Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(65)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Injured officer!” Another voice shouted. “Make room!”

Her head snapped to the right. Two EMTs were pushing out a man on a gurney. They wheeled right past her, and she saw Alex’s ashen face.

“Alex!” She rushed toward him.

His hand rose and caught her wrist. “So…sorry…”

An EMT pulled Alex’s hand away.

But she grabbed it right back. “Where’s Trace?”

Alex’s eyes squinted up at her. “Was…watching Reese…caught him t-tailing me…thought Weston had…sent him…”

“Please, where is Trace?”

The uniformed cop wrapped his arms around Skye and pulled her back. The EMTs loaded Alex into the back of the nearest ambulance. The doors slammed shut and the siren screamed on.

“One fatality,” a voice behind her muttered. “But did you see the blood in that place? It looked like something out of a horror movie.”

Skye was glad the cop held her. Without him, she might have hit the ground right then. Her nails dug into his arms, and she turned to gaze up at the young officer. “Was the fatality Trace Weston?”

“I don’t know who died, ma’am,” he whispered back. “I wasn’t cleared to go upstairs. I just know some guy took a detective hostage and started shooting people in the street.” He pointed to the left, and she looked, gasping when she saw the dark pool of what had to be blood under a street lamp.

“They already took one man to the hospital. He had a gunshot wound to the chest.” The cop’s lips thinned. “I can’t say anymore, okay? Go to the hospital. St. Mary’s. Wait there.”

She backed away from him, forcing her legs to move. St. Mary’s. Claire and Drake had been taken to St. Mary’s, too. The EMTS had arrived at her studio. They’d come with police.

The police had wanted to question Skye. They’d wanted her to go down to the station.

She’d just wanted to get away. She’d faked being sick and she’d darted to the bathroom. Then she’d climbed out of the window and grabbed the first taxi that she saw.

Her gaze flew around the scene. Trace’s car was still there. Far too close to the ominous pool of blood. It looked black. In the darkness, the blood looked so black.

She didn’t see Noah. She didn’t see Trace.

“He’s seizing!”

Two more EMTs ran from the apartment. A man was between them on the gurney. His hand fell limply, his fingers lax.

In that instant, everything stopped for Skye as she gazed at that hand.

It was the hand of the man who’d saved her from being raped when she was fifteen. That hand had struck out with vicious accuracy then, beating her attacker again and again.

That was the man who’d saved her from hell. He’d pulled her out of that terrible basement. Carried her. Held her close with that hand.

That was the hand of the man who’d proposed to her. His fingers had trembled when he’d slid the ring onto her finger. Weakness, when Trace was normally so strong.

Trace! They were loading him into the back of an ambulance, and she jumped inside with them.

One of the EMTs glanced up. “Lady, you can’t—”

“I’m his fiancé.” Oh, God, his chest. The blood. “Help him!”

The EMT jerked his head and went back to work. The siren screamed as the vehicle lurched forward.

Skye grabbed for Trace’s hand. She held it like the lifeline that it was. She hadn’t warned him fast enough. Reese had done this. The man they’d trusted.

Her hold tightened on him. “Come back to me,” Skye whispered because she could tell—she could feel—that Trace was slipping away. His face was too still. Too pale. The life and energy—all that was Trace—gone.

“Please,” she whispered while the EMTs hooked him up to machines and poked him with needles. “Don’t leave me, Trace. I don’t want to be without you.” She’d tried that. And she’d felt as if she were only living half a life during those years.

“Come back to me,” Skye said again.

But Trace didn’t answer her, and a cold chill covered her body.

Chapter Sixteen

Skye walked into the morgue. The police chief was at her side. Because of this case, because of who was involved, she’d warranted attention from the man in charge.

Maybe that was supposed to make her feel better. It didn’t. Nothing could make her feel better. Nothing could make her feel then. Her wounds were bandaged. The doctors had wanted to give her pain medication. She’d refused. There was no need for the drugs because a wall of ice surrounded her, numbing her. Each breath was an effort, sawing out of her lungs.

“I don’t want to be here,” Skye said. Her voice was wooden. As cold as she felt.

“We just need the identification process completed, Ms. Sullivan,” he told her. His eyes and his face were sympathetic. Everyone kept looking at her that way. With sympathy. Pity.

She hated those stares.

The first body waited. She glanced down at it. Felt no emotion stir. Not even rage. She’d locked her emotions away. She had to lock them away, or else she’d go crazy.

I’m more like my mother than I thought.

Because she wanted to kill. Wanted to destroy everyone in her path.

Skye cleared her throat as she stared at the body. “That’s Anna Jean Hurley. She was working with Reese Stokes. I believe they killed Ben Sharpe, Parker Jacobs, and Sara Kramer.”

“You believe?”

“Yes. Anna Jean told me they did, so I believed the bitch.”

He sucked in a sharp breath.

Skye glared at the body. For a minute there, rage had cracked through her surface. She couldn’t have that. Because her pain was hidden just behind the rage.

Her gaze slid to the next slab. To the body that was waiting for her. Her lips trembled. Her hands clenched tightly into fists, and her nails bit into her palms.

“That’s Reese Stokes.” And he was missing part of his head.

The chief’s shoulder brushed against hers. “Most people can’t handle seeing a dead body, not one like this.”

“Most people probably don’t stare at the dead and wish that they’d been the one to do the killing.” She looked up at him. “I do.”

His eyes widened.

“Reese was Anna Jean’s partner. I don’t know why. Maybe because he was a psychotic jerk. Maybe because he fell for the wrong woman, and she warped his mind.” Her gaze slid back to Reese. “I thought of him as family, and I hope the bastard is burning now.”