HARMED_Seconds From Revenge 2

by Dr L. Jan Eira

  “What’s a Pocket City VOR?” asked Kate. Claire shrugged her shoulders.

  “Pocket City is the name of a transmitting beacon,” said Jack. He pulled out a map from his trunk and laid it out on the hood of his car. His finger came to rest on a point on the chart.

  “Here it is.” His gaze quickly scrutinized the small print, and his finger slid from where it was and stopped a few inches away. “I know exactly where Susan is.” He threw the open map into the trunk of his car and rushed behind the wheel. “Come with me.”

  “Did you hear all that, Jack?” asked Peski.

  “I got it. Steve, give the pilot my cell number and text me his. We’re on our way to the truck now.”

  “Will do,” said Steve.

  Jack terminated the call as the three entered the car. While Jack drove like a maniac, Kate informed Detective Mills of the recent events and the location of the scene.

  Once he received the pilot’s cell number, Jack called him to ascertain that communication was feasible. The pilot provided a thorough description of the area surrounding the large truck.

  “The truck is located on a small, unattended farm,” said the pilot, his voice carried on the speakerphone, which Claire held up at ear level. “Close to a small country road. There’s a main house and three barns of different sizes, all in pretty bad shape.”

  Jack made a sudden right turn, and the paved road became a narrow dirt path as the pilot spoke again.

  “The truck’s parked farther back into the property, near a ravine overlooking the Ohio River. They attempted to hide it from the road, but I got a clear shot from the air.”

  “My ETA is approximately ten more minutes,” said Jack.

  “Two squad cars just arrived. There are officers with guns drawn all over the place. They’re checking out the main farmhouse and barns around it. But the truck is many yards away under some trees.”

  CHAPTER 69

  As Jack drove on, Claire entered www.SeeSusanDie.com. She held her breath and distorted her face in agony and pain as she witnessed live Susan’s predicament. Kate looked on. Horrified. Helpless.

  “She has maybe a minute to live,” said Claire. “If that.”

  The women gazed at Jack, who for a split second took his eyes off the road to lock eyes with them. As he stared back at the road ahead, Claire and Kate wordlessly enticed him to go faster. Their eyes returned to the cell phone screen. Susan was now just about completely suspended by her neck, her toes barely touching the platform over the shrinking ice cube. Her breaths were shallow and labored. Occasionally, she swallowed saliva from her mouth but with obvious discomfort.

  “I can’t go any faster,” said Jack.

  As the Lexus approached the area, the red-and-white emergency lights of the multiple police vehicles gave testimony of the unfolding crisis. Hurriedly, Jack put the Lexus in park, and all rushed out of the car.

  “No, she’s in the truck. Down there!” yelled Jack at the crowd of police officers and pointing down toward the ravine and the ice truck concealed by trees and bushes.

  “She’s dying in the truck,” shouted Claire.

  As Kate exited the car, her attention was immediately drawn to one of the police vehicles. She gawked inside, spying a rifle resting on a gun rack. She opened up the door and quickly removed the firearm. She analyzed the weapon—it was loaded. On top of it, a telescope was mounted. You’re coming with me, she thought. Unnoticed by Jack or Claire, Kate grabbed the rifle and began running right behind the other two.

  • • •

  As Detective Mills exited the main house, he was informed by one of the patrolmen that Quentin was supposedly down the hill inside a truck and that Norris and two women were running down the hill.

  “Keep three here. The rest follow me.” Mills rushed behind the main house and explored the terrain down the hill. Multiple fallen trees across the road prevented it from being passable by the types of vehicles present, showing how the whole property had been neglected by the passing years.

  “Someone bring blankets, oxygen, and a knife to cut the ropes. Call for an ambulance.” He began his sprint in the direction he was told Jack and the others ran, with five cops in tow.

  • • •

  “Did you just take that gun from the police car?” asked Jack as Kate raced past him and Claire, sprinting toward the truck.

  “It may come in handy,” said Kate.

  “I hope you know how to use it!” said Jack.

  Kate nodded.

