His Best Friend’s Sister

by Eve Gaddy

  She resolved to put the issue out of her mind, at least until after work. Then, on her way to take the kids to daycare, they both hit her with: “Why can’t Uncle Zack stay with us always? We miss him.”

  So do I. “Uncle Zack has his own apartment. He stayed with us because I was so sick, but I’m well now.”

  “Why do you hafta be sick for Uncle Zack to live with us?” asked Cody. “Why can’t he live with us always?”

  “Because we live in our apartment and Uncle Zack lives in his. He likes his apartment.”

  “We could go live with him,” Katrina said.

  “No we can’t. Now, we’ve talked about this enough. We don’t need to talk about it again.”

  Of course, they kept talking about it until they got out of the car. “God give me patience,” she said aloud. She was ready to bang her head against the steering wheel. Worse, she knew she hadn’t heard the last of this. Cody and Katrina were nothing if not persistent.

  Chapter Twenty

  Laurel and kids had yet another discussion about Zack when she picked them up from daycare. She was at her wit’s end about what to do. On the one hand, it wasn’t their fault that Laurel was having issues with Zack. Or more specifically, having issues about moving in with him. She’d brought him into their lives—smack dab in the middle of their lives, not just peripherally, as he’d been before. They simply didn’t understand why Zack couldn’t be with them. All the time. Forever.

  But oh, my God, didn’t they ever quit?

  She shifted around the bags of groceries she held in her arms and that were hanging off of her forearms. Damn it, she’d have to make two trips. With her apartment on the third floor, she almost always managed to get everything in one trip, but today she’d had to leave her computer locked in her trunk and the rest of the groceries piled in the middle of the back seat. As she reached the apartment door, she said, “I understand you two like Zack and want him to be with us all the time, but for now that’s not going to happen.”

  “But, Mommy,” Katrina said. “We love him.”

  Unlocking the door and pushing it open, Laurel stepped across the threshold with the kids following.

  Two steps inside and she halted. Something’s wrong. The kids were chattering, trying to get past her but Laurel blocked the way. The sliding glass door opening to the tiny balcony had been shattered. Broken glass lay everywhere. Before she could fully comprehend the scene, two men walked out of the hall into the living room.

  She didn’t register much about them except for the gun—black and lethal—in one man’s hand.

  “What the fuck? What are you doing here?” the unarmed man said. “You’re supposed to be gone.”

  Even as he spoke, Laurel dropped the bags in her arms, turned and pushed Cody and Katrina out the door, slamming it shut behind her. Seconds later she heard a crack like the sound of a car backfiring and then another as something whizzed over her head. She ran across the concrete walkway between her neighbor’s apartment and hers, shoving the kids in front of her, plastic grocery bags still hanging from her arms. They were crying and asking questions but she ignored them and beat on Edith’s door, praying she was home.

  Edith opened it, took one look at them and pulled the children inside. “You too,” she said. “Hurry.”

  Laurel came in, closed the door and immediately locked it. She took the bags off of her arms and put them on the floor, then peered out the peephole but saw nothing. Holding her breath, she waited and watched. They hadn’t followed. Thank God, they hadn’t followed. Her children were both crying so she gathered them close. “It’s okay. We’re okay.” She was shaking with delayed reaction. That noise. They’d shot at her. More than once. At her and her children. She knew the sound of a gunshot. She checked her children for wounds but thank God they were all right, other than being scared to death.

  Where was Edith?

  Just then Edith returned, carrying a big-ass gun. Laurel thought of her own gun. The one her brothers had insisted she buy and learn to use once they knew she was adamant about living in a place she could afford. The gun that now resided in a gun safe under her bed. Safer for the kids that way, but not very helpful in a case like this. She’d never needed it before. The Texan apartments hadn’t been the greatest when she moved there but in the two years since they’d degenerated. Still, armed robbery was a new one, as far as she knew.

