“As I testified, besides verbal cues, I rely on body language, the closed, defensive look liars often use with legs and arms crossed,” Claire explained. “If you mention my website—here’s my card—you’ll find my list of other signs that can suggest a witness, acquaintance or family member is lying. I also—”
A loud crack slammed through the noise. People stopped and looked around and up. Fred let go of her arm and stepped away. Someone screamed, “Gun! Gun!”
People scattered, ducked, shouted. A voice screamed, “Oh. He’s been hit!”
A second shot, a breaking of the sky. Pain, searing pain in her arm, her body, somewhere. Had she fallen into a fire? Was this a narcoleptic nightmare?
She fell back onto the green sea with royal palms swaying overhead, and she was with Jace and Lexi. At the beach by the pier. But the sun burned her skin, her arm.
“Call 9-1-1!” someone shouted.
A man’s deep voice, maybe Jace. But he was flying from LA to Singapore now. No, not Jace bending over her, wrapping his necktie around her upper arm, then pressing his hand hard against her. It was that lawyer, that man who had studied and glared at her when she testified, the one who had cross-examined her. The one who had almost made her doubt her own words. Nick Markwood, still watching her, what she said, her mouth. That mouth—she screamed.
“Don’t move,” he said. “You’ve been shot. I know I’m hurting you, but I have to stop the bleeding. Lie still. Help is coming. Is there a doctor here?” he yelled.
More screaming. Not hers, maybe sirens coming closer. Strobe lights, or was that the sun?
Someone shouted, “Is anyone else down?”
Down? They couldn’t keep her down. Never. But red-sunset blood shone from the man’s shirtsleeves, his hands. Hands on her.
Someone cried, “I think the insurance guy is dead. Did anyone see who shot them?”
“From the parking garage. Didn’t see him. One cop car went after him when he fled...only two shots...”
Searing red burning pain made worse by the man staring down at her, bending over, pressing into her hurt arm. Did he know she could easily fall asleep? Did he know the high school bullies had taunted, “Claire Fowler, Claire Foul-up! Foul-up!” when she’d fallen asleep reading, eating, sitting on the volleyball bench, even standing up? Her disease had ruined her marriage—her fault but Jace’s, too. Would her sister keep Lexi if she died, or would Jace try to take her away, far away?
She heard someone sobbing from fear and pain. It was so close. She guessed it was her.
* * *
Nick Markwood fought to keep Claire Britten conscious, tried to stop the bleeding from her upper left arm. Maybe all the blood made her wound look bigger than it was. He’d seen gunshot wounds before, in his worst nightmares of finding his father, even worse than this.
Now, both of them and the grass were spattered with her blood. She was slender, maybe didn’t have much to lose. Too slender. And that bounty of stunning red hair and alabaster skin stood out in this sunny South Florida of bottled blondes and bronzed skin. With her green eyes, he’d thought she looked like some Irish colleen off a St. Patrick’s Day card, here among the snowbirds and native Floridians. But she had those eyes tight shut now in pain.
In court, he’d had to fight to keep his mind off her looks and on her testimony so he could tear it apart, but she’d torn their case apart. He didn’t need the loss, hated losses. Too many from too far back. But maybe it had all worked out for the best—if she’d trust him and if she didn’t die like her boss who’d been standing close to her. The shooter had been really good. But had he meant to kill them both and just wounded her? He’d evidently blown away Fred Myron with one hit. A shooter out for revenge from Sol Sorento’s big family?
Or—and this scared and angered him too—since he’d been moving close to the two victims, Nick’s next thought had been that the bullets could have been meant for him. Clayton Ames had his ways of ruining things. He must know Nick would never give up his crusade to nail the bastard. Ames and his lackeys managed to wreak havoc and then disappear just that fast. Talk about Sol Sorento vanishing for two years to try to pull off this fraud. The master murderer Clay Ames had reeked of deceit and danger for years but stayed too slippery to prosecute or even locate lately.
Shrill sirens came close, drowning out other voices, even the ones in his head. The court staff and reporters shouted and pointed to bring the rescue squad to Claire. Running steps; the joggling sound of the equipment in their bags. Reporters’ cameras still rolling.
Though they were heading right for them, like some damn idiot, Nick shouted, “Here! Here! She’s shot in the upper left arm and bleeding bad!”
They knelt, bent over her. “Should I let go?” he asked them. “I don’t want to let go.”
“Good job, sir. We’ll take over now,” a medic said. Nick watched as they put a better tourniquet on her and some sort of a plastic patch over the wound. Tears streamed down her cheeks so she was conscious.
Nick sat back on his haunches. His muscles ached. He was a mess. He stood, moved away, ignoring questions shouted at him by the press. He usually kept his comments—especially after losses—to a minimum. They’d done him and his mother no favors when his dad died. Talk about blood on someone’s hands...
Sean, one of his associates, pulled him away, but he didn’t want to go. Nick wanted to know she’d be all right. If he hadn’t wanted to talk to her, he wouldn’t have been near her when she was hit. But he needed to make her an offer she could not refuse.
Police pushed everyone back, wound some police tape between a courthouse pillar and two royal palms. He watched the second rescue squad bend over the dead man, feel for a pulse, then stand, whispering, shaking their heads. One guy got on his cell, probably to the ME. A police officer of the growing number of them covered Fred Myron with a body bag, but they didn’t move him yet.
They were getting ready to move her already, Claire Fowler Britten, the sharp little expert who had done his case in with her clever questioning of Sorento’s family and her steady testimony he couldn’t shake. He wanted her for that.
He let Sean carry his briefcase and started dazedly toward the parking garage before he saw that was being cordoned off, too. He got only a few steps before one of the officers hurried up and asked, “Did you see the shooter, counselor? Anything that would help?”
“Nothing. I was going to talk to her—the forensic psychologist. Tell her she’d done a good job. I—I was looking at her. I saw her go down from the shot, tried to help her.”
“You did. They’re taking her to the hospital downtown.”
“Did they say she’ll be okay?”
“We’ll know soon. We’ve got to notify Mr. Myron’s next of kin, then notify hers. It’s bad when NOK learn things from the media, and they’re all over here.”
“You know I’m available if you have more questions,” Nick said.
He had already checked out where Claire lived, an attached villa in the Lakewood area, evidently so she could be near her younger sister, Darcy, who did her daughter’s child care. He’d researched Claire’s family, education, marital status. Divorced for a year with a four-year-old daughter. Her ex, Jason “Jace” Britten, was an international airline co-pilot living in Los Angeles and sometimes Singapore, though he kept an apartment here in Naples. Nick had wanted to move on his plan—on her, but this was sure screwing up his schedule. Claire Fowler Britten might have gotten the best of him in the courtroom, but he had to get the best out of her and soon.
* * *
Jace Britten