  The truck was parked sideways, the back of it facing away from the rescuers. The back door was ajar. Suddenly, Jack’s heart froze. Immobilized by the developing horror, the three runners stopped in their tracks. To their dismay, the truck quivered to life, a puff of smoke blowing out a pipe over the cab. Someone exited the cab and walked rapidly toward the back of the vehicle. A woman, perhaps. It was too far to be sure. The person entered the ice truck through the back door. Instinctually, Claire glimpsed at her cell phone; the atrocity of her friend’s suffering continued unfolding in front of her eyes. Unlike before, Susan now had a visitor, seen on the web page. The woman touched a button, and the screen developed a voice. In the foreground appeared a young woman’s face, her hair disheveled, her eyes swollen.

  “You killed Mike, the love of my life,” she screamed, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Now, I’ll kill your friend!”

  Jack, Claire, and Kate looked at one another in disbelief, realizing who the crazed woman was.

  “It’s Shelley,” said Jack. “It’s Shelley from the office.” He took the cell phone from Claire’s hand and stared at it. He felt betrayed, as if a dagger was stabbed through his heart.

  “Shelley, we’re your friends,” screamed Kate into the cell phone, realizing the woman would not hear her words. She shook her head, looked at Jack and Claire, and then resumed her sprint, the others right behind her.

  Shelley disappeared into the background. Susan became again the main feature on the web page, the noose around her neck unyielding. The truck quivered more forcibly, a thicker plume of smoke exiting from its exhaust pipe, and then began moving forward, slowly at first, shaking as it did. As the truck waggled, Susan began swaying, her body weight now mostly supported by the noose around her neck. The moving truck gathered speed, gaining forward momentum. Jack’s phone vibrated. He answered the call as he ran.

  “The truck’s moving toward a huge cliff. An abyss. It’s going to dive into the Ohio River below,” said the pilot. Jack looked up and saw a Cessna 172 circling over the farm. “I can see the whole area, and it ain’t good.”

  “How long until they reach the edge?” asked Jack breathlessly.

  “About twenty to thirty seconds,” said the pilot. “It’s gotta be about a three-hundred-foot fall, maybe more.”

  Jack hung up the call and concentrated on his dash. The truck was moving directly away from the group, its back door allowing a view of Susan, now completely suspended by her neck, her hands tied behind her back. Despite their run, it would be unlikely the group would reach the truck before it dove into the river below. For that matter, it would be doubtful that Susan could survive another moment hanging in the moving vehicle.

  “Everybody, stop,” yelled Kate, causing Jack and Claire to halt. “Get out of the way!” Kate grasped the weapon she was carrying behind her back and assumed a rifle-shooting position, one knee on the ground supporting her arm holding up the weapon. “I can do this,” she whispered.

  Detective Mills, jogging ahead of the other five officers, reached the three front-runners and quickly advanced toward Kate. He placed a hand on the body of the firearm, ready to yank it out of Kate’s possession.

  “Let her shoot,” said Jack firmly, his eyes locked on Mills’s. “Trust her.” He nodded slowly. “We can’t reach the truck in time.”

  Mills acquiesced and released his grip on the weapon. He
took a step back.

  Kate steadied herself as she peered through the telescope, peering inside the cargo area of the escaping truck. Through the expanding cloud of dust and smoke trailing behind the moving vehicle, Kate continued to steady her hands, hoping for nothing short of pinpoint accuracy. The hanging rope tied to the noose around Susan’s neck swayed in and out of the crosshairs of the rifle as the object moved farther and farther away, more and more with each passing tick of the clock. The gallows now supported Susan’s weight. One hundred percent of it. Susan balanced precariously on the fence separating this world from that beyond. Her only source of oxygen now was the meager amount already in her bloodstream, allowing her less than twenty or thirty seconds before succumbing to asphyxiation. As moribund as Susan’s state was, if Kate’s efforts did not free Susan from the scaffold, she would have less than ten seconds to live, fastened to the diving ton of metal. The truck would likely explode on impact with the terrain hundreds of feet below.

