Going Twice

by Sharon Sala

  “Fuck you, bitch. You don’t belong here,” he whispered, yanked the electrodes out of her chest, spun and ran.

  * * *

  Even though Jo’s shot had gone wild, it had echoed through the underground parking as though a dozen guns had been fired at once. She couldn’t see anything but brown shaggy hair and eyes beneath the bandages as he bent down and yanked the electrodes from her chest. She was still immobile, jerking from the electrical shock, when he disappeared from view. A moment later she heard the screech of tires on pavement.

  He was getting away, and she couldn’t even move.

  All of a sudden she heard the sound of running feet and people shouting. She was trying to catch her breath when her eyes rolled back in her head, and then she was gone.

  Nine

  Wade had just picked up the loaner car from the Missouri State Bureau of Investigation when his Bluetooth began to ring. It was Tate.

  “What’s up?” Wade asked.

  “Get back to the hotel. The Stormchaser just attacked Jolene.”

  Wade’s heart nearly stopped. He hit the brakes, made a U-turn in the middle of the busy street and headed back to the hotel, still talking.

  “How bad is she hurt? What did he do? Damn it to hell, I knew bringing her on to this team when there was a link between us was a bad idea!”

  “All I know is she’s talking and they’re taking her up to the suite. I’m on my way there. Just don’t have a wreck coming back.”

  The line went dead. Wade stomped the gas, only one thing on his mind. If Jolene lived through this again, he wasn’t wasting another day without telling her what was in his heart.

  * * *

  Hershel was in shock.

  He’d underestimated Jolene Luckett, and it had nearly gotten him killed. He’d had her down, but he couldn’t finish her off without the danger of getting himself caught, and she knew it. Even as he turned and ran, he imagined he could hear her laughter, knowing that she’d bested him. He jumped in his truck and drove out of the garage, laying down rubber as he went, taking the back streets to his motel. On the way he realized they would have caught the make and model of his truck on the hotel security camera, and probably the tag number. Even though the tag wouldn’t be registered to Hershel Inman, they had all they needed to find him.

  Now, because of one bad decision, not only had he failed to get rid of her, he had to get something else to drive. He drove through the city until he found a street that got him onto the I-55 and headed south out of St. Louis toward a more rural area, fuming as he went. This was not the outcome he had hoped for.

  The day was hot, and he had the air conditioner turned up full blast, cooling his body but doing nothing for his temper. It didn’t help his attitude when Louise suddenly decided to pop in.

  See! See what happens when you act all crazy! You nearly got yourself shot, Hershel Inman.

  “Keep your opinions to yourself, Louise. I do not need a backseat driver.”

  That wasn’t an opinion. That was a fact. You have lost your way, Hershel. You don’t even know why you’re killing people anymore. It’s no longer about me or what happened to me. You’re just killing for the sake of killing.

  He clenched his jaw, willing himself not to answer. She didn’t have a dog in this fight, so she needed to keep quiet.

  You are wasting all of our retirement money and my inheritance money on murder. You are ruining everything we planned to do.

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “What do you mean, ruining what we planned to do? You did that when you went and died, Louise! There is no retirement plan anymore. You’re gone! Our home is gone! The world went on without us. They didn’t care. No one cared. But I’m making them care!” he screamed. “Now shut up! I need to think.”

  Our money won’t last forever. You’re going to need your retirement and Social Security money that’s accumulating in the bank back home. And there’s the insurance settlement from when our house was flooded. Only you can’t get to it without giving yourself away.

  He thought about the money that came in monthly to Hershel Inman, deposited directly into his bank back in New Orleans, but right now there was nothing he could do about it, so he kept on driving.

  * * *

  Wade told himself all the way to the hotel that Jo was going to be all right. Tate had said she was talking. He’d said they were taking her to the suite. That had to mean she was okay, otherwise she would be on her way to a hospital.

  But when he finally reached the hotel, the street in front of it was crawling with media, and the lobby was crawling with cops. He could only imagine how pissed the hotel management was going to be. Having a guest attacked in the parking garage was not good for business. He made his way through the lobby to the elevators and got off at their floor running. The door to their suite was ajar. He hit it with the flat of his hand and was immediately stopped by a uniformed officer.

  “This is my room,” Wade said, flashing his badge.

  Tate was on the phone talking to their boss when he heard Wade’s voice and quickly ended the call. “Sir, I need to call you back.”

  When he saw Wade come in with his hands doubled and a wild look on his face, he could only imagine the hell his friend had been through just getting here.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Tate said.

  “Where is she?” Wade asked.

  “I had her moved into my room. The EMTs are with her.”

  “What happened?”

  “I dropped her off inside the parking garage and left. She was on her way into the hotel when he ran up behind her. She heard him coming and grabbed her gun. He used his Taser on her. She got off a shot. He got away.”

  Wade wiped a shaky hand across his face. “Lord. Please tell me we caught all of that on a security camera.”

