Second Shot

He sighed and gathered me up close, careful where he put his hands. I laid my head against his shoulder and let him rock me. We stayed like that for what seemed like a long time, until the crying had worn itself out and left me. Then he eased back and looked down and there was no softness to his gaze.

“So, you were awake,” he said.

I could only nod silently. He sighed again.

“I won’t lie to you, Charlie,” he said. “Losing a client the way we lost Simone is always bad.”

“The company’s going to suffer,” I said dully. “Your reputation, everything you’ve worked for- “

“No, it won’t- not if I can help it,” he cut in. “And that means finding out what the hell went on out there. It’s worth the cost of staying out here a little longer. We need to know what made Simone try and kill you. The good new is that Simone’s banker has just retained us to look into his client’s safety.”

“Who-Simone?” I said roughly. “Isn’t it a bit late for that?”

He shook his head. “Ella,” he said. “With Simone gone, Harrington’s just acquired his youngest client.” He let that one penetrate for a moment, then added, more briskly, “Plus, Parker Armstrong’s prepared to chip in to find out what really happened to Jakes. Right now the explanation the police have given us is just too convenient.” He moved back a little farther, giving me space. “Where did Simone get her hands on the gun, for a start?”

“Out of Lucas’s storeroom, probably,” I said. “The lock was off and the door was open when I got down there.”

“Why, though? Why would he give her a gun? Had Simone ever expressed an interest?”

“No,” I said, swallowing, trying to focus on being matter-of-fact. “If anything she was very anti about them. Definitely didn’t like them around Ella.”

“Right, so how did she end up with one? And if she was so anti that she’d never fired one before, how did she manage to shoot you so accurately-twice, in the dark?”

“She could have been aiming for Lucas and missed, but I can’t believe she would have risked hitting Ella,” I said. I shook my head. “I didn’t see her coming at me. Didn’t hear her, either, for that matter, until afterwards. Maybe she wasn’t aiming for me at all. Maybe she just let off a couple of wild shots and I got in the way. She could have been aiming for anything.”

Another brief freeze-frame of memory flipped out in front of me. The way Simone had appeared over the edge of that ditch with the gun held rigidly out in front of her. And I remembered, too, the anger in her eyes, anger that I could have sworn had turned to shock when she’d seen me lying there….

“So you think it might have been unintentional?” Sean asked, as though he’d read my mind.

“I don’t know,” I said. I scrubbed at my eyes with my left hand, forgetting that although they’d unplugged my IV line, they’d left in the butterfly I nearly took my eye out in the process.

“You’re using it more,” Sean said.

I looked down and found I’d been absently smoothing down the tape holding the butterfly in place into a vein in the back of my left hand, using the fingers of my right. For a moment I just stared at them. The nerves were still fizzing and every hair on my forearm felt wired to the mains, but at least the arm seemed prepared to be part of my body again, however distant, rather than some disengaged piece of meat.

“YOU can get past this, Charlie,” he said with quiet vehemence, and I knew he wasn’t just talking physically. “It will get better.”

“Yeah, well, it better had,” I said, dragging up a smile from somewhere. “The loafing in this place isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

He might have said more, but we both heard the footsteps in the corridor outside my room, and when a tall thin figure in a somber three-piece pinstripe suit appeared in the doorway, he didn’t take me by surprise.

“Miss Fox,” Rupert Harrington greeted me gravely. “How are you feeling?”

“On the mend, sir,” I said, forcing a determined brightness into my voice that hadn’t been there only a few seconds before.

Simone’s banker eyed me doubtfully for a moment but didn’t call me on it.

“Ah, good,” he said at last, nodding. “That’s good.”

He still hadn’t advanced from the doorway and seemed almost hesitant about doing so. I was almost on the point of telling him that gunshot injuries were not generally contagious, when he spoke again.

“Look, I have somebody with me whom I’d rather like you to have a chat with, but I’m not sure how you’re going to react to him and-”

“Mr. Harrington,” I said, stopping him dead, “I’m hardly in any state to bite, am I? Not at the moment. Bring him in, whoever he is.” Some kind of detective, perhaps-taking over looking after Ella’s welfare? I ignored the spike of jealousy. After all, I didn’t make such a hot job of it myself, did I?