Bojan, page 17
She looked at him. “He won’t hurt me.”
“He already has,” he reminded her.
But she shook her head and glared at him. “He didn’t mean to.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Bojan said, “because, if he ever means to, I rather imagine he’ll kill you.”
Chapter 10
Lacy checked in on Leia a little bit later and found her sitting upstairs on her deck with a book. “Ready for a cup of tea?”
“Maybe. It’s either that or a divorce.” Leia groaned.
At that, Lacy burst out laughing.
“I suppose you think it’s funny,” Leia grumbled, with a weak smile.
“As you and I both know, nothing is quite like pregnant women when dealing with problems blowing up in your face.”
“No kidding.” Leia sighed. “I probably should apologize, but, at the same time, I don’t really want to.”
Lacy grinned at her. “I understand the sentiment. Everybody also understands how you’re feeling, and it’s really not a big deal right now,” she murmured.
“No, but I still feel guilty.”
“Of course you do. But they will fix this, one way or another. I know that right now we have multiple teams out looking for this shooter.” Then she went on to explain the little bits she had heard through the grapevine.
At that, Leia nodded. “Bullard did fill me in on the progress they’ve made,” she acknowledged, “so I know that they’re on it. It’s just frustrating. I really just wanted this time to peacefully nest. Instead we have all this strife and fear, which is the last thing my babies and I need.”
“Right, you’ve been through enough of that already,” Lacy stated. “So put your faith in Bullard and the team. Chill out, relax, and don’t get upset about it. We are getting it solved.”
Leia smiled at her. “I was wondering about going for a swim. What do you think?”
“I think you should,” she agreed, “and I’ll come with you.”
“Why? To keep an eye on me?” she joked.
“Partially, yes,” she admitted. “I would hate to see you fall or get into trouble with that belly of yours right now. Other than that, I’m always first in the pool.”
“You really do enjoy it, don’t you?”
“Yes, I would love to be at a lake or on the ocean, but a pool still gives you that extra few months to swim during the summer season. I thoroughly enjoy a chance to relax, and it helps me to destress.”
“Okay, that’s it then. Let’s head to the pool. Maybe we’ll take a pitcher of lemonade or something out with us.”
“Sounds good,” Lacy agreed.
As she went to leave, Leia called out, “Do you know where the men are now?”
She turned to face Leia. “All over the place. Why? Did you want anybody in particular?”
“No, I just wondered if you’ve picked up anything from Bojan.”
“I know that he’s going from house to house, checking out where our shooter might be holed up, and that’s apparently been a bit of a problem. Charlie was last seen this morning, when he left his girlfriend’s place after beating her up in a temper fit.”
At that, Leia stared at her. “Would you … You would tell me if this guy was on his way, right?”
Lacy nodded. “If I knew, I would tell you,” she declared, trying to appear calm and to ignore the fear setting in, “but there is no guarantee I would know. My visions are kind of hit and miss. Sometimes they don’t make sense, until in hindsight.”
Leia’s shoulders slumped. “Right, there are never answers when you want them.”
“Well, there are always answers, but we can’t just pull them out of a hat whenever we want to. Just because we want answers doesn’t mean we get them.”
“Of course not,” Leia muttered, followed by half a sigh.
“What we’re really trying to figure out is where Charlie will go from there, and that’s not our problem. It’s theirs,” she stated.
Leia laughed, trying to discard her worry. “Fine, I’ll get changed and come down.”
“Do you want me to wait up here for you?”
Leia frowned at her in surprise. “Are you going to get changed?”
“I am.”
“Go get changed then and come back here,” she suggested.
And, with that, the two women split up. Lacy raced to her room, called Dave to give him the heads-up on their location change, then quickly put on her bathing suit, grabbed a coverup for when she was out in the sun, and then walked back over to Leia. “You’re getting around pretty well, considering how chunky you are,” Lacy teased, with a chuckle.
