I stood over him, sucking air in rapid gulps, and waited. His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t move. I kicked his side hard. He still didn’t move.
By that time Roger was on his feet, mouth hanging open.
“That Beretta of yours would have gone right through him and killed Simon too,” I said.
He looked at his gun, then back at me. When he finally moved his lips, he said, “I think you killed him.”
I tossed the lamp to the side. “Maybe.”
“Is he breathing?”
“I don’t know. And frankly, right now, I don’t care.” I turned and looked at the shattered door. “How did that guy get in here? Where were you?”
His face flushed. “I don’t know. I only left for a few—”
Before he could complete his sentence, a man in a green golf shirt and thick black glasses stuck his head through the opening where the door used to be. I scowled at Roger, then pointed at the man at the door. “Simon Mason’s been attacked. Go find a doctor.”
The man looked at the shattered pieces of door frame scattered around the floor. When he saw the man at my feet, his face turned pale. He covered his mouth with his hand.
I waved my arms at him. “I said, get a doctor. Now!”
He turned and ran away.
Roger took a step toward the door. “I’ll go too. We don’t even know who that guy is.”
I scowled again, knowing full well why he wanted more than anything to get out of that room. He’d probably been under the stairwell with some young thing when elephant man slipped into the dressing room. “Okay, but leave me your gun.” I motioned toward the Hawaiian shirt. “I left mine in a locker behind the stage, and I’m not taking any chances on this guy waking up.”
He handed me his Beretta and hustled out the door. I shoved it in the waistband of my pants and walked over to Simon. He had slumped to the floor, his back still to the wall. The front of his shirt looked as if he’d fed it through a paper shredder. I grabbed it and ripped it away. An ugly red gash ran diagonally from his shoulder halfway across the middle of his chest. The bleeding was slow, and the cut did not appear to be deep. I wadded his shirt and pushed it onto the center of the wound. “Can you hold this?”
“Yeah.” He moved his hand up and took the shirt. “How is it? It hurts like heck.”
“I think it looks worse than it is. It’s a shallow cut.”
He lifted the shirt and tried to look. “Ouch. That was a mistake.” He smiled and pushed it back onto the wound, then leaned his head back against the wall.
For an instant a picture of Dad lying in the dirt flashed through my mind. Without thinking, I dropped to my knees and pressed my head against his.
He pulled back from me, eyes wide, but I didn’t care. I must have looked frantic. When he saw my face, his expression softened. “I’m okay.”
I’ve thought many times about what he said next, because it showed that he already understood me better than he should have. He squeezed my arm. “Don’t worry, Taylor. I’m not going anywhere.”
He shifted his weight and tried to stand. His leg gave out beneath him. “I was afraid of that. I twisted my ankle when that guy put his weight on me.” He put his hand to his head and slid back against the wall. “I’m a little dizzy too. Basically, I guess I’m a total wreck.”
“Just stay where you are. You don’t need to go anywhere. Help will come to you.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and speed-dialed Elise. “Simon’s been attacked in his dressing room. Get some help and get over here.”
“Attacked? Who?”
“I don’t know. He’s hurt. Just get over here as quickly as you can.” I hung up and turned to Simon. I motioned toward the fat man on the floor. “Do you know him?”
“Never seen him before. Blond hair—not exactly your classic Arab terrorist.”
“Could be just a nut.” I got up, went over to the table against the other wall, and pulled a bottle of water out of an ice bucket. I took it to Simon and twisted off the top. “Need a drink?” I handed him the bottle.
He took a gulp.
“How did he get in?” I asked.
“I don’t know. He was hiding in the bathroom. I didn’t hear him until he was on me. I was lucky to grab his hand. By the way, remind me never to make you mad.”
I smiled. “You’ve had some day. How does it feel to be the most threatened man in America?”
He touched the cut on his chest with his fingertips and winced. “It doesn’t matter, as long as they let Kacey go. Do you think they’ll keep their word?”
“Yes, I do.”
I went over to where I’d dropped his Bible and picked it up. Stepping back over the Hawaiian shirt, I held the Bible out to Simon. “You left this on the pulpit.”
“I left it there on purpose.”
“You shouldn’t have. What you did tonight . . . I want you to know that I think you’re very brave.” I hadn’t told a man that since the night my father died.
He waved his hand in the air and laughed. “I’m brave? You’re the one who laid out Godzilla over there.”
“I was lucky his back was turned. He would have been too big for me to handle.” The Bible still in my hand, I turned my back to the wall and slid down beside him.
He handed me the bottle of water. I tipped my head back and took a long drink.
“I don’t know why I fought so hard to live. Thirty seconds before he attacked me, all I could think about was how much I wanted to die.”
I gave him back the bottle. “Life is funny. We can take it pretty lightly until it’s about to be snatched away. Most people just want to know that when they die, they’re doing it for something that’s worth it.” I nodded toward the Hawaiian shirt. “Letting him slice you in two with a juice bottle doesn’t qualify.”
He poured water on his hands and rubbed them together to wash the blood off. Without looking up he said, “You’ve got an awfully good head on your shoulders for someone so young.”
