She looked up to find trees hovering over her, the deep gloom of shadows and darkness. She’d landed somewhere. But where?
Chapter Forty
Jama was drying her hair with Zelda’s blow-dryer in the bedroom when her cell phone rang. It was Renee. As Jama listened to the news from her foster sister, she felt a cold vise squeeze her.
“Doriann might be on a boat?” The screams. The howling. “And you said there was an animal involved?”
“And of course Tyrell didn’t call and tell you. I told him to-”
“Renee, call the FBI. Tell them I think I heard her. It couldn’t have been fifteen minutes ago. If she’s on the river, she could be more than a mile away by now. They’ll need to set up a barricade quickly. Meanwhile, do you know of anyone in River Dance with a boat?”
“Why?”
“Never mind.” Disconnecting, Jama opened dresser drawers until she found some of Zelda’s old scrubs. When she pulled them on, they were a little tight, but they’d have to do. Thank goodness Zelda hadn’t washed the jacket. The gun was still in it, as well as Jama’s flashlight.
She pulled on some dry socks, her wet shoes, and then rushed out of the room, nearly colliding with Zelda in the hallway.
“You still up?” Zelda asked sleepily. Then she looked at Jama more closely. “Hey, what are you up to, young lady?”
“I think I heard Doriann just a few minutes ago,” Jama told her. “Who has a motorboat on the water right now?”
“Water?”
“The river. I’ll explain later. Do you know of any-”
“Sure. Phil Carraway’s here for a week on a fishing trip. He’s camping down by the river.” Zelda gave directions. “He’s got a bass boat with a trolling motor. Took me out on it the other day. So quiet, it wouldn’t even scare the fish.”
“Good. The FBI are on their way,” Jama said as she headed for the door. “But this can’t wait.”
“Who’s going with you? Did you call Tyrell?”
“No time.”
Zelda followed her to the front porch. “Don’t you dare go after them by yourself!”
“Tyrell is sure to know by now. I’m not leaving Doriann in danger any longer if I can stop it.” She ran down the steps, across the flagstone path to the street, and kept running as she followed the directions Zelda had given her. She only wished she had the powerful beam of Tyrell’s flashlight.
Tyrell stared at one passage that had been both highlighted and underlined. It would make sense that Mom and Dad would both be drawn to this particular set of words. “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?”
Paul had some straight things to say to the Galatians.
He also had some good things to say to the Corinthians. “Love is patient, love is kind…keeps no record of wrongs.”
And John’s “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” really hit home.
He closed his eyes as those passages made him ache.
Who was he to judge? He’d always excused his self-righteous attitude with the birth order. The oldest did tend to take responsibility, to expect more from everyone, and tended to have difficulty forgiving.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t specifically noted anywhere by the psychologists of the day, but it was an excuse he’d used more than once.
Sure, he was so good about excusing himself, but when it came to others, he tended to run out of excuses quickly.
He paged on through the Bible, but before he could read farther, Renee called again on his cell.
“I think Jama’s up to something,” she said. And then she explained.
He had his shoes on before she finished. “Did she tell you what she was doing?” But he already knew. “I’ll talk to you later.” He flipped off the phone, grabbed his jacket and ran out the door.
Doriann stood at the top of a rise and peered through the trees that surrounded her. There was water everywhere. She could see the moon reflecting from it.
She was on an island in the middle of the river! There were lights upriver, but no one would hear her tonight.
She sank to the ground on a pile of last year’s leaves. “I’m never getting home.”
It was a lot warmer here on land than it had been in the boat, and so she reached for some more leaves, gathering them around her like a blanket. If she could make it to morning, she could call to somebody passing by. “It’ll be okay.”
She had all the leaves around her, piled as high as possible, and then she curled herself into the middle of the mound. She closed her eyes and listened to her teeth chatter.
It was a few minutes before she heard another sound. She clenched her jaws and listened. An engine. The quiet hum of a motor.
