HAYDEN (Dragon Security Book 5) (14 page)

Megan

I ran into the hospital, praying aloud that what I’d been told over the phone was a mistake. Dominic called me and told me something that was completely unbelievable. I couldn’t even begin to wrap my mind around it or hold on to it long enough to allow myself to absorb it.

Sam was dead.

“She was shot. Some guy from Hayden’s past. He pulled a gun on the street and Sam got in the way.”

Sam was dead. My friend… I couldn’t.

There were people standing everywhere in the waiting room, faces I neither knew nor could focus on long enough to comprehend. I needed to find Hayden. That was my sole purpose, the reason I was there, and the only reason I was taking breath after breath. I had to find Hayden.

I heard his voice first.

“I don’t understand. It was a gun wound. I’ve seen those a hundred times over. She shouldn’t have bled out like that; she shouldn’t have gone like…”

“I’m sorry, sir. Like I said, if her heart hadn’t been so damaged—”

“Her heart was fine. Her heart was perfect.”

I saw them, standing in a long, narrow corridor. Dominic and Vincent and Marcus were there—and Hayden. There was blood on the back of his shirt, blood splattered across the front, too. His hands…he was holding a bloody piece of cloth between his hands, clinging to it as if it meant everything to him.

So much blood.

“Sir, your fiancée was in congestive heart failure. Her heart simply wasn’t strong enough to survive the trauma of the gunshot wound.”

“But it was just her belly.”

The doctor opened his mouth to speak again, but he didn’t have all the information. Only I did.

“Myocarditis,” I said, my voice nothing more than a croak. I tried again, forcing myself to speak up. “She had myocarditis.”

Hayden spun around on his heel, a murderous look on his face. “What?”

The doctor simply nodded. “That would definitely explain it.”

They were all staring at me now, these big, powerful men who worked for me and had always made me feel powerful and safe. Now they made me feel small and vulnerable.

“Sam had myocarditis, an inflammation of the muscle of her heart. It caused her heart to weaken.” Tears started to roll down my cheeks as I realized that I’d spoken of her in the past tense. I shook my head, my eyes moving to the ceiling as I struggled to get control of myself. “Her heart was failing. They put her on the transplant list, but her tissue type…”

I couldn’t. The doctor silently looked away as Marcus, Vincent, Dominic and Hayden watched me, disbelief on their faces.

“She was dying.”

Hayden shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

“She didn’t want to tell you. She didn’t want it to change the way you looked at her.”

Hayden shook his head again. Then he turned and stormed off, rushing down the corridor, away from us. I wanted to go after him, but I was rooted to the floor. And then it hit me like a meteor falling from the sky.

Sam was gone.

I fell. I don’t know why. I fell and Dominic caught me.

Hayden

“Meet me for lunch?”

I loved that she wrote the text like a question. Anyone else would have simply made it as a statement. She had to have known I wouldn’t say no.

Perfect…that’s what I thought. We could meet for lunch and I’d ask her to marry me over fajitas at our favorite Mexican place.

I had the ring in my pocket, and I’d been pacing in front of the place for twenty minutes, rehearsing what I would say.

Sam, I love you. I know you love me. It may seem sudden, but we’ve known each other three years, and I can’t imagine needing any more time to know that you’re the one. Will you marry me?

I sounded lame, but it was the best thing I could come up with.

And then I saw her. She looked so weak and tired. But there was this light in her eyes…it transformed her. She was already beautiful, but that look made her even more so. Angelic, almost.

Ironic that that thought would cross my mind in that moment.

And then she was in my arms and she was smiling and I was torn between this overwhelming sense of love and this fear that there was something truly wrong with her.

I played it over and over again in my head, that last moment: the feel of her in my arms, the taste of her sweat when I kissed her forehead. She was cold. I didn’t understand it. It was a warm afternoon for January. But she was cold, her forehead and her hands. She wanted to go inside, but I was wondering if we needed to head over to the hospital. And then…

I wasn’t even aware of what she was doing. I didn’t feel the threat. I was so focused on her—on the paleness of her skin, the blue around her lips, and the cold in her touch. It was as if she were already gone, she just hadn’t realized it yet.

I hated that thought. I hated it with a passion.

And then she was falling and people were screaming, and a face from my past…

Why did I ignore those phone calls? Why didn’t I take a second to speak to them? If I had, maybe I would have known that he’d broken the rules of his parole, and that he was headed to Houston to find me. If I had, I would have known that they found materials in his cell after they released him, news clippings that marked the highlights of my life: minor achievements in high school, my decision to go into the military instead of accepting the invitation to attend my father’s alma mater, Stanford University, the small blurb in a smaller column of the local paper that announced my separation from the Navy and decision to settle in Houston.