My face became warm. “It seems as if I’ve never felt as young as I should.”
Still rubbing his hands together, he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. I changed the subject.
“The police will be here any minute. I guess we’ll both be answering some questions. Here, give me that water.” I took the bottle and poured water onto his torn shirt, then gently wiped the blood and orange juice from his face. “There, now you’ll be ready for the photographers. They’ll be right behind the police.”
“Oh, great. I can’t wait.” He tilted his head back against the wall. “You know, the guys who took Kacey, I would like to kill them. Every one of them. I want to do to them what you did to this guy.”
I shook my head. “I’m glad you don’t have the chance.”
“What?”
“I said I’m glad you don’t have the chance.” I set the Bible on the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest. “I know what I’m talking about. I killed a man once for revenge.”
“You’re telling me you murdered someone?”
I took a breath and let it out. “Yes. The man who was responsible for my father’s death.”
“That was self-defense, not murder. I read the clippings on the Internet before I contacted you.”
“It was murder. He was too hurt even to stand up. He begged me not to kill him. I pointed the gun at his head—not six inches away. I pulled the trigger. It was an execution.”
“I don’t care, Taylor. He deserved what you did to him. That’s justice, not murder.” He put his hand to the side of his head. He probed it with his fingertips and winced.
“That’s what I told myself for a long time. Maybe it’s true. All I know is that I still think about him. I see his face at night. It’s no small thing to take another person’s life. My father told me that once, and he was right.” I nodded toward the floor. “I’ll think about this guy too, if he dies. Right now I can’t muster any sympathy for him, but later I’ll wish I had. So, for your sake, I’m glad yo
u don’t have the chance to kill them. It wouldn’t help.”
“Maybe not, but it sure seems like it would feel good.” Simon touched his hand to his head again. When he pulled it away, it had blood on it. “That guy really busted my head against the wall.” He chuckled. “I’m bleeding from so many places, I guess I didn’t notice this one.”
“You were busy.”
“Yeah, you too. Thank you for what you did. I guess I picked the right security chief.” He took a drink from the water bottle. “Things are beginning to ache. I suppose that’s a bad sign.”
I smiled. “It’s a better sign than being dead.”
I had the strangest feeling sitting there with him, just the two of us. Of course, Hawaiian Shirt man was there too, but he didn’t count for much right then. For the few moments before half of Dallas swarmed the room, it was really nice—a good kind of warm—despite the circumstances. I’d lived my entire adult life without experiencing what it was like to have a real man want me around. But Simon was a real man. A good man.
He wanted me there; I was sure of that.
I didn’t want it to end.
Within seconds, though, police and medical personnel poured through the door. The reporters wouldn’t be far behind. A few moments later the medical personnel were nudging me away from Simon as they knelt to work on him. I stood and walked to the door. When I turned back toward him, he was still looking at me. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up just before a medical technician dabbed something on the cut on his chest.
A policeman standing by the shattered door motioned for me to come over. I would be answering quite a few questions, I was sure. Nevertheless, I felt strangely relaxed as I walked over to him. Despite how awful the day had been, for the first time in a week I had the feeling that things were going to get better.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
AT 4:30 THE NEXT morning, Simon’s cell phone rang. Thinking it was an alarm clock, I reached over to slap the snooze button, but my hand hit only air. I had the strange sensation that I was sitting up. I opened one eye and saw Simon several feet away from me, stretched out beneath a white sheet. I jumped to my feet, then realized where I was and slumped back onto the daybed next to the window.
We were at Parkside Hospital where Simon was admitted the night before. Among other things, he had suffered a concussion from bouncing off the walls of the dressing room. The police determined that the guy in the Hawaiian shirt was an auditorium employee who believed Jesus had instructed him to assassinate Simon. I was relieved to hear I hadn’t killed him, although he was now looking forward to several reconstructive facial surgeries. All to be performed in a prison hospital. That seemed fair to me.
The doctor asked that someone wake Simon every two hours because of his concussion. I volunteered so quickly that the doctor raised an eyebrow. Trying to keep myself from blushing, I sighed, as if bearing a heavy burden. “Security,” I said. He gave me an understanding nod before instructing a nurse to wheel in a daybed. Fortunately, Simon was half asleep during the exchange.
Simon’s phone rang again. I checked my watch’s alarm: ten minutes to go before his next wake-up. After the second ring, he rolled over but his breathing remained steady and slow. I must have been half asleep too, because it was the third ring before it occurred to me that it could be the kidnappers. The working assumption had been that information from the kidnappers would come by e-mail since that was the way it had come before, and e-mail was so difficult to trace. The FBI had thrown an electronic blanket over Simon’s e-mail account. But who else would be calling him at 4:30 in the morning? I swung my bare feet back onto the floor, grabbed the phone off the stand next to Simon’s bed, and shoved it toward his face. I nudged him. “Simon, your phone. It might be them.”
He sat upright, then grabbed his head and moaned. He slid back down to the pillow but still managed to take the phone and hold it to his ear. He pushed the button. “Hello,” he said, his voice raspy. He moaned again, more softly this time.
