Buch lesen: «The Girl Who Wouldn't Stay Dead»

Chapter One

She had to wake up. Someone was trying to kill her.

Her eyelids snapped open. Her vision was blurred. Every part of her body hurt.

Emily Benton-Riggs inhaled a sharp gasp. The chilly night air pierced her lungs like a knife between the ribs. Slowly, she exhaled, then drew a breath again and tried to focus. She was still in the car but not sitting upright. Her little Hyundai had flipped, rolled and smacked into the granite side of a mountain at least twice on the way down, maybe more. The car had landed on the driver’s side.

Likewise, her brain was jumbled. Nothing was clear.

Even in her dazed state, she was glad to be alive—grateful and also a little bit surprised. The past few years of her life had moments of such flat-out misery that she’d come to expect the worst. And yet, recently, things seemed to be turning around. She liked her rented bungalow in Denver, and her work was satisfying. Plus, she’d just learned that she might be a very wealthy woman. I can’t give up. It’d take more than crashing through the guardrail on a narrow mountain road near Aspen and plummeting down a sheer cliff to kill her.

Her forehead felt damp. When she pushed her bangs back and touched the wet spot above her hairline, her pain shot into high gear. Every twitch, every movement set off a fresh agony. Her hand came away bloody.

Her long-dead mother—an angry woman who didn’t believe in luck or spontaneous adventure or love, especially not love—burst into her imagination. Her mom, with her wild, platinum hair and her clothes askew, took a swig from her vodka bottle and grumbled in harsh words only Emily could hear, “You don’t deserve that vast fortune. That’s why you’re dead.”

“But I’m not,” Emily protested aloud. “And I deserve this inheritance. I loved Jamison. I did everything I could to stay married to him. It’s not my fault that he slept with...practically everybody.”

Her voice trailed off. She never wanted to relive the humiliating final chapter of her marriage. It was over.

“You failed,” her mother said with a sneer.

“Go away. I’m not going to argue with a ghost.”

“You’ll be joining me soon enough.” Unearthly, eerie laughter poisoned her ears. “Look around, little girl. You’re not out of the woods. Not yet.”

Mom was right. Emily was still breathing, but her survival was not a sure thing.

With her right hand, she batted the airbag. The chemical dust that had exploded from the bag rose up in a cloud and choked her. She coughed, and her lungs ached. When she peered through what was left of the windshield, which was a spiderweb of shattered safety glass, she saw boulders and the trunks of pine trees. Literally, she wasn’t out of the woods.

With the car lying on the driver’s side, her perspective was off. She couldn’t tell if her Hyundai had careened all the way to the bottom of the cliff or was hanging against a tree halfway down. The headlights flickered and went dark. She saw steam rising from around the edges of the crumpled hood.

In the movies, standard procedure dictated that when a car flew off the road, it would crash and burn. The idea of dying in a fire terrified her. Her gut clenched. I have to get out of this damn car. Or she could call for help. Desperately, she felt around for her purse. Her phone was inside. She remembered tossing her shoulder bag onto the seat beside her.

She twisted her neck, setting off another wave of pain, and looked up. The passenger side had been badly battered. The door had been torn from its hinges. Her purse must have fallen out somewhere between the road and here. Through the opening where the door should have been, she saw hazy stars and a September crescent moon that reminded her of the van Gogh painting.

Trying to grasp the edge of the roof on the door hole, she stretched her right hand as far as possible. Not far enough. She couldn’t reach. When she turned her shoulders, her left arm flopped clumsily inside the black blazer she’d worn to look professional at the will reading. The muscles and joints from shoulder to wrist screamed. Blood was smeared across her white shirt; she didn’t know if the gore came from her arm or the head wound matting her blond hair.

A masculine voice called out, “Hey, down there.”

She froze. The monster who had forced her off the road was coming to finish the job. Fear spread through her, eclipsing her pain. She said nothing.

“Emily, is that you?”

He knew her name. Nobody she’d met with in Aspen counted as a friend. She didn’t trust any of them. Somehow, she had to get out of the car. She had to hide.

Carefully avoiding pain, she used her right hand to manipulate the left. The problem was in her forearm. It felt broken. If she’d known first aid, she might have fashioned a splint from a tree branch. Her mind skipped down an irrelevant path, wishing she’d been a Girl Scout. If she’d been a better person, she wouldn’t be in this mess. No, this isn’t my fault.

