Soul Rest

by Joey W. Hill

  He could send a dozen bullets across her body faster than she could move. But it was harder to hit a moving target than a sitting one. Pure survival instinct had her dropping to the ground. As she went down, something grabbed her around the waist, swung her back into the alley, hard enough she hit the concrete with a bone-jarring thud. She was covered as the whine of bullets shot over her, then the weight on her back lifted.

  She shoved herself up in time to see Leland spinning and lunging out of the alley, weapon drawn. He fired one shot before lifting the muzzle, the fury in his face indicating the car was making its getaway.

  "Dogboy," she gasped.

  He didn't hear her, so she said it louder, repeated it again and again before she realized she sounded like an answering machine stuck on a loop. Shock, probably. Yeah, she'd been in some sticky situations before, but that was the first time someone had tried to kill her. Christ. Dogboy. Teenage psychopath. The asshole had shot at her. Multiple shots.

  Despite her legs feeling like noodles, she was on her feet and out of the alley, breaking into a half run to go after the car. Leland caught her around the waist. "Hey. Celeste, they're gone."

  "Son of a bitch," she snarled, fighting his hold. "Thinks he can take a fucking shot at me and make me scared of him. Bastard will wish he'd never been born."

  "Easy, easy." He gave her a hard shake, snapping the red haze out of her eye. "Stop clawing at me. Settle down."

  She knew she was acting irrationally, fought it back, but she pushed against his hold. "I'm all right. Let me go. Let go."

  "Okay, but you stay right there." He kept a hand on her shoulder, fingers curled in her shirt while he spoke into his radio. "Black Chrysler sedan, bullet hole in the back trunk, Louisiana license plate Delta-Hotel-Lima, 5756."

  "Dogboy," she said again. "It was Dogboy doing the shooting in the back. Earl Edward James is his real name." She took a breath, suddenly remembering standing at Leland's door this morning. "Guess neither of us watched our asses, did we? Good thing we were watching each other's."

  It was a weak joke, and he glanced at her, concern etched on his face. There was a ringing in her head, a keening sound like a frightened woman. That wasn't her. She'd shoot herself before she'd make such a noise. As she focused, she realized it wasn't her. The unidentified sound widened her focus so she could take in more of her surroundings. As soon as she did, she wrenched herself from Leland's hold and was off like a shot, but not to chase down a car that was long gone.

  One of Jai's windows was gone except for jagged glass teeth, and there was a trio of bullets in an arc along the thick glass door. She jerked it open and saw a woman on her knees by the cash register. She wore a yellow tunic and brown leggings. The tunic was stained red. A dozen tomatoes were around her, but they were unbroken. They weren't why her tunic was stained and her hands were red and wet. She lifted them to Celeste, eyes frantic. "Help us. Help..."

  Leland pushed past her, already back on the radio. "We need an ambulance at the Mini-Mart at 447 Weller Avenue for..." His voice hitched as he reached the end of the counter. "Multiple GSWs to the chest. One male, mid-forties... Ma'am are you hurt? Are you hurt? No? I need you to move back then, let me help him. Step back for me."

  Celeste, her heart in her throat, moved forward. Leland briefly met her gaze as she eased the woman away. Jai was crumpled behind the counter, a thick puddle of blood soaking his shirt. His head lolled toward her, his eyes glazed, but she thought she saw a hint of the half smile he always gave her. Muscle memory. Shock as well. I'm not really shot if I can smile and say hello like I always do, right?

  The woman was crying louder now. Despite wanting to stay right at Leland's side, Celeste moved the woman further away, in front of a display of Hostess cakes. Jai had teased her about those.

  "Two for a dollar. Makes your butt bigger, Celeste. A man likes at least two good handfuls. You see any skinny porn stars? How about the classics? Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Sophia Loren. Those are women, the ones men fantasize about it. Not these pencil thin super models."

  The Mini-Mart had a small supply of overpriced folding stadium chairs, cheaper versions of her own. Thank God Jai had one set up so his customers could see how they worked. She sat the woman down in it and checked her over, made absolutely sure the blood wasn't hers. It wasn't. It was all Jai's. Celeste's hands shook as she turned the woman's palms over. Pulling some paper towels off the shelf, she ripped them open and helped her clean off the blood. It gave them both something to do.

