Last Call

by Allyson K. Abbott

  “Look,” Sabrina said, “Mal’s a good guy. We’re from two different worlds, and that caused some problems between us. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care for him. I don’t begrudge him for breaking things off with me, and I want only the best for him. I was more than willing to help him out, especially because he appeared desperate. And he told me not to talk to anyone about seeing him, or to say where he was going.”

  Her comment about the breakup surprised me. I had it in my head that Mal had been the one who got dumped, but when I searched my memory for why I thought that, I came up empty. I couldn’t recall him saying exactly how the relationship between him and Sabrina had ended, so I must’ve assumed from the hurt way he spoke of it that he had been the one who had been left behind. I realized Mal’s feelings for Sabrina must’ve been strong.

  “Was he okay when you saw him?” I asked her.

  She pursed her lips before answering. “He looked like he was hurting, but he said he was okay when I asked him.”

  “What’s the address of this lake house?” Duncan asked.

  Sabrina gave us the address, and Duncan wrote it down, while I committed it to memory.

  “I assure you that we want only the best for him, too,” Duncan told her. “And along those lines, it’s imperative that you not tell anyone else that you saw him, spoke to him, or helped him out. In particular, don’t tell anyone where he is. I can’t stress the importance of this to you enough. It is literally a matter of life and death—Mal’s life and death.” He paused and looked at our surroundings, surveying the scene. “I’ve been watching to see if anyone was tailing us when we drove to your workplace,” he went on, his voice low. “And I didn’t see anyone then, or during this little walk of ours. I don’t think there’s a reason for you to be on anyone’s radar, so I don’t think it will be an issue—”

  “I was on your radar,” Sabrina pointed out, interrupting him.

  Duncan gave her a grudging look. “True, but that’s because Mal is a close friend of ours and he told us about you,” he said. “I’m guessing he didn’t tell anyone else or he wouldn’t have come to you. Still, be alert and be careful. If anyone finds out you have connections to him, it could put you in danger, as well.”

  If I expected Sabrina to look frightened by this, I was disappointed. She trivialized Duncan’s warning with a little pfft and a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “That’s very cavalier of you,” Duncan said with a grim attempt at a smile, “but let me assure you, this situation is very serious. I’d advise you to keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.”

  Sabrina pulled her head back, as if his words had offended her, but after a few seconds she smiled at him and nodded. “Got it,” she said tersely.

  “Let’s go, Mack,” Duncan said. He wrapped his hand around my arm and gave it a little tug, nearly making me lose my balance.

  I hesitated a moment and smiled at Sabrina. “You’re right,” I said. “Mal is a good guy. Thank you for helping him. I’m sorry things didn’t work out between the two of you.”

  “So am I,” Sabrina said with a brittle smile.

  And with that, we parted company.

  Chapter 9

  Just to be safe, Duncan drove a circuitous route about town before heading for Whitefish Bay to make sure we weren’t being followed. It had been a very long, intense, and busy day, and I made Duncan stop for some coffee along the way because I felt myself starting to fade. Thanks to the short days of winter, night was closing in as we headed out, and I wasn’t sure if the darkness helped us or made things more frightening. On the one hand, our arrival at the lake house was more likely to go unnoticed, but it also made it harder for us to see who might have been lurking in the surrounding trees or yards of the neighboring houses.

  I expected Sabrina’s lake house to be an extravagant abode typical of other wealthy homes along the lake but was pleasantly surprised to find a modest-size home nestled between two larger ones. This gave Sabrina’s house more yard space and, perhaps, more privacy, though all the houses along the waterfront were close enough together that it would be hard to do anything at any of them without being seen if someone was intent on watching. We had to hope that wasn’t the case. The house to the left of Sabrina’s was dark, but the one on the right had warm light shining out through semisheer drapes on the first-floor windows.

