There were footsteps on the stairs, then running down the hallway. Thank God! The door to the suite banged open. Tom flew into the room. He stood horrified, eyeing the bloody, rumpled bed, Kylie’s state of undress, Alex and Marla and the naked wounded man crumpled in the corner. “What the hell—”
“Call the police!” Kylie ordered as Monty moaned and Alex’s breaths rattled wet and ragged in his lungs.
Tom didn’t move.
“Oh, God, honey, don’t die,” Marla sobbed brokenly to Alex. “Not now. Not when it’s all ours.”
Monty rolled over, trying to struggle to his feet. “Take one step you son of a bitch and I swear, I’ll blow you away!” Kylie warned sharply, then to Tom, “Call the damned police. Now!”
“They . . . They’re on their way,” Tom said, his face ashen. “I heard everything on the intercom when I walked into the kitchen and I called 911. I—I have medical supplies in my room.”
“Then get them.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“Yes! Go!” The words sank in and Tom dashed out of the room. Somewhere in another part of the house Coco barked. An ambulance’s siren wailed from far down the hill. Alex gave a final rasping breath. Marla sobbed brokenly, tears raining from her eyes. Montgomery groaned, the bones of his forearm shattered, all the fight seeming to have finally left him.
“What was it you told me? That you wanted everything? That you deserved it?” Kylie snarled at Monty, the gun shaking in her fingers as she kept it pointed at his pathetic naked body. “Well, it looks like you’re going to finally get what you deserve, and its going to be hell.” She glanced down at her half sister. Tears streamed down Marla’s face, ruining her mascara and eyeliner as she tried to will life into her dying husband’s body.
“Alex, please don’t die”
Kylie, standing over her half sister, held James close. She almost felt sorry for Marla Amhurst Cahill.
Almost.
But not quite.
Nearly three hours later, Kylie sat at Nick’s bedside in the intensive care unit at Bayside Hospital. He didn’t move and the tubes running in and out of his body reminded her how frail life was.
“You can’t die,” she warned him, linking her fingers through his and battling hot tears that threatened her throat and eyes. “Do you hear me, you can’t die!”
“Mrs. Cahill, there’s someone to see you,” the nurse said.
“I don’t want to see anyone. And my name isn’t Mrs. Cahill. It’s Kylie. Kylie Paris.” And she loved Nick. No matter what, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. “You hang in there,” she said, squeezing his hand.
“It’s the police,” the nurse clarified. “Detective Paterno.”
Kylie looked up and through the glass she saw the detective’s hound-dog face staring at her.
“I’ll be right back,” she told Nick, though she knew he couldn’t hear her.
She hurried through the doorway and nearly ran into the policeman. “Can’t I make a statement later?” she said, glancing back through the meshed glass to Nick.
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then what? Oh, God, it’s not the baby.” Panic stormed through her.
“No, no. As far as I know he’s still with his grandmother and the nanny. He’s fine. Eugenia had to be sedated, but the nanny, Fiona, she’s a plucky thing. She and Carmen are holding down the fort.” Paterno shoved a stick of Juicy Fruit into his mouth. “How’s Nick doin’?” he asked, nodding toward the window.
“He’s supposed to be okay,” Kylie said, though she wasn’t convinced. “The bullet went through his spleen and they operated a couple of hours ago. The surgeon told me he would pull through, but . . .” She cast a worried glance over her shoulder. “He’s not waking up.”
“He’ll make it. He’s tough as old leather,” Paterno predicted. “Now, I think you should come with me. There’s someone I think you might want to talk to.”
“Marla,” she whispered, and a new, hot fury burned through her blood when she considered the sister who had suggested the baby scam in the first place, the woman Kylie had always wanted to best, the enemy who had tried to have her killed. Because of Marla and Alex’s blind, self-centered ambition, Pam Delacroix and Charles Biggs had died unnecessarily, Alex himself had breathed his last, Conrad Amhurst had left this world a little earlier than he should have, and Nick was fighting for his life.
“Yeah. Now that her husband is dead she’s talking, though she wants a lawyer. She admitted to the fake pregnancy scam and that they were lucky that you lost your memory, then they kept drugging you so that you wouldn’t recall anything. They only tripped up a couple of times.”
“The ruby ring.”