Huddled Masses (JP Warner Book 2)

by Derek Ciccone

  After a violent coughing fit, I spoke, “Is this heaven?”

  “Despite your best efforts to get yourself killed, you’re still alive.”

  “I think that’s what I’m going to title my memoir,” I said, before coughing up another lung.

  “It wouldn’t be so funny if someone ended up dead, while trying to save you,” he continued.

  “Are you the one who saved me? Because if I owe you my life, that’s really going to suck for me.”

  “No—you can thank the firefighters who pulled you out of the woods.”

  “Gwen … where is she? I need to get to her,” I began to sit up.

  Ethan lightly pushed me back to the ground. “Slow down … the only place you’re going is the hospital.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I get to Gwen.”

  Just as Ethan was about to answer me, he was replaced by Rich Tolland, who said, “I need to talk to JP for a moment … alone.”

  Rich always had a commanding presence, but standing over me in my current state, he looked downright intimidating. “Here’s the story, JP. The reason you can barely talk is that you’re suffering from smoke inhalation. We won’t know the full extent of it until we get you to the hospital, which is going to happen whether you like it or not.”

  I nodded that I understood, but the only thing I could think of at the moment was Gwen. If she was alright, she would be nearby, getting the same type of medical treatment, right?

  Rich continued talking at me, but his words were swallowed up by the vast commotion around us—firemen, police, neighbors trying to help out. I noticed that I’d been dragged back near the colonial, safely away from the blaze, but I could still feel its heat on my face.

  “The fire is under control, but I’ve already heard the A-word—arson—so unless Casey Leeds recently came back to life, there is going to be a lot of explaining to do … mainly by you.

  “Allison’s kids are hidden away in your parents’ house. I talked to them, and they told an interesting story of motorcycles and their mother being abducted. Nobody knows they’re here, except us, and I will keep it that way as long as possible—I promised Allison I would protect them, so consider them in protective custody. I didn’t go into detail with your folks, but they trust that I wouldn’t ask this of them if it wasn’t important.

  “Finally, I don’t know the particulars of what’s going on, or what went on in that meeting at the Gazette, but you better know what the hell you’re doing … because if anything happens to Allison Cooper, and you didn’t go to the authorities with what you know, there will be hell to pay for you … starting with me.”

  He had a point—actually a lot of points—but I only had one thing on my mind at the moment. I somehow was able to climb to my feet and took a step toward the charcoal-ed woods. “I’m not going anywhere until I talk to Gwen.”

  “She’s gone, JP.”

  I heard his words, but they didn’t process. “She’s in the tree house, and I’m going to get her and bring her back here.”

  “There is no more tree house. Half an acre was burned to the ground—trees, bushes, and anything in its way. Sit back down and let the firemen do their job.”

  “If they didn’t save Gwen, then they aren’t doing their job … so I’m going to do it for them.”

  Rich grabbed me by the shirt to hold me back. “When I said Gwen is gone, I meant that she’s not here anymore. I passed her on my way. She was speeding in the other direction in the Gazette van.”

  Chapter 49

  Gwen wasn’t sure where the motorcycle men were headed, but based on their inability to tie a square knot, she doubted it was to a Boy Scout meeting.

  They also didn’t have a good handle on the territory they’d invaded. If they did, they would have known about the escape hatch built into the roof, hidden behind the fake branches. Ironically, her father had insisted on the second exit be included, in case of fire.

  So once she’d wriggled out of the ropes, she climbed to the top bunk, and made her way out the hatch. She took the rope-swing to the ground and ran like hell.

  She thought to first stop and warn JP, but she saw his parents come out of the house, and figured they had a better shot of talking sense into him than she did. And besides, Allison was the one in imminent danger.

  She sprinted to the Gazette van and tore out of the Warner’s driveway. She could already hear the fire trucks heading in the opposite direction.

  The motorcycles had a head start, and while she couldn’t match their speed, she had a better grasp of the local geography. The only way out of town was via Main Street, and she could cut off their path by using Zycko Hill.

  As she pounded the gas pedal, she realized this was the same strategy JP had used to stop Grady Benson last fall. But a similar collision wouldn’t work in this case, since the much bigger van would kill Allison in the process.

  The van struggled with the hairpin turns of the hill, and she had no choice but to slow down before she flipped over the guardrail. She passed over the Samerauk Bridge, where the lives of Noah Warner and Lisa Spargo came to an abrupt end, before hitting a brief straightaway where she could power ahead.

  The van practically bounced onto Main Street. The motorcycles were nowhere in sight, but she followed their roar. Traffic wouldn’t be a problem—the streets of Rockfield were normally silent this time of night, but even more deserted than usual tonight, with half the town rushing to the Warner’s.

  She continued to pin the accelerator to the floor, until she was able to spot the bike’s taillights in the far distance, and follow them out of Rockfield. She crossed a bridge over Lake Lillinonah. Her family used to take her father’s boat out on the lake on summer days, but that stopped after her parents’ divorce. Only recently did her father start taking the boat out again, with Tommy. It reminded her of how glad she was that he’d taken Tommy up to Rhode Island this week during his April vacation from school.