  Duncan parked on the main road near the top of a thirty-foot driveway that led down to Sabrina’s house. “Stay here in the car,” he instructed. “I’m going to go down and scout around the house to try to get a peek inside. I’d like to verify that Mal is here if I can, and if he hears anything, he might shoot first and ask questions later. I don’t want you there if that happens.”

  “I don’t want you there either if that happens.”

  “I’ll be okay. Stay put and I’ll let you know when the coast is clear.”

  There was no light we could see emanating from Sabrina’s house, nor was there a car parked in the driveway, or along the road like we were. I worried that Mal hadn’t made it here, that he was lying somewhere bleeding . . . or dead. I watched, squinting into the darkness, as Duncan quietly made his way down the driveway and around to the left side, taking advantage of the darkened house next door. I cracked my window open and sat, nervously biting at my thumbnail, listening as hard as I could. I switched my gaze from one side of the house to the other, waiting for Duncan or even Mal to appear. Time ticked by—literally, because I could hear the second hand on my watch working its way around the face—and I felt ready to jump out of my skin.

  A good five minutes had gone by, and I was about to get out of the car—Duncan’s warning be damned—when someone rapped on the driver side door. I jumped and let out a small yelp of surprise as my heart started trying to box its way out of my chest. My involuntary flinch left me with a banged knee, a bashed elbow, and a bruised ego, because I’d failed to hear anyone approach. In the split-second it took me to realize the person knocking at the window was Duncan, my heart rate had doubled and my adrenaline was surging.

  “Dammit, Duncan!” I hissed as he opened the driver side door and slid back behind the wheel. “You scared the crap out of me. How the hell did you get all the way back here to the car without me seeing you?”

  “I scouted around that dark house next door to make sure no one was lurking or hiding there and then came back up to the street from the far side of it. Then I just walked up behind the car. Sorry if I scared you.”

  “Is Mal here?” I asked.

  Duncan started the engine and then pulled down the driveway, parking in front of Sabrina’s house. “He’s here,” he said. He shifted the car into park, turned the engine off, and opened his door. “Come on, follow me.”

  I tailed him down the left side of the house toward the back. There was a large two-story deck built onto the back of the house, and I saw that the place was bigger than it appeared from the front. It was built into the hillside and there was a lower, walk-out level here in the back. A sliding patio door provided access to the ground level, and the interior was hidden behind vertical blinds. But I could see light emanating from between the slats, the only indication that anyone might be in the house.

  Duncan walked up to the sliding glass door and knocked on it, using the same coded knock he and I had worked out for the back door to my bar when he was sneaking in during the letter-writer debacle. Mal had known about that knock, and I realized how smart it was of Duncan to use it.

  “Did you use that knock when you came back here by yourself?” I asked at a half whisper.

  “Of course,” Duncan said. “Short of shouting through the door, which I didn’t want to do because it might attract unwanted attention, not to mention that it might have also gotten me shot, it seemed like an easy way to let Mal know who was out here.”

  A moment later, the blinds were pushed aside and the sliding glass door was unlocked. All I saw of Mal before we got indoors was his hand and part of his
arm on the door handle. Once we were inside, I saw the rest of him, and it made me gasp. His color was pale, and there was an unhealthy sheen to his skin. He moved like an old man as he pushed the door closed and locked it again, clutching at his left side, and shuffling his way to a nearby chair.

  “You look terrible,” Duncan said, not mincing his words. “Let me take a look at your wounds.”

  Mal held out a hand to stop him. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Or rather I will be in a day or two.” He shifted in his chair, the action eliciting a small groan from him. He was wearing a loose-fitting beige sweatshirt, but I saw a small brown stain near where he was holding himself and knew from my synesthetic reaction to both the sight and smell of it that the stain was dried blood. I tamped down my worries by reassuring myself that at least it was old, dried blood and not fresh, but I was still bothered by the way Mal looked.

  “You are going to let us take a look at that wound,” I told him in a tone that brooked no objections.

