"You're the guy from last time. The doctor who tried to kill himself."
John looked from the two boys to the others in the group and noticed their heads turning his way. Time to go and he began moving in the other direction.
Just as he passed a couple, who were still staring across the street, he heard the lady shout, "Look!" and point her finger toward a house across the street. John's eyes followed her finger and spotted Megan rushing down the sidewalk with Detective Bell gripping her POLICE - HOMICIDE jacket, like a young schoolboy teasing a girl on the school grounds. He witnessed Megan stop and jerk her jacket out of his hands as every other cop and detective and CSI tech—everyone—completely stopped what they were doing to watch something they had probably never witnessed in their entire career. The lead detective and his second-in-command were having a shouting match in front of at least one hundred witnesses and five "on-the-scene" field reporters. As Megan finally pulled her jacket free from Bell, John swore he heard the words Fuck you! come out of Megan's mouth. Based on the reaction of the crowd and especially the look on Gerald’s face, John was pretty sure he was right.
The shit was hitting the fan.
Megan stormed through the remaining crowd on the front yard and entered the street, her head swiveling left to right, scanning the crowd, like a lost dog on the freeway, scared out of her mind at the passing cars. John moved out of the crowd and into the street.
"Megan!" he shouted.
Megan stopped and turned, spotting John fifty feet to her right, like a shining light in the middle of all the darkness. John saw her dead eyes staring across at him and knew she was gone.
Uh-oh. Is that what this is about?
He remembered that Detective Anderson spotted him and wondered if he had walked back inside and ratted him out to Bell within earshot of Megan. It would explain why Bell grabbed her jacket in an attempt to keep Megan on the job. He suddenly felt guilty and wondered why he hadn't stayed back in the crowd more. He didn't need to be right up front and center. But it was too late.
"John," cried Megan, turning and running toward him.
The entire crowd of bystanders—and there were lots of bystanders—all watched this happen. John shot his head to the right to look over at the closest news camera and he could see it was tracking Megan's every move. In a few seconds, he would be right back in the middle of the TV news.
What are you going to do, Randall? He didn't want to be the center of attention again, but unless he turned and ran, it was pretty much a done deal.
Megan approached him as if there wasn't another soul around, and John thought of the romance movies that Paulette loved to watch, where the music grows in intensity and builds to a crescendo as the lovers come together as one. But John was no sailor dressed in white, and Megan didn't work in the hometown textile mill…and the only cameras shooting the scene were delivering it in a direct feed to the local news shows—the news crawl dragging right to left across the bottom of the screen with the words: Bedroom Killer Claims Fifth Victim.
John actually took a step back as Megan got close, but that didn't stop her, and when she reached him she threw her arms around him and began once again to sob uncontrollably. John held Megan, stroking her head and telling her she'd be okay, doing and saying whatever he could to get her to calm down. He looked up to see at least one hundred faces staring at them. He had to get her out of there…and then he heard his name again. But it wasn't Megan.
"Randall!"
It was Bell. John looked up to see Bell marching across the street, like a Midwest basketball couch about to scold his star player for losing the game.
"You sonofabitch!" Bell continued shouting. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Detectives Anderson and Kennedy grabbed Bell by the arms, and other cops moved in, without a doubt wondering what the hell was going on out here in the street between the lead detective and his entire first team.
Struggling in their arms, Bell shouted, "I warned you, you sonofabitch! What did I say, huh? You get the fuck out of here!"
Bell cut the air with his wildly flailing arms, pointed at John and Megan, all the time trying to shake free.
"You get the fuck out of here!" he repeated. "I don't want to ever see your face again. You hear me, Randall?"
John took Megan and moved her down the street away from Bell and away from the crowd, but the news photographers followed them, snapping pictures, as the field reporters surrounded them, shoving their microphones into John's face.
"Why was he yelling at you, Dr. Randall?"
They knew who he was. Some of them, probably most of them, had been there the night he was arrested, and here they were, doing it all over again. He did his best to keep Megan's face down and kept pushing forward trying to get to his car, which was parked at the end of the street, still a hundred feet away.
"Detective Ash, what happened to you?"
"Why was Detective Bell yelling at you?"
"What happened inside the house?"
"Detective Ash…"
"Dr. Randall…"
Just as it seemed he would never get away, the crowd suddenly split in two and John found Detectives Anderson and Kennedy now pushing the crowd back, barking out orders to step back and get out of the way. A second later, uniformed cops joined them and together they cleared the way for John to get Detective Ash to his car. He opened the passenger door, pulled off his jacket, and pushed Megan inside and tossed his jacket over her head, and then he ran to the driver's side, jumped in, and started the car. He dropped the gearshift into drive and pulled away from the curb slowly, careful not to hit the persistent crowd around his car. As soon as John passed the crowd and reached the roadblock set up at the end of the street, he turned right onto an open residential road and hit the gas. He accelerated to thirty miles per hour and got out of the neighborhood as fast as he could.
Megan kept her head down even after they were on the main boulevard, but she had removed his jacket and laid it in her lap. She didn't make a sound; didn't move an inch. John kept driving, not sure where he should be going. He reached into his storage console between the seats, pulled out a package of tissue, and dropped it into her lap. He watched as her hand moved and pulled one from the package and then disappeared behind her hair, which, due to the tilt of her head, hung like a curtain, obscuring her face.