  Celeste wondered if she was the lady who brought the tomatoes, or if she'd just knocked them off the counter. She'd assumed she would be an older woman, but this woman was about thirty, pale under her hazelnut skin. She had a figure Jai would like. Wide backside and generous breasts. Right now she smelled like blood and a fragrant hair spray, mixed with cigarettes. They might have been flirting before the shooting. If so, it would have been harmless fun, like how Jai teased Celeste, because Jai was faithful to his wife. His wife and two daughters. The one who was studying to be a doctor and the other dedicated to partying, to giving her father sleepless nights.

  Celeste swallowed on a hard lump.

  "Monsters," the woman sobbed. She had a heavy Jamaican accent. "They are monsters. Jai did nothing to them."

  Celeste held her, uttered something pointlessly soothing, but her gaze clung to Leland. He was doing what his training allowed to slow the blood flow, keep Jai responsive. His hands were covered in blood, too. When his gaze slid back to her, checking on them, she saw in his face what she already feared.

  Jai's head turned, his hand fumbling to rest on Leland's arm. The store owner coughed, muttered something. Leland bent to hear him. As he did, his full lips twisted in an attempt at a smile. Jai's hand closed in a fist, beat a weak tattoo against his arm. Leland took his hand while holding pressure on the gunshot wound in his chest. So she saw when Jai's fingers loosened and that stillness set in. It was over.

  SS

  Marigold was the woman who brought Jai those non-USDA approved tomatoes. Her gaze couldn't seem to leave them, the way they gleamed on the floor. When someone accidentally stepped on one, Marigold winced as if she'd been punched. There was about ten feet between her and Celeste, and they were under the supervision of one officer, Jack Bronski. She knew his job was not only to see to their comfort while they waited, but to minimize conversation between them. Witness statements tended to be more accurate if they hadn't discussed the scene with other witnesses.

  Jack explained that to Marigold, but she looked as if she heard none of it. She was fixated on the tomatoes, mumbling to herself. Celeste asked Jack if they could collect them in a basket, give them back to the woman. Bless him, Bronski checked with the detective on scene and the crime techs and received the go-ahead. She suspected the officer who'd stepped on one had made the case for removing them from the floor before a bigger mess happened. When Celeste automatically rose to help, Jack put a firm but kind hand to her shoulder, keeping her in place on another stadium chair they'd opened up for her. He had one of the crime techs hand him a grocery bag from behind the counter, then squatted to collect the tomatoes. Marigold stifled a sob as Celeste stared at his long fingers closing over the shiny red spheres. For some reason, she felt a similar desire to cry over the simple, normal act. Gathering up tomatoes, putting them in a bag. Bronski brought them to Marigold, who held them like she was cradling a baby.

  They were at the back of the store. Normally they might have been parked outside until the detectives decided where they wanted to take their statements, but perhaps the death being caused by a drive-by had driven the decision to keep any material witnesses in the store. Most reporters would donate a kidney to be allowed to sit this close to a crime scene, but given that Jai had paid for her privilege with his life, Celeste couldn't derive any satisfaction from it. It was automatic for her to log comments and information as she heard and saw them, but the largest part of her mind was oddly fuzzy and disjointed. Besides which,
her tablet was shattered on the concrete in the alley outside the store, and she had no idea where her paper notebook was.

  Detective Toby Allen eventually came over and pulled her aside to get her statement. It was a relief to shift into her reporter mode and recall as much detail as possible. Yet when she was done, she couldn't remember a word she'd said, like a driver who couldn't remember parts of a long trip, lost to highway hypnosis. Detective Allen's gaze was approving, though, and he touched her shoulder, telling her she'd helped. He told her she was free to go, because they knew how to get hold of her. Nodding numbly, she moved toward the door.

  "You okay?"

  She found herself staring into the wall of Leland's body, standing in front of her. Celeste's gaze shifted to Leland's hands. He'd cleaned his off as well, but there was some on his shirt. He'd used something to dry the excess blood on his trousers where he'd knelt next to Jai, though she could still see the stains.

  Her attention lifted to his face, the flat hardness of it. Yet when he said, "You okay?" she could tell her answer meant something to him.

  She choked on a near sob, startling herself, but firmed her chin, never mind that her eyes were glassy with tears. "I'm good. You do what you have to do. Are you okay?"