  I moved in on him, half-expecting him to push me away. But he didn’t. Gingerly, I lifted his sweatshirt to reveal a gauze dressing crusted with old blood. After carefully loosening the tape around the edges, I pulled the dressing away, making Mal suck in his breath through his teeth. Despite my efforts to keep my expression and reaction as neutral as possible, I couldn’t help but suck in my own breath at what I saw. The bullet had grazed his left side, creating an angular wound about three inches long and exposing a lot of red, raw, underlying tissue. There was extensive bruising around it, and areas of skin along the edges were blackened.

  “Oh my God, Mal,” I said. “This looks serious.”

  “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “It’s a superficial wound. The bullet grazed me and then tunneled under my skin, exiting back here.” With a grimace and a grunt of pain, he twisted and showed me a second dressing.

  Quickly, before he could object, I grabbed the second dressing and removed it. Once again Mal hissed with pain.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  The exit wound was swollen and discolored, shades of purple, red, and black.

  “We found your clothes at your house,” I told him. “You lost a lot of blood.”

  “It did bleed a lot,” Mal admitted through gritted teeth. “But it’s under control now, and it wasn’t enough to be life-threatening. I just need a couple of days to build my strength back up.”

  “Do you have any first aid stuff here?” I asked.

  Mal nodded as he eased his sweatshirt back down and straightened himself in the chair. This minimal effort obviously drained him, and a surge of worry coursed through me. “There’s a bag over there on the table with some supplies,” he said, nodding toward a dining area that adjoined the main room. “I had Sabrina buy them for me.”

  I got up and walked over to the table to retrieve the bag. A glance inside revealed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, several packages of sterile gauze, some medical tape, some antibiotic ointment, and some nonstick pads. I carried the bag back to Mal’s seat, while Duncan settled into a chair beside him.

  “What the hell happened?” Duncan asked.

  “I think I asked too many questions of the wrong person,” Mal said. “I got a call from Sheldon Janssen asking me to meet him at his house at seven this morning. I could tell from the tone in his voice that he was upset about something, and my gut told me not to go. I should’ve listened.”

  “Were you outed?” Duncan asked. “Did he figure out you’re an undercover cop?”

  Mal sucked in his breath as I applied a hydrogenperoxide-soaked bit of gauze to the wound on his side. The peroxide created a field of pink-tinged foam that percolated and bubbled on top of the wound. Mal’s color grew even paler, and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “I’m sorry, Mal,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he said, somewhat breathless. “It has to be done.”

  I wiped away the foam after a moment and then applied a thin film of antibiotic ointment to the area, covering it with a nonstick pad I taped into place. I sat back on my haunches to give him a break before tackling the second wound.

  “Have you been taking anything for the pain?” I asked him.

  It took him a few seconds before he could answer. “I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen an hour ago. There’s a bottle of it in the bathroom next to the sink. But it’s too soon to take any more.”

  “Do you have anything else?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  I got up and headed down a hallway in search of the bathroom. I found it and checked the medicine cabinet. Inside was a bottle of acetaminophen, and I grabbed it. I left the bathroom and headed across the hall to a bedroom. It didn’t have its own bathroom, but I struck gold when I searched through one of the bedside tables. In a drawer, I found a prescription bottle for Sabrina Cortland that had eight hydrocodone tablets in it. The date on the prescription was from two years ago, but I figured they’d still be good. I went back into the bathroom and got a glass of water, and took all of it out to Mal.

  “Here,” I said, offering him the prescription bottle. “Take one of these. I’m sure Sabrina won’t mind.”

  Mal shook his head. “I don’t want to take anything that will fog my mind,” he argued.

  “The pain is already doing that,” I said. “If you’re that worried about it, just take a half one.”

  Mal debated for a moment.

  “I’m going to have to clean that second wound in a minute,” I reminded him.

  That seemed to convince him. He took the bottle from me, opened it, and shook out one of the pills. He stared at it in his palm for a moment and then popped the entire thing in his mouth. I handed him the water, and he swallowed it down.