The next couple of minutes consisted of a series of short questions and grunts, with Simon still lying on his back. He motioned to me to get him a pen and paper. I dug them out of my purse, and he scribbled notes. “Heberlin or Heverlin Road? Look, I’m in the hospital. How can I—okay, okay, I’ve got it.”
He flipped the phone shut and laid it on the night-stand. “Kacey’s alive.”
I wanted to wrap my arms around him. Instead, I walked over to the bed and patted him on the arm. “I’m so happy for you.”
“If I could sit up, I would hug you.”
He wasn’t going to have to raise that issue more than once. I leaned over and put my arms around his neck. “How’s this?” I enjoyed the hug so much that I might still be there clutching his head to my chest if he hadn’t squeezed my arm and tried to sit up.
I pushed him back down. “You’d better stay where you are.”
“I can’t.” He leaned up on his elbow. “I have to go get her.”
“Get her? Where is she?”
“They’re taking her to a spot in the country, outside Elgin, Illinois. Three-thirty tomorrow morning. I’ve got to be there to pick her up. They said no police or they will kill her.” He reached over the side of the bed and searched for the buttons that controlled the recline. “How do you get this stupid thing to sit up?”
I held down one of the buttons with my finger. The bed hummed and gyrated until he was semi-reclining, with his knees elevated slightly above his feet. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why don’t they just let her go—drop her off someplace? This sounds like a trap.”
“They said they don’t trust the cops. They think the police would kill her for propaganda.”
“Kill her? That’s crazy.”
He leaned forward and massaged his temples.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be okay.” He lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes. “We’re not dealing with people who think normally here. They sound crazy because they are crazy.”
“You told them you’re in the hospital. Don’t they understand that you can’t possibly go to Illinois?”
“They don’t care about my problems. They said I could go or I could send someone else, but no police and only one person.” He sat up and slid his legs over the side of the bed. When his feet hit the floor, he grimaced.
I reached out and steadied him. “Look, even if your head would let you go—which it won’t—you’ve got a sprained ankle. It would be impossible for you to handle crutches, fly to Chicago, and then drive a car to some place out in the country. You’d kill yourself, and who knows what they’d do to Kacey if you didn’t show up? Let me go get her.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. This is dangerous. Who knows what they’ll do? You said yourself it might be a trap.”
“Think about it, Simon. It wouldn’t matter if you were in perfect health. You still couldn’t go. There are two FBI agents sitting outside the door of this room, and at least fifty reporters outside your window. There is no way you could leave the hospital and fly to Chicago without anyone knowing it. You’d never get out of the parking lot.”
He lay back on the bed again. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You’re paying me to think. I guess this is one of the rare instances in which you got your money’s worth.”
“You’re laughing, but I’m not paying you nearly enough for what I’ve gotten so far.”
“Don’t you remember my catchy motto? ‘Dallas business’s choice for tough security assignments.’”
“Quit joking, Taylor. This is dangerous. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
After hearing that, I would have walked through fire for him. “You don’t really have any options. Give me the directions. You can pay me more money later if it will make you feel better.” I stuck out my hand.
He rested his head on his pillow. “My head is spinning. I think I might throw up.”
I picked up the metal bedpan o
ff the cart next to his bed and set it beside him. “I’ve thrown up in front of plenty of people. Don’t worry about it. As soon as you’re feeling okay, though, I’ll be needing those directions.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
I NEVER IMAGINED WHAT it would be like to be in a slasher movie until I found myself creeping along an Illinois farm road at three o’clock in the morning in a rented SUV. The sky was impenetrably black. A light mist coated the windshield, and I hit the wiper switch every minute or so as I squinted to see the low-slung wooden road signs.
I found Heberlin Road without much trouble. Then I wound for miles through fallow cornfields, leaning forward and peering through the windshield each time I came to a crossroad. The odor of fresh manure seeped in through every seal and gasket of the SUV.
The road narrowed as I got farther from the highway, and I wondered if the pavement would eventually end, leaving me fender deep in mud. I crossed a gravel farm road that ran parallel to a wooded creek. The SUV rattled over a narrow wooden bridge. As I came off the bridge, two rows of craggy cedar elms, one on each side of the road, arched their limbs above me like disfigured old men stretching up to touch fingertips. The creepy canopy made the asphalt road even darker and harder to follow.
For company I turned on the radio. An oldies rock station was playing a Doors song, “People Are Strange.” It was too spooky. I smacked the knob and turned the radio off. If I was this jumpy, I figured that Kacey must be nearly catatonic. I resolved to worry more about her and less about me.
About ten feet after I emerged from the trees, I came to another farm road, which veered to the right. I squinted through the mist and made out the sign: Woodburn Road. This was the spot. I turned onto the road, pulled up about a hundred yards, and stopped. My headlights reached far enough to show me that the road continued for about another hundred yards before curving around some trees and out of sight to the left. I looked at my watch: 3:15. Pulling the glove box open, I felt for my Sig Sauer, checked the magazine and the safety, and placed the weapon on the console beside me.
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