  "Yeah. No. He told me..." He shook his head. "Tell you later."

  "Sarge?" Bronski had shifted forward, his eyes narrowing. "Are you..."

  Celeste followed his gaze, and saw it too. Before Leland could stop her, she yanked his shirt from his belt with enough force to make Leland wince. The tear in the fabric had been concealed by the bloodstain, and she'd assumed it was all Jai's blood. "You've been shot."

  "Grazed," he corrected her, guiding her fingers along the wound so she could feel it was indeed shallow, no puncture. The blood had already clotted and dried over it. The firm touch of his hand had its usual steadying effect on her, though this time it also cracked open something deeper, and she couldn't pull away. As if he knew she needed it, he held on to her hand, let it stay resting on his waist over that graze. "Nothing to worry about, darlin'," he murmured, for her ears only. He touched her face, made her look at him, meet his gaze. "Okay?"

  "Sarge, you know we have to--"

  "Bronski, you finish that sentence, a report has to be filed. Every time my aunt sees 'officer-involved shooting' on the incident reports and finds out an officer was hit, she calls the captain and makes him tell her if it was me. He can withstand the press, the Mayor-President, the damn Metro Council, but we went to high school together and she can pull a lie out of him like giblets from a turkey's ass, same as me. He'll spill."

  Bronski blinked. "It's just a graze," Leland said calmly. "But it will ruin her whole month and she'll be calling me every time I get off shift to make sure I'm home safe. If you put me through that kind of aggravation, I will dedicate my life to making yours utter hell. Are we clear? Besides which, it could be a scrape from the concrete when we went down. Or she did it." He looked at Celeste. "She tried to claw me to ribbons so she could chase the damn car like a rabid pit bull. We could charge her with assault on an officer, but I don't want to do that after the kind of day she's had. Wouldn't you agree?"

  Celeste's mouth closed like a trap, her gaze narrowing to slits. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Bronski had to suppress a chuckle, covering it with a cough. "Yes, Sarge."

  "Good." Leland looked at her. "You're not okay to drive. Bronski will take you home--"

  Celeste latched both hands on him. "No," she said.

  She wasn't sure what she was refusing. She knew she needed to go home and take a shower, put some antibiotic ointment on her leg. But he'd almost been shot, and Jai had died. Died in Leland's arms.

  She could tell that hurt. Hurt deeply. They really didn't know each other that well yet, so she wasn't sure what he'd need in this kind of situation, but the image of him standing squarely in the sights of that assault weapon was pummeling her like a migraine.

  "Don't make me leave," she said, low. "I want to be where I can see you. It was too close, Leland. Way...too close."

  I just found you. Thank God she didn't say that aloud.

  His jaw eased. "Yeah. Same goes, darlin'."

  She stepped closer. Despite the speculative looks she was sure he'd get from the cops on scene, he didn't move away when she rested a hand on his chest. "What did Jai say to you?"

  SS

  If she wanted to crack him open right here, she'd chosen the right thing to ask, but when Leland met her gaze, it was as if it was just the two of them. When an officer had to shoot someone, tunnel vision could set in immediately after. They were trained to immediately sweep their front, back and sides to keep that from happening, so no one could sneak up on them. She came right up in front of him, and she still took him by surprise. He closed his hand over hers, too rough because she winced, but he couldn't make himself release her, not immediately. But he did ease his grip.

  "He looked at you, and said what he said that night. 'Pretty girl. Girls are good. They make you happy.' Then he looked at me and said, 'You tell my girls they made me happy.'" Leland cleared his throat. "I told him that he'd tell them that himself, but he said, 'A man knows. When he's not afraid, he knows.'"

  "If I hadn't chased them, I wouldn't have given them an excuse--"

  "Don't," he said shortly. "This is all on them. Thanks to you we have the plate and an ID on one of the shooters."

  Her gaze dropped to his hand, gripping hers. Neither of them were letting go, and she could feel his eyes locked on her face. He raised his voice. "Bronski?"

  "Yeah, Sarge?"

  "I'm going to take Miss Lewis home. Can you escort our other witness to her home, make sure she has someone there with her before you leave? She said she has a sister in the same apartment building."

  "Sure thing, Sarge."

