Jack held his fire even as bullets whizzed by his ear. He couldn’t risk hitting his mother. All he could do was sprint right, drawing Tank Top’s fire away from Ted, and hope for an opening.
He didn’t anticipate what happened next.
Lady burst around the corner of the smaller building, barking ferociously. Alice was right behind her, a broken rake raised over her head like a spear, screaming as she charged. And at the precise same moment, Laura chomped down on Tank Top’s hand.
He howled in pain and stopped shooting. But he didn’t let go of Laura. He dragged her back toward the door of the building. He ripped his hand out of her mouth with a scream, and blood spurted everywhere.
Jack couldn’t believe it. His mother had just bitten off the tip of the man’s index finger.
The gun fell from Tank Top’s other hand. Laura twisted around and clawed at his face, and he shoved her away from him and lunged into the building. Jack got off one shot before the man slammed the door shut behind him.
Laura landed hard in the dirt. Lady leapt over her and threw her body against the door. She was barking nonstop, and her claws sounded like saw blades against the metal.
Keeping his gun trained on the door, Jack ran over and reached down to help his mother up. But she only raised herself to her knees before she lifted her head and screamed, a wordless cry filled with agony.
She was looking toward Ted.
Jack spun around and looked behind him.
Alice sat cradling Ted’s head in her lap. His eyes were closed, and a pool of blood was spreading across his chest.
42
Help or Get Out of My Way!
One of the stray bullets had hit Ted in the abdomen, and his shirt was already soaked with blood. Jack kept one eye on the building as he dragged his father over to the back door of the car. He thought he had hit Tank Top, but he couldn’t be sure.
As soon as he had slid his father onto the backseat, he ripped off his shirt and pressed it down against Ted’s bloody abdomen. “Alice, keep the pressure on it.”
Alice knelt on the floor and pressed down on the wound, but the blood continued to flow.
“Ted, you hold on,” Laura said, getting in the back of the car with them. She squeezed her husband’s hand. “We love you and we need you. Please.” She bowed her head. Jack knew she was praying.
Jack whistled for Lady, who climbed into the front. Jack jumped into the driver’s seat and hit the gas. As they barreled away, smoke began to rise out of the sheet-metal building.
Tank Top’s destroying evidence. The cop in Jack wanted to go and stop him, but the son in Jack wanted only one thing: to get his father to the hospital.
Jack fumbled to unlock his phone as he drove off the turnoff and back onto the straight road. His hands were trembling and covered in his father’s sticky blood.
“Nine one one, what is your emergency?”
“I’m transporting a gunshot victim, critical condition, with a cardiac history. Driving a green four-door sedan, Florida plates. I’m heading to—Mom, what’s the hospital?”
“What?” she shouted.
“The name of the hospital?” he shouted back.
“Mercy Grove. It’s on Marigold.”
“Mercy Grove Hospital,” Jack repeated into the phone.
Up ahead, three police cars with sirens raced toward them. The road was so flat he could see them from half a mile off.
“There are three cruisers heading my way. Tell one I need an escort to Mercy Grove Hospital. Notify the others that there is an active shooter inside the Big Adventure Airboats building—white male, six feet, black tank top and jeans, one hundred and seventy-five pounds, with a large-caliber semi-automatic. He may be wounded. Two additional shooters deceased. Possible fire.”
“Can you repeat that, please?” the 911 operator said.
Jack repeated everything as the cruisers raced closer.
Ted was wheezing now. Blood gurgled from his mouth, and Alice started to cry.
“You need to stop and explain this situation to the responding police—”
“There’s no time,” Jack said. “My father’s dying. I will talk to them at Mercy Grove.”
“Ted,” Laura said reassuringly, “we’re getting you to the hospital. Hold on, honey.”
“I have an ambulance en route, sir.”
“He won’t make it. Patch me through to the police.”
“The police are ordering you to pull over.”
The lights ahead stopped moving, and the police moved to block the road.
Ted started gagging.
Lady whimpered.
“Tell them my father will die if I stop!”
“You have to stop for the police, sir.”
Jack kept the gas pedal flat to the floor.
“I have a medical emergency, and I am not stopping.”
Jack could see the cars clearly now. There were three of them, lined up across the road. Four policemen stood off to one side, while a fifth was jogging away from the cars carrying a spike strip.
“Please!” Jack shouted into the phone. “I can’t stop! My father will die!”
The policemen ran for their cars. The one with the spike strip ran off the side of the road and waved at Jack. But he wasn’t waving at him to stop. He was waving him on.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Jack shouted into the phone. “You need to make sure the firemen know about the armed man in the airboat building.”
Jack swung onto the shoulder to get around the cruisers. The shoulder was a flat grass strip, but the compact rental was about as maneuverable as a golf cart. When the car’s thin tires hit the grass, it felt as though he had driven onto an iced-over lake. They hydroplaned, skidding over the wet grass like a hockey puck, but Jack made careful, small corrections to the steering, and guided them back onto the road.
