Beyond Innocence Read online

  Tate whispered so that only she could hear. “You got what you deserved, Faye.”

  “Maybe you did too,” she murmured just before she took a swipe at his nuts. He evaded the blow…barely. She grinned up at him as she patted down his calves. She stood and faced Calvin. “He’s clean.”

  “Did you check the back of his jeans?” Calvin knew perfectly well that she hadn’t.

  Muttering obscenities, she turned around and did as she was told. Her face hardened when she found the .38. She pulled it out and held it up for Calvin to see.

  “So predictable,” said Calvin with a shake of his head. “Now, check the bag.”

  Faye opened the satchel that Tate held out to her. He wasn’t worried. Faye wouldn’t know fake currency if it had a picture of Mickey Mouse and a purple border.

  She perused the contents and confirmed. “I don’t know how much but it’s full of cash.”

  “Okay. Bring it here and you guys can keep walking…slowly.”

  Faye headed back toward him, and Calvin raised his pistol. He aimed it at Marnie. As they edged past each other Tate brushed a hand over his son’s shoulder and murmured, “I love you both. And don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine.”

  Marnie nodded, and Tate caught a momentary glance of the shimmer of tears in her eyes. He wanted to say more, but the next moment his attention was drawn by a sharp yelp from Faye.

  He looked up just in time to see her trip over a plank that had come loose from the dock. She fell and the satchel popped open, spilling its contents into the water and the wind.

  Calvin’s face registered shock, and it gave Tate the moment he needed.

  “Get down,” he yelled as he pushed Marnie and Tanner to the dock.

  Calvin spewed obscenities at Faye and his attention was momentarily focused on his vanishing fortune.

  Tate dropped to one knee as he heard the thud of Pete’s boots on the dock.

  Calvin had just grabbed up a fistful of cash when he registered the activity. Down on his knees as well, he trained the gun on Tate. “Hold it!” he yelled at Pete, who was still twenty feet from the little group.

  Tanner and Marnie were lying facedown on the dock, and Pete froze in place, gun drawn but with Tate still vulnerable between them. Tate eased his hand slowly toward his ankle and the holster that Faye had missed with her halfhearted frisking job.

  “Back up,” ordered Calvin.

  Pete obliged, but only by a few steps.

  Faye had managed to re-fasten the satchel and salvage a portion of the play money.

  “Not so fast. You two, get up,” Calvin yelled at Marnie and Tanner.

  They obeyed and slowly rose to their feet. Tate couldn’t see them, but he felt their movements as if he had radar for them alone. Calvin’s gun shifted toward them, but he addressed himself to Tate. Calvin obviously knew Tate well enough to realize that Tate wouldn’t do anything as long as Marnie and Tanner were targets. “Stand up, Barton, and get over here. You’re the big prize here even if I did lose a few grand.”

  Tate drew himself up slowly. He was concentrating on concealing the small .22 in his palm when he heard Calvin’s curse. He looked up sharply to see Calvin’s face contort in rage. He shook the fistful of bills. “It’s fake!”

  Tate knew that at that moment Calvin couldn’t think beyond his fury.

  Calvin’s gun aimed for the target that would hurt Tate the most—Tanner. He began to squeeze the trigger, knowing full well it would be the end of him.

  Tate stood and stepped quickly toward Calvin. He placed himself between Calvin’s gun and his son, knowing it would also put him in Pete’s line of fire.

  But Calvin’s finger halted abruptly in its motion when he felt the barrel of a gun against the back of his head and heard the soft but deadly tone of Kyle’s voice. “Drop it or you’re shark bait.”

  “What the—?” Calvin couldn’t turn to look. He couldn’t see the glistening figure in a wet suit and snorkel that had climbed silently out of the murky depths while Calvin was otherwise occupied chasing after his dubious fortune.

  “It was a good plan, Cal,” mocked Kyle. “But not quite good enough. The boat’s disabled, too, just in case you were thinking you had a snowball’s chance in hell of making a getaway.”

  Calvin’s eyes were stony and he hadn’t yet dropped the gun. In fact, his grip tightened. He shifted the barrel almost imperceptibly in Tate’s direction.

