John Paul smiled. “Always go for the weakest point,” he said. “You were favoring your leg, so I figured . . .”
“You knew I was a friend of your sister’s, and you were still going to break my kneecap?”
“I wasn’t going to break it,” he countered. “I was just going to make you go down.”
“You could have hurt him,” Michelle said.
“Michelle, I don’t need you to defend me,” Theo muttered. His masculinity was taking a beating, and he had had all he was going to take of Mad Max.
“If I had wanted to hurt him, I would have. I could have killed him, but I didn’t.”
“The hell you could,” Theo said, as he dropped the gun in the holster.
“I could have snapped your neck, but I resisted the impulse.”
It was then, as Michelle was turning to tell Theo to stop baiting her brother, that she noticed the blood on his arm. She turned the bar light on and stepped closer to Theo. In the light she could see a sliver of glass imbedded in the deep cut. “When did this happen? You’re going to need stitches.” She didn’t give him time to explain. Whirling around, she went after her brother. She poked him in his chest and demanded, “Did you do that? What were you thinking?”
Theo smiled. He could have put an end to her tirade by speaking up and telling her that her brother hadn’t caused the injury, but he was getting a real kick out of watching John Paul squirm. Her brother was backing away from her as she read him the riot act. His expression, Theo thought with a good deal of smug satisfaction, was laughable. The guy looked as if he didn’t know what to do. When she was finished blistering him with her guilt trip, her brother appeared to be a little contrite. Not much, but a little.
In the harsh light, Theo could see a bit of a resemblance between brother and sister. Both had high cheekbones and blue eyes of the identical color, but that was where the resemblance ended. Michelle was beautiful. She had a gentle, loving disposition. John Paul didn’t.
Theo childishly wanted to keep on hating the man, but he knew he couldn’t because he could see in John Paul’s eyes that he loved Michelle, and Theo figured he was just like any other big brother, doing whatever it took to protect her.
His magnanimous gesture to give the guy a break was short-lived. John Paul glared at him and demanded, “My sister looks like she’s been dragged through the mud. What the hell have you been up to?”
Michelle turned his attention then. “You’re going to have to tell Daddy you broke his best whiskey bottle,” she told her brother. “Now, clean it up while I call Ben.”
She pushed Theo out of her way to get to the phone. She called the police station and asked the operator to put her through to Ben Nelson’s home.
Theo told John Paul to turn the light off. Surprisingly he did as he was told, then Theo explained what had happened. John Paul didn’t show any reaction.
When Theo ended his account of the attack, John Paul asked, “You think they’ll come back? Is that why you don’t want the light on?”
“They probably won’t, but I’m not taking any chances. We could get trapped in here.”
“No, we couldn’t,” John Paul argued. “Besides, I’d hear them coming.”
“Yeah? You’d hear them even if they were creeping up on us?”
John Paul nodded. “Yeah, I would.”
“You think you’re Superman?”
Her brother grinned. “Pretty much. I’d love it if they tried to come in. It would give me the opportunity to kill a couple of them.”
“There’s nothing more fun than a shoot-out,” Theo said, his voice reeking with sarcasm, “but not with your sister here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Theo was beginning to feel the effects of the fight. His jaw hurt and his arm was throbbing. He opened the cooler, took out two cold long-neck bottles of beer, and though he wanted to hit John Paul over the head with one of them, he figured that would be a waste of good beer and handed it to him instead.
John Paul didn’t thank him, but then Theo didn’t expect him to. He opened his and took a long drink.
Theo heard Michelle talking to Ben and interrupted. “Tell him to meet us at the house.”
She asked Ben to hold on and told Theo they needed to get to the hospital.
He decided his arm was way down the list of priorities. “No,” he said firmly. “We’re going to your house first.”
“God, you’re stubborn,” she whispered, but she gave in.
Theo wanted to get off his feet so his knee would stop aching. He went over to one of the tables, sat down, then pulled another chair out and propped his foot up on it.