He heard her blow her nose and sniffle, then her hand dropped back into her lap and he heard a faint, "She's dead."
John watched her for a moment longer wondering what he could do and kept driving.
"I figured that," he said.
Megan looked up, her hair mussed up and cheeks wet with tears.
"No…Anna," sobbed Megan. "My mother-in-law. She's dead."
CHAPTER 57
John kept driving as Megan struggled to relay the story of how she had received a call from the nursing home while she was still inside the house. That Anna was her mother-in-law…and the Russell that Anna had mentioned when they visited was Anna's son and Megan's late husband. She described how after his death, Megan had stayed in Anna's life, and she in Megan's, and how they became surrogate mother and daughter—each of them taking care of the other. When Anna became ill, Megan was there. Anna was her last connection to Russell, and now that connection was gone. She finished by stating that all she had now were dead girls…and John.
John knew how she felt…or thought he did. But he didn't know how to make it better. He couldn't bring back Anna or Russell. All he could do was be there for her. He could hear her cell phone ringing somewhere in her blazer pocket, but she wasn't answering. She kept her head leaning on the window, staring straight ahead. She needed rest. Sleep—as many days of it as she could take. No work. No reports. No murders. No Detective Bell. Just rest. John turned off 190th Street and headed toward Megan's place, passing by Sky Park, but when he stopped at a stop sign, Megan's door suddenly popped open, and then she was gone.
"Megan!"
John called, but she wa
s not stopping, in fact she was moving faster, in an all-out sprint, deep into the park.
Where is she going?
John whipped the car over to the curb, cut the engine, jumped out, and ran after her.
"Megan. Wait!"
John hadn't been to Sky Park in a long time. As he chased her, his mind traveled back to a quiet place near the back of the park, with a view of a canyon, where sometimes in the early morning he'd seen deer moving slowly down a long beaten path. He took Trevor there one morning, hoping the deer would show up, but they never did. He was getting closer, either she was slowing down or he was just running faster. He saw her suddenly stop in the middle of a soccer field. Nearby, a family was gathered; aunt and uncles, brothers and sisters, celebrating someone's birthday under a canopy with presents and food piled high on picnic tables. Little kids ran all around, chasing after a black Labrador puppy.
He finally caught up to her, stopping at her side, where he leaned over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He looked up at her, waiting to see if she would say anything. Finally, without looking at him, she said, "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do."
John stood, taking a few steps around to face her but keeping a few feet away, giving her space.
"What do you want to do?" he asked.
She stared back at him for a very long time, as if she were seeing him for the very first time, seeing exactly what he was, who he was, for the first time. Everything she needed in her life was standing three feet away and she knew it. But he might as well have been miles away. What she wanted felt completely unattainable, so far away from reality, that she couldn't accept that there might be a possibility of it coming true. So why mention it. Why say it and then see it disappear.
"Megan…what do you want?" he asked again.
She opened her mouth, but it was so dry, she could hardly form the words.
"I just want to be with you."
Her tears fell yet again.
John stepped forward, but just as he did, something caught his eye and he quickly jumped back. A string of blue and red balloons floated down from the sky right between him and Megan, as if taking up position to guard her against him. Megan, too, jumped back; the appearance of the balloons was so out of place. She caught her breath, almost choking at the unexpected intrusion from the skies. Together they stared at the balloons, four of them, two blue and two red, laying on the grass, swaying in the breeze. And then, from somewhere off to their right, two young kids, a boy and a girl, each of them no more than five years old, stepped up cautiously, their eyes moving from John to Megan, then down to the balloons. They didn't know if they could grab the balloons; the adults were being weird—and the lady seemed to be crying.
Megan stifled her tears and smiled at them, then stepped back even more, giving them access. This was all the boy needed as he quickly ran in and grabbed the string, turned and ran back out, followed shortly by the young girl. They both screamed with delight, having captured the falling balloons. Megan was able to smile as she watched them go. It gave her hope to see young kids having fun. When she turned back, she found John looking at her. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them, until he was right in front of her. He reached out and took her by the shoulders, and said, "I want the very same thing."
CHAPTER 58
After an hour of sitting quietly on a park bench, John took Megan home. He asked to come in, but she said she wanted time alone to think about what's next. She had to make some phone calls to Anna's relatives. Help plan the funeral, if help was needed. She thanked him, kissed him good-bye, and said she would call him the next day.
Now, driving back to his place, John heard a siren whoop. He checked his mirror, but couldn't see the police car. It was coming from somewhere behind him, but it couldn't be meant for him since he was driving the speed limit; and he hadn't made any illegal maneuvers. He looked into his right side mirror and spied the blue and red flashing lights a few cars back, then looked into his rearview mirror and tracked the car as it swerved through traffic, the other cars trying to move out of the way. Once it was clear of the last car, it gunned up behind John and stayed right on his ass.
