“I can’t live with any of this!” Travis shouted. “But I have to put my boys first.”
“You’re not putting your boys first. You’re putting yourself first. I don’t get it, Travis—how could you have any part in a terrorism plot and still refuse to do what’s necessary?”
“Look at me!” The shrieking, female voice came out of nowhere, and they both swung around. A girl stood at the edge of the woods drenched in sweat, with a wild look of hatred on her face. She held a gun pointed at Dustin.
He put his hands up and took a slow step toward her. “Put the gun down.”
Suddenly the gun fired, its thunder crashing across the water.
59
The kick of the gun knocked her back, and the lightning crack of the gun firing deafened her. Then sound returned, a distant, muffled sound of voices yelling, as her ears rang.
She aimed again and shouted for them to get down on their knees, arms up, and she tried to steady her hands to shoot again.
Sweat dripped into her eyes from her wet bangs, and her head was splitting with migraine pain. Her vision was blurred, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure which man was which. Had they switched places? They moved to their knees in jerky motions, like some 1920s film in slow motion, and for a moment the world around her spun. She couldn’t faint. She couldn’t faint. She had to finish this.
She had been waiting on the street near Dustin’s office when he’d come there some time ago. He had pulled into the parking lot again but hadn’t gone into the building, and she had followed him when he drove away. She had almost lost him near the lake, but once she got past the cars that had come between them, she saw him turning onto the road leading to the lake.
He was already out of his car when she reached it. There was another truck parked there. He was meeting someone. Maybe another of the bombers. What if it was one of the men she’d seen at the apartment in Gainesville? What if they were plotting another attack?
She got her gun out from under the seat and checked the cartridge. She got quietly out of the car and closed the door gently so it wouldn’t alert them. The heat and humidity assaulted her, making her feel sick. Her head had never hurt like this, and she was soaked with sweat even though she’d been in her air-conditioned car. But she couldn’t let that stop her. The police hadn’t acted yet, so she had to. There was no one else.
She walked past the playground and over to the trees, then skirted over a ridge that made a peninsula. There was a trodden path in front of the trees, so she followed it, holding the gun down with both hands.
If she could overhear them plotting, maybe she could record it for the police. She stepped into the trees and turned on her phone’s video camera. She shoved it into her pocket, camera forward. Then she followed the path until she heard low voices. Again, she stepped into the trees, taking every step carefully, quietly, through the brush and limbs, until she saw the two men beside the water.
She came up behind them, clutching her gun. It was time, she thought. She could take care of them now. She could end this whole thing in two pulls of the trigger.
But her hands were wet, shaking, and weak, so she hesitated. She couldn’t hear them for the ringing in her ears. She stepped closer.
“Can you really live with that?” Webb was saying. “What if more people die?”
“I can’t live with any of this!” the other guy shouted. “But I have to put my boys first.”
“You’re not putting your boys first. You’re putting yourself first. I don’t get it, Travis—how could you have any part in a terrorism plot and still refuse to do what’s necessary?”
She dragged in a deep breath. More people could die? Taylor felt the tremor coming over her, weakening her fingers, reminding her of that explosion and her desperate escape while Mara and Desiree bled or burned to death behind her.
She couldn’t let it happen again. Rage exploded within her. “Look at me!”
As they turned and Webb stepped toward her, she lifted the gun and fired, its deafening blast knocking her back.
She raised the gun again, forcing herself to maintain a firm grip, and shouted, “Get down on the ground! Now! Hands above your head.”
The other guy knelt with his hands up, but Webb kept standing. “Hold on,” he said, talking in a gentle voice as he would to a panicked animal he was trying to calm. “There’s no need for a gun. Just put it down. Tell us what you want.”
“I want justice!” she cried. “I want my friends to be alive. I want you in prison.”
“Who are you?”
“Get down!” she shouted again, aiming for his forehead.
He knelt.
“I know what you did,” she said to Dustin Webb, “and I know who you did it with.” She took a step back as dizziness threatened to knock her over, but she steadied herself. “There can’t be any more bombs, any more death. I can’t let that happen. I didn’t help my friends, but I can do this. I can make sure you never do it again.” She ran out of breath and gasped for air, but the air was so heavy, so thick, and her head seemed to float. She clutched the gun tighter.
Dustin could tell by the way she held the gun and the slurred passage of her words that she wasn’t in control. The bullet had hit the dirt next to his foot. The next one might not miss.
“Were you there? At the rally?” Dustin asked.
“Yes! You murdered twenty-five people! How are you allowed to go free? How could they set bond and give you the chance to do it again?”
She steadied the gun, and Dustin thought it was over. She was going to kill him, right here. This was how it would end.
“He didn’t kill anybody!” Travis’s words echoed above the sound of the wind. “I set him up! It was me. It wasn’t him.”
Dustin kept his eyes on the girl.
“I didn’t plant the bombs,” Travis went on, “but I helped the bombers get access to the explosives.”
The girl was pale, as if all the blood had drained from her face, and she swayed on her feet.
