Night’s Landing

Six

Nate woke up irritable and in pain, even before he remembered that his uncle and two sisters were in the next room. He rented an apartment in Queens, upstairs from a New York firefighter he’d met in the aftermath of September 11. Gus had invited him up for lasagna until Antonia intervened and reminded him that Nate had just been shot.

Shot.

Right. He pulled on clothes and popped a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol. No bleed-through on his bandages. Had to be a good sign.

Gus was making omelettes from eggs he’d brought down from New Hampshire in a cooler. “Look at them,” Nate said. “They’re orange.”

“They’re not that orange.”

They were that orange. They turned his stomach.

His uncle sighed at Nate’s obvious lack of enthusiasm. “Okay, so eat toast.”

Nate sat at his small kitchen table. The place had come furnished-he didn’t have Antonia’s money or Carine’s design flare, and, basically, he didn’t care. “I’m sorry. I’m not in a great mood.”

“Relax.” Gus lowered the heat under the frying pan. “You’ve been griping about my cooking since you were a little tyke. How’s the arm this morning?”

“Aches.”

Antonia lumbered into the kitchen, rubbing her huge belly. She smiled. “Baby’s tap-dancing. How’re you doing, big brother?” She checked his bandage and made him check his temperature, then warned him, not for the first time, to take his pain medication. “Just do it.”

Fortunately, his brothers-in-law had headed home last night. Nate had room for two guests. Three was pushing it, but five would have driven him over the edge.

Carine, showered and dressed, wandered into the kitchen and sat across from Nate, frowning at him. “You’re going to take a bath or something, right?”

“What, do I smell?”

“You just look like death warmed over.”

He loved his family. He really did. But he preferred being frank with them versus having them be frank with him, and he was rattled and raw from yesterday’s trauma. Dr. Ling had given him the number of a psychiatrist. The USMS had people he could talk to.

He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He just wanted the son of a bitch who’d shot him and Rob off the streets. In a perfect world, Nate would be the one who nailed his ass.

Gus flipped an orange omelette onto a plate and set it in front of Carine, who dug right in.

Nate excused himself and beelined for the bathroom in time for a couple of dry heaves over the john.

When he returned to his family, Gus and his sisters were cleaning up the kitchen and packing. “You need your space,” Carine said. “You always have. But if there’s anything we can do, you know where to find us.”

“Guys-”

“Give yourself some time,” Gus said. “Don’t fight it. You’re going to have the yips for a few weeks. It’s normal.”

Antonia, looking tired and strained, smiled. “By ‘yips’ he means posttrauma stress symptoms. Nightmares, jumpiness, irritability. They’re the body’s way of processing a traumatic event. You can also do rapid-eye-movement desensitization and reprogramming therapy-” She stopped herself. “I’m sure your doctor’s discussed your options with you.”

Nate got through breakfast and afterward almost told them not to leave. But he didn’t, and once they were out the door, he headed to the hospital to check in on Rob.

He found Juliet Longstreet slumped in a straight-backed plastic chair in the private waiting room outside the I.C.U. where they had Rob. It was barely nine o’clock in the morning, but her eyes were closed. “Sleeping on the job,” Nate said.

She didn’t open her eyes. “Go to hell.”

“Hey. I was shot yesterday. Be nice.” He also outranked her, but she wouldn’t care. “How’s the sister?”

Now Juliet opened her eyes and sat up straight, frowning. “She’s buds with the president, that’s how’s the sister.”

Nate let her words register. “President Poe?”

“He grew up next to the Dunnemores in Tennessee. Sarah’s like a daughter to him. Rob’s a pal, too. Did you know?”

“Rob never mentioned he’d even met the president. Did you tell Joe Collins?”

“Oh, yeah. Big time. He’s Mr. Cool. Just said, ‘Thank you, Deputy.’” She did a perfect imitation of the FBI investigator. “He might have known already, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Smart move.”

“Bet he’s got the Secret Service hanging on his shoulder, not that we’ll ever know. If the shooter targeted Rob specifically because of his friendship with the president-” She broke off, no further comment necessary. “Sarah wanted me to leave her to her own devices last night, but I gave her a choice of me in her hotel room with her or her on the futon at my place.”

Nate gave a wry smile. He’d known Juliet since she’d started with the Marshals Service four years ago. She was tough and ambitious. “You warned her about the fish and the plants?”

“I did. She was fine with them. Me-I didn’t sleep a wink. I kept picturing assassins bursting through the window and shooting us both dead.”

“You’d have shot them before they shot you.”

“What if someone wants to upset the president by-”

“Don’t go there.”