  Edith pulled out a chair from her table, turned it to face the door and sat down with her gun, grim-faced, locked and loaded.

  With shaking hands, Laurel pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed nine-one-one.

  “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

  Laurel sucked in a breath and tried to talk coherently. “I’ve—I’ve been robbed. Burglars. Two men—they were in my apartment. Just now. I think—I think they’re gone, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Who am I speaking to and what is your address?”

  “Laurel Lewis.” She gave her the address.

  The dispatcher repeated the address. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes. Are you sending the police? Hurry, please. I’m not sure they’re gone.”

  “What kind of weapon did the intruders have?”

  “A gun. They—they shot at me. At me and my children.” Her throat constricted again at the thought that she or her children could have been hit. “Twice. I think it was twice.” This couldn’t be happening. But it was.

  “Are you or your children injured?”

  “No.”

  “Are you in a safe place?”

  “Yes. At my neighbor’s. Her name is Edith Denton.”

  “Can you give me a description of the suspects?”

  “Are you sending the police?” she asked again.

  “Yes, ma’am. But the more details you give me the better the police will be able to handle it. Can you give me a description?” she repeated.

  Rubbing her hand across her forehead, she tried to think. “I didn’t see them very well. One had a gun. A black handgun. I don’t know about the other one. But they were both white, early twenties, I think. Maybe even late teens. They weren’t tall, but I don’t—I can’t judge very well because I’m so short, so I don’t know how tall they were.”

  “Can you give me any more details? Hair color? Clothing?”

  Laurel closed her eyes trying to picture the men, but it wouldn’t come clear. “The man with the gun…I think he has brown hair. But it was covered up. He wore a dark sweatshirt. A hoodie. They both did.” Which struck her as weird now that she thought about it. It was the heart of summer and steaming hot.

  “Mommy, I’m scared,” Cody said.

  “I know, honey. Everything’s going to be all right. Let me talk to the lady, okay?” Cody subsided, still sniffling, while Katrina remained in her lap, holding on for dear life.

  After several questions, including asking her the apartment number, and Edith’s, which she’d forgotten to give, the dispatcher asked Laurel to stay on the line until the police arrived. She said she’d alert the responding officers to Laurel’s whereabouts.

  “I’m going to set down the phone so I can take care of my children, but I’ll leave it on speaker,” Laurel said, holding her kids closer now with both hands, her heartbeat still racing. Less than five minutes later, she heard the wail of sirens. Apparently there were a few advantages to living close to the police station. “How did you know what was going on?” she asked Edith quietly.

  “Besides the fact that you all looked scared to death? I didn’t, exactly. But there have been a rash of burglaries around here lately. Some have occurred when people were at home. Although, I hadn’t heard anything about the thieves being armed.” She looked at her gun fondly. “This was Jerry’s,” she said referring to her late husband. “Don’t worry, I keep it out of reach of the kids and locked up whenever they’re here. Except now, when I might need it.”

  “Mommy, what does fuck mean?” Katrina asked.

  Oh, shit. Naturally her four-year
-old would remember what one of the robbers had said. “It’s a very bad word and you’re not to ever say it again.”

  “But what does it mean?” Cody asked.

  “It means you’ll get in big trouble if you ever say it. Understand?” She looked at both kids sternly and they nodded.

  Laurel glanced at Edith and had to look away quickly since Edith was biting her lip in an attempt to keep from laughing. Laurel didn’t blame her. She felt like laughing a little hysterically herself.

  She’d been robbed, she and her children had been shot at, and here she was worrying about her kids saying bad words. But at least when she thought about that she wasn’t thinking of being shot at and hurt or possibly even killed. She wasn’t thinking about what could have happened to her and all four of her children.

  *

  Zack was talking to Travis at the hangar when a call came in on his phone. It was his default ringtone, but he thought the number was familiar. “I need to get this,” he told Travis.

  “Hello.”

  “Zack, thank God. Can you come over?”

