The three of them walked down the street. Each had pulled his weapon. Darkness covered the block. Jake hesitated, having second thoughts about skipping protocol entirely. He took out his cell. “I’m calling Agent James now. That should cover our asses and give us about five or six minutes before they arrive.”
Both Stan and Donaldson nodded.
Jake rang James. He was quick and to the point. “I’m at a warehouse. I think Tanks is here.” After he gave the address, he hung up.
Nearing the building, Stan motioned to a parked motorcycle. Jake nodded. Their quarry was here.
They all went to their positions. At the front door, Jake heard voices inside, and then—
Gunfire?
“Police! Throw down your weapons!” Jake stormed into the warehouse, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. Blinking, he sent up his usual prayer as he raised his weapon, finger on the trigger.
A shadow appeared, swerved to the left. Jake ducked behind some metal shelving. The shadow darted across an aisle. By the man’s size and shape, Jake pegged him as Tanks.
“Give it up!” he yelled.
“Fuck you!” Tanks called back. More gunfire rang out. The bullets dinged off the metal shelving all around Jake. Then came silence.
“I’m not going back!” Tanks called out.
More shots were fired from the rear of the building. Was it from Stan, or someone else? It was too dark to tell.
“Billy!” Jake yelled, and heard shuffling where Tanks had been.
Believing Tanks was on the move, Jake jumped up, gun held high, and made a run for an upside-down refrigerator he planned to use as cover. Tanks spotted him. One shot came so close that Jake felt it pass just before he reached his destination.
A shadow moved up from the rear of the warehouse. Stan? He heard a noise directly behind him and swung around, gun aimed, but at the last second he recognized Mark, who was crouching down by a case of wooden boxes.
“You’re outnumbered!” Jake shouted, glancing back at Tanks’s last known location. “Give up!”
“I’d rather die,” Tanks called back. “And I won’t die alone.”
“Billy, are you here?” Jake yelled. He heard nothing, and remembered the gunfire just as he’d rushed in. Had Billy already bought it?
“Where’s Billy, Tanks?” Jake shouted.
Only silence answered.
Then someone bumped into one of the metal shelves where he’d last spotted Tanks. Jake listened, hoping to get a lead on where the convict was heading. From the corner of his vision, he saw Mark. The detective waved toward his right, as if telling Jake where he planned to go, then dashed forward.
Jake heard more noises where he believed Tanks to be. Apparently seeing Mark without cover, Tanks jumped up, gun aimed. Jake leapt up, too. “Over here, you bastard!”
“No!” someone screamed. Shots exploded from all directions. Jake saw Tanks hurtle backward.
“I think Tanks is down,” Jake shouted, keeping his eyes on the darkness where the convict had fallen. “Stan?”
“I’m fine.”
Jake took a moment to glance toward Mark. He called out when he didn’t see the detective, “Mark? Donaldson!” Panic began to buzz within him.
“I’m…fine. I think.”
“What the hell does think mean?” Jake stepped toward his friend’s voice, which was tight, keeping an eye and gun on Tanks, who still lay in a heap on the floor. Dead? Maybe not. Jake didn’t want to take a chance.
He saw Stan moving in Tanks’s direction, and his friend called, “I got him covered.” Then: “He’s not breathing.”
Jake rushed to where Mark’s voice had emanated, and he found his friend squatting against a stack of boxes. Even in the dark, Jake saw the blood. It was smeared over Mark’s hands. Kneeling, Jake pulled his friend’s coat back.
“Where are you hit?”
Mark stilled Jake’s hands. “I don’t think it’s me.” He shook his head, as if dazed. He pointed to his right, where another body lay crumpled on the concrete.
“Damn.” Jake recognized Billy. “Hey, kid!”
Billy didn’t answer at first, but at last he opened his eyes. His features were enough like Macy’s that it hurt like hell to see them—and the pain twisting his face.
“Call for an ambulance,” Jake yelled to Stan.
“Is Tanks…dead?” Billy’s voice was a rasp. Blood was oozing from his shoulder. A lot of blood. Too damn much. Jake put his hand on the wound, praying that it would slow down.
“Yeah,” he said.
Mark dropped to his knees beside Jake. “Tanks had me straight on. Kid knocked me out of the way. Took the bullet for me.”
Billy’s eyes closed. “It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought. Take care of—”
Blood oozed through Jake’s fingers. “Listen to me, kid. Your sister is waiting for you. I really need for you to be okay.”
“I treated her…really bad,” Billy murmured.
So did I. “I know,” Jake said. “But she loves you anyway.”
And it was more than he could say for himself.
“Police!” a voice yelled from the front door, a voice accompanied by a figure pointing a gun at Stan.
“We’re police.” Jake stood up. Shots exploded.
Macy sat in the waiting room, Nan on one side, her mom on the other. Macy felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Agent James had called, said there’d been an altercation, that Billy was shot. He hadn’t said how bad or if anyone else was hurt. Right after receiving the call, she’d run outside to see if Jake was still in front of her house. There was a car, but it wasn’t Jake’s.
Arriving at the hospital, they’d been told that Billy was in surgery. “How serious is it?” her mom had asked a nurse she recognized.