  They dashed through the neighboring town of Bridgewater, which was as sleepy and deserted as Rockfield. When the motorcycles reached Route-67, a jagged diagonal path that stretched from New Milford to New Haven, they headed east.

  Gwen continued to track them along the rural road—scenic during daylight, but treacherous at night—and at one point she got close enough to see Allison. At that moment the thought crossed her mind—what will I do if I actually catch them? Bump them off the road? Order them to pull over? What she really needed to do was to call the police, but her phone was nothing but melted plastic from the fire.

  It turned out not to matter. After toying with her for a few more winding miles, the motorcycles took off like the Millennium Falcon entering hyperspace. The taillights got smaller and smaller, until they disappeared, and the roar of the motors faded into the distance. She made one last push, but the van just didn’t have the horses to compete.

  She pulled over at Hodge Park, a small strip of grass and picnic tables beside the Shepaug River. JP’s mom used to bring them here when they were kids, and they’d spend the day catching salamanders, skimming rocks, and eating hot dogs. It was one of those obscure yet magical places that it seemed only Mrs. Warner knew about. “I know a place,” she would simply say, and pile them into their station wagon on those long August days when JP, Gwen, and the other neighborhood kids would claim boredom.

  Now Gwen needed to find a place—where they took Allison—but she didn’t even know where to start. It seemed like an impossible task.

  She stared out into the dark, lonely night, listening to the river rush by, and trying to channel Mrs. Warner. Then the answer came—she needed to find a person, not a place. She started the van, and was off again.

  Chapter 50

  I awoke at another stop on my medical world tour, this time in New Milford Hospital.

  My first thought was Gwen. My best guess as to why she was driving away from the scene, was that she was in pursuit of Allison’s captors. I must be rubbing off on her, I thought, and that wasn’t
a good thing.

  As the sun peeked through the window, stinging my senses, I received my first visitor. It was my father.

  My hope was that he’d come to spring me free, just as Carter had done in Landstuhl, and Jovana did in New York. Use his political influence to get me released—grease palms, slip bills, make an offer they couldn’t refuse. The usual ‘how a bill becomes a law’ stuff.

  “How are you feeling, JP?” he asked with fatherly concern.

  “My doctor tells me I have the lung capacity of a two-hundred-year-old smoker.”

  “Is that the message you’d like me to relay to your mother?”

  “Just tell her I’m going to be fine.”

  And according to my doctor, I would be. The firefighters got to me in time, before any major damage could occur, and I avoided any severe burns. Like my head, the lungs would require a couple weeks of rest. Problem was, I didn’t have that type of time.

  “Have you heard from Gwen?” I got right to the heart of the matter.

  “I haven’t, but I’ve been busy all night with insurance adjusters, police, fire marshals, you name it. And your mother has been engrossed in taking care of the grandchildren she never knew she had.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “The children or your mother?” he asked with a chuckle. “The kids are fine, and while she won’t admit it, looking after little ones always puts a pep in Sandra’s step—I think she misses those days when you and your brothers were young.”

  “I’m so sorry about all of this. It’s all my fault, and I will rebuild it with my own hands if need be, until every piece of the property is exactly as it was before the fire.”

  “I don’t care about blame, JP—but I am worried about you. The shooting in New York, this fire ... hiding out children. And don’t think I don’t know about the security system you put in without my consent. I know I struggled with retirement, but you’re taking it to a whole new level.”

  “It’s like in Godfather III—just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. I didn’t mean to put people in danger, but I did, because this stuff will always follow me.”

  “We can only control what we can control, son.”

  “I agree. Which is why I’m going to move as far away from here as possible. Go to some island, where, if they want to come after the people I care about, Gwen won’t be in the cross-hairs.”

  He got a good laugh out of that one. “You and Gwen could move to opposite sides of the universe, and surround yourselves with moats and alligators, and you would still find your way back to each other.”

  “My presence has done nothing but put her in danger since I returned.”

  “My guess is she’s chasing danger right now all on her own, JP. You seem to have forgotten that she can climb a tree without you.”

  A reminiscing grin came over his face, as he took a seat on the edge of my bed. “You were five years old when the Delaneys moved into our neighborhood. And when they came over to introduce themselves, and bring a pie, as people often did in those days, I remember how you just stared at that little girl. I can see it like it was yesterday—she was in this flowered dress, her hair in pigtails, while you were grass-stained from head to toe after wrestling with Ethan in the backyard.

  “The next week, we had the Delaneys over for dinner. It was Labor Day, the day before you went off to school for the first time. After the meal, you and Gwen went outside to play, and you two decided to climb that old oak tree along the driveway. She scooted right to the top, and you ended up stuck halfway up, which drove you crazy. You’d come home every day after school for weeks and practice climbing that tree until you could get to the top. Your mother thought you were going to end up breaking your arm, or worse, but I knew what was driving you, or more specifically, who was, and I understood that you were willing to take any risk to get to the top … because that’s where she was going to be.”

