Nine Lives

by Sharon Sala

  Too antsy to relax while she ate, she stood at the kitchen counter to eat her meal while keeping an eye on the computer screen.

  Her telephone rang as she was downing her last bite. As soon as she saw caller ID, she answered.

  “Hey you.”

  Wilson McKay stifled a soft groan. Just the sound of her voice turned him on.

  “Hey yourself,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  Cat sat down on a nearby barstool and began fiddling with the ends of her hair.

  “I’m okay. How about you?”

  “That’s part of why I’m calling,” Wilson said. “I wanted to come by and see you tonight, but I’m on a stakeout.”

  “Is it a bad one?” she asked.

  He knew what she was asking. Sometimes the people who jumped bail were scary.

  “Nah…this guy’s a toker. He probably got himself a bag of weed and forgot he was supposed to show up in court. I’ve got a line on his girlfriend, who swears that when the dude’s smoking, he always comes to her place to crash. So here I am. You know how it goes.”

  “You don’t think she’ll warn him off?” Cat asked.

  Wilson chuckled. “No. She’s pretty pissed at him. Says he owes her money, and that when he’s not smoking weed, he has a tendency to smack her around. She wants him off her back.”

  “Sounds like a real sweetheart,” Cat said.

  “Yeah. At any rate, I just wanted to check in with you.”

  “I’m fine,” Cat said.

  “Glad one of us is,” he said.

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” he said shortly. “Ignore me. That doesn’t require an answer. It’s just an update on my state of mind.”

  Surprised by the unexpected humor, Cat laughed.

  The sound curled around Wilson’s heart and squeezed just tightly enough to make him feel short of breath.

  “Have a good evening.”

  “You too.”

  “Okay, Miss Independent, I see a little movement down the street, which means I’ve got to go.”

  Even as she was hanging up the receiver, she felt as if she were floating off into space without a tether to anything stable.

  Disgusted with herself for feeling something close to needy, she carried her dirty dishes to the sink. With one backward glance at the laptop, she headed for the shower.

  A short time later, she moved the laptop into her bedroom and then crawled into bed, intent on watching the late news. She was asleep before it ever came on.

  Pete Yokum stood at the window of his apartment overlooking the streets below and thought about the job he’d just done for Cat Dupree. It had felt good to get back in the swing of things. Maybe he would do a little something now and then, like installing security systems—or maybe troubleshooting for the ones he’d already installed.

  As he stood there, he began to realize he was hearing sirens—a lot of sirens—and that he’d been hearing them for some time. It wasn’t an unusual sound, not in a city the size of Dallas. But this wasn’t the normal pattern. Curious, he turned around and picked up the television remote, turned on his set and then clicked on a local news channel.

  The screen was alive with what he could only describe as chaos. Fire trucks and firemen were everywhere. Water from the hoses was freezing on the parking lot where the trucks were parked, making the men’s job even more hazardous than usual. Police cars could be seen in the distance, blocking off streets and redirecting traffic. Curious, Pete sat down on the sofa and turned up the volume, catching a live report of what was happening.

  …been burning for more than thirty minutes now. They’ve managed to contain the fire to the floor on which it started but are having to evacuate patients in immediate danger. The weather and a shortage of available ambulances due to a bus wreck on the Fort Worth bypass are making it more difficult.

  “What’s on fire?” Pete muttered, willing them to mention the address, then leaning forward as the reporter continued his broadcast.

  At this point, all they know for sure is that there was an explosion on the second floor and the fire spread from there. Unconfirmed reports are coming in that there could be as many as four to six dead. Not once in the history of this city has there been an incident of this magnitude at any hospital. Unidentified sources are even talking terrorism, although at this point, that seems a bit far-fetched.

  A hospital? Pete’s heart dropped as he frantically scanned the screen, looking for anything that would tell him the location.

  He continued to watch as a camera began to sweep across the parking lot, giving an overview of what was happening to go with what the on-site reporter was saying, and as it did, he saw a sign in the background.

  Dallas Memorial.

  The fire was at Dallas Memorial!

  What had that journalist said? It had started on the second floor?

  Wasn’t Mark Presley on the second floor of Dallas Memorial?

  He began scrambling for his laptop, plugging it in, then quickly turning it on. He had a program on his that was the twin of the one he’d given to Cat. His hands were shaking as he waited for it to load. Typing quickly, he soon had the map up, highlighting the bugs he’d planted. Almost immediately, he saw movement.

  It didn’t take long for him to figure out what he was seeing. Someone was at Presley’s office, taking clothes, shoes, the large duffel bag and the money that had been in the safe.

  He stared back at the television, seeing the fire and imagining the horror of what must be happening inside. He didn’t know how it had happened, but he was about to bet Cat Dupree’s life that she’d been right. He grabbed his phone and punched in her number.

  Cat was so deeply asleep that when the phone first rang, she thought it was part of her dream. It rang twice more before she woke up enough to realize that someone was calling her. She rolled over on her side without opening her eyes, grabbed the receiver, then put it to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Cat! It’s Pete! Wake up and listen!”

