Recovering from the initial shock, Ellen checked to see what was happening. Justice was already on the phone. He lowered it and gave her a quick thumbs-up. Then he crawled right to the edge of the office roof and crouched, watching what was happening below.
The Boss had started yelling, “Somebody help that woman!” He spun on the young clerk standing next to him with his mouth gaping open. “Call an ambulance! Is there a doctor anywhere?”
The clerk ran for the office. The security guard started cautiously toward the car because the engine was still emitting a furious whine and the spinning tire was producing a dark, acrid smoke. The metal strips holding the car in place could give at any second, releasing it straight into the registers.
The minute the guard’s attention was distracted, the Boss stepped quickly over to the camping display and, opening a large cooler, he dropped in the cash bag and pulled out another, identical one, then moved quickly back to the fray, clutching the fake bag in his hand.
Meanwhile, people had begun to gather as though from nowhere. A few dozen customers had still been unloading their heavily laden carts into their cars, but most of them left their purchases to goggle at the accident. The employees still in the store had hurried back toward the front to see what the commotion was.
“Is there a doctor anywhere?” the Boss called out again. “This woman is injured!”
A man stepped forward from the group outside and made his way cautiously through the smashed doors. He was in dress slacks and a jacket, but his thick motorcycle boots crunched on the fractured glass.
Georgi. Ellen felt her throat clench and glanced up to Justice. He looked over at her and she pointed and mouthed, That’s him. Not understanding, Justice made a hopeless face, turning his hands up like he was holding an empty tray.
“I’m a doctor,” Georgi said. “Get back, I’ll help her.” His Russian accent was thick enough that Ellen saw Justice register understanding. He dialed his phone again, and she saw him whispering furiously, passing on the information to the police.
Georgi opened the car door and looked in. “Her foot is jammed against the gas pedal,” he called out loudly, almost theatrically. He leaned down and, in a second, the engine stopped revving. Then he pretended to take the woman’s pulse. As he put his fingers on her neck, the head jerked back and Ellen saw it was Loretta, her eyes open but rolling in their sockets to expose the whites, drool running in a thin line from one corner of her mouth.
Ellen shuddered. She did not have a second of doubt that even a drug addict like Loretta would not have done this of her own accord. But she didn’t have the luxury to think that through right now. The guard had backed up next to the Boss to give the “doctor” room, and the Boss thrust the fake cash bag at him. “Put this in the safe!” he ordered. “I’ll see if I can help them.” He gave the guard a shove and the man ran the few yards to the office door, opened it with his card and disappeared inside.
Ellen came around the tent and stood next to the cooler with the real cash bag in it, right in front of the tent. “They crashed a car through the front door,” she whispered to Temerity.
“You seriously needed to tell me that? Nobody’s that blind,” Temerity hissed back.
“And he dropped the cash bag in the cooler right here.” Ellen thumped it with her heel so that Temerity could hear its location.
“I’ll keep an eye on it,” Temerity said and sniggered.
The guard returned from the office and went to keep the employees who had come running and were standing gawking at the wreckage from getting too close. There was a good crowd of people outside by now, and a cluster of maybe twenty around the car inside.
Among them, Ellen saw Irena. She was staring at Georgi with fear and loathing, both so extreme she wondered that the two emotions didn’t cancel each other out.
“She’s only unconscious,” Georgi announced, straightening up. “Looks like a drug overdose.” He shook his head as though it were all too sad for words, then he spotted Irena. His mouth went to a thin, mean line and one eyebrow raised just enough to send a message. He went on with his no-doubt-rehearsed speech. “She must have had a seizure and pushed the accelerator. She needs an ambulance. No one try to move her, she’s had trauma to her chest. I’m going to get my bag out of my car.” Ellen knew what that meant. He was leaving, and they would never find him. She felt a rising vexation, an anxious heat in her chest. Somehow she had to stop him.
But even before Georgi had started to turn away, Loretta coughed and jerked. The Boss jumped back as if she were a coiled snake, but not the mean-faced Georgi. Loretta stared blurrily up at the big man, whose expression had gone distinctly furious. “You son of bitch,” she slurred. Then she seemed to gather strength. “He tried to kill me,” she said shakily, pointing a trembling finger at him. “He put me in here and put a brick on the . . . the . . . go thing.” She was struggling, too drugged up to find the words she wanted but lucid enough to be understood. She was trying to get out of the car, but she seemed to have only partial control over her muscles. Everyone was staring at Georgi now.
“She’s hallucinating,” he said, but the faces regarding him coldly made it clear that no one was buying it.
“Liar!” Loretta slurred, and the crowd began to mutter. “He’s not a doctor!” she shouted thickly. “He’s a crook! His name is—”
Georgi punched Loretta in the face and she crumpled, unable to say any more. Then he turned to face the guard.
Ellen watched as first the truth and then fear dawned on the security guard’s face and he swallowed and reached to pull his nightstick from his belt, but he was too old and too slow for the seasoned criminal. Georgi charged him, knocking him flat to the ground. His skull made a solid cracking sound that made Ellen wince. The Russian started toward the ruined entrance just as the first police car pulled up, sirens screaming. He stopped short, spun, and a gun appeared from beneath his jacket.
