Becky reached into her hip pocket, pulled out an orange Dum-Dum lollipop, and peeled back the wrapper. Shoving the sucker in her cheek, she opened her mouth to continue, and Bill didn’t know if it was drugs talking but all he could think was…this is the short version of the story?
“So unless Jeremy wanted to find his knee caps busted, or take a bullet to the brain, or get himself fitted for cement galoshes, or whatever it is gangsters do to their enemies,” Becky talked around the head of the sucker, “he needed to find a way to pay the guy back. In comes Eve’s portion of the family trust fund. The document apparently stipulates that if Eve dies without an heir…” She frowned. “Heir. I swear, every time I say that word or even think it, I feel like I should be twirling a parasol and having a spot of tea.” Boss snorted, and she shook her head as if she needed the physical inducement to jangle her thoughts back in order. “Anyway, if Eve dies without offspring, her portion of the trust fund reverts back to her closest, living relative from her mother’s side of the family. Jeremy.” She blew out a breath. “And there you have it.”
There he had it, indeed. His mind was swimming. It was like something from daytime soap opera. But there was something…missing. A misplaced piece of the puzzle that niggled at the back of his brain. He narrowed his eyes and tried to focus on it, but it flitted away. Then, in a flash, he had it.
“Wait.” He had to clear his throat when the word croaked out of him like he was a friggin’ bullfrog or something. “But how did he know Eve was at the bar? It was her father who called that night.”
Becky made a face, crunching down on the sucker and chewing loudly while simultaneously answering. “Eve texted him. She’d forgotten about it what with all the hullabaloo surrounding her father and ex-husband. It wasn’t until everything was coming out in the wash that she even remembered doing it.”
“Which is why he made the point of telling Eve she needed to leave her phone as evidence,” he mused aloud, remembering Buchanan’s last words to Eve before they’d gone to confront her father. “He wanted to make sure he got his hands on it in order to delete the text.”
“He had his hands on everything,” Becky muttered, shaking her head. “He kept the police files so he’d know exactly what everyone was doing, what everyone knew. He rode CPD’s asses so when something did finally happen to Eve he could say I told you so and keep speculation off himself. He was smart. He played everything and everyone just right.”
“Except for one thing,” Bill said, smiling at his sister.
“What’s that?” She cocked her head.
“He underestimated Eve…”
Eve pressed herself against the wall beside the open door to Billy’s hospital room. Oh, thank you, God! He’s talking. And the sound of his voice was like music sent straight from heaven…
However, as much as she’d been looking forward to this moment, she’d been simultaneously dreading it. Because now that he was talking, she could no longer pretend that what he’d told her out there in that blood-soaked parking lot was true. He’d thought he was dying…
An image of him, thick blood leaking from his mouth, flashed before her eyes, followed immediately by the image of Mac and Delilah jumping from the fierce, black BKI helicopter. What happened next was mostly a blur. But she remembered Mac and Delilah helping her load Billy onto chopper. She remembered Ace at the throttle as the helicopter lifted from the surface of the lot. She remembered a crazy, five-minute flight to the nearest trauma center where dedicated medical staff worked hard to stabilize Billy before having him Life-Flighted straight to Chicago’s prestigious Northwestern Memorial hospital. She’d called in every favor she could in order to get Billy in the operating room with one of the country’s best cardiothoracic surgeons. Then, after about eight hours of surgery, a dozen pins and a steel rod inserted into his leg, what followed were two very stressful days where he remained unconsciousness and where every odd beep or strange blip of a monitor nearly caused her to stroke out.
Then, yesterday he turned the corner. And today he was talking. Sweet Lord in heaven, he was talking! Which meant very soon, she’d have to hear him tell her he hadn’t really meant that I love you.
He thought he was dying. And he was Billy. Loyal Billy. Courageous Billy. Trustworthy Billy. Sweet Billy. So he tried, even in what he’d thought were his last moments, to give her comfort. To be…kind. And it was so beautiful. So like Billy.
But he didn’t die. Thank goodness. Which meant now she had to let him off the hook. And she would let him off the hook. Just as soon as she could work up the courage to walk into that room…
A second passed. Then two. A nurse in bright blue scrubs walked by, cocking her head, and Eve realized she probably looked highly ridiculous, pressed there against the wall like her toes were curled over a twenty-story ledge, a cardboard carrier with three cups of coffee held tight against her chest.
Okay, Eve. You can do it. Ladyballs in the house, remember?
Then again, ladyballs were generally useless when dealing with matters of the heart…
Oh, for Pete’s sake! Stop being a coward! Your love is without strings, right? So, what does it matter that he doesn’t really love you back?
Taking a deep breath, she pasted on what she hoped was a smile, then stepped into the room.
And there she was. Eve…
Billy’s heart raced at the sight of her. Literally, the monotonous beep, beep, beep of some monitor he hadn’t noticed until then picked up its cadence.
“Eve,” he said her name and watched her eyes immediately fill with tears. Watched her lower lip tremble in the most adorable way.
“You’re talking, Billy,” she sniffed, barely sparing Boss a glance when he grabbed the cardboard coffee carrier out of her hands.
“I’m talking.” He patted the bed beside him. Grinning when she bit her lip, hesitating. “Come on. I won’t bite,” he promised hoarsely.
“We’re gonna leave you two alone for a bit,” Boss said, to which Becky lifted a brow, frowning.
“We are?” Becky asked. “But why? I mean Billy just woke up and—”
“Clue in, woman!” Boss thundered, and Becky stuck out her chin, scowling. Boss just rolled his eyes, heaving a long-suffering sigh, and hooked an arm around her shoulders. She tried to backpeddle when he marched her toward the door. But then Boss bent down and whispered something in her ear. “Oh,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Eve, then, “Oh!” She nodded, smiling, and allowed Boss to escort her from the room.
Eve watched them go then turned back to him, her eyes searching and uncertain.
“Now.” He patted the mattress again. “Come. Here.”
“Billy, I—”
“Are you really disobeying the wishes of a man who just had two bullets dug out of him?” The more he talked, the easier it became. That made him happy. Because there were a lot of things he wanted to say to Eve.
She shook her head and scurried toward him. Her hair was pulled back in a clip. Her face was free of makeup. She was wearing slim-fit jeans paired with a demure little pastel blouse that was guaranteed to raise his blood pressure on a better day. The bulk of the bandage on her upper arm where that round had grazed her—his stomach flipped just thinking about how close she’d come—showed through the flimsy material. And there were dark circles beneath her eyes from a combination of long, sleepless nights and the soul-deep sorrow of discovering who’d really been behind the attempts on her life.