Authors: Eileen Dreyer
Stun gun.
Jesus, she thought, twisting around for it even as the big guy finally made up his mind and went after her again. Wrapping her hand around the gun and flipping off the safety, Molly did her best to roll free.
He anticipated her this time. He got her by the hair and pulled. It was Molly's turn to shriek. She came completely off the ground when he pulled. She found herself damn near eye to eye with him for the briefest of seconds, and saw that she'd finally succeeded. The mask was off. The man who was trying to kill her had a face damn near as ugly as Magnum's. But she didn't know him. Oddly enough, it relieved her.
He was raising his other hand, the one with the gun in it. He was going to hit her harder this time, and she wasn't going to get another chance. When his hand came up, she wedged hers straight up the center of his chest. Jammed it against his neck. Hit the trigger.
The stun gun buzzed like a mechanical wasp in full rage. Molly's assailant jumped as if he'd been hit with a defibrillator. Stiffened. His eyes rolled, and he went down like a sequoia. Pulling herself free just in time, Molly grabbed the edge of the counter to keep herself upright. Then she bent to retrieve the gun.
The other gunman was hopping around over by the family room, trying to keep hold of his gun as he clutched at his eyes and shrilled. When Molly looked to see why, she saw that Frank, instead of being dead, was slumped against the cabinets, her can of pepper spray in his hand, his chest glistening and dark with blood. Gene had disappeared.
"Goddamn it, Frank," she muttered, suddenly shaking and terrified as she stumbled over to yank the gun away from the second attacker. "What was that all about?"
"You really do bring out the worst in me, Saint Molly," Frank challenged with a wry grin, even though that grin was playing across an ashen mouth. He was pale and sweaty and bleeding. "Do you realize I made it all the way through Nam without so much as a rug burn? A couple of weeks with you, and I'm lying in a pool of my own blood. I don't think I want to make a habit of this."
"Me, either," she admitted, tossing guns in her top cabinet and then reaching for a kitchen towel. When she bent to shove it hard against the bright red stain on Frank's chest, he winced dramatically.
"I do appreciate your providing the defense equipment," he admitted on a gasp. "I fell right on the damn thing."
"The pepper spray?" she asked, grabbing the phone. "I'm glad it works. I've never used it before."
"You couldn't have a gun, like other macho heroines?"
Molly couldn't help it. She grinned at him, even as she was busy dialing 911 and applying pressure to his chest and trying to breathe past a panic that had never in her career plagued her at the sight of blood. "See what trouble a gun can get you in? Stun guns are much more civilized."
He was fading. Molly could see it in his eyes, hear it in the funny grunting little breaths he was beginning to take.
"This is nine-one-one," the pleasant, efficient voice answered. "What is your emergency?"
"Send the police and paramedics to my house," Molly instructed, then gave the address. "I've had an armed break-in. The gunman shot a man in the chest. Tell the paramedics it's a code three. I also have two suspects here. I'm not sure how long I can control them."
"Will you stay on the line, ma'am?"
"Sure," she said, then dropped the phone. Alongside her, the big guy began to stir. Molly picked up her stun gun and hit him again. The little guy saw that and simply sat down on the floor in the family room.
"Enjoy the Picasso," Molly suggested, her focus completely on Frank.
"Yes, ma'am."
"They got... the disk," Frank said, looking vague. "I saw it... sorry."
"No, they didn't," Molly allowed in her best unconcerned voice even as she prayed for Frank to just shut up and hold on. "I downloaded the whole thing into the hospital mainframe before I left work today. Then I left a note on Sasha's computer about where to find it if she had to."
Frank's eyes betrayed his surprise as they tracked her way.
Molly saw the trouble he had focusing and pressed harder. "I figured it would be safe as long as I wanted it to be. I labeled it Kosher Menus for Passover. Besides," she said offhandedly, "Peg left a paper trail, just in case. I know where it is,"
Frank tried to laugh and didn't quite make it. "I'm gonna... have to rethink... my... opinions of you, Saint... Molly."
"Try Miss Molly," she suggested, trying her best to get him comfortable. "As in, good golly."
His nod was damn near imperceptible. "Good golly... it is."
And then she lost him.
* * *
What a novel idea, Molly thought as she surveyed the pandemonium in her backyard. A Labor Day picnic. Well, not exactly Labor Day. That had been eight days ago. But nobody from a hospital trauma center could hope to get off on the last summer holiday of the season, so the First Official End of Summer Brain-Fry and Hooha had been scheduled for the second Wednesday following Labor Day, kind of like Easter following the equinox. The Grace rite of passage celebrating the fact that summer can only last so long.
So far it looked to be the beginning of a decent tradition. The yard was packed with people of all ages, with most of the men clustered around the barbecue grill Molly had borrowed from Sam, and most of the women examining Molly's garden. Reggae pulsed from James's boom box, and Magnum barked like a dog in heaven as he chased all the kids around.
The kids were secretly Molly's favorite part. They filled her yard with dissonant music and bright colors and sly eyes, threatening her fish and trampling her summer flower beds in an effort to keep the ball away from her dog, who was growing at a frightening rate. Irish setter, the vet had pronounced upon seeing him. Also bull terrier, husky, and not a little mastiff. A big, ugly puppy that would grow into a bigger, uglier dog. Still, a dog that barked when Molly needed and played all other times. A dog who had spent his puppyhood waiting for kids to torment.
"They're beautiful, my Sara and Josh,
nu?"
Sam demanded from the lawn chair next to Molly's.
Molly lifted a beer for a sip. "And smart, too, Sam."
Sam nodded. "Sara is the mirror of my Myra."
"How is she?"
"She sends her best. We got her a brand-new television, you know."
