Gone Forever (Jack Widow Book 1), page 18
I crept over to the cruiser, staying close to the rear of the parked cars for cover. I hadn’t drawn the Heckler & Koch, not yet. If there was a cop inside or nearby, he would’ve been within his rights to shoot me without warning if he had seen a gun in my hand. As far as he knew, I was an escaped armed fugitive. No judge in the world would convict him of a wrongful discharge of his weapon under those conditions.
I neared the car and gasped. Inside, sprawled across the front bench, was Gemson. Blood covered the dashboard toward the passenger side, like it had been sprayed across the front of the car. He had been shot in the head.
I drew the P30L out of my waistband and scanned the area. There was no one in sight. He must’ve been shot by the Mexican guy. That was how the guy had gotten the keys and access to my cell. Then I stopped, frozen in place. Just to be sure, I ejected the magazine and counted the rounds. Missing a round, plus the one fired back in the cell.
Great. Now I was holding the weapon that had shot a cop. And a cop I got into an altercation with in public. With witnesses.
Why had the guy tried to get me to hang myself if he had just shot Gemson? I had no idea. The best I could figure was that it was a message or some kind of sick turn-on the guy had. Like he got off on making his victims kill themselves. A lot of hired killers in history had their own signature styles. Maybe suicide was the Mexican’s.
Since Gemson was an armed deputy, I guess the guy hadn’t wanted to take a chance with him, so he put a bullet in his head. I lowered the gun and swung the car door open. I leaned in and checked Gemson’s pulse. Suddenly, his left hand grabbed my wrist. He was still alive.
28
Gemson breathed irregularly, but he was breathing. He had grabbed my wrist and then passed out. I examined his wound. He’d been shot in the head, but it turned out to be just a graze—deep but not fatal. He was lucky the Mexican guy hadn’t double-tapped him.
Careless, but lucky for Gemson.
Blood loss was a different story. He had lost a lot of blood. I couldn’t tell how much, but his skin color had faded. He wasn’t quite blue like a corpse, but wasn’t far from it.
Most police cruisers were equipped with a first aid kit in the trunk, so I popped the trunk and scrambled back to it. I looked inside and found the kit. It was a small green case with a white cross on the lid. I grabbed it and closed the trunk. Then I returned to Gemson and opened the case. I pulled out a long strand of gauze and medical tape. I wrapped his head several times—tight. Then I taped it off. I tilted his head to one side. Gravity should slow the bleeding.
I grabbed the radio, clicked the button, and put the receiver to my mouth. Pressing down on the call button, I asked, “Is anyone out there? Officer in need of urgent medical assistance!”
I released the button and waited. Listened hard. Static, and then I said, “Respond!”
Static again.
I said, “Respond! Officer down!”
No response. Gemson was on his own tonight.
I thought maybe if he needed backup; he was supposed to call for it on his cell phone. I dug through his pockets and found his phone, and searched through his contact list. I found Grady’s information, hit the call button, and waited. Dial tone and then a ring. Two rings in, and the sheriff answered. He was groggy. Probably asleep.
He said, “It’s late. This had better be an emergency.”
“Gemson has been shot.”
Silence on the other end.
Grady asked, “Who is this?”
I said, “You need to come! He’s dying! He’s been shot!”
Grady asked, “Widow? How’d you get out of your cell?”
I said, “There’s no time! He’s been shot in the head. He’s lost a lot of blood. Get over here! Now!”
Then there was silence on the line. I imagine that Grady’s brain was still half asleep and trying to process the information.
He said, “Take him to the clinic. It’s only two blocks south of the station. I’ll be there.”
He hung up.
I looked around, then looked at the car keys hanging in the ignition of Gemson’s cruiser.
I could’ve left him in the clinic parking lot and driven away. I could’ve been miles away in their police car before I’d have to dump it. Under the cover of darkness, I might’ve passed the state line. I could’ve driven straight north and crossed over into Tennessee. The state had a lot of back roads—plenty of places to dump a car. I could’ve been back on the road and leaving this nightmare behind, but a voice in my head said, You must do the right thing.
It echoed over and over like some kind of predetermined destiny, some kind of instinctual voice set deep in my bones, something that had started with my ancestors and cursed my line for all time.
I looked down at Gemson’s dying body in my arms and reached across him and slammed the passenger door closed and turned the key and fired up the car and hit the gas. I was there in seconds. Seven of them.
29
I waited on the street in front of the Eckhart Medical Center on the clinic side.
The building was two stories with thick windows tinted black. I imagined it was to protect the occupants from sunlight. The clinic was attached to the largest building, and the rest of the complex was surrounded by the barbed wire fence. The back of it faced the lake. At the end of the street, there was a boat launch and a shabby little pier with one boat tied to it. It rocked slowly on the water.
