Sharma and Fola pushed into the room. Sharma turned to Briscoe. “Who’s next?”
Briscoe nodded to Brad. “Gunshot wound to the upper leg. He’s lost a lot of blood. Maggie put a tourniquet on before she collapsed.”
“Maggie what?”
“Not important now,” Briscoe said.
Sharma turned to Fola. “Get the leg splint and spine board.”
Brad’s eyes slowly turned to Sharma.
“Maggie.”
“Dixon’s got her. She’s in good hands.”
“What happened to her?”
“I’m not sure. What about you? Briscoe says your leg is broken. What’s with the bruises to your face?”
Brad’s voice was soft and slow. “Beat up by Wolfe. Forget face. Leg’s on fire. Pain races to my brain like an electric shock.”
“Okay. I’ll get your vitals first then we can decide on some pain relief.”
Sharma took a blood pressure. “Borderline. If the pain is that great, we can try a little morphine.”
“No. Not until I see Maggie.”
“Okay. Let me know if it gets so bad you can’t handle it.” Sharma placed an oxygen mask over Brad’s mouth and nose.
Brad slowly nodded.
Fola was back with the gear. They straightened Brad’s leg. He screamed. Once the leg was splinted, they loaded him onto the spine board and carried him to the ambulance.
Briscoe backed out of the room. It was a bloody crime scene. He stood with Griffin in the hall. They stared back into the bedroom where Wolfe lay crumpled on the floor.
“Bastard is finally dead,” Briscoe said. “He left a big wake of carnage behind him.”
“I saw the ambulance racing away with an escort,” Griffin said. “How’s Maggie?”
“Not good. She didn’t know she was shot. Or she didn’t think it was bad. She looked after Brad until she collapsed. She told Steele how to treat Lobo.”
“And Brad?”
“Wolfe hung a pretty good beating on him,” Briscoe said. “His left leg is shattered.”
“Ah, shit. Annie?” Griffin asked.
Briscoe felt red rage up his neck to his face. “Thankfully that bastard Wolfe didn’t rape her. She’s with Victims Services and on the way to the hospital to get checked anyway.”
“I’ll stay here,” Griffin said. “Go to the hospital. It’s a homicide—a justifiable one, but a homicide all the same. Either I’ll keep the case or internal affairs will punt me out the door the second they get here. I’ll meet you at the hospital later.”
Briscoe took one last look into the bedroom and had a sinking feeling.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The intravenous did its job and Brad’s blood pressure improved. “We’ll keep you on oxygen for a while longer,” Dixon said. “I can give you something for the pain now.”
Brad waved his hand. “After I see Maggie.”
At the emergency department Dixon and Thompson wheeled Brad into a trauma room. He was quickly surrounded by emergency staff.
He pushed the oxygen mask aside. “Where’s Maggie?”
A nurse he recognized but couldn’t remember her name took his hand and leaned close. “She was in the next trauma room.” She squeezed his hand tight. “She’s critical. They rushed her to the OR just before you arrived.”
“Critical? How? She was treating me then she collapsed.”
The nurse avoided eye contact for a moment, then looked at Brad. “The bullet hit her spleen. Most of the bleeding was internal. But once her blood pressure dropped, her heart couldn’t beat fast enough. Not enough oxygen was getting to her brain, so she collapsed and was unconscious.”
“You can live without a spleen, right?”
“Yes.”
“But not always?”
The nurse forced a smile. “No sense getting ahead of ourselves.”
“She’s pregnant.”
The nurse nodded. “The paramedics told us. How many weeks?”
“Ten, no, eleven. This is real bad, isn’t it?”
“Maggie is with our best trauma surgeons. Now it’s your turn. X-rays and then you’ll go to surgery, too.”
“No, wait. Don’t send me to surgery until Maggie is out.”