She cursed herself for wasting precious moments by being distracted. Right now, she had to get away from this ticking time bomb of a car and flee from the man who wanted her dead. Holding her arm against her chest, she wiggled her hips, struggling to get free. When she unfastened the latch on the seat belt, the lower half of her body shifted position. The car jolted.

With her right knee bent, she planted her bare foot on the edge of her bucket seat and pushed herself upward toward the space where the passenger door had been. The left leg dragged. Her thigh muscles and knee seemed to work, but her ankle hurt too much to put weight on it. Inch by inch, she maneuvered herself. Using her right arm, she pulled her head and shoulders up and out. The cold wind slapped her awake. She was halfway out, halfway to safety.

Her car hadn’t crashed all the way down the cliff. Three-quarters of the way down, an arm of the forest reached out and caught her little car. Two giant pine trees halted the descent. The hood crumpled against the tree trunks. The back end of the car balanced precariously.

“Emily? Are you down here?”

The voice sounded closer. She had to hurry, to find a place to hide.

She hauled herself through the opening and tumbled over the edge onto the ground. Her left leg crumpled beneath her. Behind her was the greasy undercarriage. The pungent stink of gasoline reminded her that she wasn’t out of danger.

Unable to support herself on her knees, she crawled on her belly through the dirt and underbrush toward the security of the forest where she could disappear into the trees. Breathing hard, she reached a cluster of heavy boulders—a good place to pause and get her bearings. With her right arm, the only body part that seemed relatively unharmed, she pulled herself into a sitting posture, looking down at her car.

Exhaustion and pain nearly overwhelmed her. She fought to stay conscious, clinging to the rocks as though these chunks of granite formed a life raft on the high seas. She heard a small noise. Not the fiery explosion she’d been expecting, it was only the snap of a dry twig. The sound filled her with dread.

He was close.

She had to run. No matter how much it hurt, she had to get to her feet. She struggled to stand but her injured leg was unable to support her. She sat down hard on the rock. A fresh stab of pain cut through her. Before she could stop herself, she whimpered.

A silhouette of the man separated from the surrounding trees. He turned toward her. Please don’t see me. Please, please.

“Emily, is that you?”

Quickly, he came toward her. She hoped he’d kill her fast. She couldn’t take any more pain.

He sat on the rock beside her. Starlight shone on his handsome face. She knew him. “Connor.”

Gently and carefully, he maneuvered his arm around her. She should have put up a fight, but she didn’t have the strength, and she couldn’t believe Connor wanted to hurt her.

“I already called 9-1-1,” he said. “The paramedics will be here soon. I don’t want to move you until they arrive with their gear to stabilize your back and neck.”

He wasn’t here to kill her but to save her.

She leaned against him, rested her head on his shoulder and inhaled the scent of his leather jacket. Though he felt real, she couldn’t believe he was here. They’d talked yesterday. She’d been in Denver. He’d been in Manhattan. They’d both been summoned to the reading of her late ex-husband’s will in Aspen, and she’d told her lawyer, Connor, not to bother making the trip. She didn’t plan to attend. Why should she? She hadn’t expected to receive a dime, and showing up for the reading had seemed like a lot of bother for almost zero reward.

At the last moment, she’d changed her mind. This might be her final opportunity to face the Riggs family, and she had a few choice words for them. Emily had no reason to be ashamed. Early this morning before she left Denver, she’d texted Connor about her decision to go.

“Emily, are you okay?”

“No,” she mumbled.

“Dumb question, sorry,” he said. “I came as soon as I could. After I got your text, I caught a direct flight from JFK to Denver, then a shuttle flight to Aspen airport, where I grabbed a rental car.”

Though his deep voice soothed her, she couldn’t relax until she’d told him what had happened. But her throat was closed. Her eyelids drooped.

“If I’d flown in last night,” he said, “we would have made the drive together. You wouldn’t have had this accident.”

Accident? She wanted to yell at him that this wasn’t an accident.

She heard the screech of the ambulance siren. Her mind went blank.