"What the hell…" John said, pulling over to the curb. Traffic rushed past. John popped his seat belt and leaned to his right to grab his registration from the glove compartment. He sat up and looked in his rearview again, and that's when he saw the hulking frame of Detective Bell step out of the car.
"Christ!" John said.
When Bell disappeared from his rearview mirror, John turned his key and punched the button to roll down his driver's-side window, but before it completely disappeared into the door, that same door opened suddenly and John felt Bell's hand grab him by the collar and yank him from his seat.
"Whoa, hey, what the…"John said as he struggled to steady himself, but he was pretty much at Bell's mercy and Bell didn't stop until he'd walked John behind his car then slammed John's face onto the trunk. Luckily for John, he was quick enough to turn his head so his left cheek hit instead of his right, saving himself another trip to Dr. Samuelson for re-stitching.
"What?" shouted John.
Bell, his left hand still clutching John's collar, bent down and shook him as he spoke into his ear.
"Your listening skills need work, Doc!"
John let out a half-hearted chuckle, as if this were just his buddy playing a game instead of an angry homicide detective who'd slammed him onto his own car trunk.
"Am I funny?" said Bell, who then reached inside his coat with his right hand and pulled out his 9mm Glock and pushed it into John's temple.
"Suppose I finish what you started the other night?"
"Are you crazy?"
"No more crazy than you, Doc. Whaddaya say, one to the temple? That should do the trick."
John went very still, wondering for a brief moment if Bell would actually do it. Was he that crazy?
"People are watching," John said, almost whispering.
"Shut up and listen. No more crime scene visitations. No more happy talk between you and Megan."
"Don't you mean Detective Ash?" John asked. Bell lifted and slammed John's head onto the truck again.
"Shut up. You just disappear, you understand me Randall?"
"You remembered my name, how sweet."
Bell slammed John's head again, but suddenly became aware of the traffic slowing around him. He holstered his gun, swung John around, and then pushed him back so he was leaning against the trunk and facing him.
"I can do anything—" John started to say.
"You can't do shit," said Bell. "I told you she's not well and—"
"Then why is she still working?"
"I don't have to answer to you."
"Tell her how you feel if you're so in love with her."
Bell stopped. He just stood there staring at John, wondering where the hell that last comment had come from.
What did Randall know?
"You dumb son-of-a-bitch."
Without warning Bell leaned in, threw a right punch into John's left kidney, dropping him to the ground. John stayed there, staring across at a crumpled cigarette butt laying on the gravelly asphalt street, as he gasped for air.
"That's your second warning, Doc. Three strikes and you're out."
John could hear Bell's footsteps fade as he turned and walked back to his car. Then he heard the car start and speed off into traffic.
CHAPTER 59
"Fucking smartass prick!"
Bell stared at John's car in his rearview mirror, knowing that John was still somewhere on the ground behind it.
"Who the fuck do you think you are, Doc? Huh? You think you can just walk in and take Megan away? Fuck you!"
He drove through downtown Greenwood, ignoring stop signs, and weaving through traffic. He was one notch short of going postal and he knew it.
This shit has got to end.
"It's you or me, Doc. I need her. I need her with me, working the case."
<
br /> Bell thought again about the mayor's plan to bring in the FBI and slammed his hand on the steering wheel as he stopped for a red light. He closed his eyes and his thoughts jumped back thirteen years when a young Officer Gerald Bell sat in a squad car next to his partner, Officer Russell Ash. He'd been able to suppress the memory over the years, only allowing it to return on the anniversary of the incident. Allowing himself to think about it on that day only, then he forgot about it the next day. That's how he dealt with it.
They were driving, Russell twenty-five, Gerald twenty-eight. Each of them enjoying their new lives as cops. No stress. No tension.
Except for one thing.
"You shouldn't have done that, Gerry," said Russell, turning to face his partner.
"C'mon, it's no big deal. We should watch it together," said Gerry, with a grin spreading a mile wide.
"I'm not watching anything. Neither are you. I want you to destroy it."
"No can do. Besides, too late. I've already watched it a few times. It's fucking awesome." Russell stared at Gerry, wondering why he ever agreed to such a stupid stunt.
"I'm watching it every night, Russ. Hell, I'm getting wood just thinking about it now."
"You're not keeping that tape. When we're off shift, I'm coming over and you're going to give it to me!" Russell demanded.
"No can do, brother. It's mine."
"How can you say that?"
"It's mine. There, I said it again." He chuckled.
"But you didn't tell us you were going to tape it."
"My house. My camera. My tape," Bell sneered.
Russell couldn't believe what he was hearing. The initial shock of learning there was a tape had been replaced by the shock of Gerry's insistence that he was going to keep it—like their friendship didn't matter. He'd known of his partner's sexual appetite and figured it was just your typical, guys like to screw girls, talk. But this revelation was like a punch in the gut from a best friend, while he's smiling and looking you straight in the eye. He might have felt worse if it had been his idea. But it wasn't. It was Megan's. He'd mentioned the idea a long time ago. Not with Bell, just in general. A threesome. Someday. Somewhere. With someone. When she'd mentioned Gerry, he was hesitant. But she wanted to please him so much; she insisted it would be fine. Someone they both knew. Someone they trusted. How could they both be so wrong?
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