“Brad, I won’t mince words. If you don’t get to the OR ASAP, they might not be able to save your leg. It won’t be easy to repair your femur. After surgery, when you wake up, I’ll make sure you know how she’s doing.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
The coffee room in the emergency department was crammed with cops and paramedics. Hospital staff had given up trying to take a break there.
The tension was palpable—cops against one wall, paramedics the other. No one spoke. Some sat with their heads back and eyes closed. Others leaned forward, heads low, clasping and unclasping their hands.
When the door opened, every head turned in that direction—false alarms. One hour became two. Some started pacing in the small room. Others left for fresh air outside.
Briscoe, Zerr, and Griffin walked out of the emergency department and leaned against an ambulance. Nothing was said. They drew strength from each other, but it was in short supply. They were numb. The high adrenaline of mere hours ago was followed by an adrenaline low. Just enough to function, no more.
A cruiser, lights flashing, raced up beside them. Steele jumped out. “Any news?”
Briscoe shook his head.
“Neither of them?”
Briscoe shook his head again.
“Where are they?”
“They’re both in surgery,” Zerr said.
“We should go up there.”
“We already tried,” Zerr said. “They kicked us out. How’s Lobo?”
Steele shrugged. “He’s in surgery. He lost a lot of blood. Dogs don’t do well with anesthesia. He’s touch and go.”
Briscoe nodded. Nothing more to say.
Chapter Seventy
The internal affairs detective glared at Annie. She sat defiant, arms across her chest, eyes ablaze. “I don’t know which part you don’t understand. I’ll only talk to two cops. Coulter or Steele. I don’t know you. I’m not telling you my life story so you can get up to date.”
“Are you saying you won’t cooperate with this investigation?”
Annie rolled her eyes. “No.”
“If you don’t talk to me that’s obstruction and you’d go to jail.”
Annie laughed. “That’s the lamest threat I’ve heard. I’ll have to mention your threat to my lawyer.”
“Who’s your lawyer?”
“Brad Coulter,” Annie said. “I’ll tell him everything that happened. I’ll even write it down. But only to Brad or Sam. I trust them. So, we can glare at each other for hours.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “I’ve got nowhere to go. Or you can get off your ass and find one of those guys.”
The internal affairs detective slammed the door as he left.
Annie woke with a start when the door opened. Sam walked in and dropped into a chair. His uniform was blood-soaked. He had blood on his face and in his hair.
“You look like shit,” Annie said.
“Thanks.”
“Maggie and Brad?”
“Still in surgery.”
“Lobo?”
“He’s a mess,” Sam said. “I need to get back there. I want to be there when he gets out of surgery. But I was ordered by internal affairs to get you to talk.” He set a cassette recorder on the table. “They want me to record this.”
Annie nodded. “Fine with me.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “I know the story up to the point where Brad raced away to Blighe’s house because Wolfe was spotted there.”
“When Brad left, I locked the front door and reset the alarm. Maggie fed Lobo and put him out on the deck. About twenty minutes after Brad left there was a knock at the front door. When I looked through the peephole, all I saw was an arm with a pizza box. Earlier Brad had said he wanted pizza. I figured he’d ordered it
before he left, so I shut off the alarm and unlocked the door. We have cops out front all the time so I knew no one would get past them that they didn’t think was safe, but something must have happened to them. Maggie was behind me when I opened the door. The delivery guy had his back to us with the pizza in his left hand. When he turned to face us, he pointed a gun and dropped the pizza. It was Wolfe. He was different, shaved head and no beard, but I’ll never forget those eyes, dark and empty. He stepped into the house and said, ‘Party time.’”
Annie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was silent, except for sniffles.
She opened her eyes and wiped away the forming tears.
“He told us to go upstairs. It was weird, like he knew where the bedroom was. He told me to sit on the bed. He told Maggie to put on something sexy. Something she’d wear for Brad. She refused and told him to go to hell. He grabbed her. Maggie punched, kicked and scratched him. She didn’t know he likes that, gets him excited. He hit her hard a couple of times. I think she was dizzy. She stopped fighting. Wolfe told her to change clothes. She did, but it was like she was drunk. She could barely stand. When she’d put on a red slip, Wolfe grabbed her and tied her to the chair in the corner of the room.”