She peered around the island until she saw a shape in the water. Long and dark. A boat pulling alongside her rowboat. No lights, no one talking.
Someone was coming for her. Someone who didn’t want to be seen or heard.
The sound of feet jumping to shore…grunts of pain. Cussing. A man.
Clancy had found her.
Jama guided Phil Carraway’s sleek new bass boat through the river of ink, his admonitions ringing in her ears about what he would do to her if she damaged his baby. She directed Phil’s wonderful, big, bright searchlight across the surface of the water, and understood why the man felt such passion for the vessel-it handled like a dream.
“Doriann!” she called. It was likely that, if those had been Doriann’s screams earlier, she would be much farther downriver by now, but after everything that had happened in the past seventeen hours, Jama wasn’t discounting anything.
“Doriann!” Her voice echoed against the cliffs to her left.
She used only the quiet, electric trolling motor so she could hear any sounds over it. She didn’t want to go too fast and miss something.
“Doriann!”
Silence, except for the soft hum of the motor…and then a sudden scream out of the darkness.
Ahead and to the right.
Jama switched on the gas-powered motor and ran it full tilt across the water in the direction of the scream.
Tyrell backed his father’s boat and trailer down the ramp by the campground at the edge of town. It was tricky for one person to put a boat into the water, but it could be done with a long enough tether. He’d done it many times before.
He’d placed the boat and was parking the trailer when he heard shouting downriver. Jama calling his niece’s name. Then he heard a scream. Then the sputter of an engine.
No time to use finesse. He grabbed the tether, jumped into the water, then into the boat and revved the motor.
Clancy’s fingers dug into Doriann’s arms. “How does it feel to live like us poor people, little rich kid? To be hunted like an animal?”
She screamed again. And she heard her name being called from somewhere across the river.
Clancy clamped his hand over her mouth. “Shut up.”
She tried to break away, but his hold was like concrete. She couldn’t budge his arms.
“Your daddy’s going to know what it’s like to lose somebody he loves.” He was hurting her. “Privileged little girl. You don’t even know what life’s all about. You think you’re better than us because your clothes are clean and you get three squares, live in a nice home. How’d you like to grow up without a daddy?”
His hand was cutting off Doriann’s air. She kicked at him.
His grip grew tighter. “I’m not going to kill you yet, little spoiled rich kid. You’re still my ticket to freedom.”
If he wasn’t going to kill her, why wasn’t he letting her breathe? God? I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done. Guess I’m going to see You in a few…
She panicked, she fought. She thought she heard Humphrey again, and she saw a bright light in the trees. And then the roar in her ears grew louder.
The hand jerked, as if forced from her mouth. Clancy let her go, shoving her aside. She spun, landing on her belly in the leav
es. She heard the breath go out of him.
He lurched forward and fell, trapping her beneath his leg. She reached out to grab a sapling and tried to pull herself out from under him. He was heavy.
His mouth started spewing dirty words again, and she could see him clearly because there was light. She saw Aunt Jama standing in the glow of the light, grabbing Clancy around the neck from behind and squeezing with her arm. He bucked and shoved Aunt Jama against a tree, breaking her hold. Then he turned on her. In the light, Doriann saw a knife flash in his hand. He raised it. Doriann screamed and lunged at his arm. She scraped the inside of his shin with her heel. Aunt Jama had taught her a few things.
He knocked her sideways with his elbow. Aunt Jama hit him again. He hit her back and knocked her down. She reached into her pocket, but he jumped on her. He grabbed her by the throat.
“No!” Doriann jumped onto his back and clutched him by the hair. She screamed into his ear, reached for his face and tried to poke him in the eyes. He knocked her off, elbow gouging into her stomach. She fell to the ground, trying to catch her breath.
Another roar from the water. Jama kicked up and broke Clancy’s hold on her throat. She kicked him again and again.