  “I said, drop it!” Kyle nudged the gun against the base of Calvin’s skull.

  Tate considered the man before him and the pair behind him and warned quickly, “Get down,” just as Calvin’s eyes focused on him.

  It took barely a fraction of a second, but Tate knew instinctively what was about to happen. Kyle couldn’t see Calvin’s face. He couldn’t know what was in Calvin’s eyes, and there was no time for a warning. In that moment, Tate made the decision to stand firm. There was no time to aim his own gun, and if he dropped Tanner and Marnie would lose their shield.

  Calvin’s unearthly scream of “Fuck you!” reached Tate’s ears a millisecond before the bullet penetrated his flesh. The impact slammed him backward, and he vaguely registered the report of a second weapon. His back hit the rough planks of the dock and his eyes focused on the glittering stars.

  But he didn’t have to see what had happened to know that Calvin was dead.

  * * * * *

  Crouched on the dock, Marnie had watched it all happen as if through a nightmarish haze. It seemed as if Tate and Calvin hit the deck simultaneously. Out of the corner of her eye she had seen Calvin’s head explode, but her attention was focused exclusively on Tate. It took her a moment to realize the scream that echoed off the water and in her ears was her own.

  Calvin was dead, but it wouldn’t have mattered. With her heart drumming against her chest, she crawled on all fours to Tate’s side. She sensed Tanner close behind her. A crimson stain was spreading across Tate’s chest and she fought back tears of panic and terror.

  She knelt beside him and touched his cheek. It was already clammy and his eyes had taken on a sheen of pain, but he was awake. He was alive. She breathed a small sigh of relief.

  His eyes flicked to hers and he whispered, “Is he dead?”

  “Yeah.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed—the gesture familiar and comforting. Hopefully, for them both. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead. It’s over, Tate.”

  “Good.” He nodded approval and his eyes closed briefly.

  She watched his chest rise and fall and offered up one more prayer—a final plea for Tate’s recovery—but this time the request was mixed with words of thanksgiving. She figured she owed God big for this one. She better not take Him for granted.

  She brought Tate’s hand to her face and noted that it was already chilled. Fingers of worry clutched at her heart. “Tate, I…” There was too much to say. She didn’t know where to begin.

  He shifted slightly and his face contorted, but he whispered, “It’s just my shoulder. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry so—” He finished with a soft groan.

  “Shoulder?” There was so much blood it was hard to tell where it originated. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded weakly. “It hurts like a bitch, but I think I’ll live.” His eyes focused on her, but she could see the pupils dilating. He was going into shock and he needed immediate attention. His eyes were searching. “Where’s Tanner?”

  “Here, Daddy.”

  Marnie turned to the boy who had crawled up beside her and was chewing on his lower lip as he regarded his injured father. It was hard to imagine the events from his perspective. Marnie had once seen her father take a spill on a patch of ice, and his cry of pain upon hitting his tailbone on the sidewalk had shaken her world and frightened her beyond words. And here was Tanner silently watching his father grimace in pain and descend into shock. Silently watching as a pool of blood congealed beneath the only parent who had ever loved him. Silently facing the unthinkable possibility that his father might be torn away
from him…again.

  She decided Tanner needed something else to focus on. “Take off your shirt, wad it up and press it here.” She helped him strip and quickly showed him how to apply pressure to slow the bleeding. “Good,” she encouraged him. “That’s very good. Now, you look after your dad for a minute while I talk to Pete.”

  He blinked uncertainly. “I don’t know…”

  She reassured him, “You can do this, Tanner. Your dad needs you.” She had a sense that Tanner needed to be near his father and he needed to feel useful.

  Tate’s whisper caught her off guard. “She’s right, Tanner. I need you more than you’ll ever know.”

  Tanner gazed down at his father and took a deep breath. “Okay.” He nodded once. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  Suddenly feeling like an intruder, she kissed Tate quickly on the forehead. “You’ve gotta stop getting shot, cowboy. It’s a nasty habit.”

  He smiled but his eyes were on his son.