John Paul followed him, and stood beside him, towering over him.
“Sit down,” Theo said.
John Paul circled the table, pulled a chair out, and sat. He began to ask questions, wanting more details. Theo took another swig of his beer and then explained once again from beginning to end what had happened, only leaving out the part that he had been in Michelle’s bed. He didn’t think her brother would appreciate hearing that.
John Paul homed in on what Theo hadn’t told him. “Why were you closing the window in Mike’s room?”
“It was open.”
“Theo? Do you know what make the car was?” Michelle called out.
“A gray Toyota . . . new,” he answered.
“They’re probably long gone by now,” John Paul remarked.
Theo agreed. He was watching Michelle now, and John Paul patiently waited for him to turn back around so he could tell him he was going to have to beat the hell out of him because he knew damn well that Theo had been in Michelle’s bed. He didn’t care that his sister could make her own choices, and he didn’t care that it wasn’t his business. She was his little sister, and Theo, John Paul decided, had taken advantage of her.
“My sister’s a gifted surgeon,” John Paul said with a snarl.
“I know.”
“She’s spent most of her life getting her training.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“She hasn’t had much training with men . . . doesn’t know what pricks they can be.”
“She’s an adult.”
“She’s naïve.”
“Who’s naïve?” Michelle asked as she hurried to the table.
“Never mind,” her brother said as he continued to glare at Theo. He was angry with Michelle too, he realized, for not only had she allowed herself to become vulnerable by getting involved with an outsider, but damned if she hadn’t chosen a government man. That was almost unforgivable.
“Mike, you and I are going to have to have a talk.”
She ignored the anger radiating in her brother’s voice. “Ben’s getting dressed and will meet us at the house in about ten minutes. He’s also sending out a couple of police cars to try to find the Toyota. I told him I thought there were three or four men, maybe more.”
“At least four,” Theo said.
“Do you know where Daddy keeps the Tylenol?” she asked her brother.
“Above the sink in the kitchen. You want me to get it?”
“I’ll do it. Theo, we should go directly to the hospital,” she said as she walked away.
“Stitches can wait.”
Michelle came back with a bottle of Tylenol and two glasses of water. Tucked under her arm were two bags of frozen vegetables. She set the Tylenol on the table with the glasses and held up the bags.
“Peas or carrots?”
Theo was unscrewing the childproof bottle of Tylenol. “Carrots.” She crunched the bag in her hands to break up the frozen chunks then put the bag on Theo’s knee.
“Better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She lifted the bag of peas to the top of her forehead. Theo immediately let go of the bottle and pulled Michelle onto his lap.
“You hurt yourself? Here, let me see.”
The concern in his voice made her feel a little weepy. She took a breath and said, “It’s nothing. Just a little bump. Honestly, it’s no big —”
“Shhh,” he whispered as he gently pushed her hand away and tilted her head down so he could see the injury in the dim light.
The more John Paul observed, the more depressed he became. He knew from the tender way Theo was touching Mike that the man obviously cared about her, and it was too late to do anything about it. A Fed. How could she have fallen for a Fed?
“Damn,” he muttered.
Michelle and Theo ignored him. “You didn’t cut your scalp.”
“I told you it wasn’t anything.”
“You’ve got a hell of a bump.”
“It’s okay.”
He was gently brushing her hair away from her face. John Paul’s disgust was becoming unbearable.
“Mike, get off his lap and sit in a chair.”
“I don’t think your brother likes me,” Theo said with a smile. Because he knew John Paul was glaring at him, he kissed her forehead. “When did you hit your head? Was it when the snake fell on you?”
She slipped off his lap and sat in the chair next to him.
“What snake?” John Paul asked.
“A cottonmouth fell out of a tree,” she explained to her brother. Theo opened the bottle of Tylenol. Michelle put her hand out, and he dropped two capsules into her palm as she said, “Theo, we have to get to the hospital and find that package.”