Moving faster than Ellen imagined possible for such a meaty man, Georgi rushed straight into the group of stunned employees. Irena screamed and turned to run, but he snatched her by the hair and half dragged her back to the front. “Everybody mind your own business, and she won’t get hurt,” Georgi said almost calmly as he moved away. “She’s just going to show me out.”
“Oh please, no,” Ellen breathed.
Irena had gone catatonic. Her eyes, wide, stared up at the ceiling as she was manhandled through the glass and wreckage. The cops got out of their car, guns drawn, and hunched down behind their open doors, muzzles trained on Georgi and his hostage.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Georgi said to them, pointing the gun at Irena’s head. “We’re just leaving, and if you want her to live, you’ll drop your weapons.”
The Boss was taking advantage of the drama to move toward the hidden cash bag, backing up a half step at a time. The cops held their positions. Georgi shifted the gun from Irena’s temple to a few inches in front of her face and fired a blind single shot past her nose into the store. There was an outbreak of screams and panic as everyone dropped to the floor or scuttled for cover. Ellen felt a painful, hot hollowness in her chest and looked down. There was a small hole in the front of her shirt that she hadn’t noticed when she got dressed, but she was so terrified for Irena and so caught up in the unreality of the whole situation that she dismissed it and the burning sensation. Georgi inched toward the door, keeping Irena’s body in front of his. He was almost through the doors when suddenly a shape dropped from the sky.
Justice caught Georgi in the back as he landed, yanking him off of Irena, who stumbled a few feet and fell onto the shattered glass on her hands and knees. The powerful man twisted toward Justice, who was outweighed and clearly no match for a desperate criminal. The cops took aim again, but in the struggle, there was no way to fire without possibly hitting Justice. The ache under Ellen’s right shoulder had grown into a piercing pain, she fleetingly wondered if s
he was having a heart attack.
Suddenly, the confusion was sliced by a high, shrieking scream of rage. Irena had risen from the ground, a thin shard of glass clutched in one hand, and as she screamed, she lunged, thrusting the makeshift dagger into Georgi’s back. He howled with pain and released Justice, who fell off to one side. Georgi turned, raising the gun at Irena. She did not flinch, only opened her arms as though to welcome the bullet. A shot rang out. Irena’s body jerked. Then a volley of shots ricocheted and echoed through the huge space, and Georgi fell to the ground, where he lay in an unmoving, crumpled heap.
Irena swayed precariously and looked down at her tormentor. Blood was running down her hand where the glass had sliced it open, but she seemed oblivious to anything but him. She was staring down at the body like a monster in a nightmare, which, Ellen thought, he surely was. Ellen’s chest was hurting so badly now that she tilted forward and reached one hand to the apex of the pain. It was wet with warm liquid.
The cops were shouting and moving in, more cars raced up and screeched to a stop. In the confusion, the Boss made a lunge for his prize.
He tore open the cooler. It made a sucking, vacuum sound, like Tupperware, and he stared down in astonishment at the empty container. Confusion was instantly replaced by rage. Almost immediately, his gaze fixed on the partially unzipped tent door and the movement inside. His face twisted in fury and his hands clenched. In spite of the twisting pain and throbbing in her chest, Ellen reached out with her right hand and took hold of the only weapon she could find on her cart.
“Looking for this?” Temerity asked, emerging from the tent and holding up the bag. “Hello, police officers! Over here.”
The Boss’s face seethed with frenzied rage. He locked his eyes on the bag and then lunged for Temerity. Ellen’s hand holding a spray bottle flew up between them, and she released a long stream of toxic green cleaning liquid directly into his face.
He screamed, backing away and clawing at his eyes as he dropped to his knees. One of the officers hurried over to them. “What’s going on?” she demanded. Her gun was drawn but pointed at the ground in front of her.
“He was trying to get this.” Temerity held up the canvas sack. “That’s what this was all about—the car crash, the whole thing. They were robbing the store together.”
The cop’s gun was redirected at the Boss. “Get down on your stomach,” she shouted at him, moving in closer. “Down on the floor!”
More police officers were coming in now and everything started to happen very fast, though it seemed to be blurring together for Ellen. She was panting, but she couldn’t get a deep enough breath, and she wasn’t sure why. The Boss was handcuffed, his eyes squeezed shut and streaming tears. Ellen suspected not all of the tears were from the cleanser. At the same time, the female officer took the cash bag from Temerity, but as she did, she looked past her in Ellen’s direction. Her eyes wavered up and down, fixed on Ellen’s face, then dropped quickly to her chest. She looked vaguely sickened. That didn’t surprise Ellen, but what came next was unexpected. Instead of turning away, the officer stepped toward Ellen and addressed her.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” she asked, her voice full of concern. She turned and shouted over her shoulder. “Let’s get a paramedic in here!”
Ellen was watching the police officer, confused. Had the woman spoken to her? Did she see her? Everything seemed to be pulling farther away. She glanced down at her front, to check if her body was there, and saw the blood streaming from between her fingers where they were pressed against her chest. Everything started to dim. She reached forward and grasped the barbecue grill to steady herself.