  It was the panic in his voice that made her sit up on the side of the bed.

  “I’m awake,” she muttered. “What’s wrong?”

  “Turn on the television.”

  Cat reached for the remote and aimed it.

  “Which station?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Any local one,” he said.

  Cat leaned forward, staring in disbelief as the picture appeared on the screen.

  “My God! What’s on fire?”

  “Dallas Memorial.”

  Her next heartbeat was so hard and irregular as it slammed against the inside of her chest that she almost lost her breath.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “The fire—they’re saying it started on the second floor. But that’s not all. Check your computer. Someone’s made a move on Presley’s office. I bugged clothes, shoes and a butt load of money while I was there, and it’s all on the move and going in the same direction!”

  “Oh dear God,” Cat muttered as her mind began to race. When she looked at the laptop on the other side of the room, she saw the moving blip. “How did he do this? How could he do this?”

  “You don’t know for sure that Presley was responsible for what happened,” Pete said. “And you can’t be certain that it’s Presley who’s at the office. For all we know, he fried in that fire.”

  Cat’s voice was shaking as she began grabbing at her clothes.

  “No, he’s not dead. Evil like that isn’t going to die that easy. I don’t know how he did it, but I would bet money he caused the fire and used it to make an escape, without caring who else might be harmed. Thanks for calling me.”

  “Wait! What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going after him.”

  Pete frowned. “No. What you need to do is call the police. Let them chase—”

  “He’d be gone before I could convince anyone to go check out his office. I’m not going to let the bastard get away.”r />
  “Damn it, Cat. You can’t go after someone like that without—”

  The line went dead in Pete’s ear. He returned his attention to the computer screen and tried not to let his imagination go crazy. Still, there was no denying the fact that someone was on the move. When he saw the glowing blip on his screen hit I-35 and head south, he grabbed the phone, started to dial the police, then hung up. How was he going to explain what he knew without implicating himself into a jail cell?

  “Damn it to hell.”

  He was caught between a rock and a hard place, forced to trust the fact that Cat was calling the shots.

  Cat’s hands were shaking as she plugged a battery charger into the cigarette lighter in her car, then plugged the other end into her laptop.

  Immediately the tracking program reappeared.

  She sat there long enough to watch the underlying map as it began to change with the route of the moving blip. When she saw the blip begin to move south down I-35, she drove out of the parking lot, heading for a drive-through ATM. Without knowing how long she would be gone, she figured she had better get some cash.

  As she neared the ATM, she remembered her promise to Wilson, and grabbed her cell phone and made the call. It rang until his voice mail came on. She had no option but to leave him a message.

  “Wilson? This is Cat. I had a friend bug some stuff belonging to Mark Presley. He just called to tell me that the tracking devices have been activated and are on the move south down I-35. Not only that, but Dallas Memorial is on fire. It started on the second floor. Presley was on the second floor. I can’t prove it, but I think Presley started that fire to cover his escape. He had clothes and money at his office, which is where movement first showed up. I don’t know why he didn’t head for his airport, unless he wants everyone to believe he died in that fire. I’m about an hour behind him, following the blip on my laptop. I don’t know what he’s driving, so there’s no need to notify the highway patrol. Maybe if I get closer…Anyway, just letting you know what’s going on.”

  She disconnected as she pulled into the bank lot, then got out her ATM card and withdrew the limit, which was three hundred dollars. She hoped she wouldn’t need more too soon, because it would be twenty-four hours before she could make another withdrawal. A short while later, she was heading south on I-35 herself.

  Penny Presley was hysterical. A friend had called and awakened her to tell her that the second floor of Dallas Memorial was on fire. She’d been trying to call the hospital for more than fifteen minutes, but to no avail. Rationally, she understood why she couldn’t get through, but the part of her that was trying to come to grips with the possibility that Mark had burned to death was coming undone. Despite her anger at the way things were turning out between them, she would never have wished such a horrible death on anyone—even him.

  Joe Flannery hadn’t been in bed for more than a couple of hours when he was jarred from sleep by the persistent ringing of the phone. He rolled over far enough to reach over his wife’s sleeping body and grabbed the receiver. In the process, he managed to mash the shit out of her left breast.

  She came awake screaming in pain.

  All he’d tried to do was get the phone before it woke her, and instead, he’d managed to almost take out her left boob. He would never hear the end of it.

  “Flannery,” he said shortly, as he crawled out of bed and moved into the hallway so that he could hear what was being said above his wife’s complaining.

  “Flannery, we might have a problem.”

  “Captain?”

  “Yeah. Turn on your television.”

  Joe staggered into the living room, turned on a light so he could find the remote, and then aimed it toward the TV.

  “What channel?” he asked.

  “Anything local,” the captain said.

  When the image on the screen emerged, Joe whistled beneath his breath. “God Almighty, Captain. What’s burning?”

  “Dallas Memorial. They’re reporting an explosion on the second floor started the fire.”

  “An explosion on the—” Suddenly it hit him. “Oh shit. Presley.”