He raised his knife and plunged it down, but a shadow flew at him and rammed him up and over. He hit the ground with a grunt. A big shape-a man-jumped on top of Clancy and shoved his shoulders backward into the leaf blanket Doriann had made.
Doriann recognized her uncle Tyrell’s black hair and big shoulders in the bright light. She looked at Aunt Jama, who hadn’t jumped back up the way Doriann expected her to.
“Doriann, are you okay?” Uncle Tyrell asked.
“I’m good, but Aunt Jama’s not moving.”
“I’m moving,” Aunt Jama said quickly. “Just not very fast.” She groaned and sat up.
Doriann scrambled to her side. Uncle Tyrell had Clancy under control. Doriann knew he would.
Aunt Jama was bleeding. Doriann gasped. Aunt Jama reached up and pressed her fingers against Doriann’s lips.
“I’m okay, sweetheart,” she said, then she pulled Doriann into her arms.
“I thought he’d killed you!” Then Doriann burst into tears.
Chapter Forty-One
Jama stood at the Dancing Waters Winery between Agents Sydloski and Bosch, who had escorted her from the island. Both men had fired questions at her all the way up the hill-and it had taken some time with the delay in securing Doriann’s abductor for transport.
The chopping roar of rotor blades had silenced the questions at last, and Jama watched the jet-black FBI helicopter lift Tyrell and Doriann into the sky. The sound most likely awakened the whole town. There would be calls to the clinic tomorrow. Maybe even tonight.
Agent Sydloski took Jama by the elbow. “Are you sure you won’t let us drive you to join them at St. Mary’s? You need to have that wound looked at. That’s quite a puncture.”
“There’s a lot of blood, but the cut isn’t deep. There’s a brand-new, state-of-the-art clinic just down the hill,” she said. “I have my very own key to it. I also have a critical patient who needs my care, and there’s no other physician who knows her case and can take care of her.”
“We’ll need to interview you and get a statement.”
“Can it wait until I’ve seen to my patient, and myself, and had a few hours of sleep?”
Sydloski looked at Bosch. “We’ll still be here in the morning.”
Bosch nodded. “It can wait.”
There would be a happy welcome for Tyrell and Doriann at the Jefferson City Hospital as soon as the helicopter touched down. Doriann would be thoroughly examined, treated, fed and debriefed. Jama had done a cursory exam, and found no obvious injuries. Jama had already told the agents everything she knew-which was very little that they hadn’t already known.
In the excitement of the fight, the convergence of six agents onto the tiny island in a sudden hailstorm of light and sound, and the aftermath of the arrest, there had been no time for Jama to speak to Tyrell except to assure him she was okay.
“You and Mr. Mercer are two determined people,” Agent Sydloski said.
Jama looked up at him. Doriann might be dead if Jama hadn’t disobeyed orders. But it could have ended differently had Tyrell not arrived in time.
“Are you still looking for the accomplice?” she asked.
“The search dogs have arrived. We don’t have a scent for them to follow, and there were multiple tracks through the woods. We’ll still be in the area until we find her, but this partner was not the original woman who went on the killing spree with him. That woman was found dead three days ago.”
“He killed his partner?” How chilling.
“The case is still under investigation.” He checked out the blood on Jama’s upper arm. “You’re going to treat that yourself?”
“No problem. Look, I know Doriann’s a brave kid, but everything that’s happened to her is going to be a huge trauma for her.”
“She’ll receive the best of care, and I think she’ll provide a lot of answers for us.”
There was a sudden, loud baying of a hound behind them, and Jama turned to see Humphrey, Monty’s hunting dog, running toward them up the hill. His tongue hung from his mouth. He was panting hard.
“Hey, boy.” Jama knelt to pet him. “Didn’t I see you out on the highway this morning?”
His body quivered. He was wet. When Jama ran her hand down his side, he winced and whined. He was spattered with drying mud.
“Easy, Humphrey. You look beat. You’ve covered some miles, haven’t you?”
