arm and almost killing her in Brownsville. How you hired someone to shoot her tonight at the charity. Tell her. Tell her now.”
“What does it matter? What are you going to do to me?” his wife asked. Taunting him. Why was she taunting him?
“I’m going to clean up our mess, Jenny. The way I should have a long time ago.”
110
Jennifer was almost certain he’d never slept with that girl. There had to be a reason why he’d done this to begin with.
Kyle.
She’d held him in her arms as he’d died. It had taken him less than five minutes. Five minutes to end such a beautiful life. His eyes had stared into hers while she held him.
Wallace had refused to help him. Said there was no point. He’d hit an artery. Kyle had bled to death in her arms.
At Wallace’s hands. She could never forgive him that. How could she?
She had loved Kyle so much. Kyle. Carl. Dennis Lee.
Wallace. She had loved him most of all. This was what happened.
Maybe she had caused all of this. She had lost every man she had ever loved.
Except Reggie. He was as good as lost to her now, too.
The girl just sat, quietly watching Wallace.
This was the first time Jennifer had ever been that close to her. It was rather like looking in a mirror to the past. The cheekbones and jaw were certainly different. The skin tone. The hair, the eye color, the build. She could see it.
“What are you going to do?” Jennifer asked. “This isn’t exactly taking care of things. What about Reggie?”
Their son was supposed to get out of here in the morning.
Reggie was one floor down from where they were right now. “He’s not going to understand this, Wallace.”
“No. I don’t think he will.” He looked at the girl. “There are journals. He’ll want them some day.”
“Allen had them. He turned them over to the TSP,” the nurse said. “Is that what this is about? He read them. He said there was nothing in them that stood out.”
“He read all twelve?”
“There were eleven. He read them while we were…traveling.”
“Twelve. There were twelve.” Wallace stepped closer to her. Jennifer watched as the girl flinched away. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know about it until today. It wasn’t a car accident , was it?”
“No. You need to get out of here, Dr. Henedy. There are patients in there now. You know Vince will be watching on security videos. And Rafe won’t let you do anything to hurt this hospital. Someone will be coming here, soon.”
Jennifer had to hand it to her—that nurse wasn’t panicking.
There wasn’t any hint of intimacy between them. Not like she’d seen between him and other women he’d slept with. Like Darla Carrington.
Jennifer had known, long before Darla had tried to rub it in.
No. He hadn’t slept with this girl.
Which made even less sense to her now.
“Why did you shoot her that day, Wallace? Why her?”
111
Allen stared at Vince. “Get out of my way. Now.”
“Hell, Jacobson, you know I can’t let you through.”
“I’m going in there.” Everyone else had been evacuated through the emergency exit of the surgical ward. They’d only had two patients in procedures at the moment—Shelby and a child. “Izzie’s in there with a madman.”
Allen had arrived as Cage and his team were prepping Shelby to move her. Nikkie Jean’s patient and the rest of the surgical team had already been evacuated safely. They were now in the east wing—as far away from this section of the hospital as possible.
No one knew where Izzie was.
Until Allen had come face-to-face with Izzie’s father.
He’d been leading the evacuations of the two surgical teams. He’d told Allen what he knew.
Henedy had Izzie and his wife in the waiting room. Alone.
Allen had cursed and ran to the rear entrance to the waiting room.
Vince had already been there, locking down the surgical ward.
Now…Vince was all that stood between Allen and Izzie. “Move.”
“Hell, Allen, you know I can’t let you in there. It’ll be my head.”
“That’s my world in there. What if it was Cherise in there? What would you do then?”
That had Vince hesitating. Then the older man shook his head. “I understand. I can’t let you in there. That would just be giving him one more hostage. Rafe is on his way up now. The TSP are on their way back. They’ll get her out of there.”
Allen wasn’t waiting around for that to happen.
112
Izzie had always wondered why. It seemed like she was going to get her answer