Juliet clamped her mouth shut. She was thirty and good at her job, but she’d say anything-and nothing intimidated her. Sometimes it scared senior deputies like Nate, but she’d been an asset since her arrival in New York eighteen months ago. She’d kept her relationship with Rob quiet. Then he ended up in New York, but the two of them working out of the same office had apparently killed their relationship.

Nate poured himself a cup of coffee that smelled as if it’d been made hours ago. He added powdered creamer but didn’t stir. He took a sip before the creamer had melted, the little fake milk lumps making the brew even nastier that it might have been.

He eyed Juliet. She had outdoorsy good looks and a direct manner that sometimes took people by surprise. She could be irritating as hell, but she’d earned Nate’s respect. “I take it Rob never told you he and President Poe were friends, either.”

“It didn’t come up.” She stretched her arms above her head, yawning. “Knowing Rob, he wouldn’t want it to become a ‘thing,’ get in the way of his work, make other people feel self-conscious. I gather the sister’s closer to the president than Rob is.”

“Makes for a hell of a fly in the ointment. What’s the word on Rob this morning?”

“He’s doing better. They’ve got him off the respirator. What about you? Should you even be here?”

The Tylenol had kicked in, but Nate still could feel the ache. He didn’t want his brain fuzzed up with prescription painkillers. He swallowed more of the lousy coffee. “I won’t be doing push-ups for a couple weeks, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“What about your head?”

He set his cup on the edge of the coffee station. He couldn’t drink another sip. “I didn’t get shot in the head.”

Juliet scowled. “You know what I mean. Everyone says you should go home to New Hampshire, at least for a few days. Why don’t you?”

He didn’t answer. Gus and his sisters had asked him the same question, and he hadn’t answered them. He wasn’t that close to Juliet Longstreet.

But, of course, she had no instinct for when she was pushing up against her boundaries. “Christ, you are a case, aren’t you?” She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee, taking it black. “I hope you don’t plan to go into the office today and start pissing people off.”

“Juliet-”

“Someone’s going to tie you up and toss you into a trunk, drive you to New Hampshire.” She took a big gulp of coffee, no sign she thought it was old and near rancid. “It’s hard to stand on the sidelines. Can’t be easy seeing the FBI working the case.”

“It’s their job to investigate the shooting of two federal agents-”

“So? Doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

He reminded himself that she’d had a shock yesterday herself-arriving on the scene in time to see the paramedics working on her ex-boyfriend. Rob was still in rough shape. Nate figured he could cut her some slack.

She grinned feebly at him. “I’m overstepping, huh? At least you can go home and climb mountains. I’m stuck here baby-sitting Rob’s twin sister. She’s-oh, shit.” Juliet groaned, nearly spilling her coffee. “Damn. Now I’ve done it.”

Nate glanced behind him and saw a pretty blonde in slim jeans and a black sweater turn about-face and retreat down the hall.

“Sarah Dunnemore?” He shook his head. “Good one, Longstreet.”

“Crap. At least Rob and I ended it on a positive note or this’d be even worse.” She set her coffee on the small refreshment cart. “Sarah’s really nice. Why don’t you come meet her?”

“You dug your hole. I’m not going to help you dig yourself out of it.”

She snorted at him. “I could tell you what people say about you behind your back, you know.”

As if he didn’t know. As if he cared. Nate grinned at her, but she squared her shoulders and headed out into the hall. He had the feeling she’d rather face the sniper who’d shot at him and Rob rather than have to make amends to Rob’s offended twin sister.

The armed deputies securing all access to her brother-medical, professional and personal-underscored for Sarah the gravity of his situation and the cold fact that the shooter was still at large.

The deputies let her pass without explanation of why she’d returned so soon. She’d just left the private corner of the I.C.U. where Rob lay with his tubes and monitors, asleep. She thought she’d step into the waiting room and collect herself before her next visit. Now she wished she hadn’t. Juliet’s words, which she obviously hadn’t meant for Sarah to hear, had stung.

Rob stirred when she approached him, as if sensing her presence, and any thought of her embarrassment receded. “Hey, kid,” he said without opening his eyes, his voice hoarse from the respirator. “How ya doing?”

It was the first time he’d managed to speak to her. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Rob-oh, God, Rob, you’ve been through absolute hell, haven’t you? But your doctors say you’re doing well.”

“Yeah.” He moved his fingers, and she took his hand, his skin moist and pale. His eyes fluttered open-they were bloodshot, glassy looking-but the effort was too much and he shut them again. “Sarah, listen to me…”

“Sure, Rob. What can I do for you?”