  “We did, and there’s already an alert out on the vehicle and tag, which, by the way, is not the same tag that was on the truck back in Tulsa, which explains the abandoned car that was towed in with his old tag on it.”

  “But it was him, right?” Wade asked.

  “Jo said his face was heavily bandaged, which might explain the mutilation to his latest victim’s face. If he’s marked in such a way that he can’t hide from us again, then by destroying his victims’ faces, in effect he’s hiding them from us. With every failure he experiences, he believes he’s losing his power.”

  “Crazy bastard,” Wade muttered, and headed for the bedroom at a lope.

  * * *

  An EMT was treating the electrode burns just below Jo’s collarbone, and there was an ice pack on her belly for the localized spasms that had yet to stop. The friction burn on her chin looked painful, and there was a bleeding cut on her forehead that they’d closed with a small butterfly bandage. The moment she saw Wade’s face, she knew what he’d been reliving.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said shortly, and grabbed her hand.

  If the EMT hadn’t been in the way, he would have crawled into bed with her and taken her in his arms. He glanced down at the ice pack, saw the scar on her belly instead, and felt sick all over again, remembering why it was there. At that point Tate walked up behind him with a bottled sports drink packed with electrolytes.

  Tate set the cold drink within reach of where Jo was lying.

  She was still in shock, but she looked mad. Wade considered that a good sign.

  The EMT took her blood pressure again, then checked her heartbeat one last time.

  “I think you’re good to go,” he told her. “Your vitals are stable.”

  “Finally some good news,” Jo said as she gave Wade’s hand a quick squeeze. “Help me sit up, will you? I need to start drinking that blue stuff you brought. These spasms are both painful and a
nnoying.”

  But Wade didn’t just help. He physically lifted her, then tucked a couple of pillows behind her back.

  “Thanks,” she said, and plopped the ice pack back on her stomach and reached for the bottle, pausing momentarily to eye the contents, then sighed. “Oh, great. My tongue and lips are going to be blue,” she said, and wrinkled her nose as she took a big gulp.

  Wade waited until the officers were out of the room and the EMTs were gone before he turned on Tate like a pissed-off parent at a PTA meeting.

  “Did you tell the Director what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well? Is he ordering her back to D.C.?”

  “No.”

  Wade’s temper blew. “Why the hell not? Doesn’t he get what’s going on here?”

  “Look, this isn’t my call, and we don’t question the Director, or don’t you remember?” Tate said.

  Jolene rolled her eyes and then threw the ice pack. It sailed right between them, hitting the wall.

  Their surprise was evident, but now she had their attention.

  “I realize Agent Benton is in charge of this team, and I realize Agent Luckett has my best interests at heart. But will the both of you please shut up! This is my assignment. I got off a shot and came this close to ending the whole mess in the parking garage of this hotel. I do not want to go back. I will be pissed beyond words if that happens. Inman put Cameron in the hospital back in Louisiana. Did anyone offer to send him home?”

  Neither one of them would look at her.

  She snorted softly. “That’s what I thought. He shouted something at me as he ran away. He said I didn’t belong here, which I’m guessing explains why he tried to get rid of me. For whatever reason, I don’t fit into his game.” Then she grabbed her stomach and groaned as a new ripple of muscle spasms rolled through her. “Somebody hand me that ice pack.”

  Wade picked it up, started to carry it back, then saw the gleam in her eye and tossed it instead.

  She snagged it in midair and settled it back on her belly, wincing when the cold pack hit warm flesh.

  “Thank you. That’s better. Now, Agent Benton, would you please go put out some media fires so I can talk privately to Wade for a few minutes?”

  Tate nodded. “You did a good job today, Jo, and you’re right. You came damn close to putting an end to the Stormchaser case. I’d bet real money that the reason he says you don’t belong is because you weren’t here at the start. In his mind, he’s developed a relationship with the three of us, and you’re an unknown. Hershel doesn’t like change.”

  “Does that mean he’ll try to kill me again?” she asked.

  Tate glanced at Wade and then shrugged. “No way to tell, but I wouldn’t put it past him. We’ll just have to be extra vigilant where you’re concerned. Now that we have the security footage from the hotel parking lot, there’s a new BOLO out on him. He’ll be on the run again, and maybe this time we’ll get lucky. In the meantime, I’m out of here.”

  Wade walked closer, stopping at the foot of the bed.

  “Come sit by me,” she said, and patted the mattress as Tate left the room.

  Wade was still trying to come to terms with the firebrand she’d become. The past three years had given her an edge she didn’t have before.

  “Are you going to throw ice at me again?”

  “Not unless I have to,” she said.

  He sat. “There’s something I need to say, and I’m going to ask you to hear me out before you argue.”

  She wanted him to hold her, but after the fit she’d just had, turning into a crybaby wasn’t in the cards.

  “I’m listening.”

  “All I heard when I got that phone call was that you’d been attacked, but I made a promise to myself that if you survived this, then you need to know my truth.”