“Dustin had nothing to do with it,” Travis said. “Don’t kill him. Kill me.”
Dustin looked at Travis with dread. Was this turning into a form of suicide, now that Crystal was dead? Had this been his plan all along?
“Don’t kill either of us,” Dustin shouted. “I know you’re grieving and you’ve been horribly traumatized, but killing us won’t solve any of it. It’ll just traumatize you more.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she bit out.
“I know you’re not the kind of person to do this. You cared about your friends, and you’re sick over what you saw. You’re impatient for a resolution. But this won’t bring it.” He swallowed and tried to slow his racing thoughts. “I think I saw you the other day in Gainesville. You were following me, weren’t you?”
She didn’t answer—just kept the gun on him.
“Those men coming out of the apartment, who got into the white van, they’re the ones.”
“If you weren’t involved, how would you know?” she cried.
“Because I met with one of them,” Travis said. “I took money from him. I needed it for my wife’s cancer treatments. I would have done anything to save her, but it didn’t. She died today.” Travis’s face twisted and reddened. Tears ran down his face. “If you want to take me to the police yourself, you can,” he said. “I’ll go with you. I’ll tell them everything. Just let Dustin go.”
She was confused now. “I don’t trust you.”
“Then tie us up and call the police,” Travis said. “You can sit here with us until they come. I have stuff in my trunk. Plastic ties, I think. You can tie us up.”
Dustin could see that the gears in her brain were turning as she tried to work it out. Finally she drew in a breath and said, “Get up.”
They both got to their feet, hands still raised. “That way,” she said, and they took a few steps back the way they had come. Dustin glanced over his shoulder and saw her close behind them, just out of reach, but
with that gun aimed at the center of his back. Despite what Travis had said, Dustin was clearly still the culprit in her mind.
They rounded the peninsula and headed toward the playground where their cars were parked. As they neared his truck, Travis pointed toward the big toolbox that spanned the width of the truck bed. “They’re in there.”
“Open it,” she said. “Don’t touch anything else.”
He opened the lid and raised his hands again. There was a clear bag with white plastic ties that they used for securing equipment.
“Step back,” she said, and they moved away from the truck.
She kept the gun on them and reached for the bag of ties. She opened it with her teeth, then sticking the bag under her arm, she got out a couple of ties.
She looked at Dustin. “Get on your knees.” As Dustin lowered to the ground, she stepped closer to Travis. “You, put these on him. Hands behind his back. Now.”
Travis stepped toward her and reached for the ties, but instead of taking them, he swung and knocked her to the ground, then ripped the gun from her hands.
Dustin scrambled up. The girl screamed and fought Travis for the gun, but it didn’t take him long to break free. He backed away and lifted the gun, pointing it toward the girl. His finger slid over the trigger.
“Stop!” Dustin threw himself between the gun and the girl, knocking Travis back. The gun went off again.
60
Jamie tried to focus on digging deeper into Samuel Bates and his brothers. But she couldn’t concentrate.
Crystal’s death and Travis’s disappearance had left a gnawing in the pit of her stomach.
Did Dustin know what he was walking into if he found Travis? What if Travis was so distraught about Crystal’s death and his own plight that he took his own life without ever telling the police of his part in the bombing? What if he left Dustin to take the heat? Could she prove Dustin’s innocence, given the damning evidence in his storage units? Without Travis’s confession, a jury might conclude that Dustin had made up the details after Travis was dead, when Travis couldn’t defend himself.
Beyond that, she dreaded the thought of what Dustin was putting himself through right now, if he found his best friend dead, or if he had to watch him destroy himself.
She grabbed her bag, threw her computer into it, and rushed out. Lila stopped her. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call you.”
“If the DA calls, I’ll forward the call to your cell phone.”
Jamie hurried to the elevator, punched the Down button, and trotted out to her car. She got behind the wheel and called Dustin, but he didn’t answer. She started her car, then texted him.
Dustin, if you find him, don’t approach him. You don’t know his state of mind.
But she knew Dustin well enough to know that he wouldn’t listen.
She didn’t have Wendy’s number, so she sat in a parking lot, pulled out her computer, and did a quick search. She found Wendy’s cell number and her address. Quickly, she dialed the number and pulled out of the parking lot.
No one was answering their phone today. She supposed that Wendy would be screening her calls, trying to avoid all the people offering condolences while she made the arrangements to bury her child. When Wendy’s cheerful voicemail greeting came on, recorded days before the tragedy had happened, Jamie couldn’t bring herself to leave a message.
She clicked the phone off. She would go to Wendy’s house instead. But when she got there, she found only the babysitter with the two boys. Wendy hadn’t come home yet, the babysitter told her.
Jamie had never had to deal with a loved one who died in the hospital, but maybe Wendy had to wait until the medical examiner took the body. Her heart went out to her. What a brutal, lonely time it must be for her if Travis had left her to do this alone.
She headed to the hospital, then hurried to the elevator and rode to the fourth floor. Just as she had suspected, Wendy sat in the waiting room, staring vacantly into space.
“Wendy,” she said.
