“Hellfire and damnation.” Fisher’s favorite curse rolled off her tongue before she could stop it.
Fisher… She simultaneously wanted to scrub all thoughts of him from her head and call him to come get her.
Even though he’d always been a pain in her ass—more so recently—he was also as steady as they came. He’d phone in the authorities and then whisk her away to safety. He’d make all the decisions so she wouldn’t have to.
“Stop it,” she scolded herself. “You have this handled. You just need to find a phone and?—”
A low, pain-filled moan sounded from somewhere nearby. Her head jerked up so fast she nearly fell over from the dizziness.
“Hello?” she called out, keeping both hands planted on the back of the chair lest she find herself face-first on the ground.Again.
“Help!” The cry was so faint, she wasn’t sure she’d heard it. Then it came again. “Help us!”
“Where are you?” She pushed away from the chair so she could turn in a half circle, ignoring the pounding ache behind her eye and once more scanning the bodies in search of life.
She found none.
“Here!” On the opposite side of the patio, a blood-soaked hand appeared above the edge of an overturned table. It was small, feminine, and sporting an emerald the size of a baseball field.
“I see you!” she called. “I’m coming!”
Easier said than done, she silently added, disheartened at the distance to the table. In the space between lay dead people. And the thought of navigating her way through the sea of gore had her stomach threatening another revolt.
Thank goodness I have nothing left to bring up.
After raking in a deep breath—trying her best to ignore the smell of spilled champagne, blood, and…other things—she gingerly picked her way through the butchery.
She was halfway across the patio when her foot landed on an outstretched hand. She felt the soft give of flesh beneath her heel. Heard the crunch of bone.
“Oh god!” She glanced down and then immediately wished she hadn’t.
The dark-eyed wife of a young congressman lay lifeless on the ground. A round had slammed into her left eye, taking the eyeball with it on its exit through the back of her skull. Gray matter lay in glistening, wet chunks around the woman’s splayed brown hair. And the cream cocktail dress she’d been wearing, the one Eliza had so admired for its pretty lines and sweet, crocheted flowers, was ruined beyond recognition.
Except for one bloom.
One crisp, cream flower along the scooped neckline had managed to escape the carnage. But even as Eliza watched, it too began to fall victim to the gore.
Blood seeped from the surrounding material, slowly soaking into the delicate threads. It turned what was once innocent and pure-looking into something foul and corrupt.
The young congressman’s wife—Eliza couldn’t recall her name—had had a laugh so big and contagious that when Eliza had heard it from across the patio, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from chuckling in response.
So much vitality,she thought sadly.So much light and life. And now it’s all gone.
A snippet from an Emily Dickenson poem whispered through her head.“Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.”
Obviously she spent too much time around Fisher when poetry sprung to mind at a time like this.
Fisher…
Whydid she keep thinking of him? Andwhydid every instinct in her body urge her to find a phone and call him?
Of course, the answer was simple.
When a person was suffering from shock and trauma, they automatically sought the comforting presence of loved ones.
And she loved Fisher Wakefield.
Despite his womanizing ways. Despite his irreverent sense of humor that so often rubbed her the wrong way. And despite the fact he’d never feel for her half of what she felt for him…