  When Leland escorted Celeste out of the store and onto the sidewalk, moving her toward his car, Celeste had a brief glimpse of the alley. Her shattered tablet had been thrown violently to the cracked sidewalk when Leland had shoved her down beneath him, and then one or both of them had stepped on it when they'd scrambled out of the alley. Thank God she'd backed it up this morning.

  A couple crime techs were pulling bullets out of the side of the store. She saw at least four or five holes, and though her perspective could be skewed, when she pictured herself there, she knew they would have punched through her chest. Dogboy might be a psycho, but he had good aim.

  He hadn't gotten her, though. Every muscle hurt like she had the flu, and she had a bad scrape on her leg, her slacks torn where Leland had tackled her and taken her to the pavement. But if he hadn't, she'd be headed the same direction as Jai was now. In a black bag to the morgue.

  She was shaking again. Leland pulled a coat out of his car and wrapped it around her, guiding her hands into the roomy sleeves and bundling her into it like a cocoon.

  "I'm fine," she said distantly, though she couldn't tear her eyes from that wall or pull away from him. "I'm good. I'm all right."

  Chapter Ten

  She was better than all right. She'd been fucking heroic. He shouldn't be surprised that she'd responded to getting shot at the way most cops did. She'd been full-blown pissed and ready to go after the asshole with her bare hands. Leland kept a watchful eye on her as he navigated through traffic.

  He'd had to deal with the Shooting Review Team and IA on-site since he'd fired his weapon, but he'd tried to keep an eye on her as much as possible during that time as well. Hell, after what had happened, he really didn't want her out of his sight for the next decade. While she was waiting, Bronski had escorted her to the bathroom Jai had in the back. When she returned, she'd cleaned herself up some, more to steady herself than for vanity's sake, he was sure. She was still pale, but her gaze was steady and sharp. Yet when they'd walked out to the car she'd lost that focus again, her gaze going to the alley. He'd put a firm hand on her lower back, ushered her into the car.

  He'd been glad they'd taken Jai away
when she was in the bathroom. Watching a person you knew get zipped into a body bag was a wrenching feeling he wanted to spare her. The coroner would notify the family, but Leland would find out when the funeral was so he could pay his condolences. Celeste would probably want to go as well.

  He didn't expect Jai's family would know either of them as anything more than one story among the many that Jai brought home to them. Yet hearing from people who thought well of the victim usually helped the family. Jai had been one of the good influences in a tough community, which meant today that community was a notch bleaker. It filled him with anger, made him wish his bullet had shattered the back window and blown out the back of Dogboy's head. Which wasn't a good thought to be having, he knew that, but it didn't make it less true. Or any more useful than his wish that they'd made that happen before the car turned the corner and headed down Jai's street.

  He reached out, put his hand over hers on the seat. She'd remained silent, an unusual state for her. Any other time, he would have teased her about that. But neither of them was in a teasing mood.

  Her head tilted away from the window. In his peripheral vision he saw her looking down at their clasped hands. She moved her other hand to cover his. Then she lifted it with both hands, pressed her face into his palm. The gesture created an eye in the storm inside him, a still, potent place as she kissed his callused skin, her lashes feathering against his fingers. He felt the precise slope of her nose beneath them.

  He'd just watched the life slide out of a man, as impossible to stop as a child who'd pushed off that no-going-back point on a tall waterslide. The child left nothing behind to hold except the last image of a laughing face. Whereas a man's body did what it did as it succumbed to death, the blood no longer pumping out, the eyes getting that vacant look.

  In the organized chaos that had happened after the drive-by, the shouting of orders, the status check to ensure no one had holes in them, he'd been pulling Manny to his feet. It had been pure chance, the fortunate angle of his body, which had allowed Leland to catch the quick movement across the street, Celeste disappearing down the alley. If he'd had his head down an extra second, he wouldn't have known where to look for her. If he hadn't pushed himself during every workout, telling himself the bad guys didn't give any breaks for him being forty instead of twenty, or if he'd been born any shorter, with legs any less long, he might not have caught up to her. He'd shouted at her as he'd run down that alley, but she'd been flying on adrenaline, unable to hear him. The time between when he caught her about the waist and threw her down beneath him and when those bullets had pulverized the wall above them had been less than an indrawn breath. The impression of slim bones, quivering muscle and silken skin, the smell of her hair, was even briefer before he'd shoved himself up to get a shot off at the vehicle, but they'd imprinted themselves upon him like a brand.