One of the cruisers was catching up to him fast. Jack rolled down his window and waved it up.
Sirens blaring, the cruiser pulled alongside Jack. The female officer in the passenger seat took one look in Jack’s backseat and started talking into her radio.
Then she rolled down her window. “Follow me!” she shouted. “It’s all construction, but stay right with me!”
Jack kept the gas pinned as the cruiser took point. They turned off the straight road and re-entered civilization.
“Ted!” Laura cried. “Ted!”
“He stopped breathing,” Alice said.
So did Jack. Tears stung his eyes, and he wiped at his face with a bloody hand.
The road up ahead was clogged with construction vehicles, but the lead cruiser hardly slowed. It plowed right into the construction cones and sent them flying. Gravel pinged off the undercarriage as Jack followed. He could see the hospital ahead on the left, but a huge parking lot separated them from the emergency entrance.
Jack didn’t care. He cut the wheel and headed straight for Emergency.
The car bounced over the curb, and they flew across the parking lot.
A group of emergency responders were waiting to receive them at the entrance. As soon as Jack screeched to a stop, they swarmed to Ted. Alice held Laura as Ted was loaded onto a gurney.
People shouted questions at Jack as they ran alongside the gurney into the hospital. Jack did his best to answer. “Nine-millimeter wound. Existing heart condition.”
As they passed through the double glass doors, a doctor put a hand on Jack’s chest. “Wait here.”
Jack stood helplessly as they disappeared around a corner with his father. It happened so fast, he couldn’t protest. He turned around to see the trail of his father’s blood leading all the way back to the car.
Dear God, save my dad.
43
Benched
Jack sat on a bench in the hospital with his head in his hands, wearing the shirt from a set of hospital scrubs a nurse had kindly given him. He’d been in the hospital for twenty-seven hours now. His father had made it through surgery and been moved to the ICU. T
he doctors said the next forty-eight hours would be critical. Now every time he asked, the answer was the same: there was no change in his father’s condition.
Everything since the shooting was a blur. At some point early on, Alice had left to take Lady home, and Jack and his mother had sat quietly, comforting each other, trying to keep each other’s spirits up. They had both been interviewed by the police, and Laura had filled in the gaps about her kidnapping. Tank Top and the men had grabbed her when she was coming out of the pharmacy, she said.
Even though she’d been examined and cleared by the doctors, Jack was worried sick about her. After what she’d been through—what she was still going through—he knew she had to calm down or she was going to have a heart attack too. But she couldn’t really relax until his dad got better.
And he would get better.
He had to.
Alice returned, and it wasn’t easy, but she and Jack finally convinced his mother to go home and get some rest. There was nothing she could do at the hospital anyway. The police offered to have a cruiser stationed outside the house, and Jack promised to call the instant there was even the slightest development. He just hoped his mother could actually relax enough to fall asleep. She’d been through so much.
Footsteps came down the hallway, and Jack looked up to see Officer French and Detective Martinez approaching.
Detective Martinez had interviewed them last night. Martinez was young, but Jack was impressed with how sensitive he was when questioning Jack’s mother.
Jack stood and shook their hands.
“I’m sorry about your father, Jack,” French said.
“Thank you.”
“Any update on his condition?”
“No change. He’s still in the ICU. The doctors said he’s a hell of a fighter. The bullet just missed his spleen, but the heart attack was major. It’s touch and go right now.”
“And your mother?”
“Considering everything that’s happened, she’s doing as well as can be expected. Thank you for posting the cruiser.”
“That’s why we’re here, actually,” Detective Martinez said. “We’ve recovered a body from the airboat building. It’s badly burned, so we’ll have to run a DNA test before it’s official, but it’s missing a finger, so it’s gotta be your guy. You can rest easy. We got him, Jack.”
“You must have shot him so he couldn’t run,” French added.
“It’s still curious about the fire,” Jack said. “If my bullet hit him, what started the fire?”
Detective Martinez shrugged. “There were fuel canisters all over that place. Maybe the guy lit one last cigarette while he was dying—maybe he stumbled into something…who knows. We’ll let the fire investigators sort that out.”
Jack nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“There’s more. We know who the perp is. We ran his prints.”
“How’d you get prints if the body was burned up?” Jack asked.
Detective Martinez cleared his throat. “From the fingertip your mother…removed from her kidnapper.”
“His name is Curtis Dixon,” French said. “He’s the nephew of Janet Ferguson. We suspect he murdered her in her garage just before kidnapping your mother. The two other deceased shooters have an arrest history with Dixon, too. Three bad peas in a pod.”
“Glad they’re off the street.”
“DEA is involved as well,” Martinez said. “Dixon was smuggling black-coral heroin. The gecko statue was full of the stuff. Hard to detect. So you were right, Jack. They were using the bingo winners, including your parents, as drug mules.”
“Did you find anything else in the airboat buildings?”
Detective Martinez shook his head. “Looks like it was just an airboat tours place, not a base of operations.”
“What about the bingo announcer, Marvin?” Jack asked. “Have you located him?”