He’d found me without really trying. And now he was here, once again taking away the only family I had.

She smiled as she bled out, whispering words I couldn’t hear.

What had she said? All I heard was my name as the light slowly faded from her eyes.

I slammed my hand into the tiles glued to the hospital wall, not even feeling the pain. Again and again, slamming my hand, but I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything but this huge emptiness deep inside of me.

Sam was dead. She died in my arms.

Once again, I stood there and watched someone I loved die and did nothing about it.

Dominic tried to talk to me, but I just stared blankly into his eyes, not sure why I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Marcus, too, put his hand on my shoulder, and there were words flowing from his lips, but all I could hear was Sam’s voice, garbled and too weak to truly understand.

But it was there, whispering in my ear.

I walked away. I needed to be alone.

I walked blindly through the corridors, brushing past people with a purpose, who were simply trying to do their jobs. A part of me kept wondering why they were in such a hurry. The world had just ended. Didn’t they know that?

Somehow I found myself outside the door where they took her. I stood there a long time, the image of her bloody body on that gurney burned into my head. She was wearing this delicate little pink bra, part of a set she’d shown me when she got back from New York. She was so proud of herself, but embarrassed at the same time. It was adorable. And there it was, no longer pink, but a wet, dark, red. Her shirt was gone, balled up in my hands. I’d ripped it away to use it as a bandage, as bulk that might help stop the flow of blood from her abdomen.

It was still in my hands, that shirt, her blood drying on the material, flaking off onto my hands.

A woman’s voice made a low, sobbing noise.

“Sam?”

I pushed open the door, the irrational part of me expecting her to suddenly sit up and look at me with that light still in her eyes. But there was no light in her eyes.

Sam’s body was laid out on the same gurney I’d seen before, but someone had cleaned her up, wiped the blood from her skin and covered her with a clean sheet. Her face… I couldn’t quite look at it. That wasn’t the Sam I’d known.

Megan knelt beside the far side of the bed, her head resting on Sam’s lifeless hand. She was sobbing. For some reason, that broke through the daze I was in. I’d never seen Megan cry before. Not when Luke left, or even when Peter died. But she was nearly hysterical in grief now.

I went to her and carefully pulled her up to her feet.

“I can’t,” she whispered after a while. “I can’t do this. I can’t wrap my head around this.”

I just held her, trying hard not to look at Sam’s lifeless body on the gurney.

Sam was a beautiful woman. She was a woman full of life. This wasn’t my Sam.

I stared at the man sitting across a massive desk in front of me, his face a study in compassion. I found myself wondering how dull it got, dealing with grief all the time.

“I understand the deceased had a funeral plan already drawn up.”

Megan nodded. “She was very specific about what she wanted.”

The funeral director tented his fingers as he studied us. “That always makes things easier.”

“It’s not to make things easier. It’s to honor her wishes,” I said.

Megan reached over and put a restraining hand on my knee. I knew I was being an ass, but I was pretty sure I had a good reason to be.

“Is it a prepaid funeral plan?”

Megan began to dig in her bag. “I’ll pay for it.”

“No.” It was my turn to put a restraining hand on her. “I will.”

“Hayden—”

But I wasn’t going to hear it. I handed the funeral director a credit card I’d already had in my hand. “You do everything she asked for. I don’t care what it costs.”

“Yes, sir, but I must warn you—”

“Anything.”

I said it forcefully, staring the man in the eye. He inclined his head, clearly aware of when to argue and when to shut the hell up.

“Well, I’ll give you a minute to look at the caskets we offer.”

He got up and walked away. Megan leaned over and whispered, “You don’t have to do this. I promised Sam I would take care of everything.”

“I want to.”

“But, Hayden—”

“I can afford it, Megan. Let me do this.”

She studied my face for a long minute, and then she just nodded. She reached over the desk to get the book of caskets, but the moment she opened it, she backed away like it was on fire.

“I…I…”

“I know.”

I picked up the book and began to look through it, my heart burning with a pain I’d never felt before. But I did it, searching for the casket that seemed most like my Sam. It was toward the back, a pretty pearl inlaid casket with soft pink silk on the inside. It was the perfect representation of Sam. Innocent and beautiful.