* * *

IN A PRIVATE hospital room in Aspen, Connor Gallagher stood like a sentry next to the railing on the right side of Emily’s bed. She lay in an induced coma after four hours in surgery. Her condition was listed as critical. The doctors and staff were cautiously optimistic, but no one would give him a 100 percent guarantee that she’d fully recover. He hated that she’d been hurt. Emily had suffered enough.

Her breathing had steadied. He watched as her chest rose and fell in a rhythmic pattern. Her slender body made a small ripple under the lightweight blue hospital blanket. Though the breathing tube for the ventilator had been removed, it was obvious that something terrible had happened to her. There were three separate IV bags. Her broken left arm was in a cast from above the elbow to the fingers. A bad sprain on her left leg required a removable Aircast plastic boot. Bandages swathed her head. Her face was relaxed but not peaceful. A black-and-blue shiner and a stitched-up wound on her forehead made her look like a prizefighter who’d lost the big bout.

Being as gentle as he could, Connor held her right hand below the site where the IV was inserted. Her knuckles and palm were scraped. The doctors had said that her lacerations and bruises weren’t as bad as they looked, but a series of MRIs showed swelling in her brain. The head injury worried him more than anything else.

Bones would mend. Scars would heal. But neurological damage could be a permanent disability. She’d fallen unconscious after he found her on the ground close to the wreckage of her car. During the rescue and the ambulance ride, she’d wakened only once.

Her eyelids had fluttered open, and she gazed steadily with her big blue eyes. “I’m in danger, Connor.”

Her words had been clear, but he wasn’t sure what she meant. “You’re going to be all right.”

“Stay with me,” she’d said. “You’re the only one I can trust.”

He’d promised that he wouldn’t leave her alone, and he damn well meant to honor that vow. She needed him. Even if his presence irritated the medical staff, he would goddamn well stay by her side.

The emergency doctor who’d supervised her treatment made it clear that he didn’t need Connor or anybody else looking over his shoulder. The doc had curly blond hair and the bulging muscles of a Norse god. Appropriately, his name was Thorson, aka Thor’s son.

Thorson opened the door to her room, entered and went to the opposite side of Emily’s bed, where he fiddled with the IV bags and checked the monitors. Connor sensed the real reason the doctor had stopped by was to assert his authority.

Without looking at Connor, Thorson said, “She’s doing well.”

Compared to what? Death? Connor stifled his dislike and asked, “When can she be moved?”

“Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”

“Be more specific, Doctor. No offense but I want to get her to an expert neurologist.”

“I assure you that our staff is highly regarded in all aspects of patient care.”

Connor took his phone from his pocket. While Emily was in surgery, he’d done research. He clicked to an illustration of state-of-the-art neurological equipment. “Do you have access to one of these?”

“We don’t need one.”

“I disagree.”

Thorson glared; his steel blue eyes shot thunderbolts. When he folded his arms across his broad chest, his maroon scrubs stretched tightly over his huge biceps.

Connor wasn’t intimidated. At six feet three inches, he was taller than the pseudogod, and he seldom lost a fight, verbal or physical. Connor returned the glare; his dark eyes were hard as obsidian.

“Tell me again,” Thorson said. “What is your relationship to the patient?”

“I’m her fiancé.”

“There’s no diamond on her finger.”

“I haven’t given her a ring.”

Connor avoided lying whenever possible, but he’d discovered it was easier to facilitate Emily’s treatment if he claimed to be her fiancé instead of her lawyer. He’d already played the sympathy card to get her into a private room in this classy Aspen facility, where she wasn’t the wealthiest or most influential patient. The nurses had been touched by the tragic story of the pretty young woman and her doting fiancé.

“No ring?” Thorson’s blond eyebrows lifted. “Why not?”

“I’d like to explain in a way you could understand. But there are complex issues involved in our relationship.”

That was true. Emily used to be married to his best friend, and they both used Connor as their personal attorney. Her ex-husband, a hotshot Wall Street broker, had moved his business to a more important law firm. Six weeks ago, her ex died. Complicated? Oh, yeah.

Thorson pursed his lips. “I couldn’t help noticing her last name, Benton-Riggs. Any relation to Jamison Riggs?”

Aha! Now Connor knew why the doc was hostile. The Riggs family was a big deal in Aspen, and she’d been married to the heir, the golden boy, for seven years. She and Jamison had been separated for over a year, but the divorce wasn’t final until three months ago. “Back off, Thorson.”

