Page 12 of The Grave Between Us
He stumbled back and fell on his ass. He couldn’t move his hand. Couldn’t move his elbow. Why couldn’t he move his arm? Damn it, he couldn’t even breathe. There wasn’t enough oxygen, even though he was staring at the big, open, perfectly blue sky, as bright and clear as Cole’s eyes. Cole. Where was Cole? He had to call Cole. Why couldn’t he move his hand? Why couldn’t he grab his phone?
Who had shot him?
Were they going to finish the job?
Cole, I love you. I wanted the chance to be your husband. Good or bad, I wanted the chance. Why, why on earth did you pick me? How did you fall in love with me? I’ll never understand why you picked me up that night, why you picked me to love.
Footsteps crunched on the asphalt. Boots. He could see them, in triplicate, as he rolled to his side. Work boots, long legs, worn jeans. A man, dressed in a plaid shirt, a Carhartt jacket. A baseball cap. Sunglasses. Middle age. Middle height. Middle weight. Was he real? Or was he just a fragment of Noah’s mind?
“Please,” Noah croaked. “My partner is still inside. He needs help. Call an ambulance. Please.”
“Oh, Noah. If I did my job right, Jacob is beyond help,” the man said. Even his voice was middle of the road, nondescript. Deep, but not distinctive. No accent Noah could recognize—though it felt like he was listening to the world underwater.
The man knelt. He pushed two fingers into Noah’s shoulder, into the bullet wound that was too low to be a shoulder shot, too high to be a chest wound. Every inhale was like sucking in shattered glass. There was pressure building inside Noah, like he was a balloon filling and filling and about to burst. Collapsed lung. Air escaping into his chest. Pressing on his heart. He felt his heart fluttering, a caged butterfly beating out of control. Beating for freedom. Cole.
Noah screamed, and the man dug his fingers in deeper. He smiled. “What is it about you, Noah Downing, that captured his attention? What did you do that brought Cole all the way out here?”
Noah roared when the man twisted and hooked his fingers. He dragged Noah forward, lifting him from the ground by the crook of his hold inside Noah’s chest. Got his face right against Noah’s, until they were eyeball to eyeball.
It was like staring into a black hole. Beyond the agony knifing through him, every nerve on fire, every muscle clenching—even as he gasped for breath that wasn’t coming, Noah felt the cold slide ofsomethingslither down his spine. Every hair on his body rose.
He roared this time, more than a reaction to pain. This was different: horror put to sound. Conscious thought fled, and Noah had one image, one perfect moment left in his mind before terror blacked out all conscious thought: Cole and Katie, together, smiling at him, holding out their hands and beckoning him to join them. It was sunny, and they were outside, and Katie had white roses in her hand. Cole was whisperingI love you, and Noah was whisperingI love you, too, and he didn’t feel the man drop him back to the ground, didn’t see him lift Noah’s gun from the snow and push the barrel against Noah’s temple.
“Cole—”
Chapter Five
At seven fifteen,Cole started checking his phone every minute. No text from Noah, not since early afternoon when he said they were leaving a little later than he liked. Maybe they were in a dead spot or had hit traffic, but the drive from Sioux City wasn’t usually a long one. Had they stopped for dinner? No, Noah would have texted him if so. He texted Noah again, a question mark and a heart, and spun his phone on the kitchen counter. He’d fed Katie already, and she was upstairs, listening to music as she worked on her chemistry homework. He heard laughter now and then, a fewshut upsandno ways. Homework with friends, or friends with a side of homework, perhaps.
Where was Noah? He spun his phone around again, end over end as he pursed his lips. Maybe he should text Jacob—
His phone clattered on the counter, and he snatched it before the first ring finished. Expecting Noah, he stuttered when he saw Sophie’s name instead. “Sophie?” he said. “What’s up?”
“Cole, are you at home?” She sounded serious. More serious than he’d ever heard her.
“Yes.”
“Is Katie there with you?”
“Yes, she is.”
“I need you to go to a private room for a moment, Cole. Away from Katie.”
“She’s upstairs.” His heart was a racehorse, thundering down the track. Heat and ice flashed through him. “What is it? What’s going on?”
“Cole…” She sighed, long and slow. He felt her exhale like it was a bullet. “There was an incident on Iowa 141 today. We don’t know exactly what happened or how, but Noah and Jacob were shot while driving back from Sioux City.”
He leaped to his feet, the stool careening backward. His hand knocked over his beer bottle, and he backed up a shaking step, then another, until his spine slammed into the cupboards and he dropped to the ground like his knees had been smashed in. He bit his tongue when he landed, hard enough he tasted blood. “They wereshot? Are they—”
“They’re both alive, but they’re in bad shape. They were airlifted to Methodist downtown. We don’t know how long they were out there on the highway before a trucker saw the wreck and stopped to call for help. One bullet went through Noah’s chest and shoulder, and it did some real damage. He has a collapsed lung, and if it weren’t for the trucker being a Gulf War vet and knowing some emergency first aid…”
Cole dropped the phone and buried his face in his hands, screaming into his palms, grabbing his hair and tugging. Sophie’s voice was still coming from the phone, loud in the suddenly silent house. “Cole, I’ve sent a state trooper to get you and Katie and bring you both to the hospital. He radioed me he’d arrived before I called. Can you get your things and meet him at the door?”
Two things happened at once. The doorbell rang, and Katie appeared, rounding the corner in the kitchen with her eyes wide, tears cascading down her cheeks as she croaked out, “Dad wasshot?”
“Who did this?” Cole growled into his phone as he pushed to his feet. He grabbed Katie and pulled her close, her face pressed to his chest as she started to tremble. Her tears soaked his shirt, and his soaked her hair, but he kept his hand on the back of her head, rocking back and forth.
“We don’t know. I have the state troopers and two FBI offices processing the scene right now. The highway is shut down for ten miles in both directions, and troopers have set up checkpoints. I don’t think we’re going to catch them that way, but we’re not taking the chance. The local sheriff’s office is waking the search and rescue team, and there will be dogs on scene in an hour. Omaha is flying in their own forensics team to rush the scene. Forensics, ballistics, trace, everything. I’ve got Megan and Dale back at the office going through all of Noah’s and Jacob’s cases, looking for suspects in anything they’ve done over the years. Did they put away a meth dealer who just got out and wants revenge?”
