Ripped Apart

by Miriam Minger

  “Dark circles under your eyes. You probably haven’t slept much in the last few weeks.”

  “Try since weeks before my son’s surgery.”

  “You probably haven’t had much time to do laundry either, not that anyone would blame you.”

  Clare glanced down self-consciously at her wrinkled, pale blue T-shirt and faded jeans, a stain of chocolate pudding on the left thigh from sharing some of Tyler’s supper last night. The memory of their laughter when she’d spilled on herself made that same sick feeling rise in her stomach. She looked up to find Detective McKain studying her, his hazel eyes filled with somber understanding.

  “We’ve got a lot of people looking for Tyler, and not just law enforcement. There’s an Amber alert on him. Plus his abduction from the hospital made the top story on the local news stations this morning so lots of folks out there have seen his picture. Tyler’s a fine-looking young man.”

  “Thank you. I think so, too.” Clare took another sip of coffee. She wondered if the strong stuff would settle her jumpy stomach or send her back into the ladies’ room. A sharp grumbling noise astonished her because she certainly didn’t feel hungry.

  “A couple of the guys brought in some breakfast tacos if you’d like something to eat before we get going.”

  “No, nothing for me, but thanks.” She set the coffee cup on a table and met the detective’s eyes. “I don’t want anything right now except my son.”

  “No surprise there. We’re not particularly known for our great-tasting coffee either, so I don’t blame you.” A slow smile crossed Detective McKain’s face, making his attractive features appear almost boyish until he once again grew serious. “We’ve cordoned off your ex-husband’s house as a potential crime scene. I’d like to take you there to look around. Maybe see if you find anything that might lead us to his whereabouts—and your son’s.”

  “Yes, of course, anything.”

  “I’m sure Detective Garcia told you last night that Billy Carson wasn’t home, and there was no sign of his truck. The house was left open, the doors unlocked like he left in a big hurry—the garage door open, too. You’ll see when we get there. Nothing’s been touched.”

  Clare nodded and fell into step beside the detective, grateful to have something to do finally that might be of use to Tyler.

  “Okay, first stop at your house then we’ll—”

  “No, please, I don’t care about my clothes. Let’s head right to Billy’s. Like you said, there might be something to show that Tyler…”

  She didn’t need to say more. Detective McKain’s sideways glance told Clare that he fully understood.

  * * *

  “Xavier!”

  Francisco jabbed at Xavier’s arm, but Xavier had already seen her. He adjusted the focus on the tiny but powerful binoculars and peered at the slight, blond figure of a woman climbing into an unmarked car with a police officer.

  “Bitch! She has the police around her like a shield.”

  “We’ll find our moment, Francisco. We always do. For now we follow her,”—Xavier dropped the binoculars onto the seat and started up the car—”we watch…and we wait.”

  “To hell with waiting! I want to finish the job now. We could cut them both down right here and be done—”

  “What? And bring the entire police force down on our necks? The right time and place will come, but not here, not now. Understood?”

  Xavier ignored Francisco’s vehement cursing and maneuvered the sedan into the flow of traffic after the unmarked car.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Clare stood stock still in the small kitchen, the empty Tequila bottles chucked into the filthy sink making her skin crawl. “I’ve never been inside Billy’s house before…and Tyler only a few times before the divorce was final.”

  “When was that?”

  Clare glanced at Detective McKain, who looked pretty disgusted himself at the crushed beer cans that littered the floor. “January before last. I left him the previous summer. I had a protective order but the judge decided to allow Tyler to visit—”

  “Idiot.”

  “I thought so, too. The judge changed his mind pretty quick when Billy threw a party and Tyler got in the way of a brawl on his way to the bathroom. He was pushed into the wall and his right arm was broken. Bastard.”

  She’d muttered the last word but Detective McKain met her eyes. She imagined he’d heard a similar story a thousand times before.

  “So no love lost for Billy Carson.”

