Born Innocent (29 page)

Verna, set off-balance by Claire’s move, collapsed with another “Oof” on top of Claire, cutting off her air. Claire took the split second of advantage to roll their entwined bodies once more and gain the top herself.

She looked down into Verna’s sweating, twisted face as Verna struggled to aim the gun at Claire once more. Claire thrashed and grabbed, catching Verna’s outstretched arm just as she brought it back in again.

Now the gun was cradled between their two bodies, Claire’s hands around Verna’s hand, as Verna beat at Claire with her free arm.

The gun went off again. Claire heard the sound all through her body, right
after
she felt the hard shove against her shoulder. For a moment, dazed, she thought Verna had punched her there. But a quick glance showed her the blooming flower of red that was staining her shirt. And she felt the heat, the burning, the pain. She had been shot.

She looked in Verna’s eyes. And she saw pure bloodlust.

“
I’ll get you...”Verna grunted. “You’re done. You’re finished....”

Claire knew the next shot was coming. With superhuman effort, she managed to shove Verna’s hand upward. The gun discharged, a rolling thunderclap, seeming to catch up the echoes of the other blasts, and expand on them, until the whole world was one loud, unending boom. Claire felt a hot, slicing sensation along the side of her head.

She was hit for the second time. Verna crowed in mindless triumph. Claire looked down at the twisted face beneath her, dazed, as Verna smacked her a good one, on the side of the head, using the gun as a cudgel in the same spot the bullet had just creased.

Verna crowed again.

For Claire, the world went fuzzy. Her head grew heavy, numb. Dizziness sent the whole drab, hot room spinning.

Claire fought on, though the blow to the head had been a bad one. She forced her mind to keep functioning, her body not to give up. For the sake of the baby, the tiny innocent baby. And the chance for life it would never have if the madwoman beneath her had her way. Claire managed to grab Verna’s wrist, and more or less pin the gun to the floor above the other woman’s head.

Verna fought like a tiger; it took all Claire’s weight to hold the gun hand down. How many shots were left? Claire tried to get her deadened mind to recall. Two, probably, if the gun was like most revolvers. If Claire could only last through two more shots...

Craa-ack!
Another wild shot, echoing loud and then splintering the ceiling.

One more, Claire thought, only one more....

Verna fought to bring the gun between their bodies again. Claire took a final, dangerous chance, and released the other woman’s hand.

“
Ha!” Verna crowed, and brought the gun in, aimed it... With all the fading strength she possessed, Claire reared back on her knees. Though her injured shoulder seemed to scream aloud in protest, she drew back her arm and whacked Verna’s wrist with her left hand.

The gun went flying, hit the side table by the recliner, and then spun on across the floor. Claire collapsed on top of Verna.

Verna shrieked in foiled rage. She bucked, her whole large body gathering and then shoving. Claire felt herself going up and over. She fell backward across the open packing box.

Verna rolled to her knees and began crawling, scrambling for the gun.

Through a veil of her own blood and ever-increasing lightheadedness, Claire made out the ceramic lamp on the table by the recliner. She dragged herself upright, felt the world go spinning crazily, and managed, somehow, to stagger around the back of the rec
lin
er where she could pick up the lamp.

She reached out both hands, lifted the lamp and tottered the few steps to where Verna was just wrapping clutching fingers around the trigger of the gun.

Claire dropped the lamp on the back of Verna’s head in the split second before Verna managed to turn and fire.

With a soft “Oof,” Verna passed out facedown on the floor, squeezing the trigger one more time as she faded from consciousness.

The last shot buried itself harmlessly in the plaster of the wall.

Claire blinked and swayed, thinking woozily that, at last, there would be quiet... that she could sit down until the world stopped whirling around.

But the quiet never came. Behind her, the front door was kicked from its hinges. It crashed against the jamb. And,
though she could hardly see for the way everything was spinning and shifting, she knew who it was, anyway.

It was Joe, sliding around the side of the door, and aiming his own gun at her. Staggering, barely able to stay up-right, she still couldn’t repress a smile. He was something— only minutes behind her in figuring out who shot Alan Henson.

He took in the situation at a glance, and lowered his gun. “Claire. Damn it, Claire...”

Unconsciousness rose up and rolled toward her, a massive gray wave. “It’s all right, Joe. I handled it. Verna’s only knocked out. And I’m a little dizzy. But I’m pretty sure the baby’s all right....”

Suddenly, her silly legs wouldn’t hold her up. She was sinking. And Joe was there, catching her, cradling her across his lap.

“
Getting...blood all over the place...” she sighed. “Love you. Always. Never stopped....”

His face was so close, his gold eyes afire with both anguish and tenderness.

The gray wave descended, and she knew no more.

The world was water, gray water. She swam in the grayness and felt soothed. At peace. Far above, she could see the water’s surface. Beyond that was the glaring light of consciousness.

“
Claire? Claire, can you hear me?” Joe was calling her, from up there, where pain and reality waited.

She didn’t want to go. It was so peaceful here, where she floated without cares or...

“
Claire! Wake up. Damn it, Snow...”

So much for peace. Joe wanted her.

She looked at the surface, and she swam toward it. Up, up and up. And then she broke the surface. Her head pounded when she did it, and her shoulder throbbed and burned, but she opened her eyes, anyway.

“
Okay, okay,” she croaked. “I’m awake. Stop shouting.”

“
Thank God.” He took in a long breath and released it. Then he carefully smoothed her tangled, blood-matted hair away from her forehead.

Now that the adrenaline rush had left her, every muscle in her body throbbed—not to mention the agony that pounded in her head and blazed in her shoulder.

Joe was talking. “I’ve got to find a phone. Call an ambulance and the sheriff’s office. Do you hear me, Snow?”

