A thin sheet of light cast through the front door fell across Rachel Little’s bony shoulders and shone across the harder points of her face. DJ watched her eyes stretch open.
“Officer Dos Santos?” she whispered, just loud enough for DJ to hear. “I just heard from SJPD.”
“Yup.”
“I did no such thing—I would never ask a person to do something like that. This man is the murderer,” she said to Ramon. “He killed a uniformed police officer.”
“He wasn’t in uniform when I got him. He was naked as a bad gambler—and I already told Ramon what I am.
“We’re getting off subject, anyhow. I asked Ramon a question. You ever had a friend get killed?” DJ kept his eyes buried behind the S&W 640, making sure the sights stayed on Rachel.
When Ramon didn’t answer, DJ glanced at him. “Hey, Ramon, habla Inglés?”
“Yeah,” Ramon said, almost inaudibly against the sounds of coquis chirping behind the house. “A friend got shot when I was in middle school.”
“Ramon!” Rachel whined. Pretty clear that she did not enjoy being out of control of a situation.
“Made you mad as hell, didn’t it?” DJ asked. “Made you want to find the guy who did it and beat his brains out through the back of his head.”
Ramon said nothing. But DJ knew he was right.
“This is an armed man on my property! What clearer violation of my safety do you need?” Rachel’s voice reached a new, whistling pitch. “If you don’t shoot him, you’re fired!”
“I’ve got no quarrel with you,” DJ restated.
“Think of your daughter, Ramon!” Rachel said. “How can you take care of her without a job? How will you feed her? How will you pay for a place to live? What about those braces she needs?”
“I find that argument as disgusting as it is manipulative,” DJ said. “How’re you going to invoke a man’s daughter as a motivator to get him to kill?”
As it turned out, Ramon disagreed with DJ’s perspective. He squeezed the trigger.
Whether Ramon intended the shot to be a warning, or if he was too nervous to hold his weapon steady was unclear. What was clear was the bullet that whizzed past DJ’s ear as he turned in shock to Ramon. He’d genuinely thought Rachel Little’s hold on Ramon was a lot weaker than she imagined it.
After he turned, something struck DJ in his shoulder blade, like a crazy man had darted out of the bushes with a claw hammer and whacked him. He doubled forward, dropping his snub-nosed S&W.
When DJ brought his eyes up, he saw Ramon standing motionless, a finger of smoke lifting from the end of his pistol, which he now held at his side, muzzle down.
“Oh man, bro.” Ramon sounded deeper in disbelief than DJ felt. “I’m really sorry.”
Not that it really mattered. DJ had no desire to stop and talk about it.
He made a break for the wall and ran as fast as his prosthetic leg would let him, forgetting his promise to kill Ramon if he got involved.
“Shoot him!” Rachel screamed as DJ escaped through the yard.
Ramon held his fire.
“I said shoot him!”
DJ sprinted for the hibiscus tree where he’d left his backpack. A pair of shots cracked through the air—one over his head, one thumping into the grass. When DJ looked over his shoulder, he was surprised to see Rachel Little aiming his own Smith and Wesson 640 at his back.
A bullet bored into one of the trees to DJ’s right, and a wash of splinters hit the seam of his work pants. A follow-up shot rang out, and DJ’s prosthesis flipped up, kicking him in his own ribs.
DJ rolled to the ground. He landed on his belly, and another shot hissed through the air over his head. He crawled to the nearest tree as quickly as he could, his prosthetic leg flopping behind him—must’ve been quite a confusing sight for Rachel Little and her security guard.
At the tree, DJ sat up, putting his back against the trunk. His prosthetic hung loosely inside his pants. He pulled it out by the shoe, and immediately noticed a new dent in its shaft, unmistakably left by a .38 caliber bullet. He worked the leg back on, rolling up his pants, fitting his stump into the cup, then rolling an elastic sleeve over that to keep everything in place.
Intending to stand up, he planted his hand down, and realized he was pushing against the backpack he’d left behind the tree earlier. He slipped it over his shoulders.