  “Isn’t that the tree Mom claims is dead, and has been trying to get you to cut down for years?”

  He smiled. “Your mother, of all people, should understand that history goes beyond the sturdiness of a structure. And believe me, son … that tree is far from dead.”

  I smiled, and asked the question once more—okay, now what?

  “I think you know exactly where you need to go, JP,” he replied.

  Having made his point, and after making me agree to stop by and see my mother after my release, as she can’t bring herself to visit me in the hospital, he made his way out of my room, stopping briefly to greet my next visitor. I couldn’t believe the man who figured out the important role Gwen would play in my life when we were just five years old, didn’t grasp what a total jackass Bobby Maloney was.

  He shut the door behind him. “So, you must have a reason for calling me down here this morning, Warner. You always have an agenda.”

  “I do, and I do.”

  “Then let’s hear it, I don’t have all day.” Maloney looked at his watch, as if he had scheduled somebody else to haunt this morning.

  “Last night, as my life flashed before my eyes, I started to rethink a few things, Bobby. And I decided that I might have been too hard on you, holding your past over your head, and not allowing you to pursue your destiny, which is to be Rockfield’s first selectman. I just couldn’t handle someone replacing my father.”

  And what I was holding over his head was the fact that he used false testimony in a drunk driving death back in college, which sent an innocent man, Lamar Thompson, to jail. It also almost got Maloney killed last year, when Officer Jones wanted to invoke his own style of justice over the incident.

  “What’s the catch, Warner?”

  “I will not stop you from running in the election this November, after my father’s interim role is up. I won’t lie if asked directly, but I won’t bring up the subject on my own. In exchange, I want you to switch places with me.”

  “Switch places?”

  “Your suit for this hospital gown. You snuggle under the covers, while I walk out of here, pretending to be you.”

  “Isn’t that medical fraud?”

  “I have no idea—you’re the lawyer. But I imagine it’s a lesser crime than lying under oath to send an innocent man to prison.”

  He looked resigned, but also confused. “You’re going to give up all your leverage to get out of the hospital a couple days early? It doesn’t make sense—why wouldn’t you hold on to it until you really needed something big?”

  “This is as big as it gets for me, Bobby. Do we have a deal?”

  “No.”

  “No? You’re turning down the offer to get your life back, basically for nothing?”

  “I know how you blackmailers work—this won’t be the end of it, you’ll always keep coming back wanting more, another favor, new conditions to the deal.”

  I’ve been called a lot of things throughout the years, but blackmailer was a new one. Like I was the guy who ruined another man’s life with his lies.

  “I’ll give you one last chance to accept, Bobby—and you might also want to consider that Lamar Thompson is thinking about writing a book about the incident … with all the new information that’s come to his attention. I think he’s still undecided whether or not to do it. I know Lamar pretty well, and I can talk to him, maybe sway him one way or another.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled, and began undoing his tie. A few minutes later, I was Bobby Maloney, from the slicked-back hairstyle all the way down to the Italian loafers, which were about a size too small.

  “Just cough a lot, and if a woman named Jovana comes looking for you, do whatever she says,” was my last advice as I headed out the door.

  Chapter 51

  I drove Maloney’s Mercedes S-Class Sedan directly home. The good news was that there were no investigators and fire officials hanging around. The bad news was the damage looked even worse in the morning. The magical woods where so many memories lived had been wiped away, leaving just charred remains, and a strong stench,
which sent me into another fit of coughing.

  There was no sign that Gwen had returned here since the fire. I didn’t think she would, but I had to cover all bases. My next stop was her father’s place. Once again, no sign of life—Mr. Delaney and Tommy were in Rhode Island for the week. I peeked in the garage window, and I noticed that Allison’s car, a silver Audi, was no longer parked there. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  I drove to the Gazette building, and filled with relief when I saw the van parked out front. But my enthusiasm dissipated when I learned that Gwen wasn’t there. In fact, nobody was—the place was dark when I went inside. It was sort of the newspaper business in a nutshell.

  I walked next door to the Rockfield Village Store. That’s where Murray, the paper’s founder, spent his so-called retirement as the most overqualified cashier in history. As usual, the store looked exactly as it did when my mother first took me there over thirty years ago. The smell was the same, and the floorboards made the same squeak when stepped upon. I waited for all the customers to be served, before approaching Murray.

  “Have you seen, Gwen? I’m worried about her,” I led with the headline.

  He looked me up and down. “After your fainting spell yesterday, and the effects of last night’s fire, shouldn’t she be the one worried about you?”

  “She went after the lunatics who set the fire, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

  “She didn’t mention anything about that when I saw her first thing this morning. She acted as if it were any old day.”

  “You saw her? This morning?”

  “We had our weekly meeting to go over the paper’s business. She then took care of some issues regarding the morning delivery, and we were both on our way.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “She did not, nor did I pry, but I understand your concern, John Pierpont. My sources tell me that the fire was very much related to yesterday’s meeting. As I mentioned, this group is very desperate, which makes them quite dangerous.”