“Stay here,” she told Frank. “Learn as much as you can. You're my eyes and ears. Meet me at the hospital later.”
For the second time in their relationship, Frank questioned her wishes. “I can't let you be anywhere without security, Governor. I have men I trust here. I'm coming with you.”
Numbly, she gave in. But as she watched Oliver be loaded into the helicopter, rage began to replace shock.
None of this should have ever happened.
She'd left little to chance since Eric's death, exercising her iron will to protect herself, her family and the ranch. The longer she thought about Jake and Oliver and the invasion of her home, the angrier she became. She felt as if she had an oversized bulls-eye printed on everything dear to her, and she'd had enough of it.
She turned to Frank and allowed her anger to surface. “If you really want to help, you can find out what the hell happened here. Your security team was supposed to be taking care of Oliver. Where were they? Where's Todd Dale? Find him and bring him with you. Somebody owes me some answers.”
To his credit, he didn't argue this time, even though she had no technical authority to direct his procedures. Instead he began speaking commands into his portable radio as she stepped into the helicopter and found a place to sit for the short flight to Tampa.
She stared out the front windshield as the chopper lifted off, ignoring the paramedic who continued to pester her with his examination attempts. She felt the sting of the cuts on her face and suspected she'd need more than a few stitches.
It's a good thing I've never had to rely on being pretty
. The weak humor barely touched her mood.
The paramedic wouldn't let up. “Ma'am? Please lay down here. Let me check you over, take your vitals. Make sure you're okay.”
She continued to stare at the destruction of her home. She saw Jake's barn in full flame, a total loss, all the horses gone. She felt small comfort that a much broader disaster had been averted.
“Ma'am? You're going to get me in trouble if we land and you're not on a gurney. Please don't get me fired. I need this job.”
The pleading tone of his voice may have been a lie, but Helen saw no harm in doing as he asked for the moment. She lay down and allowed him to treat her while she sorted through the events of the past few hours with cold, hard logic.
Helen heard the reassuring sound of Oliver's heart monitor projecting regular beeps. He was alive. But he'd made no sound of any kind. Nor had he moved, even the slightest bit, since she'd first found him. Back in the woods, when she'd cradled him in her lap, she thought she'd felt a slight depression of his temple on the bloodied side of his head. Maybe not. She hoped not. She waited for one of the medical personnel to mention it.
The paramedic lifted her arm and she winced. “You've got a nasty burn here. We'll get it treated when we reach the hospital.”
Burn? How had she burned herself? She didn't remember coming anywhere near the fire. But she must have. Since he'd brought the burn to her attention, she felt it like an open flame. As the paramedic cut what remained of her ball gown's long, slender sleeve away, she groaned in response to the slight pressure of his fingers.
“We'll give you something for the pain just as soon as we're sure you don't have anything more serious,” he said. “I know it hurts, but believe it or not, that's a good sign. Really bad ones burn all the nerve endings off.”
Eyes closed, she felt the stinging as he dabbed the open cuts on her face with pungent antiseptic. Some of the cuts were dangerously close to her eyes; she realized anew how lucky she'd been to have her arm covering her eyelids when the glass shards reached her face.
Her burned arm throbbed. She didn't mention that she would take no pain medication. Drugs would erase the pain, but they would also dull her mind.
In short order the Medevac landed on the helipad at Tampa Southern and controlled chaos erupted. Frank Temple's security team met them when they arrived. Emergency personnel on the ground removed Oliver first and then Helen. On the tarmac, the breeze blowing off the water of Tampa Bay chilled her skin. She shivered under the thin blanket.
Both Helen and Oliver were wheeled into the intensive care unit and placed in separate rooms for treatment. Two agents stationed themselves outside each room.
Her farewell ball seemed a hundred years ago, her designer dress tossed in the trash can and exchanged for a far less glamorous hospital gown.
A young female doctor examined Helen and discovered no additional injuries. She treated Helen's arm and the cuts on Helen's face. The burn and a few of the cuts were serious enough, the doctor explained, that they had a plastic surgeon already on the way.
Helen's sense of time marching forward was suspended as she suffered these ministrations in silence, but when she was offered codeine for pain, she declined.
“Where's my husband?”
“Let me check,” the doctor said, then turned at the door. “I was supposed to tell you that Agent Temple is in the waiting room.”
So he'd come after all.
“Please send him in.” Helen felt a rush of relief at Frank's presence, the appearance of security he represented. False security, she realized. She'd been foolish to rely on others to handle what she should have done herself. But Frank was a friend, too, and a friendly face was welcome.
Frank placed a small tote bag on the foot of the bed. “I asked one of the women on Mac Green's staff to choose some clothes and personal things for you. I have no idea what she put in there.”
She felt her eyes water at the kindness and blinked hard. There would be no more embarrassing crying. She offered him a weak smile of appreciation, then cleared her throat.
“What's happening with the fire?” Neither of them had forgotten the orders she'd expressed before leaving the ranch, but by silent assent they moved on.
“They've got everything under control, almost out. They'll go into the debris at first light.” He hesitated.
Why? She already knew the horses were dead. What information could he be struggling with now?
Frank gazed down at his shoes a moment. “We've replaced the security team. We'll finish debriefing the prior team in about an hour.”
Helen knew it cost him something to admit the failure of his team and his judgment. She didn't wish to dwell on it.
Frank still didn't look at her.
“What about Todd?”
Frank stared at his clasped hands, as if considering what to say.
