

"Bullsh-"

"Carly Anne MacNamara!"

Carly stifled a giggle, then looked over innocently. "Hi, Mama. I'm beating the pants off Uncle Carter and Duncan."

"So I see. Where's everyone else?"

"The women are in the kitchen, where they belong." Carter sent her a toothy smile. "Get on back there, woman, and make us a snack."

"Oh, what kind of snack would you like?" She walked over, set down her bag. "Just let me"-she rapped her hand at the side of Carter's head-"see if that knocked any sense into you. And nobody's going to be snacking on anything this close to dinner. For which, I assume, you plan to stay," she said to Duncan.

"An invitation has been issued and accepted. Going to smack me upside the head, too?"

The glint in those dusky eyes warned her he still had a bit of a mad on himself. Well, fine. "We'll see how the evening goes. I assume, too, you got all those oh-so-important things done on your schedule today."

"I did. How about you?"

"Inroads."

"Why are you mad at Duncan, Mama?"

"That may involve quite a list. So for now, I'm going to run upstairs and change. Carly, after you're finished trouncing these two, why don't you see if you can help set the table? That means the men will be clearing and seeing to the dishes."

"What part of KP does she get?" Duncan asked Carly.

"I'll be… answering my phone," Phoebe said as it rang in her bag. She pulled it out. "Phoebe MacNamara."

Her color simply vanished, as if a light had been switched off in her face. Duncan was already getting to his feet when she got out the next shaky words.

"What happened? How… " She turned to walk out of the parlor. "How bad is he? No. No. Where? I'm on my way."

She had her game face on, Duncan noted, when she turned back. But there was fear lurking in her eyes. "I have to go."

"But you just got home."

"I know. I'm sorry, baby." She leaned down to give Carly a hard hug. "I'm sorry. Would you run on back and tell Gran not to wait dinner for me? I'll be back soon as I can."

"Did somebody get hurt?"

"Uncle Dave had an accident, so I need to go check on him. Right away."

Tears swam into Carly's wide eyes. "Is he hurt really bad?"

"I hope not, and they got him right to the doctors so they can take good care of him. But I have to go, baby. I'll call as soon as I can. Run tell Gran I'll call soon as I can. Carter," she said as Carly dashed off. "I'll take care of it. Don't worry about us. Car accident?"

"No." She gripped his arms. "Stay inside. Please. Make sure everyone stays inside. I'll call."

"I'll take you."

She didn't argue with Duncan, simply ran to the front door and through. "They took him to Memorial. He rigged Dave's front door. The son of a bitch rigged the front door on Dave's house. That's what they think. They don't know…"

"We'll find out."

"He's alive." Phoebe closed her eyes as Duncan whipped the Porsche into the street. "He's alive." She turned her phone over and over in her hands as if she were afraid it would ring and tell her otherwise. "He had to get inside the house if the door was rigged. He had to get inside Dave's house."

"He's not going to get inside MacNamara House, Phoebe."

"He doesn't want to." Fear, grief, guilt stirred an uneasy mix inside her. "It's not going to be like that. If he'd wanted to get in there, he wouldn't have put me on alert. He's got something else in mind. But he wants me wounded. He wants me hurting when it comes down to what he's got in mind. And oh God, Duncan, I am."

She burst through the emergency room doors, her badge already in her hand. She held it up to the first nurse she saw. "David McVee."

"You need to check with-"

"No. You check. Now."

"Lieutenant."

She spun around and bulleted toward Sykes. "Where is he? What's his status?"

"They're working on him. Can't get much out of them, but I talked to the paramedics who brought him in. Broken arm, some burns, lacerations. Head trauma-there're some worries there. And there could be internal injuries. I was still in the house when the call came in. I followed the ambulance in."

"I want two guards here in the ER. Two guards wherever they take him."

"Already done." Sykes nodded when Duncan came up behind Phoebe. "Lieutenant, there was a witness. A neighbor. She was shaken up some, got a few cuts. They're stitching her up."

"I want to see her the minute she's out. Detective… Bull, I need someone I can trust over at Dave's, talking to the bomb team, the CS people. I know you don't want to leave him." She reached out, squeezed his hand. "I promise I'll contact you the minute there's anything to do. But I need someone I can trust on that scene."

"Okay. Okay." Sykes scrubbed his hands over his worried face. "You let him know I'm around. Cops all over the place in here, so you let him know we're all around."

"I will. Thank you."

"Why don't you sit down?" Duncan said when Sykes headed out.

"I don't think I can. I'm good at waiting, but I need to know… something. I just need to know." Her hand vised on Duncan's arm when she saw the gurney and the medical team.

She lunged forward. There were cuts and burns on his face, a gash at his left temple. And blood on the sheet that covered him.

"How is he? Where are you taking him?"

"You family?"

"Yes."

The young doctor continued to move at double time toward the elevators. "He's going into surgery. He's bleeding inside. Somebody'll let you know as soon as he's out."

Phoebe signaled the two uniformed officers. "They go where he goes. You wait outside the OR. I'll be there as soon as I talk to the witness." She stood back and watched them push the man who'd been her father most of her life into the elevator.

"It's the best trauma center in the city." Duncan laid his hands on her shoulders. "One of the best in the state. He couldn't do better."

"No. I wish I could fall apart. I wish I could just fall apart until they come to tell me… We should've put cops on his house. Anyone who knows me knows what Dave is for me, what he is to me."