“You’re on vacation.” He coughed, and she noticed spots of some kind of brownish ointment on his gown, the fresh bandage on his abdomen. He was weak, heavily medicated, exhausted. His attempt to talk-to make sense-had to be a struggle. “I don’t want you here if I’ve got someone shooting at me.”

It wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “Just relax, okay? It’ll be all right.”

“If this guy sees you…”

“Nobody’s going to see me.” She tried to sound cheerful, but his fear was palpable, unnerving. “Rob, please don’t worry-just concentrate on getting better.”

His eyes still closed, he mustered his energy and squeezed her hand. His hair was matted, dirty. “You’re too trusting.”

She wanted to reassure him, but she had no intention of going back to Tennessee, not until he was more himself. “I’ll go home. Of course I will. I can’t wait to go home. After I know you’re better.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s a little after nine in the morning. You were injured yesterday around lunchtime.”

“Tonight. You can catch a flight back to Nashville tonight. Promise me.”

She didn’t know if he was entirely lucid or if the trauma of his injury, the lifesaving surgery and the medications he was on were making him a little crazy. Paranoid. She had a friend whose father, suffering complications after heart surgery, kept insisting he saw waiters in tuxedos delivering him pheasant under glass in the I.C.U.

Or was her brother simply projecting his own fears onto her? If she were drinking tea on the front porch at home in Night’s Landing, he’d feel safer.

“I don’t…” His voice was barely a rasping whisper now. “I don’t remember anything.”

He looked so vulnerable, so out of his element. Sarah could picture him yesterday in Central Park-strong, vital, a professional but also a man with a sense of fun. Why would someone shoot him? Who would do something like that? She’d lain awake much of the night on the futon in Juliet Longstreet’s, surrounded by plants and fish tanks as the questions repeated themselves. And over and over, until she finally gave up on sleeping at all, she kept hearing Rob on the phone, telling her he’d been shot.

She found herself having to choke back tears. “I’ll let you sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

But her twin brother had already drifted off.

Brushing her tears off her cheeks with her fingertips, Sarah stepped backward toward the exit and stumbled on someone’s feet. Before she could fall flat on her face, a firm hand caught her by the elbow, steadying her.

“Whoa, there. Easy.”

She spun around, straight into Nate Winter, the deputy who’d been shot with her brother. She recognized him from the photo they’d shown on TV. He was tall, lean, his dark hair softened with just a hint of auburn, and he had, Sarah thought, the most incisive, the most no-nonsense blue eyes she’d ever seen. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt under a dark plaid flannel shirt and scuffed running shoes.

The blue eyes settled on her. “Sarah Dunnemore, right?”

She nodded. “Deputy Winter-I hope I didn’t hurt your arm.”

She realized she was about to cry. She’d held her tears in check since the marshals had arrived in Night’s Landing yesterday, but now, with her brother lying a few feet away from her, hurting, begging her to go home, with the lingering sting of Juliet’s words, she couldn’t hold back. “I should go.”

Nate Winter didn’t say a word, didn’t try to stop her as she pushed past him and ran out of the I.C.U. into the hall, sobbing, tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t bring herself under control. She hated crying in front of anyone.

Juliet shot out of the waiting room. “Sarah-wait.”

Sarah broke into a run, charging past startled law enforcement officers. She squeezed by doctors and nurses getting off and onto an elevator and pushed her way to the back wall, sinking against it, bracing her knees as she focused on her breathing in an attempt to calm herself.

Nate Winter had been shot yesterday, and he was a rock. Steady, unemotional.

She had no business falling apart.

“You’re too trusting.”

Maybe. Maybe she shouldn’t have told the truth about who’d called last night. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Juliet Longstreet insist on moving her out of the hotel.

Maybe she shouldn’t trust her brother’s colleagues to have her best interests at heart.

They were all in shock themselves. They wanted to find a sniper, not be burdened with a wounded deputy’s archaeologist sister.

She had to get a grip.

Had Winter overheard her brother urging her to go home? Would he take it as his duty to put her on a plane back to Nashville?

She didn’t like the idea of being a nuisance, having these people think they were responsible for her. Before her flight to New York, her deputy escorts had offered to arrange for a counselor to be with her, but she’d turned them down. Maybe if her brother had been killed.

But he was alive. He’d be all right. She’d been so determined not to tempt fate by agreeing prematurely to counseling. She just had an ordeal to get through.

She hadn’t expected, though, that Rob wouldn’t want her in New York.

The elevator doors shut. An elderly doctor frowned at her in concern. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

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.