Another bullet zipped past, hitting the perimeter wall a few paces from DJ. The shot had a new timbre to it, sounding slightly heavier. She must’ve run through all five rounds in DJ’s 640, and taken Ramon’s handgun from him.
Dust popped from the wall again, almost directly in front of DJ. She had a good bead on his position, which he tried not to think about too hard when he pushed himself up to his feet.
DJ ran to his one o’clock, trying to keep the trees between him and Rachel as best he could. He jumped up the wall with his left foot—just as he’d done on the way in—but this time, when he tried to latch his arms over the marble cap, pain radiated from his upper back like a hot poker.
His hands lost their grip, and he fell on his ass.
With his back throbbing, he knew something was wrong. He remembered that sensation of being whacked with a hammer in front of the house, and realized it was probably a ricochet. When Ramon fired, the bullet, or a shard of it, must’ve bounced off the wall of Rachel’s porch, then struck him.
Which meant getting out the way he came in would be impossible.
DJ remembered the gate. It must be to his right somewhere. He hunched low, and hurried forward, keeping the front wall to his left. Off to the right, closer to the house, he heard the sound of Rachel’s voice barking commands at Ramon. He hoped they’d lost sight of him.
Within a few yards, DJ came to the gate. He pushed a button on a nearby post, and the gate’s motor hummed, lifting it out of the way. He sprinted away as soon as he could, escaping with his life. But then, so did Rachel Little.
The human spirit is a funny thing. A kid who has every reason to give up keeps going, and a man who has half a dozen reasons to keep going can’t shake it off.
As I untied Wayward from the dock, then motored her out of Long Bay, I pretended to have nothing on my mind. But the thought of losing my wife and Flor haunted me—and feeling so bothered by it made me feel guilty. What right did I have to be upset? Why did I feel entitled to sulk? When I was in the service, one of my commanding officers, Captain Evans, wouldn’t have sulked if he were in my shoes. When others depended on him, he did his job, and as lofty a goal as it was, I had to live up to him.
We anchored about half a nautical mile southwest of Havensight Point, where I had a clear line of sight to the shattered back door of my house. On Wayward’s flybridge with a pair of binoculars, I maintained watch on my house. I ate breakfast, lunch, and supper on the flybridge settee, then took a cup of coffee and a kiss from Alicia in the helmsman’s chair after sundown. All the while, the names of the fallen men I’d served with bumped around my head.
Sleep didn’t come that night. Not that sleep had come easily to me at any point in the last six years. Regardless, I had to keep watch.
I stayed on the flybridge, maintaining light discipline, with only the required anchor light on the masthead turned on. I left my post only when I couldn’t relieve myself over the side of the boat, or to grab a stack of protein bars around three a.m., when I got too hungry to concentrate. Other than that, I never looked up at the blanket of stars, or laid my head back in the helmsman’s chair and listened to the waves passing beneath our hull to fall upon the shore. I didn’t let my mind wander into the misty darkness.
I had to stay ready. My lack of readiness had almost cost Alicia and Flor their lives. I wouldn’t be caught unaware again.
When the sun came up over the eastern edge of the ocean that morning, I barely paid it any attention. My eyes were dry and weak, but still, I watched my house.
Around seven that morning, I saw a man wobbling up the deck stairs. My eyes h
ad trouble picking out the details at first, but when he approached the back door, I noticed the blood on the back of his T-shirt. A big, crimson drape clung to his body, revealing the wiry muscles beneath.
It was DJ. I was still pissed at him, but that didn’t stop the cold finger running down my spine.
I spun my chair back to the helm console, then picked up my phone and mashed my finger on DJ’s entry in my contacts.
Through the binos, I saw him fumble around his hip until he got his phone out of his pocket.
“Yeah?” DJ didn’t sound himself. That one word sounded like it took the better part of his energy to form and spit out.
“It’s Jerry. Stay where you are.” I jumped up from the chair and hurried for the steps down to the cockpit. “I’m coming to get you.”