“Chunky. … That is one way to put it,” Leia muttered. “I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with pregnancies, and I’ve seen an awful lot of big bellies, but it’s different when it’s not your own, and you don’t have that same experience.”
“Absolutely,” Lacy confirmed, with a smile. “But now you’re the pregnant one, and it’s something you’ve always wanted. It’s a gift, so let’s enjoy every moment.”
She laughed. “Well, you can enjoy every moment of it. … You’re not pregnant.” Then she shot Lacy a look. “You’re not, are you?”
At that, Lacy shook her head. “Definitely not pregnant.”
“I don’t know whether I should say sorry or congratulations.”
Lacy burst out laughing. “It’s all good, so, if and when I ever get there, hopefully I will enjoy the process. But, until then, it’s really not the right time.”
“It will be though,” Leia said. “You guys are doing so much better.”
“We just need some time now,” she noted.
“That’s right. Time to yourselves and time to sort out all that has happened in your lives. It’s incredible to think about what you’ve already been through.”
Lacy snorted. “Not so much, and, if you put it on the scale, compared to what other people have experienced, it’s not much at all. You’ve been through an awful lot more. It just looks different when it’s not our own life. I mean, we lived it, so it becomes almost normal. Yet, to other people, it seems pretty crazy.”
At the pool, the two women carefully made their way into the water, and, while Leia did a bit of floating, Lacy swam. By the time she had worked out some of the kinks in her shoulders, she was more than ready to come out.
Leia was still sitting in the shallow end of the pool, watching Lacy.
When Lacy came up for the last time, she smiled at Leia and asked, “Are you ready to get out?”
Leia gave her a tired nod. “I wasn’t sure I could make it out of here on my own, though,” she admitted.
“You should have stopped me earlier,” Lacy scolded. “I wouldn’t have minded at all.”
“But you were doing so well,” Leia pointed out. “And that at least made me feel good, living vicariously through you, as you swam like the fish you are. I swim very well myself, just not when I’m the size of a whale.”
All the size jokes were fun and games, but still they made Lacy worry that Leia was really struggling with her pregnancy. “You’re really okay to be in this condition, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Leia declared, looking straight at Lacy. “I know I joke about it, but there’s really not an upside to being this size and shape. I’m spending half my day running to the bathroom. I haven’t seen my toes in months and can’t put on my shoes without Bullard’s help,” she noted with laugh, “but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“Good, you had me worried there for a minute.”
“No, no concerns at all. Except I’m really wishing we had brought some lemonade out with us.”
“I agree, and I can go get it. I don’t know how many people are inside, but I sure don’t want to start calling people to haul stuff out here.”
“That’s exactly what Bullard would expect you to do.”
“He can expect what he likes, but I’m still freely independent,” Lacy muttered. She looked around at the far side of the compound where the wall and trees were. “I don’t even know if anybody is out there or not.”
“You would hope so, at least as far as the good guys are concerned, but it’s hard to say,” Leia muttered. “As long as nobody bothers us, I’m good.”
“Well, he did buy that extra swath of land to please you,” Lacy said.
“You mean to please himself,” she corrected, with a big laugh. “He’s been talking about buying that property forever. This just gave him a good excuse to do so.”
After retrieving the lemonade, the two of them relaxed, with the icy-cold pitcher between them, as they napped, read books, and generally relaxed.
Lacy sat up with a jolt as a voice slammed into her head. She started looking around for Bojan. “Bojan, are you here?” she asked, certain that she heard someone calling out loud. When Leia looked over at her, Lacy frowned, got up, and explained, “I thought I heard something.”
“Sounded like you thought you heard Bojan,” Leia said in a teasing voice. “Right? You would think that that would be something there would be no doubt about.”