“I should inform her family.”

Hearing the Riggs clan referred to as Emily’s family stretched Connor’s self-control to the limit. Those people never gave a rat’s ass about her. Years ago, when Jamison brought her to Aspen for the first time, Connor had tagged along. Why not? Jamison was his good buddy, a fellow Harvard grad. The two of them could have been brothers. Taller than average, they were both lean and mean, with brown hair and brown eyes. They also had the same taste in women. When Jamison introduced him to Emily, emphasizing that she was his betrothed, Connor felt his heart being ripped from his chest. She should have been with him.

The Aspen branch of the Riggs family accepted Connor, assuming that because he’d gone to an Ivy League school he came from good stock. They were dead wrong, but he didn’t bother to correct them, didn’t want to talk to them at all when he saw how snotty they were to Emily. She didn’t wear designer clothes, didn’t ski and didn’t know one end of a Thoroughbred horse from another. Her laugh was too loud, and her accent was a humble Midwestern twang. Connor thought one of the reasons Jamison had married her was to drive his family crazy.

Connor growled at Thorson. “Don’t call the Riggs family.”

“I’m sure they’ll want to be informed.”

“You’ve seen the advance directives for Ms. Benton-Riggs, correct?” In the first years of their marriage, Jamison and Emily had asked Connor to file their living wills, powers of attorney and proxy-care forms. They had named him as the decision maker, and those papers were in effect until the divorce and the dissolution of his friendship with Jamison, who had made other arrangements. Emily, however, had never bothered to make a change. “I’m in charge of her medical care, and I don’t want anyone named Riggs anywhere near her.”

“You aren’t thinking straight.”

“The hell I’m not,” Connor replied without raising his voice.

There was a light tap on the door before it opened. Standing outside was a clean-cut young man in a Pitkin County sheriff’s uniform. He touched the brim of his cap. “Mr. Gallagher, I’m Deputy Rafe Sandoval. I have a few questions.”

“I didn’t actually witness the accident, but I’m happy to help.” He gave Thorson a cold smile. “The doctor was just leaving.”

As soon as Thorson stormed out, the deputy entered. Rather than hovering at Emily’s bedside like the doctor, the cop motioned for Connor to join him near the door. He spoke in a hushed tone. “I don’t want to disturb her while she’s asleep.”

“She’s in an induced coma.”

“But can she hear us?”

Connor had wondered the same thing. While she was unconscious, did Emily have the ability to hear his words or comprehend what he was saying? Did she know he was at her side and would destroy anyone who attempted to hurt her? “I’d like to think that she can hear, but I don’t know.”

Still keeping the volume low, Sandoval asked, “Why were you on that road?”

“I was on my way to the home of Patricia Riggs for the reading of her cousin’s will. Unfortunately, I got a late start from New York.” As soon as he spoke, he realized that the deputy would need to talk to the Riggs family about the accident. As much as Connor wanted to keep them away from Emily, the police would have to contact them. “Have you spoken to the Riggs family?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Why did you pull over, Mr. Gallagher? You didn’t see the accident happen, but you quickly arrived at the scene.”

“There are no lights along that stretch.” The two-lane road that led to Patricia’s château hugged the mountain on one side. The outer lane had a wide shoulder and a guardrail at the edge of a sheer cliff. “Her headlights were shining like a beacon.”

“So you stopped,” the deputy prompted.

“I saw the damaged guardrail. That’s when I looked over the ledge.”

He’d never forget the flood of panic that had washed over him when he saw the wreckage. At the time, he hadn’t known that the twisted remains of the bronze Hyundai belonged to Emily. When the headlights went off and darkness consumed the scene, he’d known what he had to do. No matter who was trapped inside, Connor had had to respond.

“This is very important, Mr. Gallagher. Did you see any other vehicles?”

“No.”

“You’re certain.”

Connor was beginning to have a bad feeling about this visit from the deputy. It was after two o’clock in the morning. What was so important that it couldn’t wait? “Is there something you need to tell me about the accident?”

The young man straightened his shoulders. His nervous manner was gone. His gaze was direct. “After my preliminary investigation, I strongly suspect that Ms. Benton-Riggs was forced off the road.”

“What are you saying?”

“Someone tried to kill her.”