  She stood and found Pete beside her. She glanced around and took in the flurry of activity. On the shore a swarm of cops were rounding the boarded-up building. She thought she caught sight of Don among them. At the far end of the dock, another man in a wet suit and scuba gear had joined Kyle beside Calvin’s body. They were concentrating on the corpse, but she saw Kyle cast a worried glance in Tate’s direction. Faye was curled in a ball on the dock, a few feet away from Tate. She was weeping hysterically, but Marnie didn’t feel even the slightest tug of sympathy for her.

  Pete cut into her thoughts. “The ambulance is on the way. There was one standing by. It’ll just be a minute.”

  “Thanks, Pete.” She glanced quickly at Tate to make sure he was still awake before urging Pete away out of Tanner’s earshot. “Tate says it’s his shoulder but I’m still worried.” She frowned up at the enormous man who towered over her. “How did he talk you into this? Are you nuts? He’s not a cop. He’s not—”

  “Hold it,” Pete chuckled. “He’s a big boy. He’s the one who insisted on playing the hero.”

  “Hero? I—”

  Pete’s hand lashed out and grabbed her arm. He dragged her to the side and had his gun drawn in a heartbeat.

  Stunned and confused, she looked in the direction that his gun was pointing. In a flash an icy fist gripped her heart and she dropped to her knees because her legs refused to hold her.

  “Drop it, Faye!” yelled Pete. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Apparently, no one had seen Faye as a threat. Everyone had forgotten that she still possessed the .38 she had lifted from Tate. In the commotion she had crawled, unnoticed, over to Tate. Tanner had backed away a few feet and was staring in horror at the woman who was holding a gun to his father’s temple.

  Tate was descending rapidly into shock and seemed only vaguely aware of her presence. Marnie had never felt so powerless. Or so furious.

  “Dammit, Faye!” shouted Pete. The rest of the activity had ceased, leaving only the lap of the waves against the shore. The silence was palpable. “You’re safe now. Calvin’s dead. Don’t be a fool.”

  She shook her head viciously. “It’s not over,” she cried. “I just want it to be over.”

  Tears streamed down Faye’s face as she wrestled with demons that Marnie hoped to never understand.

  Pete took a tentative step forward, the gun still trained on Faye. “Think about this Faye. Think—”

  Marnie’s hand flew to her mouth and her heart stopped beating. Pete halted in his tracks.

  A scant four feet from his mother, Tanner sat, arms outstretched and fingers wrapped around the butt of the .22 that Tate had dropped when he fell. It was aimed at his mother’s heart.

  Tears spilled out of his eyes and Marnie was barely able to hear his words. “I won’t let you, Mommy.” At that moment he sounded so young. But there was a profound anguish in his eyes that Marnie couldn’t begin to comprehend. “I won’t.”

  Faye continued to press the gun to Tate’s temple and did what she did best—she ignored her son. “You should have left me there that day, Tate, honey.” Her voice was intimate, the words apparently intended for her husband alone. “It would have been so much simpler that way.”

  Tate moaned quietly and his eyes flicked to the wife he had never loved. Faye smiled at him—a smile laced with pain and confusion—and Marnie registered an ambiguous movement of Faye’s hands.

  The childish scream and the blast melted together in a mindless cacophony that struck her with the force of a tidal wave.

  Her only thought as she scrambled toward the still form on the dock was that maybe Faye was right. Maybe at last, it was over.

  Chapter Thirty

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Marnie eased open the door to room 413. She peered through the crack and smiled at the twosome snuggled up so cozily on the narrow hospital bed.

  Tanner had barely left his father’s side in the two days since the events on the Jersey shore. Tate had already agreed that Tanner would need some counseling to help him deal with what he had been through and what he had seen. But for now the best therapy was knowing that his father was safe and feeling those strong arms around him. Well, at least one strong arm. Tate’s right arm was incapacitated at the moment and would remain so for several weeks until the muscles in his shoulder had healed well enough to allow movement. But then Marnie looked forward to long sessions of physical therapy followed by extra-long massages.

