Page 58 of Marked For Revenge

When they stepped into the waiting area, Harley was glad to see that only Theo was there, and he was reading something on his phone. Harley had thought that maybe there’d be a few gawkers or gossip hunters around, but thankfully folks had stayed away.

“Everything okay?” Theo immediately asked Ava.

She nodded and looked at the other exam room where Caleb was. The door was still closed.

“No word on Caleb yet,” Theo let her know. “But I just got an update on Aaron. He’s in surgery, but the initial report is that his injury isn’t life-threatening.”

That was good, especially since Marnie’s confession made it obvious that Aaron hadn’t had any involvement in the murders. “Did Aaron say anything about Marnie when he was in the ambulance?”

Not that there would have been much for the man to say, but Harley knew that Deputy Nelline Rucker had ridden in the ambulance with Aaron. Nelline would have reported anything back to Theo.

“Nelline informed Aaron that Marnie was the killer,” Theo explained. “Aaron filled in the blanks, and I think it hit him pretty hard just how close Marnie came to succeeding in setting him up for the murders. Apparently, Aaron seemed grateful that she’d failed rather than gripe about us having him on the suspect list.”

Harley wouldn’t have cared a rat about the griping. There’d been probable cause for them to believe Aaron might be guilty. And the man was likely guilty of supplying those drugs to Christina and withholding that he’d been the one responsible. Aaron would no doubt end up paying for that, maybe even with some jail time, depending on whether or not the local DA would want to pursue it.

“What about Quentin?” Harley asked. There was probably something about that on his phone, but he didn’t want to let go of Ava so he could check.

“He’s fine,” Theo assured him. “Once the effects of the stun gun wore off, he decided to stay at the crime scene to assist the deputies and the CSIs.” He looked at Ava. “He was cursing himself, though, for not stopping Marnie when she threw open his door after ramming the Hummer into his truck. He was apparently a little disoriented, and he saw the mask Marnie was wearing.”

Yeah, a mask of Ava’s face. There was no way Quentin would have just fired if he’d thought it was Ava. Of course, after a split second or two, the Ranger would have realized it was a mask, but by then it would have been too late. Marnie would have hit him with the stun gun and then taken Caleb.

“Did Quentin happen to say how he made it out of the truck and into the pasture?” Ava pressed. Harley had wondered the same thing, though Quentin hadn’t gone far from the collision.

“He said he crawled there after he got back some of the feeling in his legs, but then he collapsed. He was trying to go after Marnie and Caleb.”

“I’m surprised Marnie didn’t just kill him,” Harley commented.

“Quentin was surprised, too, but I guess that wasn’t part of her plan,” Theo said. “Of course, judging from what you and Ava told me, it hadn’t been part of Marnie’s plan for the crash to disable the Hummer.”

True, the woman had obviously planned on using it to escape with Caleb and then use Caleb to draw out Ava. With Aaron already on scene, he would have looked guilty. On the surface anyway. But the CSIs would have examined Quentin’s truck and known that Aaron’s vehicle hadn’t been responsible. Marnie had likely planned a fix for that, but it was a detail they might never learn since the woman hadn’t been able to carry out the finale of her sick plan.

The doors to the ER slid open and all three of them turned in that direction. Harley automatically put his hand over his gun, proof that he was still battling the adrenaline. He got another slight surge of it when he saw the two men who came rushing in.

Edgar and Duran.

Great. Just what Ava didn’t need on top of everything else, and Harley geared up for his usual sparring battle with the senator. At least he now knew that Duran wasn’t a killer. That didn’t mean, though, that he still couldn’t be a thorn in Ava’s side.

“Ava,” Edgar said the moment he spotted her.

Edgar made a beeline toward her, and for a moment, Harley thought the man was about to pull her into his arms. He stopped just short of her, no doubt recalling that Ava wouldn’t want such a gesture from him.

“I’m not hurt,” Ava said right off.

Edgar slid glances at both Harley and her, silently questioning if that was true when he obviously noticed the nicks and bruises. “Good,” Edgar murmured, sounding both genuine and relived. “And Caleb?”

Ava’s body tensed. “Still waiting to hear. He’s in the exam room.”

Edgar nodded but didn’t jump to say anything. Maybe because he didn’t know what he could say, considering he’d forced Ava to give up Caleb all those years ago.

“I’m hearing reports that all of this is connected to Aaron,” her father said.

“All of this is connected to Marnie Dunbar,” Ava corrected. “She confessed to the murders and planned to set up Aaron.”

Harley glanced at Duran, expecting the man to balk about having ever been a suspect. He didn’t. Maybe, like Aaron, he was just thankful he was alive and the danger was over.

Of course, things still weren’t resolved on several levels.

Not with Ava and Caleb. Not with her and her father. Not with Harley. But Harley was hoping to work on that once he was able to get Ava to himself.

---