Ripped From the Pages (19 page)

“There’s my girl,” Derek murmured, his sexy English accent drawing me back to Earth
when I wanted to drift off to never-never land. He stroked my cheek and brushed my
hair with his fingers. “Come on, love. Stay with me.”

“Uhhh.” I was seeing three of him, not that I minded. Derek did have the most gorgeous
face I’d ever seen on a man. But oh, my head. I tried to reach up to find out why
my skull was throbbing as though ten sledgehammers were slamming against it, but he
grabbed my hand.

“No, darling,” Derek whispered, giving my hand a kiss and a soft, comforting squeeze.
“Let the paramedics do their job first.”

“Para . . .” I closed my eyes and pictured Trudy lying in a pool of blood. What happened
after that? My hands were folded across my stomach, and I wondered why they felt so
damp. Were they covered in blood? I sucked in several great gulps of air to fight
back the sickness that thought brought. My eyes fluttered open, and I wondered why
firemen were walking inside Trudy’s house.

“Trudy?” I uttered.

“Trudy will be fine.”

“Firemen.”

“Yes,” he said. “They arrived with the EMTs.”

I held up my hand and struggled to say the word. “Blood?”

“No, love. There’s no blood on your hands.”

I inhaled and exhaled slowly. Okay then, I thought, as memories of what I’d found
on entering Trudy’s house began swarming through my mind. Professionals were here,
taking care of things.
Even better, Derek was here. And best of all, I was still breathing and, apparently,
so was Trudy. The bad news? “Head hurts.”

“I know, love.”

“Blood?” I guess I was a little obsessed.

Derek’s dark eyes narrowed with concern. “Yes, a bit.”

I gulped and tried to breathe. I could barely tolerate the sight of someone else’s
blood. I had even fainted a few times in the past, so I squeezed my eyes shut to concentrate
on staying awake and conscious—and not thinking about blood. Mine or Trudy’s.

When I opened my eyes again, Derek was watching me intently, but then looked away
to scan the room. He gave someone a curt nod and turned back to me. “The tech will
be over here in just a minute.”

I could tell he was angry. Something was very wrong, but since Trudy was all right,
his anger was probably due to my being hurt. Unless . . .

“Gunshot,” I murmured, recalling the last sound I had heard before passing out.

“Yes,” he said, through clenched teeth.

I tried to sit up. “Someone shot Trudy?”

He slipped his arms around me and eased me back to the floor. “Stay where you are
until the techs are free.”

“Someone shot . . . me?”

He touched my cheek again. “No, thank God.”

I tried to think, tried to squeeze my eyes shut, but it hurt my head too much, so
I watched his face. “Did Amelia shoot Trudy?”

“No, love,” he said gently. “Just rest for a moment. We can talk about it later.”

Amelia didn’t shoot Trudy. Okay, good. But now I remembered what I’d seen when I first
walked into the house. Trudy, bleeding on the floor by the fireplace. Amelia, sprawled
across the chair. I met Derek’s gaze directly. “Amelia?”

His jaw tightened, and he swiped his hand across his mouth in helpless fury.

“Amelia?” I was confused. Neither Trudy nor I had been shot. That left Amelia. But
why would someone shoot her?

I must’ve gotten hit harder than I thought, because I couldn’t connect any dots. So
I stopped trying and slipped back into dreamland.

*   *   *

W
hen I woke up, I was strapped to a gurney and Derek was gone. I could barely move
my head and became anxious, but relaxed a little when I was able to spot Derek standing
a few feet away, near Trudy’s kitchen door, talking quietly to Gabriel and Robson.

I was glad to see Gabriel here, but Robson shouldn’t be here. There was too much blood.

No, no. I was the one who got sick over blood. Not Robson. Trudy was his cousin, his
only living relative. Somebody shot her, so of course Robson had to be here.

Wait. Did somebody shoot Trudy or did they shoot Amelia? I couldn’t remember. Did
they shoot me? My head was throbbing as if two jackhammers were trying to drill through
my skull. Was it from a bullet? I couldn’t remember what Derek had told me.

Damn it, I needed to get up and find out what had happened here. I tried to roll onto
my side, but I was restrained by the straps. Frustrated, I yelled out, but even that
small effort made my head pound and the noise sounded more like a low moan.

