“She invited us over,” Brian said.
“Everything’s fine, Luke,” Peg said, but her face was pale. From the disease or from fear, Luke couldn’t tell.
“Think I’ll stick around just the same,” Luke drawled. “You know Emma’s in the hospital.”
“What?” Peg asked.
“She fell down a flight of stairs.”
Blake tipped up his hand in a drinking motion as Brian said, faintly smiling, “Clumsy of her.”
Fury fired through Luke’s blood. “Some people think she was pushed.”
Beside him, Peg gasped.
“Ah, c’mon, Peg. This guy’s just yanking all our chains,” Blake said. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Did you push her?” she asked.
Luke glanced at her, arrested by her calm tone. She was looking at Blake.
He pointed both hands at his chest in a who-me? gesture.
Brian said, “She’s a drinker, Peg. Don’t listen to Denton. His partner tried to frame us and he damn well should be going to prison for it, but you know, you can’t fight the cops.”
“Did you push her?” she asked Blake again.
“Hell no.” Blake’s brows slammed together. “Fuck it, Brian. We’re outta here.”
“She said she wanted to sell,” Brian responded evenly. “Was that a lie, Peg? Did you just want to get Blake over here so you could fuck?”
“Shut up,” Luke snarled.
Peg took a step back into the kitchen and returned holding a gun.
“What the—?” Brian started.
“Whoa, whoa.” Blake put his hands up.
Blam! Blam!
“Stop! Stop!” Luke yelled as both brothers scrambled for their lives. He saw Blake go down and Brian reach behind himself for a gun.
“Wait!” Luke screamed, scrabbling for his sidearm as he threw himself toward Brian.
Blam!
Blam!
Luke fell into Brian with a thud and both men went down. Luke grabbed Brian’s arm and smashed the gun from his hand. But Brian didn’t resist. He looked at Luke with dazed eyes. “She shot me.”
Luke leaped up, gun in hand. He kicked Brian’s gun across the room. Blake was down. Eyes open. A bullet wound in the left side of his forehead. He whipped around and saw Peg still standing, the gun down at her side. It slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.
She whispered, “Did I kill him? Blake? Did I kill him?”
“Peg, come here.” Luke put his arm around her and guided her to a kitchen chair. Brian was groaning on the floor. Darker color was staining the front of his dark sweatshirt. He’d been shot in the chest.
“I need to call nine-one-one,” Luke told her.
“Yes.” She looked down at her side. Blood was turning the pink bathrobe crimson.
“Oh, Peg.” Luke reached for his phone, stabbing in the numbers.
“It was worth it, you know. They killed Ted and they were never going to pay for it. Your partner tried to get them, but he couldn’t.”
“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“The doctors told me I had six months on the outside,” Peg went on. “I’ve about used that up, so I decided it was time to make them pay.”
“There’s been a shooting,” Luke said, his voice catching. “Three people down.”
Peg patted his arm. “It’s going to be okay now. . . .”
*
“We would like you to move to the waiting room,” the nurse said to Andi and Ben, who’d already been moved to the hall.
“What if she wakes up?” Ben asked. “I want to be here.”
“I’ll send the doctor on call to talk to you,” she said firmly.
Andi and Ben went down to the main floor. They stood in the reception area for ten minutes, but no doctor arrived. “They’re not going to let us back in there tonight,” Ben said angrily.
“They might,” Andi responded, but she was beginning to feel tired and was seriously considering going to Luke’s apartment. She thought about calling him but decided to wait till she was on her way.
“Guess I’ll go home for a while,” Ben said. “Get something to eat. Nothing else to do around here.” He pushed against the bar for one of the double glass doors. “You coming?”
“Might as well. I’ll come back in the morning.”
He nodded, then added, “You came with Denton, right?”
“Yes, but I can take Uber.”
“I can give you a lift. You going back to the cabin?”
She looked at Ben. “I’m still deciding,” she demurred.
“What’s to decide?”
“I don’t know.”
They looked at each other for long moments. Andi’s pulse began to pound, slow and hard. Ben had been nothing but loving toward his wife, but they just had his word that he’d taken the elevator and waited around for her, not knowing she’d used the stairs.
He said casually, “No one wants to hear what I think about the Carreras, but I don’t think it’s such a bad idea doing business with them. They’ve always made money.”
“They skate around the law,” Andi said.