Part 23 (2/2)

For a moment he didn't know which of them had been hit. Maybe neither. Then he felt something wet and hot across his chest. Curtis was still fighting for the gun, not appearing harmed in anyway.

Slade didn't think he'd been hit, but he knew gunshot victims often went into shock, unaware for a few minutes that they'd been injured. He got an elbow up to Curtis's throat and with effort shoved the man off him. Curtis tumbled backwards, coming down hard, but the cop still had Slade's gun in his hand.

”I've got it!” Slade heard Holly yell. She sent the cop's revolver skidding across the floor to Slade. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Curtis swing his arm up to fire, the barrel of the gun pointed at Holly.

Slade grabbed the skidding revolver, knowing he wasn't going to make it in time.

Another gunshot echoed through the lab. Slade had the revolver and was bringing it up to fire at Curtis, but he didn't get a shot off. He heard Holly gasp, heard someone enter the lab. He swung the barrel of the gun toward the door as Dr. O'Brien filled the doorway, a gun in his hand.

”FBI, drop your weapon!” O'Brien yelled, just before Slade could squeeze off a shot.

”FBI?” Slade dropped his gun.

Holly was screaming at O'Brien. ”You killed him! You killed him before he told us where our babies are!”

Slade took her in his arms. ”It's okay, Hol, I think I know where our babies are,” he whispered. He looked over her shoulder at O'Brien. FBI? ”Where the h.e.l.l have you been?”

”Right behind you, following the trail of death and destruction you left in your wake,” the FBI agent snapped. He turned to Holly. ”I tried to get you into protective custody by having you re-admit yourself to Evergreen, then I could have protected you.”

”Could you have?” she challenged. ”Then you knew it was Chief Curtis?”

”No,” O'Brien admitted. ”That I didn't know. But I've been working this case undercover since Dr. Parris called me in on it. He'd discovered the Genesis Project and contacted my office.”

”It would have helped if you'd told us who you were,” Slade said as he helped Holly to her feet, keeping his arm around her, never planning to let her go ever again.

”I couldn't be sure just what your involvement was,” O'Brien said. ”From the information I was getting from Inez Wellington... That day I pa.s.sed you on the road to her place, I'd just found out that she'd been leading me on a wild goose chase.” He shook his head. ”Where do you think you're going?” he said as Slade and Holly moved toward the door.

”To see my pharmacist,” Slade said.

”Jerry Dunn?” O'Brien asked. ”We have a warrant for his arrest on interstate trafficking of drugs.”

”Add kidnapping to the charge,” Slade said. ”We're going to go get our babies. I hope you aren't going to try to stop us.”

The FBI agent backed off. ”I'll need statements from both of you later.”

Slade nodded, then he and Holly headed for town.

”Rawlins, how can you be so sure Jerry Dunn has our babies?” Holly asked as they neared town.

”Curtis said he used them to pay a debt. It dawned on me. Who else had to be involved? Someone who could supply the drugs. Patty Dunn was one of the names I saw on the list of Genesis Project patients. Jerry's father was also a pharmacist. He did so well in a little town like Dry Creek that he retired and gave Jerry the drugstore.”

”You think Jerry's father was involved with Allan?”

”Yeah.” Delaney had said this had been going on for more than thirty years. It just finally made sense.

JERRY DUNN answered the door. Behind him, Slade could hear the sound of babies crying. He pushed his way in. ”Chief Curtis is dead. The FBI are on their way.”

Patty Dunn sat on the couch, rocking the two infants in the double baby carrier. ”If one cries, the other one does,” she said and looked up, obviously surprised to see Slade and Holly.

”That's how my sister and I were,” Slade said as he moved to the carrier and looked down at the identical twins. They had the Rawlins' dimples and Holly's blue eyes.

”Oh G.o.d,” Holly said and dropped to her knees beside the babies.

Patty Dunn looked from her babies to her husband. ”Jerry?” Jerry said nothing. Behind him, FBI agent O'Brien appeared in the doorway with several police officers.

Slade picked up one of the babies and handed her to Holly. Holly began to cry as she held her baby for the first time. He picked up the other infant and cradled her in his arms. The one Holly held stopped crying, and a moment later the one in Slade's arms did as well. He smiled down at the infant in his arms and couldn't hold back his own tears.

Behind him he could hear Jerry being arrested and read his rights along with his wife, Patty. A female officer said Patty's other two children, the two boys Slade had seen in the photograph at the pharmacy, would be taken into police custody.

Slade looked over at Holly. ”I was just thinking. You know what you said about going someplace warm? I think we should head south. Someplace tropical, maybe. Someplace we could get married.”

She had been gazing in awe back and forth at the two identical baby girls they held. Now she looked up with a start. ”Rawlins, are you asking me to marry you?”

”What do you think?” he asked, his heart in his throat.

”I think it's about time!”

Epilogue.

The following Christmas Eve Holly sat on the couch smiling. Christmas music played on the stereo while Slade and Sh.e.l.ley and her new husband, John, helped the twins decorate the tree.

”How are you feeling?” Norma asked as she came into the room and handed Holly a cup of hot cocoa.

”Better.”

Norma sat down beside her. ”I never thought I'd see this day.”

Holly reached over to take her hand and gave it a squeeze. The last year seemed like a blur now. She and Slade and the twins had flown to Tobago to join Sh.e.l.ley. They'd gotten married there, on a white sand beach, the sound of the turquoise surf in the background and the twins watching from the shade of the cabana.

Back home, Jerry Dunn had told the FBI everything he knew, including how his father had worked with Dr. Allan Wellington and how he'd taken his father's place. Jerry had been the bell-ringer outside on Christmas Eve. He'd called Carolyn Gray to warn her at that point. Curtis hadn't known yet. Inez was arrested in the hospital, but didn't live long enough to see jail. She took an overdose of Halcion. Jerry's wife, Patty, cleared of charges, filed for divorce, took her sons and left town.

It had taken the FBI a while to sort everything out. But following in the footsteps of egomaniac Dr. Allan Wellington, L. T. Curtis had kept a record not only of the births he'd ”manipulated” but the lives he'd taken, starting with Roy Vogel's twenty years ago. Dr. Wellington hadn't been happy with his first son's development and decided it was time to terminate that ”experiment” and provide a killer for Marcella Rawlins murder.

From there, Curtis had killed as needed, always able to cover it easily as police chief. His next victim had been Joe Rawlins when Joe discovered the truth about Marcella's death.

Along with the cop's records of events were Wellington's accounts of using mind control on Holly. It seemed the doctor had been taken with her and decided he should have a child with her, but was killed by Curtis before he could artificially inseminate Holly. Wellington had always been incapable of conceiving in any other way but through artificial insemination.

Unfortunately for Curtis, Holly had seen him inject Dr. Wellington with the drug that caused his heart attack. The cop tried to control Holly through mind control and drugs with Inez's help but he feared it was just a matter of time before Holly remembered Wellington's death and told Inez. Curtis had tried to kill her the Christmas Eve she ran away from Evergreen Inst.i.tute and into Slade's headlights.

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