“All clear, Boss. Eric’s no worse for the wear.”
Rico nodded and returned the thumbs-up.
“Wait a minute,” Jim said. “What about the Canaday brothers?”
“Billy was killed tonight in a raid at the Screaming Devils compound. And Harker’s Island PD is holding a suspect that fits Bobby’s description. I think it’s safe to say this thing is over, Jim. But just in case, you stay put until I say otherwise.”
“So Val and Mel? You think they’re safe, too?”
“Should be. I’ll keep you posted.”
* * *
“Boy, Valerie sure seems upset.”
Jim climbed aboard Novel Idea and sat down across from Sadie. “Sorry. She’s been really stressed lately.”
“I’m sorry if I upset her.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s mine.”
“Your fault?”
“Sadie, she thinks we have something going.”
“Well?”
“Sadie, I’m engaged to her.”
“I’ve been flirting with you, Jim. If anything, I owe you and Val an apology.” Sadie took a sip of red wine. “Want one?”
Jim leaned back against the cockpit seat. “I think I could use it.”
Sadie hurried below. She could feel her hands shaking as she poured Jim a glass. She glanced in the mirror quickly, grinned as she checked her make-up, and then ascended to the cockpit and handed Jim the glass. He took a gulp and almost immediately the tension seemed to drain from his face. What was it about him, she wondered, that excited her so? He was good looking for sure—and strong and windblown and proud—but there was something more than that. She felt herself drawn to him like a character in a book. She wanted to study him. To write about him. To kiss him.
“Oh, my…”
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.” She looked away and glanced at his house. “That man that was here earlier … the burned man? Is he trying to kill you?”
“He was. The cops caught him.”
“Jim, it was awful. I mean he was a nice guy. Seemed like it anyway. But his face … Jim, it looked like melted wax. All scarred and deformed. His nose and ears were all but missing. He said you were old friends and that you were expecting him. If I had only known. And then that bomb shows up. That scared me. And that poor police officer, Sergeant Strong? Standing on the trip wire? I mean, wow. This is great novel material.”
“Yeah. Too bad you can’t use it.”
“Actually, I was thinking of using it.”
Jim chuckled. “Sadie, you can’t.”
“Why?”
“Sadie, I don’t want this in a book. Valerie reads your books.”
“But, Jim, it’s about Alex. Not you.”
Sadie gulped. The plot was perfect. Jim was perfect. She ran her eyes up one of his arms and then shifted her gaze to the small purplish bruise under his eye. The man was a warrior. She felt her stomach stir. She realized they could never be just friends. This guy … this Jim Stockbridge … this Alex Hunt character she had created … he was everything Abby wanted. Everything she wanted. But suddenly she saw an emotion she had never seen in his gorgeous green eyes— anger.
“Sadie, please.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’ve already emailed a sample to my editor.”
“Then unsend it.”
“I can’t. She’s already opened it.”
“Sadie, you can’t use this. You’ve got to promise me you won’t.”
Sadie felt like the torn page of a paperback novel. “All right. I don’t know how I’ll get out of this, but…” She nodded. “I promise.”
“Look—” Jim set down his wine glass and stood up. “This … this probably isn’t a good idea. I should go.”
“Please stay.”
“I’m sorry, Sadie. This could never work … you, me, Valerie…” He stepped off the boat. Sadie felt her heart sink. “Thanks for the wine,” he said turning and walking down the dock. She watched him climb into his dinghy and fire up the outboard. Once again, he motored across the creek and tied up to his dock. But this time he walked into Jim’s Place without glancing back. Sadie felt her heart rip in two. Tears formed in her eyes. Her throat began to choke up. She realized it was too late. Abby was in love with Alex already.
“And Jim … I’m in love with you.”