I raised my head and tried yelling again. Strobe lights flashed in my eyes, and now
my head felt like it might explode. So maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. My head
fell back against the gurney, and I was happy to keep it there for as long as it continued
to spin.

At one point I thought I saw Detective Parrish from the sheriff’s department staring
down at me, but I might’ve been hallucinating. Was she saying something? Her lips
were moving, but I couldn’t hear anything. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

“Brooklyn, darling,” Derek crooned a few seconds later—or it could’ve been an hour—and
he leaned over to kiss my cheek.

“Home,” I whispered.

“Soon.”

Instead, two paramedics wheeled the gurney—with me on it—out to a waiting ambulance.
Derek walked along beside me, holding my hand.

“Is this necessary?” I mumbled, and heard Derek chuckle. The sound soothed me as the
tech pricked my skin with a needle and I floated into unconsciousness.

*   *   *

I
gradually woke up out of a drug-induced sleep and found myself alone in a white room.

It took a little while to figure out that it was only a white curtain and that I was
obviously somewhere inside the local urgent care center. I could hear activity on
the other side of the curtain, and I desperately wanted to be a part of it. The fog
was lifting from my brain. I needed to know exactly what had happened to Trudy and
Amelia. Were they all right? And was the person who hurt them—and me—already in custody?
Who was it?

Elizabeth!

I’d forgotten all about her. Where was she? Was she the one who got shot?

I took a few deep breaths and tried to do a little mental triage. My head still ached,
but it was a vague pain, thanks to whatever medication the techs had given me. It
no longer felt as if my brain were going to spin off its axis, so that was reassuring.
I checked my
legs and arms, moving them slightly to make sure they were operational. Yes, they
were fine. My stomach was good, too, as long as I didn’t think too much about all
that blood pooling under Trudy’s head—and probably mine.

Nothing else hurt, so I figured I was okay to leave the room. I wanted to find Derek
and get to the bottom of what had happened at Trudy’s. I hated being left out of the
loop.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, and the world began to swerve. “Whoa,” I
whispered, clutching both edges of the narrow gurney. Maybe I would take things a
little slower for the next few minutes.

“Isn’t this perfect timing?” Derek said as he slipped through the curtain and into
my space. “I thought you might try to make a move when I wasn’t watching.”

“Can we go? I’m fine, really.”

“I saw your head wobbling just now,” he countered.

“That’ll pass.” I hoped.

“Of course it will.” He smiled grimly. “If you’re sure you’re ready, then let’s go
home. The doctor prescribed some pain medication to get you through the next few hours.”

“I probably won’t need it, but thanks.” I started to slide off the table, and Derek
grabbed me before my feet hit the floor. A good thing since I was pretty sure I would’ve
kept going until my face was planted against the linoleum.

“Thanks again,” I said, grateful to have him holding me up. “I’m going to be perfect
any minute now.”

“You’re already perfect, love, just a tad unsteady.” He had his arm securely fastened
around my waist. “I’m not letting go of you, so as soon as you’re fit to try walking,
just say the word.”

With the help of a wheelchair, we finally made it to Derek’s car. It wasn’t until
I was buckled up safely inside the Bentley and we were driving home that I found out
that Amelia was dead.

*   *   *

D
erek carried me into the house and set me down on the couch with some extra pillows.
I heard Maggie whine a little as she moved close and nosed my hand, then planted herself
along the edge of the couch to guard me. Charlie jumped up onto the couch and curled
up on my stomach. I wasn’t sure I deserved so much wonderful treatment after the way
I’d giggled and gossiped behind poor Amelia’s back. And what must Trudy be going through,
knowing that her companion had been killed inside her own home?

And where was Elizabeth?

After handing me a glass of water and one of the pills the doctors had sent home with
me, Derek sat down at the foot of the couch and we talked about what had happened.
I told him everything I could remember from the time I got out of my car in front
of Trudy’s until the moment when I lost consciousness.

“Do you know what else happened?” I asked. “Did you talk to Trudy?”

“We’re piecing it together,” he said. I reached out to rest my hand on his knee and
felt calmer. “Trudy is still unconscious, but when she wakes up, we hope she’ll be
able to tell us exactly what occurred.” He frowned and stood up, grabbed another pillow
from one of the chairs, and shoved it behind my back so I could sit up a little straighter.
He pulled my blanket up to my waist and tucked it under me. Charlie waited patiently
until Derek was finished, then gingerly climbed on top of my stomach again.