  The gap between the advancing massive vehicle and the edge of the abyss closed with each passing heartbeat. Kate’s breaths became slow and rhythmic as she had done thousands of time when she was a younger girl on the farm with her dad. Sturdy and balanced…no rush, she heard her father’s calming voice say, distancing her from the chaos. Here goes, she thought, pulling the trigger. Double shots in quick succession resonated through the canyon.

  A few seconds later, the ice truck became airborne and disappeared into the chasm, leaving behind a thick plume of dust and smoke. A moment later, a loud explosion pierced through the peaceful afternoon, massively disrupting it. Paralyzed by the unfolding tragedy, the rescuers stood for a moment, aghast and in shock. Then they resumed their rapid procession toward the place where the truck disappeared. The dust began to clear, allowing the group to see the path taken by the large vehicle.

  As anticipation swelled, tears began to sprout in the rescuers’ eyes, all early signs pointing to a bad outcome. Through the dissipating haze, a distorted image appeared to move several yards in front of them. The group persisted with their unrelenting scuttle. A poorly defined mass within the smog had definitely moved ever so slightly but surely. As they approached, the body of a woman could now be seen, the dust clearing further. Definite movement—slightly at first and then a fruitless attempt to stand up. It was Susan. Detective Susan Quentin was alive, a severed frayed short rope still attached to the noose around her neck, a rope and noose that had been destined to suffocate the life out of the detective. As the group arrived at her side, Jack knelt next to her.

  “Let’s move her away from this dust,” he said, picking her up off the ground.

  “Where’s that oxygen bottle?” demanded Mills.

  Others came to help, and soon she was in the clear. Susan still struggled to breathe. The noose around her neck had caused a painful deep groove surrounded by swollen tissue. She was freezing cold, shivering uncontrollably. Claire placed blankets over her to lessen the chill.

  Little by little, the concerned look on Jack’s face began to fade, replaced by hope and optimism. “I think she’ll be OK,” he said repeatedly.

  The noose was gently slashed, allowing her to pass air and saliva through her mouth and nose and improving her color drastically.

  “Thank y—” she slurred, a smile barely forming on her face. “Thank you,” she repeated, her teeth chattering, her jaws quivering. Near-frozen tears dared to flood her eyes. Relieved from her agony, Susan’s brain began to mercifully disconnect as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness, all along her mind still singing, Don’t take my sunshine away!

  Epilogue

  A Year and a Half Later

  The indoor soccer game was full of excitement. The Heartbeats were playing their nemesis, the Old & Arthritic, a team they were yet to beat. Jack, the captain of the Heartbeats, had rallied the troops before the game, hoping the psychology of it all would give his team the advantage. And it had. Somehow, the Heartbeats were up 2–0 as the buzzer sounded, announcing halftime. There would be a ten-minute interval before resuming play.

  “I figured it out, Dr. Norris,” screamed a voice from the spectator seats adjacent to the indoor field.

  “What did you figure out?” shouted Jack from the indoor soccer field.

  “I know how to move the wolf, the rabbit, and the carrot,” yelled Frank. Jack walked back to the net separating the audience from the players.

  “OK, tell me.”

  “The first trip, you take the rabbit across the river. The second trip, you take the wolf but bring the rabbit back. The third trip, you take the carrot to the wolf. Last trip, you come back for the rabbit.”

  “You got it, grasshopper,” said Jack, smiling. Claire, Susan, and Kate looked on, a bemused look on their faces. Jack winked at the group and returned to his teammates for the half-time rituals.

  “What was that all about?” said Kate.

  Frank began to explain the riddle posed by Jack. As the words were spoken, Claire’s thoughts drifted to the well-being of her friends and family, reflections she’d experienced on and off since the ordeal. The horrors they had endured had left deep scars that would imprint on their lives and psyches forever—but would no longer paralyze them.

  The psychology of a groupie intrigued and fascinated Claire. What would make a young woman with a long, healthy, happy life ahead of her fall in love with a convicted assassin serving a life sentence while the courts determined if he should be put to death or stay incarcerated for life? she mused. Shelley Simms could have had any man she wanted. She was interesting, intelligent, vibrant, and beautiful. Why Mike Ganz? What was he to her? The bad-boy persona?