“You what? I’m at your house.” He laughed, half-crazy. “It’s been a hell of a night, man. For both of us, I guess.” Glass crunched in the background.
“We’re on Wayward, just off-shore,” I said. “Sit tight. I’m coming to evac you.” I hung up. I practically leapt to the aft settee, then unfastened Wayward’s dinghy like we were taking on water.
“Alicia!” My voice echoed off the trees on shore. “Alicia! Get up!”
Once I had the dinghy in the water, I turned around and ran into the salon, then hooked a hard right, and jumped down the stairs into the starboard hull.
My wife was sitting up in our bed, rubbing her eyes.
“Were you up all night, Jer?”
That wasn’t important.
“DJ’s at our house,” I said.
She blinked hard. “He’s what?”
“He’s hurt.” I grabbed her by an ankle, and tugged, trying to get her out of bed faster. “I need an IFAK and the advanced trauma kit.”
Alicia’s eyes went wide. The individual first aid kit was one thing, but the advanced trauma kit wouldn’t come out unless something serious happened. We kept it packed with the kind of stuff used to tackle a variety of more serious medical emergencies like broken bones, puncture wounds, births—the kind of stuff that, if we were hours away from land, couldn’t wait.
“Where is he?”
“At our back door,” I replied.
We kept a pair of IFAKs and the advanced trauma kit in my hanging locker since I had fewer clothes. Our advanced trauma first aid kit was a medium-sized duffle bag packed to bursting. The smaller, more transportable IFAK was about the size and thickness of a small laptop and included a Velcro strap that wrapped around a thigh or hooked into a tac vest. I wrapped it around my thigh.
“What did he do? How bad is he?” Alicia lugged the advanced trauma kit over the lip of the hanging locker, letting it thump onto the floor.
“I’m not sure, but he’s bled a lot. The back of his shirt is covered. He said he had a wild night.”
“Then he’s responsive.”
“He’s slurring,” I said. “I don’t know how much blood he’s lost.”
She nodded. I didn’t have to tell her this was going to be a dicey one.
“Where do you want me to set up?” she asked.
“Cockpit,” I answered. I turned to leave, then stopped myself, circled back to Alicia and pecked her lips. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She slung the advanced trauma kit’s strap over her shoulder, and almost fell sideways. I reached out to help her get it through the door. “I got this,” she said. “You go get DJ.”
“I will.” I spun on my heel, then took all three steps into the salon with one stride.
“Jerry,” Alicia called.
I stopped. “Yeah?”
“Slap him once for worrying me.”
“If he doesn’t come willingly, I’ll have no choice but to knock his ass out,” I said.
“Don’t do it too gently,” she said, the advanced trauma kit audibly dragging on the starboard hull’s floor.
I ran out of the salon door and leapt to the swim platform. Within seconds, I was in the dinghy, twisting the outboard’s throttle, cutting for my house, not thinking about how I felt both tired and wired, not realizing I heard Captain Evans’s voice telling me I wasn’t responsible.
All I thought about was DJ.
I hit the shore, jumped out, and ran. Looking up through the trees toward the back door, I couldn’t see DJ. Except in my mind’s eye, where he’d collapsed on the deck, lying on shards of broken glass.
When I came sprinting up the stairs, I was relieved to be wrong.
DJ sat on one of our Adirondack chairs, one hand tucked behind his head, his face turned to the sunlight, his eyes closed. His skin was the color of bar soap left in a gas station bathroom.
“DJ?”
One eye peeled open, a hint of a smile crossing his features. A drop of blood plopped to the deck.
“Look who came crawling back.” His lips had trouble keeping up with his words.
I unstrapped the IFAK from my thigh, dropped to a knee beside him, opened the kit on the wood decking, and pulled out a pair of nitrile gloves.
“Jesus, DJ,” I said as I snapped them on. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Hey, man, no cavity search, all right?”
I frowned at him. He reeked of alcohol. “Can you lean forward?”
“When the mood strikes me.” I noticed his right hand clamped to the arm of the chair and his fingers let go, so I assumed he tried to raise his arm, but a grimace arced across his face. “Suppose I’m not feeling it right now.”