“What are you talking about? What package?” Theo asked.
Michelle decided she needed to start at the beginning. Propping her elbow on the table, she placed the bag of peas against her forehead and said, “I recognized one of them.”
“And you’re just now telling me?” He jerked upright, sending the bag of carrots flying. John Paul caught the bag in midair, then reached over and slammed it down on Theo’s knee.
She cringed because the shout made her head hurt more. “The man who was running toward us while we were trying to get to my boat . . . he’s the man I recognized. You turned the flashlight on his face, remember? He was the messenger from the Speedy Messenger Service. He came up to me while I was sitting in the bleachers at the stadium watching you work with the football team . . .”
“I saw the guy at the stadium, but I didn’t see his face. He was wearing that cap. You’re talking about the guy I shot at?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?” John Paul wanted to know.
Theo’s mind was racing. “No,” he answered impatiently. “I missed. Michelle, I still don’t understand why you waited so long to tell me that you knew one of them.”
“When did I have time to tell you? While they were shooting at us and chasing us? Or when we were hiding in the swamp and you wouldn’t let me talk?”
“You’re absolutely certain it was the same man?”
“Yes,” she said emphatically. “You know what’s really odd? When I was talking to him at the stadium, I had this feeling I’d seen him before, but then I thought I had probably run into him at the hospital. We’re always getting deliveries there.”
“Did you recognize any of the others? What about the guy in the boat?”
“I didn’t see his face,” she answered. “He jumped into the water when you shot at him.”
“Did you kill him?” John Paul asked.
“No, I missed.”
John Paul looked incredulous. “Why do you carry a gun if you don’t know how to use it?”
“I do know how to use it,” he snapped defensively. “I’ll be happy to demonstrate.”
“He might have winged him,” Michelle said hopefully, then recognized the irony. She was supposed to be dedicated to saving lives, not destroying them. Getting shot at had certainly turned her moral code upside down.
“Yeah, right,” John Paul grunted with disgust. “How far away was this guy?”
“We were getting fired at from both directions,” she said. “And Theo was busy trying to shield me and shoot at the same time.”
John Paul ignored her explanation. “Why do you carry a gun?” he asked.
“Because I’ve been ordered to carry one. I get a lot of death threats.”
“I can see that,” John Paul said.
“Will you stop fighting with one another? We’re in a mess here. Theo, I think I know what’s going on now. The man, or men, who tore up my clinic were looking for a package. The guy who came up to me at the stadium said another employee of Speedy Messenger had delivered the wrong one to me, and he was trying to get it back. I called the staff secretary and told her to look for it and give it to him. I sent him to the hospital, but never followed up to see if he got the package,” she said. “Remember Elena dropped that box of mail off earlier? I think the men who came to my house last night thought it was there. But I went through the box, and there was no special delivery in it. My guess is that they didn’t find it at the hospital yesterday and they thought she brought it to me last night.”
“There’s only one way they could have known Elena was going to drop anything off,” John Paul said.
“They tapped into her phone line,” Theo said. “Damn, why didn’t I check?”
“I’ll find it,” John Paul offered.
“Do you know what to look for?”
Her brother looked offended. “Of course.”
Theo thought for a second and then said, “When you find it, leave it alone.”
“Why?” Michelle asked.
“Because I don’t want them to know we’re aware of it. We might want to give them some false information.”
“Tell me exactly what the guy said to you,” John Paul said, and Theo noticed he wasn’t quite as antagonistic now.
“He said there was a mix-up at the delivery service,” Michelle said. “Frank — that’s the name he gave me — told me that another messenger named Eddie inadvertently switched labels on two packages he picked up. Whatever I got by mistake is obviously what they’re after.”
Theo shook his head. “And you know it was a mix-up because . . .?” He didn’t wait for the light to dawn. “Nothing is true until it’s proven, and we aren’t going to believe the package was misdirected until we open it and look inside.”
She nodded. “Because the man shooting at us could have been lying.”