  “No. None.” Just thinking about those days made Clare’s head pound, and the sour smell of stale beer wasn’t helping. “The judge was only too happy to order supervised visitation after that mess-up. I think it made Billy hate me all the more.”

  Clare moved into the sparsely furnished living room to look around. Fresh fear for her son gripped her, but she forced it down by reminding herself of everything Detective McKain had told her was being done to find Tyler. Federal and statewide law enforcement had been notified, and the statements given by hospital personnel had helped to pull some pieces together. She still couldn’t believe Billy must have had an accomplice.

  According to those statements and what Detective McKain had shared with her about what the security cameras had picked up, the x-ray tech who’d wheeled Tyler from the Pediatric floor and into an elevator was a Latino male, medium height and build, clean-shaven and maybe in his late twenties—and not Billy after all. It sickened her that he’d probably paid someone to assist him, but it gave the police another avenue to follow.

  The timing of the abduction couldn’t have been more effectively planned, either, the commotion of a shift change covering an event that might have otherwise appeared suspicious. It wasn’t clear yet where Tyler’s abductor had exited the hospital, Clare’s heart sinking when she’d heard that several cameras on the ground floor and in the parking garage weren’t working properly.

  “See anything that stands out?” Detective McKain asked from behind her.

  “No, other than Billy lived like a pig.”

  “Okay, check out the rest of the house but don’t touch anything. I have to take this call.”

  Clare spun around as the detective went back into the kitchen. “Have they found Tyler?”

  “No. Local FBI.”

  Clare suddenly had no stomach to do anything but sink into the nearest chair, wondering if she should have come to Billy’s house.

  Each phone call Doug McKain received made her heart stop. Each phone call made her hope against hope that Tyler was safely in police custody, only to leave her feeling sapped and even more sick at heart when she heard that Tyler was still missing.

  It probably would have been better for her to return home instead where she could break down if she needed to, pace the floor, scream, curse, anything to relieve this terrible anxiety.

  Damn you, Billy.

  “Clare, are you okay?” The genuine concern in Detective McKain’s voice as he rounded the corner made a hard lump form in Clare’s throat, even more so that he’d dropped the formality between them by using her first name. In the next instant, though, she was furious with herself for distracting him for one moment from thinking about Tyler to be wondering about her welfare.

  “I’m fine, no problem.” She rose from the chair but so abruptly that she lost her balance and grabbed for the nearby side table.

  Detective McKain grabbed for her, too. He caught her arm before she fell but not in time to save the table lamp and phone answering machine from crashing to the floor. Clare’s thank you died on her lips when the machine suddenly beeped and a familiar female voice filled the room.

  “Billy, we’ve got to talk. I can’t do this anymore. It’s not right. I saw Clare earlier tonight and I haven’t been able to sleep since. She’s my friend and I feel like a heel. I can’t see you any more. I want my key back to the cabin, okay? Mail it to me or drop it by the house, whatever, just get it back to me. Bye.”

  Clare felt as if the blood had drained from
her face as the answering machine fell silent after the time of call, two-thirty a.m.

  “You know her?”

  Clare nodded, meeting Detective McKain’s eyes. “My neighbor, Irene Davis. She and Billy must have been…” She couldn’t finish, the thought of them involved with each other not surprising her as much as making her wonder in shock if Irene might have known something about Billy’s plans for Tyler. God help her, she’d never forgive Irene if that were the case—

  “What’s this cabin she’s talking about?” Detective McKain picked up the answering machine and punched the button to listen to the message a second time. “The call came in after the place was searched last night. If your ex-husband’s got a key—”

  “Canyon Lake.” Clare sensed what he might be thinking. Her heart began to race. “I can’t remember the address but I know the way. Irene invited Tyler and I up there a couple times on weekends before he got sick. Do you think Billy might have taken him—?”

