When he leaned closer, I noticed the radio on his shoulder and started to scream. It might cost me another scratch but maybe save Sky and I in the end. I flailed my arms about and hit the button as I did.
Saint T was with me. Not noticing the microphone was on, Buzz kept shouting louder and louder. I heard the static and started to shout our location, that Buzz was the killer and to send help, but I said it all in a way as if repeating his words so he wouldn’t be suspicious and kill me right then.
The more I fought him, the angrier he grew, and suddenly I realized-it wasn’t aimed at me.
Buzz began to go on about his childhood, and how could I do that to him and why didn’t I abort him. And if he couldn’t have love, he’d have money. All of it.
He’d envisioned me now as Pansy, his mother, and began to confess how he set up all the fraud at TLC to make a fortune-but Daddy got greedy and was going to cut into Buzz’s profits, so he had to be taken care of.
Buzz was not immune to murder, I reminded myself.
I kept repeating our location, what was happening and that Sky was down. Buzz, now in his own world, didn’t pay me any attention. He merely remained above me.
Hope Valley was only a half-hour drive from the shoreline, so the local police could drive to the beach in minutes, and hopefully, Jagger and Lieutenant Shatley could fly down soon after. I knew Jagger would have everything under control when he realized how late we were in getting back and when dispatch heard my frantic, albeit confusing, radio calls.
I decided to use my nurturing nurse’s nature on Buzz although I would rather have kicked him where it hurt several times. I knew he had me in the weight and strength department, so I had to go with my brains, since, being injured, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to use my self-defense techniques. Especially since he had me pinned down and the knife still near my throat.
Sky was starting to stir. Once he looked at me in a very painful, groggy stare. I winked at him and motioned for him to stay put.
Hopefully he wouldn’t try to be a macho pilot.
I’m sure he wanted to get up and kick the shit out of Buzz, since Sky apparently did love Pansy and hopefully to help me.
Oh what a tangled web we weave…
I leaned back in the helicopter and Jagger put his arm around me. Sky lay on the stretcher and crazy, pathetic, handcuffed Buzz had been taken back to Hope Valley in the police cruiser. The helicopter was flown by one of the part-time pilots.
“How sad,” I muttered.
Jagger looked at me.
“I know. I know. I can’t do my job if I feel sorry for the criminals.”
“Yep. No matter how nice they appear, how interesting or sad their lives are or how beautiful they are, they are still criminals.”
My forehead wrinkled. “Beautiful?”
His hold tightened. “Oh, I wrapped up a case yesterday. Real looker. Real con artist.”
“He was?”
“She was. You saw us at dinner the other night. Remember?”
Airbrush Lady! Jagger hadn’t been on a date, but working another case. Oh, how Jaggerlike.
And apparently oh-how Pauline-like to suspect that a guy was bowled over by a pretty face.
Guess I’d forgotten this was Jagger I was talking about. Now it made sense that he wasn’t around as much as usual. He had been helping Shatley, but also working another case and keeping tabs on me trying to solve mine.
“Interesting. But, in Buzz’s case, I do feel sorry that a life was so wasted because two people made a mistake.”
Jagger made some kind of guttural sound. “A big mistake.”
It was disgusting to think about, yet sad too. Pansy and Payne were products of their environment. Sky had told us that the two grew up without any friends or other family around. They’d pretty much been ostracized by all the kids because they looked so much alike and were so weird to boot.
Without any choice, they were kinda thrown together. Almost molded into one. Twins had special bonds, but these two were something very different. Their parents had messed them up good by treating them like clones.
It seemed as if they were going to make a go of TLC once they’d inherited it, but that’s when Buzz, who’d apparently trained as an EMT just to get the job, came back into their lives with his plan for revenge and money. Probably Buzz had lived away from Hope Valley but came back when he saw the big news about them inheriting TLC. Pansy had felt guilty and hired him, but wouldn’t let him live with her. Thus the housekeeper “mommy.”
I wondered if Buzz’s clumsy behavior was phony, but Sky assured me the guy couldn’t fake all that had happened to him. He just drew problems to himself. And these last ones were doozies.
Sky had insisted that he really did love Pansy, and it wasn’t just an affair. She’d always presented herself as asexual, which she had been after she and Payne had conceived Buzz. But Sky’d gotten her to open her heart just a bit… then it was too late. Sheepishly he’d admitted he’d gotten her what I called the “sex chair” on a trip he’d taken over to Europe-and it had helped-so they designed the room for…themselves.
Jagger suddenly tugged at my arm. We’d landed at Saint Greg’s. Sky, who would be fine, was taken off the copter by the staff, and we flew back to TLC.
When the helicopter set down, I got up and stepped out. ER Dano stood by the helipad, waiting. The police must have called him. I felt something touch my back.
A gentle nudge from…Jagger.
At first a thread of disappointment spread throughout me. He had pushed me forward. Jagger had actually pushed me toward Dano.
But in a heartbeat I found my way into Dano’s arms.
He held me tightly and over his shoulder I could see Jagger standing there… and, in that moment, that horrible moment, I realized he hadn’t nudged me forward at all…
Epilogue
I stood in the back of the park where the ceremony was about to begin-and sighed.
Damn, but life took interesting twists and turns. After Fabio had given me my well-deserved bonus for case #6 of my newfound career, I realized that my life had really changed.
And for the better.
No longer was I the newbie Fabio had once called me. Nope. I had managed to solve a case or two on my very own. A feeling of pride surged through me, and then I looked up at the “altar.”
Wow.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight I now faced.
In the distance, a mere fifty feet away, stood the man who had brought me to this point in my life. The gentle summer’s breeze tousled his dark hair. Occasionally, he’d run a hand through it, and I’d sigh again. Damn, would I ever stop reacting to him this way?
Guess he really had a great influence on me-and my libido. Then again, no. It really wasn’t true. He hadn’t brought me here, to this point in my life, at all. Watching him. Feeling my insides flutter as usual and trying to think rationally, I finally realized-it was all my doing.
If nothing else, I had managed to switch from a very successful, yet truly stressful nursing career, to become a top-notch investigator for Scarpello and Tonelli insurance company. All right. All right. Top-notch might be a bit overboard, but I had grown and learned over the past six months.
The small all-guy quartet, suited in white tuxedos, started to play and my eyes began to tear up. Nothing like a wedding to bring out all the emotions of our lives.
Watching from nearby, sat my parents.
Daddy remained very stoic in his black tux, which Goldie and Miles had helped rent for him. Daddy could only have looked more handsome at his own wedding. I caught his gaze, and he winked at me.