  “Laurel? What’s wrong?” She sounded terrible. And whose phone was she using? “Are the kids—”

  “No, it’s not the kids. I mean, it is but it’s not—they’re okay. Oh, God, Zack, we’ve been robbed.”

  “What? You were robbed? Where? When? Are you hurt?” Travis came to stand beside him, obviously having heard what Zack said.

  “My apartment. They were in my apartment when we came home. We’re okay. Just…scared and shaky.”

  “Thank God. And the kids? They’re—”

  “Yes, we’re not hurt. We’re at Edith’s.”

  “Laurel and the kids are okay,” Zack told Travis. “But she was robbed.” Returning to Laurel, he asked, “This took place at your apartment? Did you go in? What happened?” He’d known the neighborhood was getting worse. Seedy and getting seedier by the day. Damn it, he should have convinced her to move. But he hadn’t, not wanting to push her. He’d wanted her to decide without him having to force the issue. Obviously, that had been a mistake.

  “Two men broke in through the sliding glass door. We walked inside—after I’d picked up the kids—and—and they came out of the hallway into the living room. They—one of them—had a gun.”

  A gun? She’d been robbed at gunpoint? Oh, fuck. The thought had his stomach roiling. “You walked in on a robbery? The kids were with you? Are you sure you’re all okay?”

  “Yes. Just scared. We were able to get away before anything happened.”

  Like one of them getting shot, he thought grimly. “Have you called the police?”

  “Yes, of course. I called nine-one-one as soon as we got to Edith’s. The police should be here any minute. I hope.” She drew in an audible breath. “Just come over, Zack. Please.”

  “I’ll be right there. You’re still at Edith’s?” Edith Denton lived in the nearest apartment to Laurel. She was a widow and basically another grandmother to the kids. From time to time she’d take care of the kids, and Zack knew she and Laurel were close.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Stay there until the cops tell you it’s okay to come out.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  “I’m leaving now.” He hung up and Travis immediately started asking questions. Zack held up a hand. “The cops are on the way and she and the kids are at Edith’s. Jesus, Travis, she was robbed at gunpoint.”

  “Shit! I knew this would happen. That apartment complex is an open invitation to being robbed. It’s just a fucking miracle she hasn’t had a break-in before now.”

  “I agree, but I suggest you don’t lead with that. She’s upset enough already. She said she and the kids were okay. Aside from being scared out of their minds.”

  Starting for the hangar office, Travis said over his shoulder, “I’m coming too. I’ll follow in my truck.”

  By the time Zack and Travis reached the complex, the police were there. In fact, it looked like most of Whiskey River’s police force had shown up. Zack and Travis went straight up to Laurel’s apartment. They had to go through the cops who were trying to keep people out, but Adam Wells was one of them. Since he knew Zack and Travis and their relationship to Laurel, they were allowed to pass.

  Laurel was standing outside her apartment, talking to a man when they arrived. Though he wore street clothes, Zack recognized him as Dan Winters, one of the Whiskey River police detectives. Zack tapped Laurel on the arm and she turned to him and more or less threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Zack, I’m so glad to see you. And you too, Travis,” she said, releasing Zack to hug her brother.

  “Detective Winters,” she said, turning to him, “do you know Zack Bannister and my brother Travis?”

  “Yes, we’ve met, but it’s been a while,” Winters said. The three men shook hands.

  “Don’t let us interrupt,” Zack said. “We wanted Laurel to know we’re here.”

  “Detective Winters was asking me to describe the robbers, but I already told the nine-one-one dispatcher what they looked like,” she said, sounding a little put out.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Winters said. “But I’d like to hear it again. You might remember something else. Anything you can tell us can help to identify the intruders. Tattoos, scars, clothing, even their shoes,” the detective said. “After we talk, I’d like you to go to the station and talk to one of the officers to see if we can get a sketch of the suspects.”

  “You mean talk to a sketch artist?”