The nurse shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’ll get the ER doctor to come talk to you.”
Before the nurse walked away, Macy managed to ask, “Was anyone else hurt?”
The nurse paused. “I heard there was one casualty. But he wasn’t brought here.”
Casualty. The word now bounced around Macy’s head.
Jake?
Ten minutes later, a doctor walked in. “Are you the Moore family?”
All three of them bounced up, and the doctor started talking. “Mr. Moore is still in surgery. I won’t lie to you, it doesn’t look good. But we’re doing our best.” Macy’s mom dropped back in her seat and started sobbing.
Nan stood straight as an arrow and reached out and squeezed Macy’s hand. After a few minutes, the doctor left. Macy and Nan sat beside Faye and they held hands in silence.
The waiting room door opened and Mark Donaldson walked in. Macy zeroed in on his face, trying to guess what he was about to say. A knot crowded her throat when she saw the blood on his shirt. She didn’t stand up. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even breathe.
He walked across the room. His gaze focused on her. “How’s Billy?”
“Still in surgery.” Nan was the one to answer, squeezing Macy’s hand.
“J-Jake?” Macy managed to say the name. “Is he…?” Her throat ached. Her chest was an open vat of pain as she awaited his answer.
“He was detained by the task force. He asked me to make sure you guys are okay. He’ll be here soon.”
Every muscle in Macy’s body went limp with relief.
“We heard there was a casualty,” Nan remarked.
Donaldson nodded. “Tanks.”
Jake is alive. Alive! The knowledge ribboned through her heart, assuaging her fear. But then she remembered her brother.
It doesn’t look good. The doctor’s voice echoed in her head. A chasm of hurt opened in her chest again. Loving anyone came with a price. A price she couldn’t afford.
Jake balanced a Styrofoam tray of hot chocolate in his hands as he pushed open the ICU’s waiting-room door. His gaze shot to Macy. She sat between her mother and grandma. She looked up, then away. His stomach filled with a sharp hollowness. He hadn’t been sure
what kind of a reception he’d get, but when Mark said she’d asked about him he’d hoped for the best.
Macy’s grandma motioned to Macy’s mom, and they both stood. Nan moved forward and whispered, “I’m giving you a minute, but you’re on thin ice.”
Then Macy’s mom leaned close. “Hurt her again and I swear you’ll answer to me. My mom has been teaching me about busting balls.”
Jake watched them leave, then sat down beside Macy. “I brought hot chocolate.” He held out one of the cups.
She took it. “Thanks.”
One word. She offered him the one word, and hope rained down like sunshine. “I would have been here earlier, but James had some questions.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
She didn’t look at him. Why wouldn’t she look at him?
She continued, “Mark told me what you did, to try to help Billy. Thank you.”
He didn’t want her thanks, he wanted her. “I heard he’s looking better.”
He reached for her hand. She pulled away, and he closed his hands together, feeling his chest swell.
“I just want to help,” he said.
She faced him. Finally. “You want to help me?” There was so much pain in her eyes, he felt certain a piece of his heart had been chipped off.
“I’ll do anything. Name it.”
“Go.” She waved a hand between them. “This hurts. I’m hurting too much for my brother, and I can’t handle two different hurts right now.”
He inhaled. “I should have never taken you to that party. I—”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you should have told me you were still in love with someone else.”
He passed a hand over his face. “Is that what you think? It’s not Lisa I love. It’s you.”
She looked away. “No. You don’t mean that. You would have told me. Told me about her.”
“I didn’t want you to know because…because I didn’t want you to know someone else didn’t want me.”
“So your pride is more important than being honest with me?”
“No!” He ran a hand through his hair, remembering how that word popped up a lot. Pride. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Pride probably did play a part in it.” He gripped his hands together. “But I know I was wrong. And for the life of me, I never meant what I said. Can’t you forgive—?”
“No, I can’t.” Her tone was icy. “I can’t. And to be honest, I don’t even want to try.”
He felt that damn lump return to his throat. “You really want me to leave?”
“Please.” She turned to stare at the wall.
It took everything Jake had to walk out of the waiting room, but he owed her that much.
The next day, Jake pulled up at his condo, returning from visiting Ellie Chandler. So far, no charges had been brought against her. The boots had proved to be Ellie’s brother’s, and Ellie had a rock-solid alibi for when the escape went down. There wasn’t even any proof that she’d been with Billy. Though Jake felt certain she had, he was relieved at the lack of evidence.
Billy had regained consciousness, and he’d told authorities about the friend of Ellie’s brother who’d almost shot him because he was afraid Tanks was going to kill him, too. It had been he who’d led Billy to Tanks. When the cops found the guy, he’d spilled his guts, telling exactly how Tanks had gone wild on Ellie’s brother, trying to learn where Ellie was. The confrontation had gotten ugly. Ellie’s brother had died trying to protect her.
Ellie had cried when Jake told her. She’d cried again when she told Jake that Billy refused to see her. God knows, Jake could sympathize. He felt like crying, too, and when he stepped into his condo, the ache in his chest doubled. Everything in his place reminded him of Macy.