  Suddenly she was holding her breath. This sounded scary, and she wasn’t sure if it was scary good or scary bad.

  He slid his fingers along the length of her jaw, tilting her chin until they were eye to eye.

  “The truth is that I still love you, and I want you back in my life. I’ll even grovel and take you on any terms you’re willing to offer.”

  “But—”

  “Wait! Just hear me out first, okay?”

  She nodded, but her heart was suddenly hammering.

  “I’ll go to counseling with you. I will do whatever you need to feel safe with me again. And I’ll work through all my own crap, as well. We got a divorce because we were too sad to fight. Well, I’m not too sad to fight with you anymore. I’ll fight with you, and for you, for as long as it takes until you say yes.”

  “Now can I talk?” she asked.

  He sighed. “Yeah. Now you can talk.”

  “I say yes.”

  “Yes? You said yes?”

  She clutched his hand. “I say yes to everything. I want you back. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make up for shutting you out. I did this to us. I need to be the one to fix it.”

  Wade frowned. “No, Jolene. We do this together or not at all.”

  “Together, then,” she said softly.

  He leaned in and kissed her; without foreplay, without promises, without fanfare. She still tasted the same, and it made him ache with anticipation. He was a lustful man with the things he liked, and he liked the way she looked, the way she felt—even the way she smelled. He loved making love to Jolene. One day soon they would do that again, too.

  Jo felt light-headed again and then remembered she needed to breathe. For a brief moment today she’d thought she was going to die, and she’d been so pissed that she’d never told Wade she was sorry. Now she’d been given her life back, and she was never going to waste a second of it again.

  “I’m sorry for everything,” she said.

  “So am I, sugar. So am I.” He picked up the sports drink. “A toast to better days.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said.

  And he laughed because there was finally something in life to rejoice over.

  * * *

  As Hershel drove, he watched in the rearview mirror for any cop cars in pursuit while looking for a state highway that would take him away from the heavily populated areas and in the general direction he wanted to go.

  Sometime later he turned onto State Highway 21, breathing easier as he continued to put more and more distance between himself and the city. It was midafternoon when he stopped at a little station on the outskirts of the Mark Twain National Forest to get something to eat and some gas. He hesitated to show his face, but there was no way around it. If they had put out a bulletin on him, the description would be of a guy in bandages, so he needed to get rid of them.

  He sat in the truck, using the rearview mirror to see what he was doing, and one by one removed the bandages until he was bare to the world. The stitches were still there, little black barbs poking out of his face like porcupine quills, but the wounds were healing. His face wasn’t as red, and the skin beneath the stitches was dry. There was no sign of infection, which was good. A few more days and he could take the stitches out. He dug through his duffel bag, pulled out a blue bandana, rolled it up and tied it around his head.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said, and got out to fill up the tank. He swiped his credit card and then inserted the hose.

  The air was still. The sun was hot on the back of his neck. The scent of gasoline fumes was all he could smell as he waited for the tank to fill. When he went in to pay, he put a little swagger in his step. It was a sign to the world that he knew what the hell he looked like but didn’t care.

  The clerk stared at him when he walked in, then quickly looked away, but Hershel felt the stares when the guy thought he wasn’t looking. He gathered up some doughnuts and a cold drink, then stopped at the deli counter and pointed
at some already prepared food behind the glass.

  “How about fixing me up with some of those chicken strips and potato wedges, and add a couple of bean burritos and some hot sauce for later on.”

  “Sure thing,” the clerk said.

  When Hershel got to the counter to pay, the clerk’s curiosity won out.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Oh, man, I got caught in the St. Louis tornado. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned! I reckon you’re a real lucky man. That’ll be something you won’t ever forget.”

  “That’s for sure,” Hershel said, and counted out the money to pay.

  The clerk slipped the money in the till as Hershel picked up his sack and cold drink and headed out the door. He was eating a chicken strip as he drove away, still looking for a new ride. He was thinking he might like a van. In a pinch, he could even sleep in it.

  A few miles farther down the road he saw a junkyard with a sign that said We Buy Your Junk, and across the road from the office there was an old house with a van parked on the side of the road with a for-sale sign on it. He considered it a signal that he was on the right path.

  “Well, lookee there,” Hershel muttered. “A van. Just what I wanted. Ask and ye shall receive.”

  God isn’t giving you any signs to go about your killing, Hershel Inman, so you can get that out of your head right now.

  Hershel jumped. Louise’s voice was so loud it had startled him.

  “My God, Louise. Don’t be yelling in my ear. You could have caused me to have a wreck!”

  I had my say. You don’t have to like it…like it…like it…

  He frowned. There she went, echoing again.

  “Well, that’s good, because I damn sure don’t like it,” he muttered, but Louise was obviously done for the moment, because he heard nothing more.

  He stopped at the house and got out to look at the Chevy van. Within moments a little old lady came out carrying an umbrella over her head against the sun and her purse over her shoulder. She stared at his face and then shifted focus to the van.