Agent Sydloski knelt beside her and smoothed the ruffled hair on the dog’s head. “You know this animal?”
“He’s one of the Mercers’ hunting dogs. Doriann rescued him from a ditch a few years ago.”
“We picked up sounds of a dog baying for miles along the river,” Bosch told her. “It looked like a dog got a few bites at Doriann’s attacker at one point.”
In the glow from the security light in the parking lot, Jama raised Humphrey’s snout and looked into the depths of his brown-black eyes. “Was that you I heard tonight, boy? Did you follow Doriann down the river? Are you a hero?”
“Looks like he could use a trip to the vet’s office,” Bosch said. “Is there one nearby?”
“Sure is. I’ll walk him down to Dr. Witherspoon’s house.”
“Tell us where that is, and we’ll take him,” Sydloski said. “You need to get that wound taken care of.”
Tyrell held his squirming niece on his lap, safely in his arms, and he had some serious doubts about being able to release her to the care of others once they landed.
“Wow, Uncle Tyrell, I’ve never flown in a helicopter before!” She leaned as far to the right as she could to look down at the retreating lights of River Dance. She waved, as if someone down there could see her through the mirrored black glass.
“Is Aunt Jama going to meet us at the hospital?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why couldn’t she ride with us?”
Tyrell didn’t know that, either. He’d been unable to wrest her away from the two agents who had hovered over her all the way from the island.
“Did you see what she did, Uncle Tyrell? Clancy had me in a stranglehold and I was going down, and she jumped him and knocked him over, and then he almost had her, and I used some of those moves she taught me, and we held him off long enough for you to come to the rescue.”
She looked up at him, that little mud-streaked face, mud-caked hair, red-rimmed eyes. She gazed at him as if he were a superhero.
He smiled down at her, then pulled her into a tight hug. Though she’d been in tears on the island, she’d recovered quickly enough once the FBI personnel had begun to arrive. Since then, she’d been awed by the gear the agents wore, and asked question after question about their weapons and whether or not they wore earplugs when they shot, and whether or not they wore bulletproof vests. Once he managed to ca
lm her excitement over riding in a genuine FBI helicopter, he checked her out, as Jama had done on the island. No blood on her clothing. He felt up and down her legs and arms. No wincing.
“Doriann, do you remember if you were unconscious at any time today?” Had they knocked her out?
“Yeah. I stayed up too late, and was sleepy. I’d never make a good private investigator, because I fell asleep right outside the barn where Clancy and Deb were hiding!”
“You followed them after the truck went into the swamp. Why?”
She looked up at him then, and her eyes grew somber. “It’s what you would’ve done. You wouldn’t have let them get away so they could kill more people or kidnap more little kids. Clancy had my cell phone, and I wanted it back. They were high on meth, and I heard Deb say they would have to crash soon. So I tried to wait until they crashed in the barn.” She grimaced. “It didn’t work, and Clancy almost caught me.”
“Did they hit you or inject you with any needles?”
“No, but Deb smacked me in the face a couple of times, but then she protected me from Clancy later. Humphrey found me and kept me warm.”
“Humphrey?”
“He’s some good dog, isn’t he, Uncle Tyrell?”
“He is.”
“When are you and Aunt Jama getting married?”
Tyrell decided not to ask Doriann any more questions.
Jama let herself in through the front door of the clinic with her new key. The hinges didn’t squeak; there was no noise at all. She removed her dirt-caked shoes before stepping inside.
She turned on the lights in the reception office.
The familiar quiet hum of the Pixus machine whispered from the far corner of the office. It would be moved to a more appropriate location as soon as there was opportunity to decide where that would be.
She entered the first exam room, with the minor meds treatment chair, switched on the light and gathered the supplies she would need to treat her arm. The clock on the wall registered three o’clock. She’d been up for nearly twenty-four hours-and most of those hours inundated with high drama and tension.
A Killing Frost Page 25