Tears flowed over her cheeks. Annie sniffled and used her sleeve to wipe her face. “Then he pushed me onto my back and pinned my arms and legs. I could barely breathe with his weight on me. He was angry I didn’t fight back. He punched me a few times, tied me to the bed and put tape over my mouth.”
“Are you okay to continue?” Steele asked.
Annie nodded.
“What happened next?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“He put a gun on the night table then sat on the edge of the bed with a radio. He had the volume low, but I could hear. It was you guys talking about Wolfe and not finding him. Then Brad said he was going home. Wolfe was practically giggling. He waited for about five or six minutes. Then he heard Brad on the radio saying he was back. Wolfe talked into the radio. I think he said a cop was shot. Whatever it was it got cops excited. Then he stood behind Maggie with a knife at her throat. He warned her that if she said anything he’d shoot Brad and then torture him and make him watch while he raped us.”
“Shit.”
“Maggie struggled to get away from the knife. That’s when Wolfe punched her. She screamed. Then I saw Brad at the bedroom door. I couldn’t yell but I shook my head. I wanted him to get away. But Wolfe knew he was there and told Brad to come in. Wolfe made Brad place his gun on the floor and put on his handcuffs. Then Wolfe beat Brad. He kept taunting Wolfe so he wouldn’t rape us. Wolfe punched and kicked Brad so hard I thought he was dead. Then Wolfe climbed onto the bed with me. I thought he was going to rape me. I kinda blacked out. Then Maggie was screaming, and I heard two gunshots. Wolfe was standing beside the bed, grinning and pointing the gun. He was going to shoot again, then Lobo attacked him. They fought, Lobo yelped, and then there were two more gunshots. Maggie was still screaming but Lobo only whimpered. Then you and Zerr came in.”
There was a knock at the door. Zerr peered in. “The vet wants you back there as fast as you can.”
“I gotta go,” Sam said. “I’ll get Zerr to sit with you. Is that okay?”
Annie nodded.
Sam raced out of the room.
“Is he okay?” Steele asked.
The doctor took a chair in front of Steele and leaned forward. “He lost a tremendous amount of blood. We couldn’t get a blood pressure when he arrived. We rushed him to surgery, started IVs. Then we infused blood. He had a lot of wounds. The two worst wounds look like they were slashes from a knife. He was lucky that it missed any major blood vessels, but there’s still a lot of bleeding, and his right lung collapsed. He had embedded shards of glass. Where did the glass come from?”
“He jumped through a window,” Steele said.
“Wow. Most of the cuts weren’t very deep. We got his blood pressure stabilized and removed the glass. We put in a chest tube to help his breathing. He’s on a ventilator and sedated.”
“Will he make it?” Steele asked.
“I don’t know. When he lost all that blood, he wasn’t getting much oxygen to his brain. Only time will tell. I don’t know what else to say.”
Steele stared blankly at the doctor. “Can I see him?”
“He’s in recovery. You can see him through the glass, but you can’t go in.”
Steele followed the doctor down the hall. They stopped in front of a window. Lobo lay on a bed, a tube coming out of his mouth and at least a dozen places where his fur had been shaved.
Oh God. What do I tell Brad?
Chapter Seventy-One
The first time Brad woke up he was blinded by a bright light, then he saw two people. Male and Female. Curtis and Maggie. The light dimmed, then they turned and looked at him. Curtis was dead. Maggie?
The next time he awoke he heard voices.
“We repaired the femur. It’s more titanium than bone.”
The doctor?
“Will he walk okay? Run?”
Steele?
“That’s hard to predict. He’ll have the cast for six to eight weeks. Then months of rehab. He’s got a long road to full recovery. If that’s even possible.”
“When will he wake up?”
I am awake!
“We’ll keep him sedated for another day and see how he’s doing tomorrow.”