  The corners of her mouth turned up another notch as she considered that image and allowed the door to ease shut.

  She was startled by the insistent tap on her shoulder.

  “So what’s this all about?” Pete’s deep baritone greeted her ears.

  She turned to face him and wasn’t surprised to see his ubiquitous sidekick hovering in the background. “I’ll explain when everyone’s here.”

  Pete tapped the toe of his boot on the hospital tiles. “So damn mysterious. I hate surprises.”

  “Is Elsie coming?”

  “Yeah. She and Scott should be here any minute.”

  That said, the trio fell into silence.

  At last, Marnie ventured to ask the question that had been burning in her brain ever since that night. “Do you think she was really going to shoot him? Is that why you fired?”

  Pete licked his lips and shifted his gaze to the sunny skies that shone through the window at the far end of the hall. “I’m not sure. I tell myself that, but it’s possible she was about to withdraw the gun. Honestly I don’t know. But there was one thing I did know for certain.”

  When he didn’t continue, Marnie prompted, “Tanner?”

  “Yeah. I knew in another second he’d fire, and I couldn’t let him live with knowing he’d killed his own mother.”

  Marnie nodded silently as she digested that. Perhaps, deep down, she had suspected as much.

  Kyle’s soft voice broke through the silence. “I don’t think she really intended to kill him.”

  Marnie turned to him. “You don’t? Why?”

  “I think what we saw was suicide by cop. She knew there was no way she was walking away from that dock if she killed him. I don’t believe it was an act of hate or passion. I think she couldn’t face the life that waited for her, and I think she lacked the nerve to start shooting at us to draw our fire.”

  “She did hate Tate,” mused Marnie. “She told me as much. Maybe she intended to take him out with her.”

  Pete shrugged. “Maybe. But all that matters is she hesitated. And that was enough to seal her fate and save him.”

  A nurse interrupted their private conference. “Miss Grant?”

  Marnie broke away from the group. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Sail will be here in a few minutes. She just got hung up in ER but she asked me to tell you she’ll be right along.”

  “Thank you.”

  The nurse breezed away and Pete glowered at her. “Doctor? What the hell?”

  “Pete?” They all turned around to see a fine-featured woman
with lustrous dark hair strolling toward them. A young boy clutched her hand as his eyes took in his strange surroundings. She reached them and embraced Pete warmly.

  Pete wrapped an arm around her shoulders and introduced Marnie to Elsie Riven.

  Marnie extended a hand. “I’m so glad you could come. I don’t think you’ll regret it.”

  “This has something to do with Sam?”

  “Yes. Tate promised me—”

  She felt a tug on her blouse. “Marnie?” She was startled to realize the door to Tate’s room had opened and Tanner was grinning up at her.

  “Daddy said to tell you guys to stop yacking and get the hell in there.”

  Marnie tousled his hair. “We’re going to have to wash that man’s mouth out with soap.”

  With those dusky blue eyes twinkling, Tanner grabbed her hand and led her back into the room. Tate was propped up on a mountain of pillows. He still looked pale and drawn, but his eyes held their old spark.

  Marnie crossed to him and planted a wet kiss on his lips. “You ready?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “No. But I’ll do it anyway. I owe them.”

  She stroked a stubbled cheek. “You owe yourself.”

  Marnie pulled away and drew up a chair. She watched in silence as Elsie approached Tate and stood by the bed.

  “Hi, Elsie.” Tate’s voice was uncertain.

  “Tate.” Her eyes were dark and unreadable.

  “It’s okay if you hate me.”

  Elsie frowned and shook her head. “I don’t hate you. I never did. But I would like to understand you.”

  He quirked a half-smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Elsie turned around to sit in the chair Pete had brought her, and Marnie noticed a twosome that had already huddled in the far corner of the room. Tanner and Scott were getting acquainted whether the adults wanted them to or not.

  “So?” asked Pete from his position at the end of the bed. “Let’s get started.”

  Right on cue, the door to the room burst open and a willowy redhead in a lab coat breezed in. “Good morning, all,” she said with a wide smile. She approached the bed directly. “How’s my favorite patient?”