Paxton, page 2
She waited and still got nothing. Swearing and hating the indecision about what to do, she told her coworker she had to leave for an emergency, then got into her vehicle and headed toward the address of the physical therapy office, unable to put Paxton’s safety out of her mind.
When she pulled up, cops were everywhere. She sat in the parking lot with a sigh of relief. When a cop knocked on her window, she jumped, started, and rolled it down. She identified herself and then explained, “I’m worried about the man who heard the shooting over the phone and went in to find the therapist.”
“He’s fine,” the policeman confirmed, then nodded toward an ambulance. She turned and saw Paxton standing there. She bolted from her car and raced toward him.
He looked up with a surprised expression on his face, then gave her a smile. “Believe it or not, I’m okay.” Yet he was covered, absolutely covered, in blood.
She stared at him wide-eyed, wordless at the sight of the blood and that something she didn’t even want to think about stuck to his shirt.
He nodded. “I know it looks bad, but it’s the gunman’s blood, not mine.”
“He didn’t shoot you?” she asked. “I mean, you’re not hurt?”
“No, he shot and killed Wesley, and then he killed himself.” She stared at him in shock. He nodded, then looked down at his shirt and winced. “I think I need to go change.”
“You think?” She scrubbed her face with both hands. “My God, I’ve been sending you messages, trying to make sure you’re okay. I was worried sick the police would mistake you for the shooter.”
He smiled. “I really appreciate that. I just haven’t had two seconds to answer you.”
And that she could very well understand. She took a step back. “Well, as long as you’re okay,” she replied hesitantly.
He reached out a hand and then stopped—because it was bloody too. “I know I don’t look very presentable, and, if you give me twenty minutes to get cleaned up and changed, I’d really like to take you for coffee.” She stared at him in surprise. He shrugged. “The least I can do is fill you in on what happened. Unless you just want to listen to it on the news?”
She immediately shook her head. “No, coffee would be great, but can you leave now?”
He nodded. “I should be able to. I’ve already given a statement to the police, and they’ve checked me over.” He pointed. “My vehicle’s here, so I’ll run home and then—where do you want to meet?” She didn’t have the slightest idea. He smiled and suggested, “Why don’t you just follow me home? I promise I won’t take very long. Then we can go out and get a coffee or something and put this behind us.”
“Can you though? Put it behind you?”
He gave her a serious look that made her think something else was going on, and, at the same time, it both piqued her interest and made her worry.
“That’s a good question, and something that maybe you can help me with.” He shrugged. “I promise I’ll just need a few minutes to get ready.”
She nodded slowly. “Fine, it’s been a shitty day anyway.”
He gave her a quick smile. “Luckily the therapist’s office was closed.”
“What do you mean, closed?” she asked, as she walked back to her vehicle, only to realize that the sports car beside her vehicle was his.
“I’ll explain when we go for coffee.”
She nodded, waited while he took off his shirt, wiped his hands as much as he could before getting into his vehicle, then followed him slowly back onto the Coronado base to one of the residences. When he got out, he motioned for her to follow him. She followed him and went into his apartment. “Hardly a good idea,” she muttered to herself, as the door closed behind them.
He looked at her and smiled. “Honest to God, I’m not a serial killer—really.”
“Could have fooled me,” she replied in a sarcastic tone, with a nod toward his clothes.
He looked down, winced again. “Oh, Jesus, yeah. I see what you mean. These clothes aren’t coming clean, are they?”
“Even if they did,” she murmured, “would you really want to wear them again?”
“Good point,” he murmured. He pointed to the couch. “Give me five minutes.” Then he disappeared into the bedroom. She sagged onto the couch, wondering what the hell had compelled her to come inside. She barely even knew him. She’d seen him around a couple times, but that was it. She knew Mason and had had several conversations with him about Paxton’s file and his getting back to work, but none with this guy personally, until today. It was foolish of her to be inside his apartment.
Still considering that thought, she sent Mason a quick text to let him know what had happened. She presumed that Paxton had already updated him, but it never hurt to have Mason in the loop. She added that she was waiting for Paxton to get out of the shower, and then they would go talk about what happened.
Mason texted back immediately. Please keep me updated, including about his mental state.
She frowned at that, wondering what that was all about. But, soon enough, she figured out it was likely just Mason being concerned about a friend, not surprising since the man seemed concerned about everybody in his world.
Paxton soon emerged, wearing a clean pair of jeans and T-shirt, looking one hundred times better.
She smiled at him. “Now you look presentable. I’m sure you must feel better.”
“I do.”
Yet she could see a fine line of tension running around the corners of his mouth.
“And I am definitely in need of a cup of coffee,” he added, appearing more collected.
“And maybe some food?” she suggested, hazarding a guess.
He grinned. “Maybe.” He smiled. “Whether I need to eat is a different story, but I’m always able.”
“Such a difference, isn’t there?” she noted, with a laugh.