“Just stay calm, ma’am,” the cop said, holstering her gun.
Ellen’s head spun, and the ceiling above her circled, slowly, then faster. The floor rushed up toward her, and her face hit, unrestrained against the side of the grill, but there was only a second of fleeting, tearing pain as she dropped into a dark, silent void.
Ellen? Ellen?” Someone was calling her name through a thick fog, but she was distant from the sound, as though there were a cushioning barrier of foam between herself and the speaker.
Then, very slowly, she opened her eyes. Temerity was leaning over her.
“What happened?” Ellen managed to whisper as an onslaught of images rushed her. Her face and jaw felt locked stiff, her lips swollen, and it was hard to speak through the numbness and narcotics.
“You got shot,” Temerity said, squeezing her hand tightly. “So you’ve got a great story to tell! The good news is the bullet went through the fleshy bit next to your arm, so it just grazed you. It bled a lot, but didn’t do much damage. Thank heaven you have some extra padding.” Temerity was stroking her hand, and Ellen noticed that, though Temerity spoke with her familiar confidence, she was crying.
Ellen tried to sit up, but it sent her head spinning, so she only made it a few inches before collapsing back. “What’s wrong?” she slurred through slightly parted lips that wouldn’t fully function. “Why are you crying? Is Justice . . . ?”
“He’s fine—he’s right here.”
“Present and accounted for,” Justice’s voice said from her left. “A bit sore, but nothing a fistful of Advil and a hot shower didn’t improve.”
Ellen tried to turn her head but found that she was prevented from doing so by thick bandaging on the left side of her face. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked, raising a tentative finger to touch the bulky gauze.
The painkillers in her system kept Ellen from feeling her previous aversion to any kind of scrutiny, but they also made it difficult to comprehend what was happening.
“You took a little spill when you saw your own blood. Happens to some people,” Justice told her, coming around to stand behind his sister so that Ellen could see him. “And you hit your face on the grill tongs that were hooked on the side of the barbecue, sliced it open pretty good. The doctors cut off quite a bit of scar tissue before they stitched it up and then they decided to do a skin graft, so you might look a little different when we get that off.” He beamed down at her. “That’s why you’ve been out for such a long time. Two surgeons, friends of Dr. Amanda, heard about what you did and they both came in to work on you. I don’t want to say much, but they were pretty cocky about how well it came out. You are now officially a surgeon’s work of art.”
This was far more information than she could process, so Ellen fumbled for something simpler to grasp. “What day is it?” she asked. Her tongue felt bloated and her teeth were locked together.
“Sunday morning. You’ve been here all night. Two hours of surgery, a few hours in recovery, and now you’re here with us in this beautifully appointed private room,” Temerity said. “I think it’s beautifully appointed anyway. It is, in my mind.”
“Yeah, hang on to that,” Justice said, glancing around at the grubby room with a comic grimace that fleetingly made Ellen want to laugh, but the impulse was smothered in pillows of opiates.
“So . . .” Ellen wanted to lick her lips—her mouth was so dry—but her teeth wouldn’t open. Justice held a cup of water for her to sip from a straw, and that helped. “So,” she began again, “Georgi?”
“Dead,” Temerity said. “And I can’t say I’m too broken up about that.”
“Oh,” Ellen said. She wasn’t sure what she felt, if anything. Her emotions were fluttering somewhere outside her body like frantic butterflies.
“Better him than me,” Justice added.
“Irena?” Ellen asked, her eyes flickering wide as she remembered.
“She’s okay. She’s here too. She had to have her hand stitched up; she wants to see you when you’re ready.”
“See me,” Ellen muttered. “That’s weird.”
Justice laughed, then said seriously, “That boss of yours is in custody. The police told us he’ll get put away for a long time for being an accessory to attempte
d murder and robbery. Oh, that Loretta woman is pretty banged up, but she’ll be back to her old self soon.”
“Loretta’s old self,” Ellen mumbled, remembering how appalling the woman had been of her own accord. “That’s not good.”
Temerity laughed. “I’m with you there,” she said. “Justice means she’ll be okay.”
“‘Okay’ would be an improvement,” Ellen muttered.
Temerity and Justice both laughed, and Ellen was mistily aware of wishing she could join them but too lost in the fog to feel disappointed. “Oh yeah,” Temerity added. “J.B. is being released this morning.”
Justice pulled out a familiar small package wrapped in brown paper and held it up so that Ellen could see it without having to turn her head.
“I’m on my way up to give him a little parting gift. It’s his anyway.”
Ellen tried to smile, but only half her face worked. “That’s good.” She sighed.
“He might not have been a model citizen, so far anyway, but he’s an excellent capitalist, and I think that quality needs to be supported by his fellow Americans. We’ll call it venture capital for his new start-up.”
“Very patriotic,” Temerity noted.
There was a soft knock from behind Justice, and he turned to the source. “Hi,” Ellen heard him say. “Come on in. She’s awake, barely.”
Invisible Ellen Page 26