  Claire had researched the literature and attended several conferences on the subject but remained highly intrigued and troubled by it all, uncertain if she would ever understand the phenomenon sufficiently well. Shelley had given her life to take revenge on a man she hardly knew, she couldn’t help thinking. What promises could Ganz have made her? What enchantments could he have imposed on the young woman that made her choose the path she chose? A path that led to her senseless death.

  Clearing her mind from this never-ending enigma, Claire attempted to hone in on some other thoughts. She smiled. Kate’s wedding was beautiful, she reflected, now furtively glancing at the young couple sitting on the bleachers a few feet away. They were both now standing up, cheering on the Heartbeats. The union between two people in love serves as an anchor of strength to us all, she heard her mind whisper. The two lovebirds were looking at a life of happiness, vowing never to look back at the atrocities of yesteryear.

  After a long, drawn-out battle in court, twelve of Kate’s peers finally declared that her license to practice nursing in the State of Indiana should be suspended indefinitely. I don’t even know what to think about that one, contemplated Claire. A young woman under extreme duress, fearing for her sister’s life and her own, is commanded by a man…Claire nodded her head faintly. Sure, this is sad and regrettable, to say the least, but why did they have to strip her of her license? How is that serving justice? Serving the greater good? Amelia and Kate’s other family members had resumed what appeared to be complete normalcy, but Claire understood that appearances and reality often diverge. The scars would probably heal completely but not for a long while. Keep on keeping on, she mused, a smidgeon of sadness now on her face.

  Beyond the net, Jack kicked the soccer ball around the midfield to one of his forwards.

  “Come on, Dad. Score one more goal. You can do it,” yelled Nick, seeing his father run by, goal bound. A moment later, a bad pass and a bit of bad luck caused the Heartbeats to lose ball possession.

  “Ugh! Come on, Heartbeats!” screeched Nick disappointedly, getting up on his feet. Sitting next to Nick was Sean; the boys had become good pals, almost brother-like, both highly interested in soccer. Sean imitated the older boy.

  Lance Lantz, continued Claire musingly, a fa
int smile back on her face. Now, there’s an unusual chap. The lab technician had sought Claire’s advice as a clinical psychologist and at her beseech, eventually came clean with Kate, professing his undying love for her. In turn, Kate introduced him to one of her girlfriends. The matchmaking scheme had promptly returned dividends as Lance and Lucy took to each other like pigs to mud. Well, they are engaged to be engaged, thought Claire, an expression of doubt punctuating her idea with an unnoticeable wrinkle on her forehead.

  Lance had since become a successful professional photographer, proudly displaying his artwork at a thriving gallery. Given Lucy’s influence, he made his living nowadays selling his “masterpieces,” some of which were actually quite good. Lance’s most precious photos, however, would probably remain hidden forevermore. Several close-ups of Nurse Kate still hung in a secret room of his studio, concealed from Lucy and obscured from the world. Maybe one day he’ll share them. Maybe not. Claire smirked imperceptibly as these thoughts came and went.

  On the field, the two rival teams continued to battle for goals. Well-executed passes between the players had resulted in multiple fruitless attempts to score, given impeccable defense on both sides of the court. Both teams were playing exceptionally well, and both deserved to win.

  Claire smiled again. What about my Jack? she reflected. Jack was busy at work. And soccer. And flying. In other words, getting back to normal. He vowed to use the past only to be better in the future. Thoughts of coulda, shoulda, woulda had surfaced now and again, but Claire steered him away from them. You can’t second-guess yourself after the fact. You do the best you can with the information you have at the time!

  He claimed he made a mistake by not taking his family away from Evansville initially and moving to another city. That would have made it more difficult for Lagrange to locate them. But Evansville was where his heart belonged. Besides, Lagrange would have found him anywhere. Why make old mistakes twice when there are so many new mistakes you could be making? Learn from your mistakes and move on. Jack seemed to be handling things well. The nightmares would come and go, but they were less devastating and fewer these days.