  “Exactly. Get over there and make sure the sorry bastard burned. I don’t want to hear that he’s missing and have to explain that we hadn’t brought him in for questioning because we thought he was in a fucking coma, all right?”

  “Yes, sir, but surely you don’t think—”

  “What I think is that if Catherine Dupree turns out to have been right on all counts, I don’t want the Dallas Police Department to be the last to know.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see what I can find out,” Joe said.

  “Do better than that. And call me,” his boss said, then hung up.

  Joe disconnected as he hurried back into the bedroom. His wife was sitting on the side of the bed with her nightgown off, inspecting her breast.

  “I’m really sorry, honey,” he said, and paused by the bed long enough to stroke her hair and give her a quick kiss. “That was the captain. Dallas Memorial is on fire. I’ve got to get over there now.”

  For once his wife was sympathetic.

  “Dear lord,” she said, and turned on the television in their bedroom. Her eyes welled with tears as she took in the scene—fire trucks and firemen everywhere, water spewing from hoses up to the second floor, and patients being wheeled out of the hospital in wheelchairs and on gurneys. “How terrible! Those poor, poor people.”

  Joe came out of the dressing room on the run, pulling a turtleneck sweater over his head and carrying his sport coat. He pocketed his badge, holstered his handgun, then slipped into the shoulder holster before putting on the coat.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said.

  “Just be careful,” his wife said.

  He blew her a kiss as he ran out of the room.

  Wilson had his bail jumper and was at the precinct turning him over to the desk sergeant when the call went out about the fire. Policemen who’d been going off duty, as well as those coming on, were returned to their commanding officers for orders. It was an “all available patrol cars proceed to the location,” which meant that, until they knew the magnitude of the problem, no one was going home.

  He, along with a half dozen other people, looked up at the television screen behind the desk as the sergeant turned it on. They watched in horror as the media played and replayed the most sensational footage they’d shot so far.

  As soon as he had finished signing papers, he took off for the parking lot. It was too late to go by Cat’s apartment, and he had no excuse to wake her up that wouldn’t tick her off. Besides that, he was tired and aching for a good night’s sleep. He unlocked the car door and started to get in when he saw his cell phone on the floor. He frowned, guessing it must have fallen out of his pocket earlier. He dusted it off and dropped it in his jacket pocket.

  The drive home seemed endless, and he resisted the urge to drive by the hospital, knowing there would be far too many sight-seers already on the street. Finally he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building. His steps were dragging as he entered, then rode the elevator up.

  He’d left a lamp on in the living room by mistake, but the circle of illumination was welcoming as he opened the door and went in. He locked the door, then glanced at his answering machine on the way through the room and noted there were no new calls. Thankful for the respite, he went through the kitchen on his way to bed, drank a full glass of milk and ate the last of some Chinese stir fry, then moved down the hall to his bedroom.

  He undressed slowly, putting his gun in a drawer and his wallet and change on the dresser. He dropped his dirty clothes into a pile near the door to be carried to the utility room later, and hung his sport coat on the back of a chair. As he did, he heard a slight thump.

  The cell phone.

  He hadn’t taken it out of his pocket.

  He tossed it on the bed as he headed for the shower.

  A short while later he was back, showered and shaved and a
ll but walking in his sleep.

  He started to turn back the covers, and as he pulled them aside, the cell phone slid to the floor with a thump.

  “Well, hell,” he muttered, and picked it up, checking to make sure that he hadn’t damaged it in the process.

  As he did, he finally realized someone had left him a message. When he checked Caller ID and saw Cat’s name and cell phone number come up, he frowned.

  He’d just talked to her earlier. She knew he was on a stakeout. Why would she be calling so late?

  Quickly, he retrieved the message, and when he heard her voice, he froze, then slapped the wall with the flat of his hand. For all intents and purposes, she was chasing a killer on her own.

  He knew she was capable of handling herself. He’d witnessed it firsthand more than once. But this was personal, and emotions could get in the way of good sense.

  His heart was hammering as he sat down on the side of the bed and returned the call.

  The first ring came and went.

  Then the second.

  Then the third.

  Just when he was at the point of panic, he heard her answer.

  “Wilson?”

  He exhaled. “Yeah, it’s me. I just got your message. Where are you?”

  She frowned, trying to read a roadside marker without any success.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe about halfway to San Antonio.”

  “Have you seen anything of the car you’re following?”

  “No. There’s at least an hour and a half between us.”

  “You think it’s Presley, don’t you?”

  Cat’s voice hardened. “I know it’s him. No one else would have the combination to his safe or a way to get into his office unseen, but someone did just that. And no one else has as much to lose.”

  “If this is Presley, why didn’t he just take one of his airplanes…or that chopper? Why make his getaway slower by driving somewhere?”

  “Pete asked me the same thing earlier.”

  “Who’s Pete?”

  “The friend who bugged Presley’s stuff for me. Here’s what I think. Somehow Presley started the fire that covered his escape. He wants everyone to believe that he died, which, if there’s a body in his room, will be the assumption for some time. However, if an airplane or a chopper suddenly goes missing from his personal airport, then that’s going to screw up his cover.”