  Detective McKain was already waving her to the kitchen and Clare couldn’t move fast enough. Outside the house, he stopped to speak to the two patrolmen sitting in a squad car parked in the driveway, and then he joined Clare by his vehicle and gestured for her to get in.

  “They’re radioing for back-up to meet us at Highway 46. You sure you know the way?”

  Clare nodded as she closed the passenger door. “Tyler and I usually rode up there with Irene. Her husband was gone a lot on business so she liked the company. We always took Smithson Valley Road north. Irene said it was quicker that way than the highway—oh, shit.”

  Clare had barely buckled her seatbelt before Detective McKain peeled the car down the street.

  * * *

  “Don’t lose him!”

  Xavier gripped the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the unmarked police car two vehicles ahead of them as it sped north along a winding, two-lane road.

  With each mile the traffic thinned, the housing developments closer to San Antonio fading into an occasional home here or there set back from the road among bushy cedars and gnarled stands of live oak. Excellent. They would soon find their moment.

  “Goddamn you, Xavier, get closer.”

  “Enough, Francisco. A few miles more and then we’ll have them. Look how few cars pass us now. Further north it will be even less, can’t you see?”

  Xavier couldn’t blame his impatient accomplice. Francisco gripped his handgun so tightly that his knuckles were white.

  Xavier felt the same fierce exhilaration and mounting tension. The chase and then the kill was always a thrill to him. He would have finished the job at the ex-husband’s house if not for the other squad car there, but this would be even better.

  Clare Carson and her police companion would soon be far enough out into the country that the likelihood of witnesses was next to nil, and there were no police cars in sight.

  At least so far. Best to get the thing done.

  Xavier pressed his foot to the accelerator as the last car in front of them turned left onto a dirt side road, nothing between he and Francisco and their unsuspecting quarry now but open road. “Be ready for when I pass them and make it quick. Mr. Ruiz awaits our call.”

  Xavier slammed his foot down on the pedal, the speedometer surging past ninety miles an hour. Francisco lowered the automatic window and raised his gun.

  * * *

  “What the hell?”

  Clare glanced at Detective McKain, his gaze riveted on the rearview mirror. He’d hardly spoken a full sentence to her since they’d left Billy’s house, instead focusing on getting them as fast as he could out of San Antonio and heading north toward Canyon Lake. She gripped her shoulder belt as he cursed again and floored the accelerator.

  “Detective McKain?”

  “Those sons-of-bitches are coming right at us.”

  Clare glanced over her shoulder and felt her breath stop. A silver Ford Taurus sped up alongside them, so close to their vehicle that she swore the fenders were almost touching.

  She couldn’t believe it. The car appeared to be the same one from the parking lot last night and now she could make out the faces of the two men inside—

  “Get down, get down! He’s got a gun!”

  Clare ducked at the same moment Detective McKain sped up the car. She heard gunfire and glass shattering, and she gasped when their car swerved. She glanced up at the detective whose face had gone stark white. “Detective—Doug?”

  “Stay down!”

  His voice sounded different. Hoarse. Clare stared in horror at the blood trickling from the side of his mouth. “Oh, God, you’ve been shot—oh, God!”

  She sensed it coming before she felt the violent jolt, the Taurus ramming sideways into their vehicle. Clare braced her hands on the dashboard as the car was rammed a second time, harder. Detective McKain fought for breath as much as fighting to keep them on the road. A deep red stain spread from the left shoulder of his police uniform downward across his chest. Blood, so much blood.

  “Hang…on, Clare.”

  She barely had time to grab the armrest before Detective McKain swerved their car so suddenly into the Taurus she was certain both cars would careen off the road. More gunfire erupted and she screamed. Tires screeched and a man yelled from the other car. Clare lifted her head in time to see the Taurus plunge into a ditch and crash into a copse of cedars.

  “Stay down, Clare…God.”

  Detective McKain’s voice had sunk to a whisper. He somehow kept the car on the road and drove at full speed for another mile before he slumped back against the seat.

