“Don’t you have to stay at the scene?”

Jackson popped a piece of gum into his mouth. “Nope. Not our jurisdiction.”

Zoe was frog-marched to a patrol car and put in the back. As the cop pushed her head down, she turned and glared at Conor.

He shivered. Her eyes were pure evil.

CHAPTER 34

34

Conor paced the surgical waiting room. Three hours before, Louisa had been rushed through the ER into an operating room. Dropping into a chair, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Louisa’s pearls, given to him to hold by one of the ER nurses. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he stretched the strands between his hands. The beads were smooth under his fingers, but spots of Louisa’s blood had dried to a rusty brown on the lustrous finish, the stains an insult to the necklace’s perfection. His mind replayed images of Louisa’s pale skin coated in red, the bullet wound in her side, her blood-soaked silk blouse. Her beauty and elegance magnified the violence and horror in the Camden basement.

She’d lost a lot of blood. She’d nearly drowned in it. Her lung had collapsed. She could die.

Fear and reality crowded his mind and his heart.

This morning, she’d said she loved him, and he’d withdrawn. Pat was right. He was a coward.

Had he lost his chance? Would she die never knowing she’d claimed his heart?

Pat and Jayne walked in. Jayne handed Conor a cardboard cup of coffee. “Sit down for a minute.” She tugged him to a chair and pushed him into it. Sitting next to him, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “She’s going to be all right.”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” Damian said from another plastic chair.

Conor put the coffee on the laminate table untouched. He couldn’t respond. The bullet had entered through Louisa’s ribs and lodged in her lung. They’d intubated her in the ambulance. She wasn’t even breathing on her own. How could she be all right?

Detectives Jackson and Ianelli had hung around. They sat across the room, occasionally ducking into the hallway to take a call.

Everyone stood when a grim, green-scrubbed surgeon walked into the room. A mask hung loose around his neck. “Who’s here for Louisa Hancock?”

Conor stepped forward, his heart slamming into his rib cage until it felt bruised.

The doctor swept the cloth hat from his head. Sweat beaded his forehead. “She came through the surgery fine.”

Conor didn’t hear the details. The surgeon’s voice was drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears. Pat’s giant hand slapped him on the back. Conor stiffened his buckled knees. “No permanent damage?”