Oh, God. Would she really murder an innocent child? Little Tucker? Pescoli’s heart drummed with dread.
The gun. So close.
Pain radiated from Pescoli’s midsection and she blinked to stay conscious. She was fading, but she remembered Padgett had never been right, not after a boating accident when she’d nearly drowned. But now Padgett blamed her for all the trouble in her life. Disturbed as she was, she was trying to get even.
And Tucker would pay.
No, no, no!
Gritting her teeth, she said, “Padgett, okay. You blame me. I understand. Then kill me, if you have to. Do it. But let Santana have the baby.”
“Are you crazy?” Padgett asked around the flashlight, then laughed coldly. “Oh, no, that’s me. The girl who nearly drowned and spent half her life being mute in a mental hospital only to come back to reality and find her son, her only damned son was dead! I waited fifteen years. And then . . . then I discover it was all for nothing.”
Did Santana take another step forward?
So, Padgett said, “So, no. I’m not giving Santana his son.” She eyed Pescoli’s husband. “We go way back, don’t we Nate? You were Brady’s friend. You remember how he was. My brother. Well, half-brother. Nonetheless, he tried to kill me, you know. In that boating ‘accident,’ where I lost consciousness and ended up in the loony bin. I had to play at being mute and stupid and out of it. Locked up with people who really were psychos. Weird as hell, all of them. And then I heard that Brady had died and I was free, it was like a new lease on life. Except that was wrong. I got out, tracked down my son and found out that he was dead!” Did you hear me, ‘Dead!’ and I never knew. No one told me. Each year his birthday would roll around and in my head I would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, wondering what he looked like, how he’d grown. I knew when he should have gone to school and worried about him and it was all a big, horrible waste of time. A fantasy, because I didn’t know that he’d died! Oh, God, I still don’t know why . . . or how . . .” Her voice cracked and then she shook her head, forced herself to calm down.
When she collected herself and she spoke again, her voice was brittle as ice. “Handing your boy back to his father would be too easy. It’s touching that you’re willing to die for your kid, but it’s too late for that. And I want you to feel my pain, experience what it’s like to lose a child.” She shook her head. “But you won’t feel the pain long, will you? From the looks of you, I’d say you’re going to die anyway. And soon.”
“No.” Santana was staring at Padgett and his son, or was he looking beyond the halo of light that surrounded her? “She’s not going to die. She can make it. I just need to call for an ambulance.”
“Try it,” Padgett said as he reached for his cell phone. She waggled the baby.
Tucker howled, his little feet dangling.
Pescoli forced herself to inch more upright. She had to plead with this woman, do whatever she could to save her child.
“Padgett, please,” Santana said, but he didn’t seem to be looking right at her.
But how would she know? The world was spinning. Pescoli tried to maintain, to hang on. “Just give the baby up,” she murmured weakly, seeing a shadow, some movement in the dark behind Padgett. Was it a trick of light? Or her own fading consciousness playing mind games with her?
&
nbsp; Santana warned, “Padgett, you don’t have to do this. Leave the baby and we’ll call an ambulance for my wife. You can leave.”
“Oh, sure.” Padgett laughed then.
The lights were dimming, the world spinning. Pescoli slid off her elbow.
“Uh-oh, looks like wifey isn’t going to make it after all.” Padgett stepped from behind the big washer to get a better look at Pescoli as she bled out.
The room swayed. Pescoli gathered all of her strength and flung herself forward.
“No!” Santana warned.
Pescoli’s fingers grabbed the butt of her weapon.
“Shit!” Padgett cried over the baby’s wails . . . and was there something else? The faraway sound of sirens? Padgett must’ve heard it too. For a split second she wasn’t focused on Santana or Regan.
Santana yelled, “Now!” and lunged.
Regan saw him fly through the air to tackle Padgett, knocking the gun from her hand and the flashlight free, grabbing his son to hold Tucker to his chest in a quick tuck and roll.
Padgett screamed. “Nooooo!”
Santana crashed against metal bins, the sound echoing, her poor baby shrieking.
The flashlight rolled crazily across the floor, the light spinning as if she were in a fun house. With an effort, her hands quaking, Pescoli trained her weapon at Padgett, who, too, was on the concrete floor, dazed from being taken down. “Die, bitch.”