Lacy sent out another call to Bojan, this time in her head, and he responded back, frustrated and impatient, and Lacy realized it wasn’t him calling for her. “Sorry, I thought you called me,” she replied, then quickly closed the door between them. She looked around, wondering what the devil she’d heard. She walked into the kitchen, and Pia was there working away on dinner. Lacy then walked into the dining room and found it was empty. Bullard was on the phone in his office, and there was a general sense of activity. At least here. With teams out looking for Charlie, there was a general sense that the property was largely empty.
Suddenly she worried that this guy might have found a way to enter the compound and was even now inside the walls, while the teams were searching for him on the outside. She quickly hurried back to Leia, not wanting to leave her alone. As she stepped outside, Leia looked at her, terrified, while a man held a gun to her head. Lacy froze and then carefully walked toward him. “Hey, Charlie,” she greeted him, with a gentle smile.
He looked up at her and glared, almost terrified, yet furious. “I killed you,” he snarled.
She nodded. “You did, but I’m back,” she murmured. “So I’m sorry if you think that killing me gets rid of the ghosts in your life, but it doesn’t. It just makes us angry.”
He waved the gun in her direction, and thankfully it was now away from Leia’s head.
Lacy immediately started slamming out requests to Bojan and Terkel to notify Bullard that they were in trouble. She even reached out to Pia and slammed a message into his brain, but, whether he got it or not, she wasn’t sure. She walked closer to Charlie, and he pointed the gun at her.
“I’ll kill you again,” he spat.
She shrugged. “You can try, but I’m already dead. What’s the point of wasting the bullet?”
He blinked a few times, staring at her.
“Did you take your medicine today? Your sister says that you’re supposed to take your medicine all the time, right?”
He shook his head. “You’re not my sister.”
“No, I’m not your sister, but she’s here with you. You know that, right? I mean, think about it. If I’m here, then surely she’s got to be here, especially since she loves you so much.”
He shook his head. “No, she’s not here. She’s dead.”
“Yeah, well, you already shot me dead, and I’m here,” Lacy argued, “so what makes you think your sister’s not here too?” She knew this talk would confuse the man and was hoping that would buy her some time. She continued to walk around the pool, as he watched her with glaring eyes. “Why would you want to hurt Leia?” Lacy asked. “She’s done nothing to you.”
“Because of Bullard,” he roared, the gun turning back toward Leia again.
Lacy reached out with her mind and pushed at the air around Leia, trying to create a protective bubble around her. It would probably be easier to shift the air in front of the actual gun muzzle itself, but Charlie kept moving it erratically, and that made it hard for her to keep her energy stable.
Bojan slammed into her brain, asking what was going on.
She gave him a disjointed version, but added, We’re in trouble. The gunman’s here.
On our way.
“Yeah, too late,” she murmured, and then she refocused on Charlie. “Your sister loved you. She loved you to bits. She didn’t love Bullard. She loved her boyfriend.”
Charlie’s face twisted with fury. “I told her that he was no good, that she knew better.”
“She might have known better, but, when you love somebody, it doesn’t matter whether you know better or not,” Lacy replied. “It’s definitely not something you can control all the time.”
“That’s not true,” he cried out. “She loved Bullard.”
“No, she didn’t. She’s the one who broke it off.” She wasn’t exactly sure how that had worked but knew that Bullard believed something along that line.
“It doesn’t matter,” Charlie snapped. “She was with Bullard, so he should have looked after her.”
“Ah, you mean, if Bullard had looked after her, she wouldn’t have gotten sick? Is that it?” she asked, her voice soft. “That kind of makes sense in a way.”
He nodded. “Exactly.” Charlie waved the gun between Lacy and Leia. “So it’s his fault. You see that, right?”
“Well, it’s not his fault, but you’re looking for somebody to blame, so he’ll do nicely, I gather.” She looked down at Leia to see the fear and terror in her eyes. In the distance overhead she saw somebody in the trees, but he wasn’t moving, and now she was worried Charlie had hired a backup to stand out there as well.