CHAPTER
28
SUNDAY—06:45—EAST BEACH EMS STATION 2 (4944 Club Boulevard, East Beach) It seemed like two weeks, but in fact it had only been two days since Jim had walked out of EMS Station-2. He had mixed feelings as he grabbed his gear bag and climbed from his pickup. So much had happened since his last shift, and without Sharon by his side it could never be the same. The station was small and simple, a square brick structure with two truck bays and a large concrete pad for washing and sunning the trucks. He had spent most of his career there, and it had been a lot of fun, in the early days anyway. But he had just lost his partner, two fellow paramedics were dead, the routine of running calls had been tainted by the increasing dangers, and his own life had been threatened more than once. Still, somehow, it felt good to be back in familiar territory. It was a place of order and routine where a radio told you where to go, and the only real decisions you had to make involved saving other people’s lives. With all that had happened since Friday night—between Valerie and Sadie, and Devon’s murder, and the realization that a madman with a red-tipped shotgun had tried to remove his face—twelve hours of gritty, bloody, thankless EMS calls in a metal box infested with germs seemed like a dream vacation. It felt good to be back.
Jim walked across the tarmac and entered Bay-1. The aroma of fresh diesel fumes let him know he was home, and, that one of the trucks had just left on a call. The exhaust venting system had done about 75% of its job, and as usual his head began to spin. He tried to ignore the nauseating fumes and glanced at his favorite ambulance. EB-7 sat in Bay-2 looking about how he had left it on Saturday morning—tired, overused, and in need of a remount. The bullet holes in the rear quarter panel stood as a stark reminder of the dangers of East Beach. He walked over and touched the hood. Cool. He opened the passenger door and threw his gear bag behind the front seat. Then he tossed his stethoscope onto the dash. His Mag-Lite he slid into the crease in the seat. He grabbed the 800-MHz Motorola lying on the console and removed the cabled mic. The only other thing he needed was the small nylon pouch containing the controlled substances— Versed and morphine sulfate—10 milligrams each. That and another cup of coffee.
The night crew was right where Jim expected them to be, sitting in front of the TV drinking coffee and watching Bevis and Butthead. They looked like they had slept all night. Both men glanced at him and nodded.
“Where’d the other crew go?”
“Late call.”
“I need the drugs,” Jim said. “Who’s got ’em?”
“The Hulk.”
“Who?”
“Your new partner.”
“Who?”
“Evan.”
“Evan?”
“Keyes, Stockbridge. Evan Keyes. He’s in the bay checking the truck.”
“But it’s his first day. He can’t carry the drugs.”
“He’s got them.”
“Whatever.” Jim walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed a foam cup. He filled it with burned coffee and took a sip. Terrible. “You guys run anything last night?”
“Stabbing on Bacon.”
“Hit any vital organs?”
“Yes.”
“Did the victim survive?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks,” Jim said. “I can almost see it.”
Jim didn’t take it personally. He understood his co-workers’ unfriendliness. They were seasoned East Beach medics, tired, beat, and crispy around the edges. He poured the coffee into the sink and walked back out to the bay. To his surprise, a tall, heavyset man in black uniform pants and shirt stood beside the ambulance checking the airway box. His e
yes sparkled with friendliness, his body language shouted dominance. On his sleeve he wore the patch of a North Carolina Paramedic, on his lapel a radio mic that extended by coiled cord to a Motorola clipped to his belt. “I guess you’re my new partner,” Jim said.
“You’re late.” The newcomer stood and glanced at his watch. “In Durham we always arrive at least thirty minutes early.”
“In East Beach,” Jim responded, “we complete our shifts.”
“Change is inevitable.”
“Then you better get used to it.”
“And here I was hoping we’d be friends.”
“Don’t count on it.”
Jim’s new partner chuckled and placed the airway box into the side compartment. “I thought you’d be taller.”
“Why?”
“Legends are always bigger than life.”
“Legend?”
“Did I tell you the one about the killer paramedic that drowned the gangster in the Beaufort channel to save his girl? You’re a hero, doc.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Anyway, I’m your new partner.”