Wendy looked up at her. “Jamie.” She stood and hugged her.
“I’m so sorry about Crystal,” she said.
“Yeah. Thank you. You didn’t have to come, sweetie.”
Jamie felt guilty that she hadn’t come for the purpose Wendy thought. “Is Travis here?” she asked.
“No, honey. I told Dustin a little while ago that I thought he was probably out at the lake, thinking things through. He hasn’t come back.”
The lake, where they’d taken the kids to play on the playground! “I have to go talk to them,” she said. Wendy didn’t ask questions. Why would she? She still had no idea what her son-in-law had done.
She headed back to her car. Her phone rang as she got in. She saw Louis Dole’s name come up. He was returning her call. She swiped it on. “Louis.”
“Yeah, Jamie. I’m at the police station and I don’t have much time.”
“I was calling about Travis Grey,” she said. “His wife died today and he’s dragging his feet about turning himself in. If you want to arrest him, I think you’ll have to do it now.”
“We’re getting a team together as we speak,” he said.
Relief blew through Jamie like a brisk wind. “I think he’s at Lake Phillips. It’s off the 95 exit, then a few miles south. There’s a big playground there. I’ve been there once before.”
“Can you meet us somewhere and lead us?” he asked.
“Tell me where to meet you.”
Dustin would be furious, but she couldn’t let him be victimized by Travis again. Travis was desperate and despondent, and the prospects for his future were bleak. If he’d been heartless enough to implicate Dustin before, how much more likely was it now when his arrest was imminent?
She drove as fast as she could to the church parking lot where they were meeting. The SUV full of SWAT team members in protective gear was already there, along with some patrol cars and an unmarked car. She dreaded the thought that Dustin could get caught in the crossfire.
Detective Borden came to her car when she pulled into the lot. “DA Dole said that you’re going to lead us to where Travis Grey is.”
“That’s right,” she said, “and Dustin Webb is with him. Please, I don’t want Dustin caught in the gunfire. Travis lost his wife today, and his state of mind is unstable. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“You take us to the turnoff, then you stay put. Got that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Just promise me you won’t hurt my client.”
“We never intend to hurt anybody,” Borden said.
He got back into his unmarked car. Two patrol cars followed Jamie out of the lot, with the SWAT van close behind. She drove faster than the speed limit. When she reached the turn into the clearing, she turned on her blinker, slowed, and pulled onto the grass next to the lot, giving them clear access. The two patrol cars, the unmarked car, and the SWAT truck turned in.
As soon as she’d turned off her ignition, she heard a gunshot. They were already shooting? Why?
She got out and ran up the dirt road to the police cars, but the officers were still in their vehicles, and she couldn’t see beyond them. The door to the patrol car flew open. “Get down!” the driver told her. “It’s coming from them.”
61
The round whizzed past Dustin’s ear as he grabbed the girl and pulled her down next to him. She screamed, but she wasn’t hit. He scrambled to his knees and got between her and Travis.
“That’s enough, buddy,” Dustin said in a breathless voice. “Put the gun down.”
“Move!” Travis shouted. Sweat ran down his face, and his eyes had taken on a feral look.
“Travis, don’t do this!” Dustin got his feet under him and kept the girl blocked. “Are you trying to kill us both?”
“If I have to,” Travis said.
Dustin didn’t believe him. “It’s not going to bring her back. It won’t get you out of
this.”
Travis had both hands on the gun, the barrel pointed at Dustin’s chest. “I didn’t want any of this to happen! I’m not this guy!”
Dustin heard the girl wheezing behind him, as if she couldn’t catch her breath. He reached back and touched her arm, keeping her behind him.
“I know you’re not that guy,” Dustin said. “Come on, man. I’m on your side. And this girl, she didn’t do anything. She’s lost people, too.”
“There’s no hope. My boys are the ones paying for all this. They’ll never be the same. A dead mother, a father in prison. It would be better if they buried me, too.” He turned the gun toward his own head.
“Travis, no!”
“Freeze! Drop the gun!”
Dustin sprang forward and knocked Travis’s arm back. Cops in SWAT gear came out of the woods from everywhere, surrounding them.
“Drop it!”
For a moment, Dustin thought Travis might pull the gun back to his head, or make a run for it, forcing the police to shoot him. Instead, he seemed to freeze.
The despair that came over Travis’s face as the police descended on him pierced Dustin to his core. They knocked him to the ground and yelled for Dustin to get down, too. He fell to his face as they strapped his hands together.
The girl was wheezing harder, and before the police got to her, she took a few steps, then collapsed in a heap.
62
Jamie ran up the dirt road toward the lake where she’d heard the gunshot. The police had both Travis and Dustin on the ground. She ran toward Dustin, but two of the armed officers held her off. “Stay back!”
She saw Dustin get to his feet. He wasn’t bleeding. He was okay. She started to cry.
Travis seemed fine, too, but beyond them, a cluster of police crouched over a third person. She heard a siren growing closer, and an ambulance pulled in. EMTs rushed toward them.
Aftermath Page 21