His doorbell rang. He hurried to open it, hoping, praying—
“Lisa?” He waited for anger to swell and rise, to add to this emotional maelstrom, but the anger wasn’t there—or if it was, it was buried beneath all his misery.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
He stepped back. “Sure,” he replied. Sons of Baptist preachers were always polite. Except when it mattered the most. He remembered the horrible words he’d flung at his brother, words insulting to both Macy and Lisa.
“Thanks.” She twisted a stand of her hair, a nervous habit. “Look, I’m just going to say what I came to say, and leave.”
He didn’t speak, so she continued. “Nothing happened between your brother and me while we were engaged. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”
Jake shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” She let out a deep gulp of air. “I know how it looked when we got married, and I know if…if we had it to do over again, we’d do everything differently.”
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing.” Jake left to get himself a beer. He got her one from the fridge, too. When he turned around, she stood in the kitchen doorway. He held out the beer.
She shook her head. “You and I had broken up several weeks before Harry came to see me. When you and I were engaged, Harry and I had lunch a couple of times. I won’t deny that we connected, but not romantically. All we did was talk.”
Jake set her beer down. “Talking to me wasn’t enough?” Okay, so maybe he still felt a touch of the anger. Or was it just curiosity, a need to understand?
“Talk?” she asked. “We never talked. No, let me rephrase that. You didn’t talk. From the time your dad got sick, you shut me out completely.”
“So you married Harry because he talked?” He took a swig of his beer, feeling disgusted.
“No, I married Harry because I love him.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I could have sworn you told me you loved me, too.”
“I thought I did. Maybe I did. But not the right sort of love.”
He took another sip of beer.
She plowed ahead. “This is killing Harry.”
“It hasn’t been a walk in the park for me, either.”
“We didn’t plan it. And we tried to explain. You kicked Harry out the day he came to see you. Hung up every time he called.”
“What were you going to explain? You were engaged to my brother, a few months after we broke up.” He set his beer down on the counter.
“We didn’t plan that. We were going to keep things quiet for a year or more.”
“That might have helped,” he said.
“We couldn’t wait.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I got pregnant. A condom broke. Your brother’s a preacher. You know how that would have looked. It was either get married or have an abortion. I couldn’t do that.”
Jake’s gaze dropped to Lisa’s belly. No one had mentioned a baby. If they’d had a kid, someone would have told him.
She seemed to guess his thoughts. “I lost the baby on our honeymoon.”
Jake remembered how much Lisa had wanted children. And his brother…Losing that baby must have killed him.
Jake swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. “Harry needs you in his life. You can’t avoid us forever. We’re family.”
Jake gripped the beer. “What am I supposed to do? How can I sit across the table from you at Sunday dinners when…when we had sex?”
Her eyes grew wide. “If Harry can sit across from you, I’d think you could stand it.” She paused. “Besides, I can’t imagine that you’d remember the sex.”
“I’m a man. Men remember that.”
If Macy were here, she’d call him on being crass. Lisa wouldn’t, of course. Lisa wasn’t Macy. And right then he accepted that he had never felt about Lisa the way he felt about Macy. Not sexually, not emotionally, not in any way. Marrying Lisa would have been a huge mistake.
“We never meant to hurt you. Harry feels terrible,” Lisa was repeating.
Jake drained his beer, then turned around and grabbed the one he’d offered her. He unscrewed the top. “Give me some time, and…I’ll talk to Harry.”
He waited for her to leave—he
needed to be alone—but she just stood there. “What happened between you and Macy?” she asked. “After the party.”
Jake exhaled. “It’s over.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Does it matter?” He sipped his beer, wishing it were something stronger.
“Yes, it matters.” She stepped closer. “Women don’t always remember things like sex, but we remember other things. Like how a man looks at us. I saw the way you looked at Macy. You never looked at me like that. You love her, don’t you?”
Jake pressed his beer to his forehead, trying to find solace in its chill. “Yeah, but this isn’t my choice. It’s hers.”
“Have you told her how you feel?”
“In so many words, yeah.”
“Then find some other words. And don’t think she can read your mind. If you love her, tell her. No, let me rephrase that. Show her how much she means to you. For once, throw your pride aside and just let someone in.”
“My pride.” He inhaled. “And how do I do that, Lisa? How do I show Macy she’s more important than my pride?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The next morning, Jake walked into Mark Donaldson’s office and dropped a fast-food bag on his desk. Mark, on the phone, waved for him to sit down.
“Yes, sir,” his partner was saying into the receiver. “I understand. I’m sure the Gulf Coast Task Force will back up my story. Yes. Thank you, sir.” He hung up.
“Was that about Tanks?” Jake asked.
“No, it was about Billy Moore.” Donaldson picked up the bag. “Don’t tell me, there was a buy-one-get-one-free breakfast meal deal.”
“No, I bought it for you.” Jake glanced at the phone. “What about Billy Moore?”
“Just making a few calls.” Donaldson pulled out the sausage biscuit with cheese and unwrapped the foil. “You know, the thing I miss most about living the good life is having my meals served to me. Food never tastes as good when you have to fix it yourself—or even buy it for yourself.”
Gotcha! Page 32