The funeral director came back and I pointed it out to him. The rest was just formalities, signing the paperwork and setting the time for the viewing later that evening. Megan and I left, hand in hand.

“I didn’t think I’d have to do that again for a long time, you know? When Peter died, my parents couldn’t face this part, so I had to do it.”

“I remember.”

“When Sam told me…” she choked a little.

I slid my arm around her even though I wanted to throw up. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. My appetite was gone. Why eat when my life was over? So there wasn’t likely much to throw up, anyway.

We drove back to her house. I couldn’t stand the idea of going to my place and there was no reason to go to Sam’s. The clothes she was going to be put in for the viewing were already there—we’d brought them with us.

“You called her mom?” I asked.

Megan nodded. “From the hospital.”

“But she didn’t bother to come see her?”

She shrugged. “She’s not a sentimental woman.”

“She’s a narcissistic bitch.”

Megan snorted, but she didn’t look upset. In fact, it was the first smile I’d seen since…

“You’ve met her.”

“On Christmas.”

She nodded as she fell onto the couch, pulling her knees up against her chest. “I should have known. Sam never went a Christmas without having dinner with her mother. She even dragged me along a few times. But her mother didn’t like me.”

“Yeah, I got that feeling. She had some unkind words for you while I was there. She blamed you for the way Sam dressed, the way she behaved, the fact that she no longer attends church…”

Megan nodded, tears filling her eyes as she laid her head on her knees. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I told her you should know, but she was afraid you would look at her differently.”

“I’m sorry she didn’t trust me enough to tell me. If I’d known…”

If I’d known, what would I have done? I wasn’t sure. If I’d known our time was running short…

The police called me this morning. Some Good Samaritan had chased down the man who did this and tackled him a block from the restaurant. They arrested him and charged him with murder in the first degree. There were enough witnesses, they told me, that there was very little chance he’d get off on this one. He was going back to prison for the rest of his life.

That wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted him dead.

The viewing was crowded. Everyone who’d ever worked for Dragon was there, even some of the monitor girls who’d moved on to different jobs for one reason or another. Cole and Amber were there, standing off to one side with Mr. and Mrs. Bradford. Dominic and Amy stayed close to Megan. Vincent and Quinn and Marcus and Cadence were hovering here and there, moving between Megan and me, trying to be helpful but really just annoying the shit out of me.

There were other people I didn’t know. I found myself wondering what I didn’t know about Sam and which of these people were important to her, but I wasn’t aware of it.

The casket was open. Sam’s hair was brushed out smooth, divided and laying on her shoulders. There was a thick layer of makeup on her face in an attempt to make her look like she had when she was healthy and happy. She was wearing a soft green dress she’d not had the chance to wear in life, a simple summer dress with a wide sash, short skirt, and thick straps that held up the sweetheart bodice. All I could think when I looked at her was how beautiful she had been when she unpacked that dress from the bags she’d brought from New York, laughter filling the room as I commented on each purchase. She was so excited. So happy.

It killed a piece of my soul to see it now.

Mrs. Wagner arrived, making the first appearance since Sam’s death. Everyone watched as she walked up to the casket, hidden in an oversized black dress and a hat with a thin, black veil. She stood at the side of the casket for a long second, her hands resting on the pink silk. Then she turned and stared at Megan.

“Was this you? Are you the one that dressed my daughter like a harlot?”

Megan stepped close to Mrs. Wagner and whispered something I couldn’t hear.

“This is not what my daughter would have wanted. Not before she met you, anyway!”

Cole made a beeline for his sister, but I was closer. I grabbed Mrs. Wagner by the arm and dragged her out of the room, much to the shock of most of the people present.

“Sam may have allowed you to speak that way to her before, but I won’t. You will
not
talk that way about her.”

“Look at you,” she scoffed. “My daughter’s lover, the man who used her as though she were some cheap whore living on the street!”

“For your information, I loved your daughter. We were to be married. And I would have given her a much better life than the one you gave her.”

Mrs. Wagner stared at me. “Over my dead body.”

“That’s the way it should have been.”

She stared at me, her eyes wide with shock. Dominic came over, his hand on my arm.

“I think that’s enough,” he said softly.

But then Mrs. Wagner dissolved. She literally just melted right there in front of me. Sobs wracked her body as her knees went weak. She fell into me and I had no choice but to scoop her up and carry her over to a couch set in the long hallway where we were standing.

“My baby’s dead,” she moaned. “My baby…she was all I had and she’s gone. I don’t understand…”