Silenced by the Yams - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,53
blow his brains out, but I didn’t. Did some serious damage though, and no, that doesn’t bother me.”
“Meryl Streep lied to me. I can’t believe it.”
Howard smiled. “You can give her a piece of your mind later.”
“He thinks Jorge is dead—do you know? Is he right?”
He raised his eyebrows. “That makes sense.”
“You want to elaborate?”
“His firearm—it wasn’t loaded and we’re pretty sure he knew it.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“His first words when I opened his door were, ‘Let me die.’”
I felt like someone punched me in the gut and it was hard to catch my breath. “So Jorge is dead?”
Howard nodded. “According to agents still on the scene.”
“And Randolph was trying to commit suicide? He wanted you to kill him?”
He nodded again and pulled me in to hold me tight when my tears started to flow.
Exhausted from lack of sleep and too much excitement, I remained nuzzled against Howard after my cry, warm and protected. Sleep might have come quickly, if visions of the shootout in front of the Tanner Building hadn’t flooded into my mind.
I remembered seeing Colt on the ground and my eyes popped open. “Howard! What happened to Colt?”
“I’m waiting for confirmation right now.”
“Confirmation of what?”
“Where he was transported.”
He squeezed my hand again, and I knew from the way his face tightened that something was wrong. “He lost a lot of blood, Barb. There was some concern,” he cleared his throat, I think to hide the fact that he was choking up. “Concern that he wouldn’t make it.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Howard received a call informing him that Colt had been taken to George Washington University Hospital. There was no news on his condition.
Howard didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go. He simply told Smith that he’d check in later, helped me around to the front seat, and we were on our way back to Washington, DC. As soon as we were underway, he said there would be a lot to discuss about why I was at the Tanner Building and what happened there, but that would happen officially at some point.
“You mean you’re not going to yell at me?” I asked.
He smiled. “Not now.”
After calling my mother and asking her to check in on the girls and Mama Marr, I trained an air vent on my face. The longer the day got, the steamier the air became. “This is the second time Colt was injured because I asked for his help. He’ll never forgive me.” My cheeks puckered and tears rolled down my cheeks again.
“He’ll live, and I highly doubt there’s any question of forgiveness. He’d walk through fire for you.”
“For you too,” I sniffed.
He nodded. “I know.”
The drive from Haymarket to Washington, DC is a long one. I decided to take the time to seriously discuss the touchy subject of Colt Baron and the Marr family.
Howard admitted that theirs had been a tumultuous friendship mostly because of his own jealousy. He knew, as did most of the world, that Colt still carried a torch for me, regardless how much he played the role of being a lady’s man. “But I’m over it—the jealousy, I mean.”
I reached over and rubbed his arm. “That’s good. Besides Steven Spielberg, you’re the only man I dream about.”
“And I trump Spielberg, right?”
“Especially after that last dream,” I said as I watched the suburbs of Northern Virginia sail past my window. “He’s got some ’splainin’ to do.”
We drove in silence for a moment.
“He makes me comfortable,” Howard said.
“Steven Spielberg?”
“No. Colt.”
“How’s that?”
“I know he’ll take care of you if anything ever happened to me.”
God forbid. I spent a lot of effort trying not to think of anything happening to the love of my life. Colt might watch out for me, but he’d never replace Howard. Not for me, not for the girls. Thinking of the girls reminded me of Clarence and I realized that Howard didn’t know. When I told him that Colt had a son, I thought he might drive the FBI’s car right off the road. Once he recovered from the surprise, Howard said he didn’t remember Deena Heatherington, but he was very anxious to meet Clarence.
“Let me warn you,” I said, “he’s . . . unique.”
*****
In fact, the first person we saw at the ER was Clarence, drinking a glass of orange juice. He’d ridden with Colt in the ambulance. Knowing that Colt had lost a lot of blood, Clarence offered his own as soon as they arrived, hoping it would help. He’d taken a shot to the thigh and