“Not yet,” French said. “We’re processing Dixon’s house, and his aunt’s too. But since we’ve got the three kidnappers, we’ll be pulling back the cruiser from its post outside your parents’ house.”
“Thank you. I’ll let my girlfriend know.”
“Oh, and I’ve got a message for you,” Martinez said. “I had to follow up on your background with Darrington PD—you know how it is—and when I spoke to Undersheriff Morrison, he said to call him if he can do anything to help. He said you’re a good cop, sounded real concerned.”
“I appreciate the message,” Jack said.
“Well,” said French, “we’ll keep you posted.”
Jack slumped back down on the bench and watched them go.
44
Promise
Laura Stratton fought back tears as she put together a bag of things that her husband would need when he woke up. She closed her swollen eyes and prayed for when, not if. The thought of losing her Ted was too much for her already throbbing head.
Alice knocked on the bedroom door and walked in. “Mrs. Stratton, can I help with anything?”
Laura started to cry again.
Alice rushed over and wrapped her arms around her.
“Thank you for taking care of my son,” Laura said.
“Your son takes care of me, Mrs. Stratton. We’re a team.” Alice handed her a box of tissues.
Laura cradled Alice’s chin in her hand. “It’s been such a blessing, you coming into Jack’s life. After all he went through as a child, and then losing Chandler…” She closed her eyes and her lip trembled. “We thought we’d lose Jack, too. He was falling away from everyone, and there was nothing we could do. But then you came along and saved him.”
“You’ve got it backward. I’ve loved your son since the moment I first saw him.”
Laura kissed her cheek and straightened up. “Thank you.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I should be with Ted.”
Alice squeezed her hand. “Mr. Stratton will need you when he wakes up. You should take care of yourself now so you can be there for him then. Why don’t you take a shower and have a little nap? If Jack calls, I’ll wake you up, and we’ll both head straight over there.”
“I know I should rest, but…I don’t think I could possibly nap right now.”
“Okay then, I’ll make you a deal,” Alice said. “You lie down and at least try to sleep. I’ll take Lady for a long walk. If when Lady and I get back you’re still awake, we’ll take you back to the hospital.”
Laura nodded. “Okay. And you promise me you’ll wake me up if Jack calls?”
“I promise.”
45
Chapel
Jack stalked up and down the corridor. His head hurt so much he couldn’t think straight. At least the case was over; he’d called Alice and told her about the police finding Dixon’s body. She was safe. His mother was safe.
But his dad…
He tried not to scowl, but couldn’t help but notice that every time someone walked past him, they gave him a wide berth.
Jack was dead tired, too. He needed another cup of coffee. When he reached the end of the hallway, he headed down the stairs.
Three vending machines sat in a little alcove, and Jack put his last dollar in the coffee machine. The machine hummed, but when he pressed the button, nothing happened. He pushed the button three more times and then started shoving the change return button. Nothing.
In a sudden burst of anger, Jack grabbed the machine with both hands and rocked it back and forth. He shook it so hard that he had to catch it from tipping over. He let the machine slam back down and turned away in disgust.
A little old lady coming out of a door just down the hallway stopped and stared at him. She smiled in a way that made Jack feel she’d offer him a cookie and a glass of milk if she could. She kept the door open and pointed inside.
Jack read the sign above the door. Chapel.
The woman held the door open. “Mirar a Dios.”
Jack waved his hands. “I’m good. Estoy bien.”
The woman pressed her lips together and g
ave Jack a long look. In that moment, she reminded him of his Aunt Haddie. Aunt Haddie would agree with this lady. At a time like this, God is just who you need, she’d say.
Jack walked down the hall and through the door. The old woman patted his back as he went past.
The chapel was just a small room with several chairs facing a stained-glass window. It wasn’t actually a window—it didn’t face the outside of the building—but it was lit from behind and helped make the space feel less like the drab interior of a hospital. A table beneath the window held three electric candles. And as soon as the wooden door closed behind Jack, the bustle of the hospital faded into silence.
He sat down in the closest chair and leaned his forearms on the chair in front of him. He closed his eyes. He prayed a lot, but at times like this, he found it hardest. He didn’t know why. Was it because he was angry? Was it all the unanswered questions that he wanted to scream at the ceiling? Or did he just hate begging?
He was grateful that his parents were alive. Maybe he should start with that?
Thank you. Thank you for helping my dad. If you could…
Jack’s eyes slowly opened. The words caught in his tightening throat. He stared at the electric candles and sighed. The LEDs flickered and moved, but it was no replacement for a real flame.
He hung his head and rubbed the back of his neck. He closed his eyes again and pictured real fire. But it wasn’t candle flame he thought about. The fire at the airboat tours building still bothered him. If it wasn’t a base of operations, why would Dixon need to burn evidence? There would be no evidence to burn. And if Dixon was strong enough to start the fire, why would he not have been able to escape the fire?
It didn’t make sense.
Unless…
Unless he wanted to burn the body.
Jack of Hearts Page 19