“There is in my world, yes. When we go on missions, at times food is a little scarce. So, if you need something ahead of it, you tend to just tank up a bit more.”
“And yet for me,” she shared, “if I have any heavy exercise coming up, I can’t eat much at all.”
“Maybe so, but there is a difference between life and exercises like this.” He motioned at the doorway. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She was quite surprised to see that her feet would just obey him. She shook her head.
He glanced over at her. “What’s the matter?”
“I barely even know you,” she replied, “but here I am, following you blindly.”
“Well, not blindly,” he corrected. “Besides, we do need to talk.”
“You mentioned that before, but I don’t really know what the problem is.”
“I understand,” he agreed, “and that’s part of the problem. I want to go someplace where we have privacy.”
At that, she stared at him in alarm.
He smirked at that. “I wish,” he muttered, “but, honest to God, I just want to talk, and I don’t want to be overheard.”
Now both were seated in his vehicle, though she wasn’t even sure why she allowed that to happen either, except that Mason was just a text away, she watched as Paxton pulled up to a restaurant and asked her, “Are you okay with burgers?” She nodded. As she went to get out, he shook his head.
“I’ll get them to go.” He hopped out of the vehicle and dashed inside. She was more than a little surprised when he came out almost immediately, a large bag in his hand.
She stared at him.
“The need for privacy is pretty important,” he noted, “so I thought about eating at the beach.” He raised an eyebrow and looked at her.
She studied him for a moment. “The beach sounds lovely.” She laughed. “And now you have my curiosity well and truly piqued.”
“Not only piqued but maybe you’re calming down and not quite so nervous.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, “but I’m more concerned about you, since you’ve just come out of a shooting where someone died.”
“Yes,” he confirmed, “two someones in fact.”
She winced at that. Not knowing what to say, but realizing the question would keep burning at the back of her mind, she blurted it out. “Did you kill the gunman?”
“No,” he stated, his tone flat, but her response was instant.
She sighed with relief. “Oh good.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I tried to save Wesley, but he was too far gone because this guy had made sure that nobody would be close enough to save him in time.”
“In other words, he really wanted him dead.”
“Oh yeah,” Paxton confirmed, “and that’s the least of his problems.” And, with that, he headed down to the beach.
Chapter 2
As they set up their meal on a picnic table near the beach, Cherise kept an eye on Paxton, as Mason had asked. Yet, in spite of his day, Paxton seemed completely normal for a man who had just gone through what was potentially a very difficult situation. But it brought back Mason’s question, so she had to ask. “You seem really calm about it all.”
“About the shooting? Not particularly,” he replied. “It’s never nice to see somebody you know gunned down. And, of course, I got to the scene after the fact, at least regarding Wesley. Also, you forget the work that I do. Although I don’t get this kind of action all the time, it’s definitely not my first rodeo.”
She nodded at that. “I guess,” she muttered. “I’m just glad it wasn’t me dealing with dead bodies, watching a man commit suicide by gun right in front of my eyes.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t too,” he noted, with an agreeable nod.
“It’s not a nice thing to experience, no matter who and what it is.” With that, he handed her a burger, which she quickly unwrapped and tried a bite. She stared at it in surprise. “Wow, this is really good.”
He laughed. “Have you ever been there before?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s a new place for me.”
“Well, don’t be a stranger now,” he said. “It’s a family-run business, and they’re really good at what they do.”
“I see that,” she muttered and laughed. “Somebody told me a while ago that, when you want to find good restaurants, you need to find out where the people who eat out a lot go.”
“Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean good though, does it?”
“No, I guess not,” she admitted. Then she took another bite, realizing that she was just making conversation and needed to be quiet, especially if she expected him to start talking while they had a private moment. He didn’t say a whole lot for quite a while, not until after he had downed his first burger at least.
She nodded, seeing multiples were in the bag. She watched as he downed the second one. Then he turned and pulled out two bottles of water and handed her one. She nodded her thanks. “Don’t suppose you brought dessert, did you?” she asked jokingly.
He gave her a quirk of his lips and half a smile. “I figured coffee—with dessert—might come after this.”
“You mean, when it’s safe to talk in public?”
“Yes,” he stated in all seriousness.
“All right, now you’ve got me really curious, so when will you start explaining?”
“Now,” he replied, then took a long drink of water. He methodically told her what had transpired inside the PT office.
She stared at him in shock. “Seriously?” she asked. “So Wesley was killed because this gunman believed Wesley was intentionally messing with his career for money?”
“That’s what the gunman told me.”
“Do you believe him?”
Paxton thought about it, his head tilted as he stared off in the distance; then he nodded. “To some extent, I do.”
“And it’s not just because you were upset about your own—”
“No, although it makes me wonder.”
When he finally finished explaining everything, she continued to stare at him, incredulous, shaking her head. “Why are you telling me all this?” she asked suddenly.