Molly knew. In the end, Sam had been wilier than any of them. He'd sold his stock in Argon, just as he'd said. Then he'd sold short and made a brand new fortune when the stock plummeted a week later.
"You give her a kiss for me when you see her, Sam."
At the far corner of the yard, Kevin and his son were pitching horseshoes with Lorenzo and Rhett. Winnie was arguing politics with one of the trauma surgeons, and Sam's daughter was instructing Betty Wheaton in the proper way to fly fish. A good gathering indeed. Something Molly had waited far too long to do. Something she should have thought of years ago to defray the stresses of summer. A person could get through almost anything if it meant a celebration at the end.
It wasn't all happy. Not everybody had come out unscathed. Not everybody had come out alive. But Molly had, and decided, sitting here on a day when the humidity had broken and the sky was the clean, crisp blue of early autumn, that she was glad.
"So, have the prosecutors decided how they're handling it yet?" Sasha asked, standing just to the side with her own beer in hand.
"They're still splitting everything up among agencies."
"I imagine the piece on '60 Minutes' helped get things jump-started."
Molly grinned and sipped. "I nominated Winnie for the outraged physician performance of the year."
Sasha snorted. "She was only outraged because she didn't figure out what was going on first."
Molly considered her boss. "She had other things on her plate."
In the end, the truth about Pearl's note had stayed with Kevin and Molly. Molly saw no reason to crucify a brilliant and desperately needed medical examiner for one moment of weakness. After all, Molly knew perfectly well how that felt.
"My favorite part was when they ambushed Tim McGuire in the city hall parking lot with the proof that he'd walked off with that file."
"Just a man taking advantage of a breaking situation," Molly admitted. "He figured he'd not only protect his Argon stock but his rise in politics, too. After all, he was the one who ratted on the mayor in the first place."
"Well," Molly mused evenly. "What can you expect? He is a lawyer."
"A little more respect for the profession that saved your life," came the voice of contradiction.
Molly peered over the tops of her sunglasses at him. "Excuse me?" she retorted. "Who saved whom?"
Frank grinned for her, and Molly found herself grinning back. "I've dedicated the rest of my life to serving her," he told Sasha with that sly light that even got a smile out of Sasha.
"You're going to get her judgment overturned on the malpractice thing?" Sasha asked, still not believing it.
"Not me," he protested, hand to still healing chest. "It would ruin my reputation. I did, however, furnish a few motions a competent lawyer would have made on her behalf. A piece of evidence or two he should have gotten introduced in court."
Sasha gave Molly a grudging nod. "He doesn't seem so bad."
It was Molly's turn to snort. "He's just paying me back for ruining my kitchen floor and making me stick my hand into his chest."
"She did the CPR," Sam offered. "I saw it myself."
Frank leaned a little closer so that Molly could smell that damn Lagerfeld again. His eyes were sparkling with invitation, and there was just no question about what it was he was proposing. "I might have been dead, but I wasn't oblivious," he told Sasha with salacious relish. "She gave me the kiss of life. You just don't get over a thing like that."
Sasha hooted in disgust. "You kissed a
lawyer?"
she protested.
Molly stretched out in her chair and sipped her beer. "I wore protection."
Frank eased himself down onto the last empty lawn chair with a grimace. "Ungrateful wretch."
He'd just made it into a comfortable position when Abigail showed up and climbed into his lap. Settling her plump hand against her father's cheek, the little girl smiled silently up at Molly. It had been Molly who had held her while her daddy had been sick. Molly had held all three kids, crying with them, letting them yell. She'd even given them her mother's cookbooks the night after Frank had gone into cardiac arrest for the second time. Poor Magnum had gotten to the point where he saw those things and ran.
"Are you sure you didn't invest with Lance?" Molly asked Frank one last time.
Frank sighed. Ab carefully rested her head against her daddy's chest so he could rearrange her slipping hair ribbons. "I'm not going to tell you again, Miss Molly. Your doctor is a not very bright coconspirator who decided that that tale of woe would tarnish your good faith in the only real white knight in this whole scenario."
"Shows you how stupid he was," Sasha offered dryly. "He figured he had to tarnish the reputation of a lawyer."
"I'm not going to take much more of this lawyer stuff," Frank protested.
"Of course you will," Sam said. "As long as you think it will get you somewhere.
Nu?"
And so, life went on. The two gunmen were in jail. Lance was out on bond, the drug company was preparing its defense, and Transcend was in the process of being reevaluated. Joey was back in his cave, and Frank was back in his practice, although he wasn't with Marsdale anymore. He was going to set up by himself so he could make all his own decisions about whom to protect and whom not to. Molly was due back on duty next evening in the ER, and the night after that in the ME's office.
There had been one more suicide that summer. Gene had been found in his garage with the car running. Molly hurt hard when she thought about it. All that promise, all that dedication, gone to waste. That special, sweet gift buried beneath an avalanche of disinterest and manipulation. Gene had saved her life too many times to count. Molly wished she could have returned the favor. She knew, though, that he'd made that decision a long time before the night he'd closed the door and turned on the engine.
Her friends were safe, though. She had children in her yard and people she thought maybe she could call if she had problems. It didn't, finally, get much better than this.
"Young man!"
"You're kidding!"
All the heads lifted from the chair backs to see what the commotion was about. Molly saw Winnie glaring, hands on hips, at her son, who was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Alongside, Vic was holding something in his hands and swearing.
"What's the matter?" Kevin demanded.
"He figured it out!" Vic said, sounding highly insulted.
"What?"
"The question mark. He figured out the question mark!"
Everybody moved. When they reached the little group by the back fence, it was to find Vic staring at the deflated balloon in his hand as if it had personally bitten him.
"Well?" Molly asked.
He looked up, truly hurt. "Watch."