  “No, ma’am. Whiskey River’s not big enough to need a full-time sketch artist. But Jenkins is good and he should be able to get a reasonable idea of what these men looked like.”

  “All right. But I only saw them for a few seconds. We ran as soon as they came into the room.”

  “You’d be surprised what you remember,” the detective promised. “I’ll have someone take you to the station as soon as we’re finished.” He then drew her aside and began jotting notes as she described what had happened.

  While they talked Zack looked around and realized there was a hole in Laurel’s door. At his eye level. And another one even higher up. “Are those what I think they are?” he asked Travis, motioning to Laurel’s apartment door.

  Grim-faced, Travis nodded. “Looks like bullet holes to me.”

  Laurel came to stand with him after she and the detective finished talking. “You said they had a gun. You didn’t tell me they shot at you,” Zack said to her, his tone deadly quiet.

  “I haven’t had time. It missed. It was way over my head.”

  “There were two bullet holes,” Zack said grimly. “Two.”

  “The bullets went through the door and are embedded in the wooden post beside the apartment across the way,” Winters said, motioning to Edith’s apartment. “CSI will be here shortly and they’ll retrieve them.”

  Zack didn’t answer but pulled Laurel back into his arms. He tightened his arms around her as she clung to him. What if Laurel or one of the children had been hit?

  “Can you take Laurel to the station?” the detective asked. “She wondered if she could go with you rather than an officer. That’s fine with us.”

  “Yes, I’ll take her.”

  Laurel let go of him and he released her reluctantly. “Travis, the kids are with Edith,” Laurel said. “I’m going to tell them I have to go down to the station. But after I leave can you—”

  “I’ll take care of them,” Travis interrupted. “Don’t worry.”

  A short time later they walked to his car. Zack said nothing, afraid he couldn’t speak without yelling. And the last thing Laurel needed was for him to yell at her. But damn it, she’d been shot at. And she hadn’t said a word about it. Would she have, if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes? Laurel…and Cody and Katrina…the babies. They could have been killed. All of them could have been killed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The police station/jail was an old, stone building across the river from the grocery store and Lucy’s
Pizza. It had been built in the early 1900s as the jail, at the time far enough out of the main square that the townsfolk didn’t object. Laurel had been in it on a guided tour when she was a child. It had obviously been somewhat updated because Officer Jenkins was working on a nice computer and she’d caught a glimpse of the dispatcher’s desk and it looked modern as well. The station had been expanded a number of years before but the architecture was in keeping with the original building.

  After Officer Jenkins had greeted them, he took Laurel back to his desk, one of several in a large central room. Zack stayed in the waiting area near the entrance, saying he didn’t want to get in the way.

  Half an hour later, the policeman showed her the preliminary sketch. “That’s him,” Laurel said, looking at the sketch. “That’s the man with the gun.” She couldn’t believe how close Officer Jenkins had come to what the man looked like. She’d thought she didn’t remember much, but as Detective Winters had promised, the officer had been able to elicit details she hadn’t even realized she knew. The process was fascinating, or would have been if she hadn’t still been freaked out. But in a weird way, going through and picking pictures of noses, mouths, facial shapes and more had settled her nerves to a degree she wouldn’t have believed.

  She just wished Zack hadn’t looked as if he wanted to rip someone’s throat out ever since he’d seen those bullet holes in her door. The robbers, for sure. But he hadn’t seemed too happy with her, either.

  “What about this one?” Jenkins asked, showing her his completed sketch of the second man.

  “I think his face was thinner and his eyes weren’t that big, but it still looks a lot like him. At least…I think it does.”

  He made a few changes and showed the sketch to her again. “How about now?”

  “Yes. That’s him.”

  “If you think of anything else, please call. Here’s my direct number,” Officer Jenkins said.

  When they were finished Officer Jenkins called Zack in to look at the sketches on the chance he recognized one or both of the suspects. He looked at the sketches closely but shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen either of them. Something tells me they wouldn’t have hung around the airport.”