“I’m wondering at the process involved in your office and whether that would be something that Wesley could even do,” Paxton replied. “I know that my situation isn’t the same thing as what this gunman was talking about. By the way, his name was Rodger Bolson.”
“Rodger Bolson,” she repeated, rolling the name over. Then her eyes got big, and she winced. “Ah, you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you too.”
“So you recognize the name?” She nodded. “Was he ever abusive to you?”
“Verbally abusive? Very much so, yes. Right up until he realized and finally accepted that I was just a paper-pusher, and didn’t handle army cases,” she admitted. “I did try to help. I made phone calls on his behalf, tried to get clarification on his status for him while he’d stand there glaring at me. Then eventually the time came when, after seeing him signing in, I would get quite nervous when he showed up. And sometimes he came when I was alone.”
“He was really angry with you?” Paxton asked, staring at her.
Cherise nodded. “And there was absolutely nothing more I could do as it all came down to the medical professionals not clearing him. Those were the people he needed to talk to.”
“And usually it’s a doctor?”
“Sure, but, in this instance, if Wesley says no to the doctor, the doctor quite happily puts it down as a no. I don’t understand the relationship but Wesley is touted as a specialist in a specific field in physio and everyone tries to get into see him. At least those he can help. So it appears he’s given a lot of leeway.”
“Right.” Paxton considered that. “So I wonder why Rodger didn’t go after the doctor?”
“Probably because the doctor is just following whatever Wesley says—literally. And, if it happens to jive with whatever the doctor believes too, then … great.” She took a deep breath and held up her pointer finger. “Now let me clarify that. For all I know, something could be going on, and the doctor is taking a bribe to go along with Wesley’s supposed game. But I have no way to know that, no way to prove that, and I can’t even imagine that such a thing would happen,” she stated, staring at Paxton. “Particularly with all the hoops and paperwork we have to go through for every case.”
“Right.” He frowned at that.
“Are you really taking Rodger’s complaint to heart?”
“I was pretty damn sure that I was clear to return to work myself,” Paxton stated, “and Wesley just laughed and told me that he needed to check a few things.”
“What do you think he was checking?”
“I don’t know. Rodger said something about a power grab, twisting the data.”
She stared at him and shook her head. “You know what? This is sounding very … conspiratorial.”
“Yes,” Paxton agreed. “I know. Yet I’m the one who just spent time with a gunman who blew his head off out of frustration because he didn’t think he could get justice or even be heard anywhere. And, for what it’s worth, he killed a man because he felt that Wesley would never be brought to trial.”
“Jesus,” she muttered.
“I know.” He nodded, giving her the quickest smile. “Sorry, I didn’t really mean to bring you into this.”
“Well, I would be in it anyway. After you took off like that, I kept trying to tell 9-1-1 to be careful and to not go in shooting because an innocent man was involved.”
“Hey, I really appreciate that,” he told her, with a smile.
“And I did talk to Mason.”
“Ah, well, that explains something too. Did Mason put in a good word for me?”
“The best, as always.” She gave him a crooked smile. “But the bottom line is that I can see you’re upset and possibly a little more confused about this whole thing, especially after the murder-suicide scenario you just went through,” she noted. “Maybe just give it some time and let it all calm down in your brain, and it might not seem quite so plausible. I mean, I just really can’t imagine any scenario where either Wesley or a doctor wouldn’t sign off, without having a true and valid medical reason for doing it.”
She was trying to calm him down, but it’s as if he was already in his head, running the possibilities.
She added, “I mean, I get that, in some cases, it’s probably not a big deal to hold somebody off for a bit longer or to get them extra medical care,” she stated simply.
“But this sounds like the reverse of that,” Paxton pointed out. “These are people who want to return to work, and they aren’t going back to work, potentially because of this stall tactic.”
“That makes no sense to me,” she replied. “What possible motivation could there be for that?”
“That’s what I didn’t understand,” he murmured, “but the gunman, Rodger Bolson, did say something about distorted data. Yet Rodger points the finger to the bribes, first and foremost.”
“Bribes? Distorted data? In the US military?” She shook her head, frowning, dumbfounded. “I don’t …” And she just stopped. “I guess I just don’t know what to say to that.”
“Well, that’s better than just telling me how I’m crazy,” he teased, with a lopsided grin.
“The trouble with me saying that is,” she explained, “it’s entirely likely that’s what other people told the gunman, leading to his ultimate frustration.”
Paxton nodded slowly. “That’s exactly what the problem is, and that’s exactly what he was told. I think he probably got himself labeled as crazy for having pursued it the way he did, and that’s the kind of thing that sticks. Then he couldn’t get any satisfaction and saw that the system was all too happy to chalk everything up to his ‘mental status,’ with no genuine review process. Since he figured he was marked for life and could never pursue what he wanted—simply returning to work—the best choice he could see was making a radical move to bring attention to the whole mess.”
