The Protector

9

"Hold still."

"Your hands are cold," Cavanaugh said.

"Quit complaining and relax. This'll be over before you know it."

"You never said that to me before. Reminds me of the teenaged girl in a sex-education class."

"Sex-education class?"

"Yeah, the teacher said, 'Don't ruin your life for fifteen minutes of pleasure,' and the teenaged girl asked, 'Fifteen minutes? How do you make it last that long?'"

"Stop moving," Jamie said. "There. How was that?"

"Didn't feel a thing."

"See? I'm getting good at this." Using sterilized scissors and tweezers, Jamie snipped and removed another stitch. "Looks clean. No sign of infection." She cut and took out another stitch. "You'll have a scar to add to your collection."

"Beauty marks."

After removing the final stitches, Jamie surveyed her work. "Damn, I'm good. The wound's still healing. Here's a bandage to remind you to be careful."

"Oh, I'll be careful." It had been ten days since the fire at the bunker. There had been many things to do, but mostly Cavanaugh had allowed himself to rest and heal, the effort testing his patience. Despite his banter with Jamie, which he felt he owed her, his mood had been dark. In his dreams and often while awake, he suffered vivid mental images of Roberto's bashed-in head, of Chad and Tracy being blown apart, of Duncan's bullet-mutilated face. He remembered gaping at Karen in her wheelchair, her hands clamped against her chest, her face contorted in the rigid aftermath of a death frenzy, the cause of which he was still powerless to explain. But this much Cavanaugh knew beyond question: Prescott was to blame.

"We're as organized as we're going to get. It's time to come back from the grave."