“How about I help?”
He looked up at me, then looked away. Normally, I would’ve let him be. If DJ wanted to be a pain in the ass, it wasn’t my place to stop him. Luckily for him, this wasn’t normal.
So, I moved my hands behind his shoulders, trying to lay them flat on his shoulder blades to help roll him forward, but as soon as I got my left hand in place, DJ yowled like a tomcat.
“Jesus, Joseph and Mary, Jerry!” He bowled over, rocking forward in the chair, and I caught a glimpse of the dime-sized hole in his shirt over his right shoulder blade.
“If you had just told me—”
He shot an angry look at me. “Not exactly in the talking mood, man!” A cord of slobber dripped down his goatee.
“If you stay hunched over just like you are, we’re good.” I got down on a knee and fished through my pack, then pulled out a pair of trauma shears. I cut down the back of his T-shirt, from neck to waist, getting the fabric clear of the wound. “Who shot you?”
“Nobody important,” he said through his teeth. “I didn’t know him. A bodyguard, I guess. I told him I didn’t have any beef with him—I just came to see his boss, but I guess everybody’s so damned worried about keeping their paychecks.”
“Or they’re worried about the strange guy with a gun.”
With his shirt out of the way, I saw the wound clearly; a crescent-shaped break in his skin, about an inch long. At first blush, it didn’t look deadly serious. My assessment was that the wound was too wide for his body to clot. Combine that with the alcohol in his system, and all the blood on DJ’s shirt must’ve slowly leaked out over a period of hours.
Wind shook the tree branches, and a dapple of sunlight skimmed across DJ’s back, revealing a lead shard in the wound. Once I had that out, Alicia could stitch him up, and that’d be the worst of it.
“Any idea what the bodyguard got you with?”
“Handgun of some kind. Probably a nine,” DJ said. “I think it was a ricochet.”
The wound did look smaller than what I had seen from 9mm or .38 caliber bullets. Too small to be anything bigger than that. Maybe a .22, but it didn’t seem to me like a professional bodyguard would carry a .22 caliber handgun. A ricochet seemed likely.
I put the shears back in the IFAK, then slid out a packet of sterile combat gauze and an antiseptic towelette. I opened the towelette’s package and snapped out the sheet.
“Grit your teeth, buddy. I’m gonna clean you off a little, then pack your wound and put pressure on. It�
��s gonna hurt, but it’ll feel rather good compared to what we’ll have to do on the boat.”
“Jesus, Jerry, your bedside manner is piss poor. You know that?”
“That’s why The Snyder Clinic is free.”
“Just do it already.”
“You got it.” A lot of the blood on his skin was already dry, but with a few strokes, and minimal wincing from DJ, I had a good, clean ring around the wound. I packed the wound with a single packet gauze, watching for a moment to see if the blood soaked through.
“How much have you had to drink?” I asked.
“Don’t come down on me about booze, man. Not right now.”
“You’d be a lot less bloody if you hadn’t drunk so much.”
“I’d be in a lot more pain, too.”
Fair point. Didn’t seem to matter anyway. DJ’s blood hadn’t come through the gauze, which was a good sign.
“You’re patched up for now,” I said as I Velcroed my IFAK shut. “How do you feel about getting to the dinghy on shore? Think you can walk it?”
DJ creaked upright, his lips twitching and fresh beads of sweat running down his face.
“I can walk it,” he said, sitting tall.
“Let’s see.” I motioned for him to stand with me. He gave me a glare that would’ve scared off a less determined man. “Don’t give me a dirty look, Dudley James—on your feet.”
His glare deepened. “Where in the hell did you find out my name?”
I grinned at him. “I think we’ve got more important things to worry about, don’t you?”
“That’s a family name, all right? And I didn’t have a say in picking it.” DJ scooted to the edge of the Adirondack and planted his left hand on his left knee, his right arm hanging loose. He pushed, trying to lift his butt off the wood slats, but never rising more than a fraction of an inch.
Wayward Sons Page 35
