Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

satisfaction . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I’d label it “comfort”. I envy you, in a way. You got the closure most victims can only dream about. And whether you accept it or not, you were fighting to survive. It’s a basic instinct. It’s only after the fact that we question our motives. You killed him before he killed you. End of story. If I were in your shoes, I’d consider the satisfaction at the neck-snapping memory as a gift.’
    He closed his eyes. ‘I never thought about it that way.’
    ‘Well, you should. What happened after that?’
    ‘I found a phone. Called for help, hoped the police could trace our location, because I didn’t know where we were. I went back to Jo, tried to stop her bleeding but I couldn’t, so I just held her. She stopped breathing, but I couldn’t let her go. I just held her as her blood drained away and there wasn’t anything I could do.’
    ‘Oh, Joseph.’ Her lips trembled.
    ‘I don’t know how long I sat there, but I heard a noise. The second guy had come back for the first, taken one look at the scene and charged me, his gun drawn. He fired, twice. Hit me once. I tackled him before he could fire again and we fought for his gun. I grabbed his hand, got control of the gun.’ He paused. And sighed. ‘I could have thrown the gun away but I didn’t. I forced his hand so that he jammed the barrel into his own gut. And I made him squeeze the trigger. Just as the cops burst in.’
    ‘What did they see?’
    ‘Me, fighting for my life.’
    ‘Which you were, Joseph.’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘I’ll ask again. If he’d won the fight, what would he have done? Left you alive to identify him?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then you did what you had to.’
    ‘I could have held him off till the cops came.’
    ‘Did you know they were coming at that moment?’
    His eyes flickered. The notion surprised him. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t.’
    ‘You were wounded too. Bleeding, right?’
    Again the flicker. ‘Yes.’
    ‘How long were you in the hospital afterward?’
    ‘Two weeks.’
    ‘Because your injuries were that bad. So could you really have held him off for long? And if he wrested control, what would he have done to you?’ She gave him a moment to consider it before answering the question herself. ‘He would have grabbed the gun and finished the job. You’d seen him. He had the money with him. He wasn’t going to let you live from the beginning, Joseph.’
    ‘You make it sound so simple.’
    ‘Because it is. You’re making this harder than it needs to be.’
    His brow furrowed slightly. ‘Someone else said that to me recently. Someone smarter than me.’ He reached up, smoothed the hair away from her face. ‘I wasn’t fighting for my life that day, Daphne, no matter what you think. I was fighting for their deaths, because at that moment my life was gone. Holding Jo as she died . . . It was like my life drained away with hers. I didn’t care about living for a long, long time after that. Everything was dark. All the color was gone. If I hadn’t had my family and my job . . .’
    ‘Finding other people’s missing loved ones?’
    ‘It gave me a reason to want to wake up in the morning. And little by little the darkness faded.’ One side of his mouth lifted. ‘To sepia, maybe. But there was never color. Until one day . . .’
    His eyes were on hers and she knew this was one of those moments she’d carry with her always. She held her breath, waiting for it. ‘One day?’ she whispered.
    ‘One day I looked up and saw this . . . goddess walking up to my brother’s front door in a lime green suit and legs up to her shoulders. And it was like I’d just been dropped from Kansas into Oz. Brilliant, bold color where there had been none. Warmth when I’d been so cold. My heart . . . started beating again.’
    Her heart stuttered, her eyes filling. ‘Joseph.’
    He tugged her head down until she covered his mouth with hers. The kiss was lush and utterly lovely. ‘How many people are in this bed now, Daphne?’
    ‘Just you and me.’
    ‘Good. Then let’s go to sleep. Just you and me. No more nightmares tonight.’
    Baltimore, Maryland, Thursday, December 5, 6.00 A.M.
    Cole woke slowly, his neck so stiff that he winced. The floor was hard and cold and he hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time all night because Kimberly wouldn’t shut the hell up. Finally, out of self-preservation, he’d duct-taped her mouth shut.
    He sat up, rubbing his