“
Yes. I hear. I do.”

“
But there’s no phone in this room. I have to leave you, to do it.”

She realized his chest was bare. “Joe...your shirt...” And then she understood. He was pressing his wadded-up shirt against her injured shoulder.

He took her right hand, put it on the makeshift bandage. “Here. Keep the pressure on this.” He slid out from under her. She cried out at the pain.

“
Claire?”

“
I’m okay. Really. Okay.”

Then she heard groaning. She was still disoriented enough that she thought for a moment she was the one doing it.

“
Damn,” Joe muttered as he picked up Verna’s spent revolver. “Verna’s coming to.”

Though her head and shoulder protested shrilly, shredding her nerve endings with agonized alarms, Claire dragged herself to a sitting position, and leaned, panting, against the back of the reclining chair. She could see then that Verna was the one groaning. As Claire watched, Verna moaned and turned her head.

“
Give me your gun...” Claire volunteered. “I’ll cover her while you find the phone.”

“
In a minute,” he said, setting both guns well away from Verna. He grabbed the cord of the broken lamp and yanked it until it came free from the shattered base, then he tied Verna’s hands behind her back with the makeshift rope.

Verna moaned as he bound her, but didn’t put up any kind of a fight.

Over by the open box in the middle of the floor, there was a roll of twine. Joe used it to tie Verna’s ankles together. Verna was crying by then, soft, defeated sobs.

“
Joe,” Claire said gingerly. “I don’t think she’ll do anything now. She’s done fighting. I really—”

He shot her a furious look. “I’m not in the business of reading minds, Claire. The way I know she’s through is I make it impossible for her to do any more.”

“
She’s had a really rough time—”

“
Lots of people have a rough time,” he said flatly. “It’s no excuse to go over the line.” He jerked the last knot tight and stood up. He looked down at Verna. “Okay, Verna, where’s the phone?”

“
K-kitchen,” Verna managed between sobs.

Joe turned and looked around. Then he knelt by the flowered couch and tore a long strip off the dust raffle at its base. He went back to Claire and held his gun out, butt first. “Cover her. I’ll tie that shirt to your shoulder.”

Claire swallowed another cry of pain as he swiftly bound his shirt over the wound.

He stood up. “Keep that gun on her. I’ll make the calls.”

Claire nodded. He left the room. Verna lay limp on the floor, her body shaking with slow, deep sobs, but otherwise not moving. Still, Claire kept the gun trained on her until Joe returned.

Patty Severin, the physician’s assistant who had been running the Pine Bluff Medical Clinic since Claire’s father died, arrived in the ambulance ten minutes later. At Claire’s insistence, she examined Verna first and pronounced a hospital visit unnecessary. Verna had sustained a concussion but should be all right. Patty’s prescription was two pain
relievers and rest—and Verna should seek help immediately if she experienced prolonged dizziness or extreme nausea.

Sheriff Brawley arrived just after Patty was through with Verna and had turned her attention to the bigger job of patching up Claire.

“
Okay, what’s going on here, folks?” He stood in the broken-in doorway.

Verna, whom Joe had reluctantly untied and allowed to sit on the couch when Patty Severin arrived, raised her chin high. “I... shot Alan Henson,” she said firmly. Claire looked at her and saw that she appeared relieved to be telling the truth at last
.
Her eyes were no longer wildly bright, but level and full of sad determination. “Claire found out it was me,” Verna added. “I went crazy and was going to—”

Sheriff Dan put up a hand. “Save it. In a minute, I’ll take you in. You can tell it all, over at the courthouse.”

Verna hung her head. “Whatever you say.”

Sheriff Dan approached Claire, who was sitting in a corner chair as Patty gently prodded the side of her head and checked her eyes with a penlight.

“
You gonna be all right, Short Stuff?”

Claire, whose head felt as though there was someone in there swinging a sledgehammer and whose shoulder throbbed in counterpoint to the hammering in her head, pulled away from Patty’s ministrations long enough to look the sheriff right in the eye. “Now that I know I won’t go to prison for something I didn’t do, I’m going to be fine.”

The sheriff said nothing for a moment. Outside, a siren scream could be heard, approaching, coming on louder and then louder still. Over the expanding wail of the siren, the sheriff explained, “Sometimes we mess up. It begins to look like we messed up royally this time.”

Claire gritted her teeth as Patty began bandaging her head. “Yes, it certainly does.”

The siren outside grew louder still as the vehicle came down the dirt road and stopped in front of the house. Then, abruptly, the mechanical wail was cut off. Outside, a car door slammed.

The sheriff smiled. “We can put off taking your statement until later, if you’d prefer.”

“
Yes,” Claire said. “I’d appreciate that.”

Right then, Wayne Leven appeared in the doorway. “What the hell’s going on?”

Sheriff Dan turned to his undersheriff. “Looks like we got a confession in the Henson shooting, Wayne.”

Leven shot a triumphant glance at Claire. His lip curled in a knowing smile. “She’s finally willing to admit she did it, huh?”

Sheriff Dan shook his head. “No, Wayne. Not Claire.” He gestured at Verna. “It’s Verna here.”

Leven’s mouth went slack. “The housekeeper did it?”

“
You got it, Wayne. Let’s take her in.”

Verna was escorted from the house and into the back seat of Sheriff Brawley’s 4X4, just as a deputy sheriff’s truck pulled up. The deputy came inside and announced that he had been ordered to “Secure the area, until we’ve had a chance to perform a full investigation.”

“
He means we should get lost,” Joe explained.

Patty said that was fine with her. She wanted to take Claire back to the clinic to look at her shoulder, anyway, to see if she felt safe treating it herself, or if a trip to the hospital in Grass Valley was called for. She and Claire rode in the ambulance, and Joe followed behind.