She looked back at him. “How many people have you hurt, trying to make Bullard pay for something he didn’t do?” she asked him. “Did you hurt this other man too?”
He just stared at her. “Didn’t hurt him. I just knocked him out.”
“So, knocking him out didn’t hurt him?” she asked curiously, wondering just how damaged Charlie’s mind was.
“No, it didn’t hurt him.” Charlie shrugged. “But, if it did, too bad!”
“Too bad, huh? I’m not sure there’s any brain damage at all when I look at you,” she shared, keeping her focus on him. “Everything outside seems just fine. You’re just angry because things didn’t happen the way you wanted them to. Was it because of your sister loving another man or because your sister got sick?” she murmured. “But you know full well that Bullard didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Bullard is responsible,” he yelled, using the gun for emphasis on certain words. “No way he isn’t,” he muttered. “I’ll make him pay. He took my sister from me, so I’ll take his love from him.”
“Oh, well, that would be me,” Lacy declared. “But you already killed me, remember?” He looked so confused for a moment that she almost felt sorry for him. But, at the same time, Lacy was busy rolling the energy up around Leia, hoping desperately that she could protect her friend from a bullet. Lacy wasn’t sure that was even possible, but she was hoping so. By the time Charlie figured it out, it would be too late, and somebody else would be out here to help. Unfortunately, Charlie wasn’t buying her version of events.
“Bullard is to blame!” he roared.
At that, the door behind him slammed open, and Bullard himself stepped out. “Charlie, if I’m to blame, why the hell aren’t you trying to shoot me then?” His own bullish roar made the air split with his fury. “How dare you come back after my wife.”
Charlie looked at him and almost cringed. The gun came up with the same bravado, as he glared at him. “It’s your fault!” he roared. “She’s dead because of you.”
“I did not cause her heart to have a stroke,” Bullard yelled back, and then his voice softened. “Jesus, man, we were friends.”
“Until you killed my sister.”
Bullard just looked at him, as if trying to figure out how to get through to Charlie.
Lacy sent a probe out, trying to see if she could get inside his brain, but everything there didn’t seem to fit properly. She couldn’t see the damage on the outside, but, on the inside, it was way worse. “What happened to your head?” she asked. He looked at her, then back at Bullard and didn’t say anything. “It was a war wound?”
“Originally, yes. But then there was a car accident,” he admitted reluctantly. “They said I would never be back to normal.”
“That’s not very fair, is it?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Without my sister, it doesn’t matter at all.”
It was obvious that the grief was overtaking him, as he began to sob. Bullard took several steps toward him, but the gun came up once again.
“No, you don’t,” Charlie yelled. “You’re not getting out of this one.”
“I don’t care what you do to me,” Bullard said desperately, “but I don’t want you hurting Leia.”
“I didn’t want you hurting my sister either,” Charlie snarled. “That didn’t matter to you, did it?”
There really was no helping a broken mind, and Lacy knew that. However, she’d been hoping to avoid any kind of massive argument. It was obvious from Charlie’s reaction that he wanted blood, and it must be Leia’s blood to make him happy. Lacy looked down at Leia and smiled at her reassuringly. She looked back toward the house to see Pia staring out, watching in shock, his phone to his ear. Bojan was in the back of her head, telling her to hold on, that he was almost there. She was telling him to go to the back of the property. That’s where she could see somebody half in and half out of the tree, maybe Charlie’s accomplice.
He barked back, inside her mind. I don’t give a damn about the tree or whoever is in it. You hold on.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m already good as dead,” she muttered calmly.
At Bojan’s shock, she almost smiled. She looked over at the gunman and sent a wave of loving energy toward Charlie, but it came up against nothing but cold darkness. She frowned at that because it wasn’t something she was used to feeling, certainly not when it came to using her energy in hospital settings. Most times, when working on healing somebody, she found at least a level of receptivity that she could work with. Yet, in this case, it seemed like everything was blocked; everything was locked down tight.