“Terrific. Give me the drugs.”
“I’m just trying to be friendly, doc. Jeez, lighten up. You’ll shorten your life.”
The Hulk handed over the drugs. Jim opened the nylon sheath and inspected the syringes. Everything looked in order. He initialed the paperwork, slid the pouch into his pants pocket, and glanced at Evan. “Keyes, right?”
“Evan Keyes at your service. Six-feet seven-inches of twisted steel and sex appeal. And,” he added pounding his chest. “Savior of all things recently dead.”
“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”
“Humility has never been an issue for me. If I ignore it, it usually goes away.”
“Maybe if I ignore you, you’ll go away.”
“Not a chance, doc. I have a job to do here.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s an old saying. The only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them dies.”
Jim frowned, and for an instant he imagined an evil glimmer in the corner of Evan’s eye, but it quickly gave way to the playful, friendly expression of a joker, a man who never stopped kidding around. Jim gave his new partner a long once over. He looked like a grotesquely oversized redneck, solid and tall, but sanded around the edges as if someone had tried to groom him to fit into society. His hair, black and tightly cropped, wrapped neatly from corner-to-corner above a pair of knobby ears that looked a little too small for his face. His eyes shone a vibrant bright blue, and his skin was the color of a slightly tanned newborn. To Jim he looked like a big kid with bleached white teeth, self-confident and overly aggressive, but with an exuberant smile that allowed you to overlook his oddities. Jim chuckled to himself. He had already decided that he liked Evan Keyes. He was going to be fun to have around, and an interesting character to mix into the blend.
“So here’s one for you, doc … how do you kill a circus?”
Jim almost laughed out loud at the man’s childlike, mischievous face. “I don’t know. How do you kill a circus?”
“Go for the juggler.”
“Clever.”
“I’m full of ’em.”
“You’re full of something.”
“So,” Evan said, just slightly more serious. “I hear your old partner quit Saturday morning. What’s up with that?”
“Why?”
“Just curious. Jeez, don’t be so defensive.”
“We had a run of bad calls.”
“I heard she was raped.”
Jim frowned. “You heard wrong. She was assaulted.”
“Didn’t mean to offend you, doc.”
“Stop calling me ‘doc’. And sorry, it’s just not a good memory. We had a run in with an East Beach gang last fall. It was a bad scene. Several people died.”
“East Beach sounds a lot like Durham. Gangs. Drugs. Ghettos. All the problems of a major city, only fenced in by woods. Or in this case, water.”
“We have a pretty bad rep.”
“We earned ours,” Evan bragged. “Two interstates, a major university, a small city infested with government projects midway between Miami and New York. Durham … City of Drugs. The perfect place for drug dealers to congregate. Hey, did I tell you the one about the heroin shrine?”
“Not yet.”
“Check this—” Evan walked to the truck and climbed inside the patient compartment. Jim followed him. “—I had this patient the other night, right? Nice old woman … dressed like your great grandmother. She had an altar in her living room. Cross. Bible. Candles. I mean a real nice, old, southern Christian lady, right? Cops raided her house and found five keys of uncut heroin in the back room. Turns out she was dealing poppy dust to every gang in town. I hear you’ve got similar problems here.”
“Everything changed in the early nineties.”
“That’s when Durham started falling apart, too. There used to be this drug dealer there, named O. Just O. The letter O. Can you believe that? He started dealing heroin and the whole place started going to pot. Next thing you know the FBI shows up, and O’s arrested along with a horde of other dealers. Rumor had it he was a narc. We never did find out though. O just kind of disappeared. And there was this other—”
“Tell me, Evan. Do you always talk this much?”
“Always.” Evan pulled open the sliding plastic door to the IV cabinet and put the supplies inside. “I like you, Jim. I think you’ll do.”
“I’ll do? Terrific.”