  “I’ll wait about twenty minutes before I tackle that second wound,” I told him. “That will give the pill some time to work.”

  He nodded weakly and then closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the chair, letting out a weary sigh.

  “I need you to tell me the rest of the story when you can,” Duncan said.

  Mal didn’t acknowledge this. He just sat there, not moving or saying anything for several minutes. Duncan and I exchanged worried looks.

  Mal stayed still and silent for so long, I began to wonder if he’d passed out. “Have you eaten anything?” I asked him, afraid he wouldn’t respond. To my relief, he shook his head slowly. I went upstairs, where I found a kitchen, and started searching through the cupboards. I found a couple of cans of soup, grabbed some chicken noodle, and then rummaged through the drawers until I found a can opener. A few minutes later, I had it simmering in a pot on the stove. I scrounged up a bowl and spoon, and then I hollered down to Duncan to come up to help me. There was no way I could carry a bowl of hot soup and maneuver with my crutches, especially when I had stairs to negotiate. Duncan bounded up the stairs, and I gestured toward the soup bowl I had just filled. “Can you carry that for me?”

  Without a word, he picked up the bowl and headed back down to the basement with me not-so-hot on his heels.

  “Eat that,” I said to Mal as Duncan offered him the bowl.

  Mal looked at the soup, grimaced, and shook his head.

  “If you’re going to get your strength back you have to eat,” I insisted.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you’re hungry,” I said in a stern tone. “Eat it.”

  Mal’s eyebrows arched, and he looked over at Duncan, who shrugged, cocked his head to the side, and arched his own eyebrows in return.

  “She sounds pretty serious,” Duncan said in a warning tone. “I wouldn’t challenge her if I were you. She can be quite persistent.”

  With one last wary glance at me, Mal took the bowl and started eating. It looked like he was having to force himself, but after eating half the soup, some of his color returned. Duncan and I sat in silence, watching him.

  By the time Mal finished the soup, he looked noticeably better than he had when we f
irst arrived.

  “Okay,” Mal said reluctantly. “I’ve eaten.” He shot me a grudging look. “And I have to admit, I feel a little better.”

  I tried not to look too smug.

  “So tell us what happened,” Duncan said. “I gather things went wrong when you were summoned to Sheldon Janssen’s house. Give me the details.”

  Mal leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment. “Let me give you a little background first,” he began. “Janssen is Wade Klein’s top foreman, and he’s the person I generally report to on the job. Klein is the guy we’re after, but Janssen is no angel. And lately, he’s been giving me a hard time, asking a lot of questions, watching me closer than usual, and looking at me suspiciously. So when I got called into Klein’s office last week, I was anticipating a firing of some sort, or at the very least a thorough grilling.”

  “I take it that didn’t happen,” Duncan said as Mal paused to take a slow, deep breath.

  “Not even close,” Mal said when he was ready to continue. “Klein’s office is a mobile trailer, and he takes it with him wherever he goes. He keeps it hooked up to his pickup. It’s a brilliant setup really; he can take his office to any job site, and he has every file or piece of paper he might need right there at his disposal. So when he called me into his office, it was into this trailer that was on our job site, though it was some distance away from the area we were currently working on.”

  “Klein shocked the hell out of me. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to act as one of his foremen. He said he’d had a lot of staff turnover lately—a bunch of his guys apparently got busted for possession and they’re in jail now, leaving me as one of the on-site workers with seniority.” Mal huffed a laugh at that, which was quickly followed by a grimace and a wince.

  “That kind of turnover is pretty typical in the construction industry,” Mal went on. “Klein was going to have to hire a bunch of newbies, so I suddenly became a valued employee. While he was explaining the new job to me, he got a text and said it was from Janssen. He read it, cussed, said there’d been an accident on-site and he needed to go check on it. With that, he got up and left.” Mal paused again, and his obvious weakness worried me. Simply talking this long was taxing him, but he continued after a few seconds.