by Jenna Night
Driving through the deserted park, with speed bumps jarring the wheels and metal frame, she ignored the warning pulsing through her mind. The last time she witnessed a crime, doing the right thing had backfired. Getting involved in someone else’s mess had almost ended her military career. She had no family and only a handful of trusted friends, so the Marine Corps was her entire life, and the marines she served alongside were her brothers and sisters. It had taken years to rebuild her reputation and regain her professional footing. She wouldn’t jeopardize that again.
This isn’t Okinawa. People’s lives are hanging in the balance now.
Cat couldn’t simply contact emergency services and return to her comfortable porch chair and jazz records while an injured stranger lay alone on a deserted patch of pavement.
As she rounded the curve into the riverside area, her headlights skimmed a new-model Cadillac SUV and, beside it, a man who lay motionless in a pool of blood. This wasn’t the one she’d seen from the dock. She slammed on the brakes. Killing the engine, she reached for her phone, but it wasn’t in the console. In her rush to reach the scene, she’d forgotten it.
She hadn’t forgotten her Glock. The familiar weight in her hand, she threw open the door and ran to the Cadillac. There was little chance he’d survived the head shot. Still, she searched for a pulse and found none. A knot of regret tangled in her midsection. Leaving the victim, she hurried on to the shadowed area beyond the bathrooms. There, the man she’d seen from her dock lay sprawled in the grass. Cat sank to her knees and leaned over him. The reassuring puffs of air against her cheek felt like a victory. Resting on her heels, she tucked her gun in her waistband and took hold of his wrist. Pulse was strong and even. Cat performed a quick assessment. Aside from the nasty gash near his temple, he didn’t appear to have any other injuries.
“Who are you?” she murmured, gently lowering his arm to the ground.
The stranger’s three-piece suit, starched shirt and shiny loafers pointed to a career in business. His triathlon-ready physique spoke of a more active lifestyle. A chunky, all-terrain watch with more gadgets than her phone supported the second observation. In fact, she was getting a military vibe from him. His wavy brown hair was far from military-cut regulation, though.
Government agent, maybe? Organized crime member? Private security?
She really needed to contact the authorities. Not only to handle him and report the dead man, but to rescue the woman.
Cat searched his jacket pockets first. If she couldn’t find his phone, she’d have to return home for hers. Leaving him alone was out of the question. But moving an injured person was a no-no, unless they were in imminent danger. Besides, she doubted she could get him into her car unassisted.
His lashes fluttered and his lips moved. “Sir, can you hear me? What’s your name?”
He grunted something that sounded like “bee.”
She placed her hand lightly against his shoulder. “I’m here to help you. I need to call for an ambulance. Do you have a phone?”
His eyes opened to slits, and she could only see they were dark and unfocused. “Bee.”
The word made no sense. Unless he was actually saying Bea, short for Beatrice, as in perhaps the woman who’d been taken. The sense of urgency renewed, she patted the outer side of both pant pockets and discovered what she was looking for.
“I’m going to remove your phone, sir,” she told him. He didn’t appear to have heard her, because he had gone silent again.
A grim prospect occurred to her as she dialed 911. Had the blow to his head caused a brain bleed?
God, it’s me, Cat. Catriona Baker. She winced. He knew her name. The name her birth mother had given her before leaving her on a social worker’s doorstep.
You know I don’t bother You unless absolutely necessary.
She’d put her faith in Christ years ago. It made sense that she’d handle what she could on her own and bother Him with the big stuff. She studied the man’s pale countenance.
This is one of those times. I don’t know what this man did to deserve this. Maybe he got involved with a dishonest crowd or angered the wrong criminal. Maybe he’s innocent and trouble sought him out. Whatever the case, please don’t let me be the last person he sees alive.
He didn’t regain consciousness during the interminable wait for the ambulance. Cat stayed beside him, alert for the possible return of the men responsible for tonight’s chaos. Sometimes criminals acted according to a common script. Other times, they shredded and burned the script. Those were the times law enforcement officers were tested to their limits.
When the paramedics arrived, she watched silently as they strapped him to a gurney. The police cruisers’ headlights cast his features in harsh relief. Sitting in the dark with him, watching his chest rise and fall, she’d imagined a variety of scenarios. He and the missing woman could be married. He wasn’t wearing a ring, but some men chose not to. They could be engaged. Or related somehow.
She’d been tempted to scroll through his phone. A simple press of his thumb would’ve given her access, but she couldn’t bring herself to invade his privacy. Growing up in the foster care system, she’d had scant little of that. Now she guarded her own and respected others’.
They loaded him into the ambulance and closed the doors. The decision to follow wasn’t well thought out, but she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep without knowing his prognosis. She skirted the officers processing the scene and allowed herself only a quick glimpse of the medical examiner going about his job. Was the deceased man a friend or enemy of the couple? As a military police officer assigned to a smaller installation, she dealt mostly with domestic disputes, impaired drivers and thefts. She’d seen a dead body before—her favorite foster dad had collapsed and died at the dinner table. The violence of this death was very different. She hoped the men responsible were brought to justice.
Having already given her statement and contact information to the first officer on the scene, Cat didn’t tell anyone she was leaving. Doubts assailed her as she once again navigated dark, empty streets. It was going on 2300 hours, and she had to report for her shift in six hours. She should go home and get updates on the morning news like the rest of the coastal North Carolina community.
Instead, she drove to the hospital in Jacksonville and waited for more than two hours in the crowded ER waiting room. Hospital staff had told her only that he was awake and coherent and not ready for visitors. Cat had decided to go home and was almost to the exit when her friend Audrey Tan passed through the patient-area doors in her surgical scrubs.
“Cat.” Audrey left her coworker’s side and strode over. “Are you here for medical care?”
She explained the situation. “I’d hoped to get an update before I left, but I’m not a friend or family member.”
Audrey didn’t act surprised during the unusual account. She’d endured much worse at the hands of an organized crime boss. “I’ll find out for you. Wait here.”
She was gone long enough for Cat to wonder if she’d been called away on another surgery. When Audrey reappeared, she beckoned for Cat to follow.
“I’m taking you to him.”
“I didn’t ask to see him.”
“He’s asking to see you.”
“I’m certain he doesn’t remember me.”
The dip between Audrey’s brows pinched. “That’s the problem. He doesn’t remember anything.”
“Meaning the details of the attack are fuzzy?”
Stopping at a corner room, Audrey nodded to the closed door. “Worse. He has retrograde amnesia.”
Copyright © 2020 by Karen Vyskocil
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ISBN-13: 9781488061356
Fugitive Chase
Copyright © 2020 by Virginia Niten
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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