Whitney sidled nearer to the steps. Ryan hadn’t turned away from her, but his attention was focused on Ashley. If only she could get out of the pool.
Ryan cleared his throat, then gave Ashley a small, anxious grin. “I’ll get help tomorrow. I promise I will. Just wait in the car for me. Okay?”
“No.”
Ryan blinked and hesitated before saying, “Look, if you’ll just wait in the car for me, I swear I won’t hurt Whitney. We just need to have a little talk.”
Whitney’s toe bumped the first of two-or was it three?-steps out of the pool. Ryan’s smile expired when Ashley didn’t budge.
“Liar! I’m not letting you hurt Whitney.”
Without warning, Ashley lunged for Ryan’s arm in an attempt to knock the gun out of his hand. Ohmygod! At this close range, Ryan might kill her. Not taking a second to think, Whitney hurtled out of the pool and flung herself at them as they struggled over the gun. She saw her own hand lash out in a desperate grab for the weapon.
Face contorted, Ryan fought them with manic savagery. He was taller than both of them and had them outweighed. He still had control of the gun.
Whitney pounced on him, clinging to him with both arms and legs the way a drowning person would. She had a split second to decide what to do so she bit the exposed part of his neck.
Pop!
Something sounded like a firecracker, she realized. Swirling colored stars burst behind her eyes. Then darkness obliterated the bright lights.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ADAM WAS READING the note on the front door when he heard a scream. Gathering all his strength, he charged into the door, shoulder first. It hadn’t been properly closed and burst open. He crashed into the entry, off balance, and stumbled sideways. He regained his footing, then raced through the crypt-dark house. He rounded the corner into a large room. Beyond it he saw a pool area.
Another muffled shout echoed through the dark night. He charged out the open sliding glass door and saw Whitney sprawled beside the pool. He sprinted to where Ashley Fordham was standing over Ryan, a gun in her hand.
What in hell was going on here?
“I’ve killed him. I’ve killed him.” Like a robot, Ashley jerkily turned to Adam and offered him the gun.
Adam tugged his shirt out of his pants. Careful not to leave fingerprints, he used the cloth to glove his hand and grabbed the gun. He dropped it on a nearby table. Had Ashley shot both Ryan and Whitney? He yanked off his belt and grabbed Ashley, binding both her wrists.
“No. Stop,” she cried. “I was trying to save Whitney. Honest.”
“Yeah, right.” He shoved her aside. “You expect me to believe that? You stole her dog.” He had a thousand questions for her, but right now all that mattered was Whitney.
She lay crumpled on the pool deck, bleeding. In Iraq his closest friends’ blood had been splattered all over him, and Adam had nearly died. That was nothing compared to the way his gut twisted at the sight of Whitney’s blood.
Next to her, Ryan Fordham lay flat on his back, blood gushing from a wound in his chest. His flat, unseeing eyes told Adam the man was dead.
“Whitney, Whitney.” He dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse. By some miracle she was still alive, but blood was seeping from a shot just above her waist. He prayed it hadn’t hit any vital organs.
“Ryan shot her,” cried Ashley. “I had to stop him before he fired again.”
With trembling fingers, Adam pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. Somehow he managed to give them the address and order an ambulance on the double.
“Hang in there, sweetheart,” he told Whitney as he examined the wound. He was afraid to move her in case it caused more bleeding. He applied pressure above the wound.
Jasper and Lexi circled the two bodies. One look told him the dogs had no clue how serious this was. “Get out of the way!” he yelled at them. Both dogs cowered. “Sit. Sit. Stay,” he said in a calmer voice.
He barely heard Ashley babbling about what happened. The gambling debt. The supposedly toxic land that was so valuable. Something about her long-lost father and money.
Adam didn’t give a rat’s ass. All that mattered was saving Whitney. He heard the wails of an ambulance and police cars coming closer and closer.
“Hurry, hurry,” he heard himself plead. He tried to think over the pulse thrumming in his temples, but there was nothing he could do except wait and pray. Her body was pathetically still, nearly lifeless, all color leached from her beautiful face.
“Aaah, aaahhh,” Whitney moaned, her eyes still closed.
“I love you, Whitney,” he said even though now was not the time to say it. He might never have another chance.
“A-a-ah-adam.” Whitney’s eyelids fluttered, then opened so slightly that he doubted she could see him.
“Shh. Don’t try to talk.”
“Ja-ja-jasper…ch-chip…neck.” Suddenly her eyes snapped shut.
“WE HEARD ABOUT IT ON television,” Holly told Adam. “We came right away. We knew you’d need us.”
All Adam could do was nod at Tyler and Holly. He wouldn’t need anybody or anything if Whitney didn’t survive.
They were sitting in the surgery waiting room. It had been more than two hours since the ambulance had sped away with Whitney. She’d been rushed immediately into surgery. A nurse had come out with one update: Whitney was still alive. The seconds had ticked by like days.
“I’m here. I’m here,” announced Trish Bowrather as she rushed into the waiting room with Rod Babcock. “Is she-”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Tyler told them when Adam couldn’t speak.
“What happened?” asked the attorney.
There was a long silence, then Adam heard himself begin to talk. “According to Ashley Fordham, Ryan tried to kill Whitney.”
“Lord have mercy. I warned her,” cried Trish, turning to Rod. The lawyer put his arm around her and pulled Trish close. “I warned Whitney, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“On TV they said Ryan Fordham had been shot and killed,” Tyler told everyone. “The police have arrested Ashley Fordham.”
Adam slowly nodded. “I guess Ashley killed him. There was a scuffle or something. I don’t know the details.”
“Whitney wasn’t able to tell you anything?” asked Holly.
“No. She only rallied for a moment.” He turned to Trish. “All she could think about was the dogs. She was worried about Jasper.”
“Just like Whitney,” Trish replied, then hesitated a moment. “She didn’t mention Lexi? That’s strange.”
“She could barely utter a syllable,” Adam told her. He lovingly recalled her last words. Jasper, chip, neck.
Holy shit!
She’d been trying to tell him something.
WHITNEY STRAINED TO LIFT HEAVY eyelids crusted with sand. Light. She finally glimpsed a single ray of light, but she seemed to be looking at the world through gauze.
“Whitney,” someone called to her from very far away.
Adam hovered over her with his arm around…Miranda. Whitney tried to speak but her parched tongue could barely move. A white-hot bolt of pain lanced up her side, as if someone were twisting a shard of glass.
Where was she? What had happened? She struggled to remember. She saw the bank of frightening-looking machines with tubes attached to her body.
“Can you hear me, sweetheart?” Adam asked, his hand on her shoulder.
She parted her lips to respond. In a flash the room morphed into darkness and she was scrambling out of the pool again. Ryan was going to shoot Ashley if she didn’t do something-fast. In freeze-frames her brain replayed the struggle over the gun.
“A-ash…ley?” she managed to say through a miasma of pain and confusion.
“She’s all right,” Adam assured her. “She got the gun away from Ryan and shot him.” There was a change in the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. “He’s dead.”