Page 79 of I'll Be There
She stared at the picture—a man in a white baseball cap—and her mouth opened. “No. This wasn’t...I talked to a different guy. This guy was sitting on a rock not far away from me. Just watching the waves. I talked to a different man.”
She looked up then, and noticed Conner’s stricken expression. “What?”
He drew in a breath, glanced at Micah. “Three of them?”
“I dunno, man,” Micah said.
“What did he look like—this man you talked to, Liza?” Conner had her hands now, running his thumbs over the top of them.
“Um. Tall. Fit. Sandy brown hair, blue eyes. I don’t know—a tourist. He wore a Life is Good T-shirt.”
“And this other guy—the guy in the photo?”
“He was...just sitting there. I met eyes with him and he said hi. Smiled. I don’t know—he didn’t look like someone who wanted to kill anyone.”
Conner groaned then and pulled her to himself. And she simply leaned in, hung on, listened to his heartbeat. Needed to hear it, to feel his arms protecting her.
To cling to him one final time.
Then, he sighed and put her away. Caught her face and met her eyes. “Stay with Pete. And Darek and Jed.”
She nodded. “And you come back alive.”
A smile jerked at his mouth, then died. He reached up, touched her hair, rubbing a thick swath between his thumb and finger.
Then he let go, turned, and strode over to Kyle’s truck. Climbed in without a backward look.
She stood for a moment, arms tucked around herself, feeling the heat of his body dissipate.
Come back alive.
She took a breath and was turning to head back into the hospital when she spotted him. Standing just outside the rim of light from the ER entrance, a shadow, watching. He still wore the Life is Good T-shirt, but had added a blue baseball cap over that sandy brown hair.
He crossed the light, headed for her, and she couldn’t move. Not even when he reached her. He stared down at her, his blue eyes meeting hers.
“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I just don’t get it,” Conner said. He stood next to Kyle’s truck a half block from the still-smoking Pierre’s Pizza, watching as the Deep Haven firefighters arched water into the black, charred remains. Others wet the roofs of the nearby buildings, and a third team brought to heel the fire now chewing through the café/bookstore they’d escaped only an hour earlier.
The air wept, moisture layering his grimy hair, his skin, casting a kaleidoscope arc around the streetlights, puddling luminescence onto the dark pavement and the activity of the firefighters. Overhead, the stars watched, a slight wind pressing waves to shore, crashing against the darkness.
All of Deep Haven’s finest showed up, some cordoning off the entire downtown while more searched the buildings for tampering, evidence of where the shooter might have perched.
Others bagged and carried the second shooter from his nest on top of the liquor store.
“Let’s get that fixed up.” The voice turned him, and he spotted Dan’s pretty, blonde wife, former fire chief, Ellie, approaching him with saline and tape in her gloved hands.
Conner glanced at his arm. “It’s nothing.”
She set the supplies on the hood of the truck. “Humor me. Take your shirt off.”
He reached up and ripped off the sleeve.
“Ho-kay. That’ll work.”
He lifted his arm, got a good look. More of a burn, the skin blackened around a pinky-width scubbed line, maybe two inches long. “Just give me some superglue and a piece of tape.”