  “I can’t…Take the wheel from me, Clare. Keep going until I tell you…”

  Her heart pounding and hands shaking, Clare unhooked her seatbelt and did as he’d told her, steering them another mile down the road while Detective McKain kept his foot to the accelerator.

  “Here—turn here.”

  They were going so fast, Clare nearly lost control of the car when she made a sharp right onto what appeared to be a private dirt road. Dust billowed into the car through the shattered driver’s side window, choking her. She threw her leg over the detective’s to reach the brake, but she waited until she’d steered the car into a dense grove of cedars before she slammed down her foot and brought them to a stop.

  Clare threw the gear shifter into park. She sat there dazed for a moment, almost uncomprehending, until Detective McKain’s low moan made her jump out of the car and run to the driver’s side.

  She threw open the door and gaped at the amount of blood. The detective’s entire left side was soaked with red, an ugly bubbling hole at the base of his neck.

  “Oh, God…help me.” Clare spun around to look back at the main road, but she was certain the cedars were thick enough that they wouldn’t be seen.

  She turned back to the detective, not even sure if he was conscious from how he was slumped against the seat with his head thrown back. She slid her arm around his shoulders to attempt to get him out of the car but he groaned in such agony that Clare jumped back, her knees gone weak.

  Who would have done this terrible thing? Why? She was absolutely certain the Taurus had been the same car in the hospital parking lot that had nearly run her down, and now—

  “He was aiming for you…the gunman.”

  “Me?” Her voice sounded like a croak. Clare moved closer as Detective McKain rolled his head to look at her. He fought to breathe. Blood mixed with saliva frothed around his mouth, his eyes glassy.

  “If I hadn’t sped up the car it would have been you…”

  Clare’s knees buckled beneath her and she sank to the ground as the detective reached out to clutch her arm with a bloody hand.

  “You can’t stay here…they’ll find you. Pull me out of the car so you can drive—”

  “No, I’m not leaving you!” Scalding tears blinded Clare, but she swallowed them back and struggled to rise. “Tell me how to use the radio, I’ll call for help—”

  “No, no time…no time.”

  Cl
are winced as his grip grew tight around her arm, though his voice sounded even weaker.

  “Highway 46…backup…too far away to help you. You need a place to hide…close by, a friend…Jake…Jake Wyatt. Go now…three miles north—”

  He’d fallen abruptly silent and Clare leaned closer. An ominous rattling sound came from the detective’s throat. “Doug—oh, God, Doug!”

  “Hidden Spring Road…Isabella Ranch…help you…”

  The rattling grew louder. Detective McKain’s hand still clutched Clare’s arm when his whole body shuddered for an instant and then went still.

  Too still. She stared at him in disbelief, not moving herself and scarcely daring to breathe—until his hand slipped from her arm to dangle limply at his side, blood dripping down his fingers.

  It was too much. A wail burst from Clare that sounded more animal-like than human. She rose and grabbed the detective by the shoulders to shake him, but she knew he was dead. She stared at her bloody hands, at the wet handprint on her arm, at Detective McKain’s eyes rolled up into his head, and thought she would be sick.

  Doug McKain had saved her life. He’d taken the bullet that had been meant for her…but why would those men want to kill—

  Clare spun around to look back toward the main road, her thoughts like a dousing of icy water.

  Dear God, was their car still in the ditch? Were they already looking for her? Maybe they’d been injured when they crashed into the trees. Maybe they were dead. Praying desperately for the latter, she turned back to the car and Detective McKain.

  She thought first to try and shove him onto the passenger’s side, but he was so heavy that she had no choice but to do as he’d told her. Clare grabbed him under the arms and pulled hard, his body half falling out of the car.

  “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.” Her throat constricted with emotion, Clare dragged him free of the tires even though she was shaking so badly she didn’t know how she managed it. She took an instant to close his sightless eyes with her palm, and then she rushed back to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.