Kurt? Gun? Ice crawled down his spine, and he sprinted toward the nearest phone and punched in 911. “Kurt Hinkle is armed with a gun and is in the trauma bay with Larissa,” he said in a low, terse tone to Grace, the sheriff’s department dispatcher. “Hurry.”

He hung up the phone, swung around, and quickly flagged down Debra, the charge nurse. “Keep everyone out of the trauma bay, do you understand?” he said as quietly as possible.

“What’s going on?”

“Kurt Hinkle is in there with a gun, but the police are on their way. Keep everyone out and far away from this area,” he repeated, moving toward the door.

“You can’t go in there,” Debra protested, grabbing his arm.

“Yes, I can. Just keep everyone out here, okay?” He shook off her hand and edged toward the door leading to the trauma bay. He didn’t want to barge in there in case he startled Kurt into shooting.

But he couldn’t bear the thought of Larissa facing someone as unstable as Kurt alone, either.

Dear Lord, please give me strength.

He cracked the door open and peered inside. The ice on his spine turned glacier when he saw how close Kurt was to Larissa, just six feet away, with his gun leveled directly at the center of her chest. Larissa stared up at Kurt with wide, frightened eyes with nothing but a small metal bedside table between them.

There was no way he was waiting for the sheriff’s deputies. He shoved open the door and stepped into the room. “Put down the gun, Kurt.”

The older man swung around to face him, the gun bobbing up and down in his hand. “Stay out of this, doc. This is between her and me.”

“Put the gun away,” he repeated, projecting a calmness he didn’t feel. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

“Get outta here!” Kurt shouted, his face turning red.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Larissa was edging farther away from Kurt, exactly the way he’d hoped. The trauma bay was big and open; there weren’t any places to hide or much to use as a barrier against a gun.

“Why are you threatening Larissa?” he asked, striving for a conversational tone. “She hasn’t done anything to you.”

Mentioning Larissa was a mistake as Kurt immediately swung back toward her. “You should have stayed away from Annie,” he accused. “You shouldn’t have filled her head with ideas of leaving me. It’s your fault she got hurt. If she wouldn’t have left, she’d be fine right now.”

Gabe couldn’t believe Kurt’s twisted logic, but then again, he didn’t understand why any man would physically abuse his wife, either. Kurt was so far beyond rational that Gabe didn’t have a clue how to get through to him.

“I was trying to help Annie,” Larissa said with a note of defiance. “You’re the one who keeps hurting her, not me.”

Gabe silently urged Larissa to be quiet. There was no sense in making the guy mad.

“What do you want, Kurt?” Gabe asked, desperate to get the man’s attention focused back on him instead of on Larissa. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what you want.”

“I want you to get out of here,” Kurt shouted. “If you don’t, I’ll start shooting!”

Gabe glanced helplessly at Larissa, trying to think of a way to stall. Kurt might be drunk, but considering his hunting background he didn’t dare bank on the fact that Kurt might not hit his target. Especially considering Larissa was in close range.

Where were the sheriff’s deputies? Shouldn’t they have been here by now? What was taking them so long?

“Now!” Kurt said, firing the gun for emphasis, the sound echoing through the trauma bay.

“Get down,” Gabe shouted to Larissa as he dropped to the floor. He rolled and then came up in a small crouch, ready for the next gunshot.

Larissa must have sensed what was about to happen, because when he glanced over, she was hunkered down in the corner of the room holding the small metal bedside table turned sideways so that the tray protected her chest. He didn’t see any blood, so he hoped and prayed that meant she wasn’t hit. Thankfully, she had some cover.

“Kurtis Hinkle! Drop your gun and come out with your hands up!”

Kurt spun around toward the doors leading in from the ambulance bay, where the sheriff’s deputies were located. Gabe took advantage of Kurt’s momentary distraction to dive toward Larissa. She clutched at him, and he held her tight for a fraction of a second before he shoved her behind him.

“Stay down,” he whispered. A bullet could still go through him to get to her, so he used the metal bedside table as a shield while hoping for the best. He took heart in the fact that he could see a deputy standing just outside the door he’d come through earlier.

The cops had Kurt and the trauma bay surrounded. But the danger was far from over.

“Go away or I’ll kill them both!” Kurt shouted.

“What do you want, Kurt?” one of the deputies shouted. “Do you want to see Annie?”

“Annie’s dead!” Kurt screamed, his face mottled with anger.

“Annie’s not dead,” Gabe said and hoped he wasn’t lying. “She’s at a hospital in Madison. The deputies can arrange for you to see her.”

“You’re lying!”

Gabe probably was lying since he doubted the deputies would take him anywhere near Annie. It was clear they believed Kurt was the one who’d run Annie down. But they needed to get Kurt to surrender his gun before anyone got hurt.

“Do you want to see your son, Tommy?” the deputy asked from outside the ambulance bay doors.

“Leave my son out of this!” Kurt grew even more agitated, pacing back and forth in front of the ambulance bay doors. “Stay away from him, do you hear me?”

Gabe realized that Tommy was a lever they could use, and hopefully the deputies knew that, too. Because right now there wasn’t much between him and Larissa and the madman with a gun.

And Kurt could easily shoot them both before the deputies would have a chance to stop him.

____________

Larissa had prayed almost non-stop since Kurt had cornered her in the trauma bay. And the fact that Gabe was here, too, made her feel even worse.

She didn’t doubt for a minute that Kurt had been driving the car that slammed into his wife. Annie had clearly been trying to get away from him. Hadn’t Kurt admitted that much already?

This was her fault, Kurt was right about that. She should have spent more time with Annie the night she’d come in for her broken wrist. She should have convinced Annie to get away from Kurt right then and there. She could have taken Annie to a safe house, at least for the night.

But she hadn’t. And now she and Gabe were both in danger. Trapped in a corner where Kurt could easily kill them. The fact that Kurt hadn’t shot either of them yet was nothing short of a miracle. Maybe his being intoxicated was actually working in their favor. He didn’t seem to be thinking too clearly.

The door leading in from the trauma bay was slowly opening about an inch or so, and she realized one of the sheriff’s deputies was standing there. From the angle of the door, he wouldn’t have a good shot at Kurt, but just knowing the deputy was there helped steady her nerves.

“It’s not too late, Kurt. Put down your gun and come outside. We understand this is all just a big understanding.” The voice outside sounded like Deputy Armbruster. “Come out while you still can.”

“No! If you come in here, I’ll kill them both!”

The door from the main part of the ER opened even wider, and Larissa tensed as she saw Deputy Thomas kneeling there, wearing full SWAT gear. Despite the awkward position, he pointed his handgun at Kurt. She thought she was prepared for the sound of gunfire, but the blast made her jump.

Kurt screamed and swung around, shooting wildly before he went down hard. The next few seconds passed in a blur, but suddenly the gunfire stopped and the nightmare was over.