The loudspeaker chirped once before emitting an ear-shattering shriek. Evan jumped and covered his ears. Jim had grown used to it. He figured it was because his hearing was only about 70% what it had been when he had started working there six years earlier, and his ears were no longer sensitive to the excessively loud tones. In fact, his hearing wasn’t anywhere close to where it once had been. “Jeez,” Evan shouted. “That thing is like ten times too loud. Do you guys really put up with that?”
“I thought about taking a sledgehammer to it once.”
“I’ll bring one tomorrow!”
Jim chuckled as the dispatcher began her monologue. “Medic-seven … respiratory difficulty at East Beach Pines, room number 222…”
“Nursing home,” Jim said.
“Hope they have an ear doctor on staff.”
The dispatcher continued. “Eighty-three-year-old female with congestive heart failure. Respond code-three.”
“Code three? That mean lights and sirens here, too?”
“It does.” Jim pulled the radio from his back pocket. “Medic-seven en route from quarters.”
“How come you don’t use a cable mic?”
Jim glanced at his new partner. “I’ll be right back.”
“Want me to drive?”
“No.”
Jim trotted to the living quarters. After using the restroom and washing his hands, he ran back into the bay. Evan was already behind the wheel with the engine running. Jim climbed in and buckled his seatbelt. “Take a right out of the station.”
“You’re not going to be like my mother, are you? Always bossing me around?”
“Probably.”
Evan hit the gas. Jim flipped a few switches on the dash and the truck lit up like a disco. He waited until they had cleared the pad and merged with traffic before turning a switch to activate the siren.
“Yeah,” Evan said. “You’re famous in Durham, doc. That incident at, what was it? Garden Terrace? And the other one in the ocean where you drowned that dude, J-Rock? You were on the news, man. People still talk about it. You’re like a rock star in EMS circles. I heard something else about you, too, doc. They tell me you witnessed a murder Friday night. Something about a shotgun and a medic getting his face blown off.”
“Evan, do us both a favor and keep your eyes on the road.”
“I wish I could’ve been there. I would have taken the gun from the killer and blown his face off!”
> “It was a bad scene, Evan. Be glad you weren’t there.”
“Tom Bowers and his wife got it the same way. Terrible shame. I liked Tom. He was your supervisor, right? I mean before he came to Medic?”
Jim nodded.
“I heard the killers were wearing masks. Is that right? Halloween masks or something sick like that? Jeez, doc. Crazy world we live in. Four murders. Same M-O. Good people getting their faces shot off by a couple of insane brothers wearing masks. You think the cops have any leads?”
“What?”
“What, what?”
“What did you just say?”
“The cops,” Evan exclaimed. “Any leads?”
“You said a couple of insane brothers. What did you mean?”
“I meant I hope they catch them soon. Which way?” Evan said pointing at the boulevard. “Am I still going the right way?”
“Who said anything about brothers?”
“I don’t know. It’s what I heard. Dang, doc. Relax.”
“Take a right at the next light.”
“You’re strung pretty tight, aren’t you, doc.”
“I’ve been through a lot recently.”
“You need to learn to relax, my friend. Life is good, and way too short to worry all the time.”
Jim glanced at Evan and chuckled. “Are you always such a nuisance?”
“Usually. Anyway,” he said tapping the brakes and moving into the right lane. “I hope they catch these guys, or brothers, or whatever they are. You know that reminds me of another call I had in East Durham a few years back. We found this guy—”
“Evan, do me a favor, will you?”
“Name it.”
“Shut up!”
“Jeez.”
* * *
East Beach Pines was one of those places that seemed to fit its name. Not only were the hallways covered with gaudy looking pine tree wallpaper, but they reeked of Pine-Sol cleanser. The residents were mostly comatose, unfortunate victims of head injury or stroke whom, everyone knew, would probably never go home. Jim felt sorry for them, but he still hated the place. It was depressing. He had been there fifty times and had never seen a happy face.
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