What about Maggie? Annie? Lobo?
He had no idea how much time passed between his short periods of consciousness. He heard people talking. The voices were clear and close. Annie and Sam.
“Brad,” Steele said. “Can you hear me?”
Damn it. Yes, I hear you!
In his head, he answered, but he didn’t say anything out loud.
“He’s still unconscious,” Annie said. “Who’s going to tell him?”
“They did everything they could in surgery,” Steele said.
“It’ll devastate him.”
“Four years can seem like a lifetime.”
Wait, who are you talking about?
They kept talking like they hadn’t heard him.
Listen to me, he yelled. Why can’t you hear me? His brain grew cloudy. No.
His eyes popped open and he was blinded by the brightness. When eyes adjusted and he realized he was in a hospital room. He turned his head. Annie sat close to the bed, she smiled and laid her hand on top of his. “Brad, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Brad answered in a raspy voice.
“We’ve been worried about you,” Annie said.
“’Bout time you woke up.”
Brad turned to the voice. Devlin! “You’re okay.”
Zerr pushed Devlin’s wheelchair closer to the bed.
“A thick skull helps,” Devlin replied.
Zerr set a bottle of rum on the table beside the bed. “I owe you that. For when you’re feeling better.”
Brad grinned when he heard a soft bark. Steele set Lobo on the bed. He crawled up to Brad and smothered his face with slobbery kisses. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
Brad glanced around the room, a frown on his face. “Where’s Maggie?”
Chapter Seventy-Two
Lobo lay beside Brad, head on his lap. Lobo’s bandages were gone. He looked like an emaciated, starving wolf with bare areas where his fur had been shaved.
Brad stared ahead, eyes unwavering. He felt empty, like a part of him was missing. And it was. He had long since drained his eyes of tears. He numbly went through the day only to realize hours had passed.
He hated the cast and the crutches. He wanted to run, no, needed to run until he dropped. But he could barely walk, let alone run. Lobo wasn’t in any shape to run either.
So, every day they came here and lay on the grass, soaking up the sun. They came when it rained. Others came and went, but he and Lobo stayed. They only left when they were forced to.
“It’s time to
go.”
Lobo jumped to his feet.
Brad turned to Steele and nodded. Steele helped Brad to his feet and handed him the crutches.
Brad took one last look at Maggie’s tombstone. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
* * *
The End
Acknowledgments
Wow! My third novel in the Brad Coulter Series!
Following the launch of OutlawMC emails started to come in. I am excited so many people like both Crisis Point and OutlawMC AND let me know.
There were a few themes to those emails.
First, they wanted to know when the next novel would be launched.
Second, if I wasn’t working on novel 3, Wolfman is Back, 24/7, why not? They suggested I should change my priorities.
Third, a common complaint. It went something like, “Last night I was reading your novel. I couldn’t put it down. I read until well after midnight. I just had to read to the end. Now I’m exhausted at work today.”
When a writer gets feedback that readers couldn’t put their book down, that’s a thrill.
Thank you to those who emailed me to tell me they like my novels. And thank you for telling your friends about Crisis Point and OutlawMC.
In March 2019 Wolfman is Back was ready to send to Taija Morgan to edit. But something didn’t feel quite right and I wasn’t sure what it was. (Spoilers ahead for Wolfman is Back, consider yourselves warned if you haven’t finished the book yet!) When I looked back over the series, I realized that life, while chaotic for Brad, was moving along quite well in his personal relationship with Maggie. Early in Wolfman you learned that Maggie and Brad had some wonderful news in their personal life together, and they were making a lot of plans for the future. In fact, the original manuscript had Brad kill Jeter Wolfe with the assistance of Lobo, and the final chapter was Brad deciding he and Maggie needed to get married immediately. Ah, what a nice ending—murder and marriage. But crime thrillers are not about happy endings. Heck, even the original Grimm fairy tales had horrible endings.
Wolfman is Back Page 25