She felt her impatience flare. “Don't hold back, Frank. What aren't you telling me?”
He returned his gaze to hers and held it steadily, as if he was searching for something in her eyes before he delivered news both of them already knew she didn't want to hear. Yet, their relationship was founded on uncompromising trust, which demanded his honesty.
“We're not totally sure, but Mac Green says it looks like the fire had three points of origin. Meaningâ”
“Arson,” she whispered.
“That's right.” He waited a beat before pressing on, delivering more hard news. “Todd is dead. We found him in his cabin.”
Helen gasped. Her hands clenched into fists. Frank hesitated a moment to allow her to absorb the implications when he told her the rest. “It looks like he died right around the time the fire started.”
Thoroughly shocked, she lowered her head as if to pray. She used Frank's silence to consider what he'd told her, but her mind was sluggish. She couldn't quite wrap her thoughts around what he was saying.
Arson? Murder? What else?
Like a movie played in slow motion, bit by bit, her fatigued brain accepted the truth. With Todd out of the way first, the killer was free to deliberately set three fires in the barn and meant to kill Jake. That's what Frank was suggesting. But the idea made no sense at all. No one would want to hurt Jake. He was a pet. He had no monetary value to anyone. Eric loved Jake, but Eric was already dead. No one would murder Todd so that he could incinerate Jake's barn. Kill Oliver, yes. But a horse? That was insane.
Frank cleared his throat, causing her to look at him again. “Helen. I'm sorry. I guess I just have to say all of this. I don't know what else to do.” One slow sentence at a time, he revealed the rest of the story, “Todd was shot in the head . . . with his own gun. It looks like suicide.”
Helen stared at Frank, uncomprehending. She blinked her eyes and tilted her head to one side, as if she didn't trust her ears.
“You're saying
Todd
set the fire and then
killed
himself?” Her tone implied that Frank was the one who was crazy to suggest such a thing.
Frank stood straighter, taller, more imposing. He thrust the words forward. “I'm saying that's how it looks.”
The implications settled over Helen like a shroud. Todd intended to kill Jake and maybe Oliver, too, if the fire had spread to the ranch house? But instead of waiting for the fire to do its job and making sure he'd been successful, Todd killed himself? No. That couldn't be right. Had he killed himself when he saw that he had failed and Oliver had been rescued?
Regardless of the sequence, the knowledge that she and Oliver had so misjudged Todd Dale shook her to her core. She'd trusted Todd and Oliver did, too. She couldn't accept that they both had been so wrong.
“If that's trueâ” A short rap on the door interrupted her, followed by a white-coated doctor's entry into the room.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Sullivan?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Ed Stackler, the attending physician here tonight. I've been with your husband for the past hour and I wanted to give you a report on his condition.” He glanced over toward Frank, as if asking her permission to speak in front of him.
“Yes, please,” she said, wanting to know but also still confused and wary of more bad news.
The doctor's tone was kind, but firm. “Your husband remains unconscious. His vital signs are stable, but not strong. He's got a pretty good sized subdural hematoma, a pool of blood, inside the skull around his left temple.” He tapped his own left temple with two fingers to demonstrate. “The neurologist and the surgeon are on their way. After the experts examine him, they'll make a decision about whether surgery to drain the blood will be necessary.”
“What's the prognosis?” she managed to ask.
He pressed his lips together and gave his head a brief shake. “It's too early to say. We'll know more in a few hours. Try not to worry. These things usually resolve themselves.”
She realized he was only trying to console her, but she chose to believe him while she sorted Frank out.
As the doctor left, Frank moved closer to her bedside and lowered his voice. “What all of this means, Helen, is that I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“I let my guard down. I should have seen that Todd Dale was dangerous. I should have done more to protect Oliver and the ranch. I'm sorry. I'm prepared to ask for reassignment, if that's what you want.” Frank stood stiffly at the foot of the bed awaiting her judgment.
In the three years that Frank Temple had spent as the lead FDLE special agent assigned to the governor's detail, she'd never known him to be wrong about anything. He'd warned her against trying to lure Eric's killer to his funeral, and he'd stood by her after she'd ignored his best advice.
Frank's steady sureness was a constant she'd come to rely upon. But if Todd was an arsonist and maybe a killer, then Frank had been just as wrong about Todd as she and Oliver had been. Her second term was almost over. Soon, she'd no longer be entitled to FDLE protection at all. She resisted breaking in another agent, accepting someone she didn't already know.
She had to trust someone and Frank was a much better choice than anyone else available. Until Oliver woke up.
“No, Frank. That's the last thing I want right now.”
Frank inclined his head, seeming to accept her decision.
A few moments of shared complicity filled the silence.
Frank put them back to work. “Right now we can't connect all of these crimes in the way I'd like to see them tied up. And I don't want to make the wrong assumption again.”
He stopped, as he often did, to think things through before speaking them aloud. “There are a lot of crazy people in the world who inevitably will hate you out of misplaced envy and a hundred other reasons simply because you're doing your job. But nowâwell, I don't believe we can afford to overlook an ongoing effort here.”
“
What
?” Again, his explanation had taken a sharp turn that she hadn't anticipated.
“I thought you said Todd Dale started the fire tonight before he killed himself. Isn't this all over now? Don't you think that Todd was also Eric's killer?”
Frank stared at her. He blinked, furrowed his brow, and squinted as if making a supreme effort to decode her cryptic logic. He looked exactly like she'd felt since he'd entered the room and began disclosing information that she'd never seen coming.