“Is she too heavy for you?” Derek asked.

“No, she’s perfect.”

Derek adjusted the pillows again. He was nervous, I realized, fiddling with things
while he figured out the best way to give me the bad news.

“Please, Derek. Just tell me what happened.”

He sat on the heavy mission-style coffee table inches away from me and leaned forward,
his elbows resting on his knees. “The best we can guess is that someone else was in
the house with Trudy. They pulled a gun out and shot her, or tried to. We don’t know
why. Amelia ran over and pushed Trudy aside. The bullet grazed Trudy’s shoulder and
entered Amelia’s chest, piercing her heart.”

“Oh God.” I pressed my hand to my own heart, appreciating its reassuring beat. It
was painful to hear his words.

“When Trudy was pushed,” he continued, “she hit her head against the tile fireplace
and lost consciousness. Since you were close enough to hear the gunshot, I’m assuming
the assailant was nearby as you ran inside. The minute you knelt down to help Trudy,
he or she hit you with a vase filled with flowers that Trudy kept on the table by
the front door.”

“Are you kidding?” Now I realized why my hands and shirt had been so damp earlier.
From the water in the vase. I hoped it wasn’t something like a Ming vase. Of course,
it would just figure that Trudy would own a Ming vase. But I was going off on another
tangent and had to drag my brain back to the subject. “Poor Amelia. Poor Trudy. What
did Robson say?”

“He’s devastated.” Derek shook his head. “It’s too close to home for him. Nothing
like this has ever happened here.”

I nodded and felt the same disappointment and sorrow Robson must be feeling. It was
as if Dharma had been living a charmed life since its beginning and now some of that
innocence had been stripped away and would never come back. “That’s true. Even the
discovery of the body in the cave wasn’t as shocking as this. Nobody knew Mr. Renaud,
and he’s been gone for seventy years. But Amelia . . . I just saw her the other day.
She was scowling at me.” I swallowed around the sudden lump in my throat. “Heck, when
wasn’t
she scowling at me?”

Derek moved to the couch, picked up Charlie and set her
down on my other side, and put his arms around me. Neither of us spoke for a while.
It was enough for me to feel his solid warmth and the steady beat of his heart beneath
my cheek.

A minute later, I suddenly sat up straight. “Wait. Where’s Elizabeth? Is she okay?”

“We don’t know,” he said, his jaw tightening again. “She wasn’t in the house when
the police arrived, and we haven’t heard from her.”

“Oh my God. Do you think the killer took her?”

“We don’t know, love. There was no sign of another struggle. As soon as Trudy wakes
up, we hope she might know something.”

I frowned. “Maybe she was out shopping. I hope she’s okay.”

“I do, too.” He took my hand in his. “Can you tell me what happened when you arrived?”

“Oh yeah.” I closed my eyes to organize my thoughts, then looked at him. “I was on
the front porch when I heard the gunshot. I didn’t even think twice, just pushed the
door open and went inside. I saw Trudy in front of the fireplace, and Amelia passed
out on the chair. I thought she was asleep or drunk or something. It never occurred
to me that . . .”

“Why would it?” Derek said quietly. “Why would anyone expect this sort of violence
to occur inside Trudy’s home?”

“I feel so bad, though, because I sort of ignored Amelia and went straight to Trudy.
I knelt down to check her pulse and grabbed my cell phone to call nine-one-one, and
that was when I got hit from behind.”

“Did you see or hear anything?” he asked. “Smell anything?”

I put myself back in the scene. “I did, but it won’t help anything. All I heard was
the floorboard creaking behind me. I thought maybe it was Amelia. Maybe she woke up.
Stupid.” I
rubbed my eyes and inched down on the couch, exhausted from the recital.

“Sleep, love,” Derek whispered, and pulled the blanket up to my chin.

Two hours later, I woke up to find Gabriel and Robson seated at the dining room table
with Derek. It was an oddly sweet picture to see these three powerful men sitting
in the charming, old-world-style room. Lace café curtains framed the casement windows,
and, outside, geraniums grew in profusion in window boxes. I loved the view from that
room, but my head was still too achy to get up off the couch to join them. I did manage
to overhear their conversation, though, despite its unhappy subject matter.