I waited outside of the squad car; my back planted against the rear on the driver’s side. The P30L rested on the trunk lid next to me.
I had switched the light bar on so that the red and blue lights lit up the night sky. The colors reflected off the storefront windows and parked cars as the lights spun in a clockwise rotation. A long extension of the lights fell across the lake like a lighthouse beacon and rotated back across the street. A low fog rolled across the top of the water. The red and blue lights were magnified in the mist.
Minutes later, I heard distant police sirens blaring through the quiet town like a banshee on the moors. The wailing noise was deafening in the silence. Eight and a half minutes after that, Sheriff Grady pulled up in an old department-issued Chevy Tahoe. The light bar on the roof waned and flashed in sync with a set of smaller lights buried deep in the front grille, and the tires squealed as he braked to a stop. They died off in a quick hiss as they screeched to a stop across the road in front of the Eckhart Medical Center.
Two seconds later, his deputies rolled up in their patrol cars. Both had one driver and no passengers. The two cops jumped out of their vehicles. The only one who wore a shred of his uniform was Sheriff Grady. His deputies wore department-issued jackets with sheriff badges patched on the right arms, but none of them wore the proper uniform. I guess they hadn’t had time to change. They were probably in their pajamas when Grady had called them.
Sheriff Grady jumped out of the Tahoe with his Glock drawn. He stretched his arms out across his hood and pointed the gun at me from about thirty yards away. His deputies followed suit. The sirens had stopped the moment all three vehicles stopped.
Grady yelled, “Stand up with your hands up and walk toward us.”
I said, “Sorry, Sheriff. I’m not doing that.”
Grady said, “Widow, this isn’t a game. Now follow my directions.” He waited a moment and then repeated his orders.
I stayed behind the cover of the police car. I looked at him and shook my head. I said, “Not going to happen.” Silence, and then I said, “Grady. Your man is dying. I didn’t shoot him. Another guy attacked me in my cell. He had Gemson’s keys. He tried to kill me, but he must’ve shot Gemson first. You’re wasting time. He’s losing blood.”
Grady looked at Gemson. The guy wasn’t moving, but he was pressed up against the closed passenger door.
I peeked in on him. His coloring wasn’t good.
I said, “Ticktock, Sheriff. You can try to come and get me, a course of action that none of you will survive—that I can promise. That I can pretty much damn guarantee. Or you can holster your weapons and help me get Gemson inside the clinic before he bleeds to death.”
Grady remained where he was.
One of his deputies looked at him. The guy said, “Gemson looks bad.”
I said, “I’m telling you the truth. Faye Matlind is missing. And now someone just tried to kill me. You need to believe me, or this is going to turn bad for you, Gemson, and a whole lot of other people.”
At that exact moment, in the silence of a standoff, I heard the most recognizable sound in modern police combat. It was the ultimate conversation stopper—the last word.
A pump-action shotgun had cocked somewhere near us. We all froze as we heard Crunch! Crunch!
The four of us looked over toward the clinic’s entrance.
Grady said, “Doctor, go back inside.”
I saw a pair of small, feminine hands holding a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun with a pistol grip and a collapsible stock. One of the best shotguns ever made. Beyond the barrel of the shotgun, there was a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and a muscular frame, like a fitness model.
Sheldon.
She said, “Widow. Grady. You boys, stop all this nonsense and bring Gemson inside before he bleeds to death. And before I shoot all of you.”
Grady said, “Dr. Eckhart. Now don’t do anything stupid.”
Was Sheldon a doctor? And an Eckhart? She had said that she worked at the clinic. What she should have said was that it was her clinic. Her last name was on the sign.
Sheldon said, “Ty, I’m not asking. I’m telling.”
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One deputy helped me carry Gemson. He wasn’t particularly heavy for either of us, but he had completely passed out. Deadweight was harder to move than a half-conscious person. We half carried, half dragged him into the clinic.
Sheldon pointed to a room opposite the waiting room at the same time she leaned the shotgun back somewhere out of sight behind a shelf filled with boxes of feminine hygiene products. We carried Gemson past a reception area, where two people sat behind a long countertop, past a public water fountain and some bathrooms, and into an examination room. We laid him on an examining table.
Sheldon unwrapped the gauze I had wrapped around his head and began inspecting his wound. She told the sheriff that he should call Oxford and ask for a medical chopper. Gemson needed hospital attention, not the care that Sheldon could provide in a small-town clinic. Grady left the room to make the call.
Sheldon wore a pair of blue scrubs and was all business. She reached up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a scrunchie from her wrist. When she finished looking at Gemson, she wrapped his head tight and tilted it in a way that reduced the bleeding. She injected him with something, and he was suddenly conscious.
He babbled nonsensically.
She looked at me and said, “He needs to stay conscious. You saved his life.”
I nodded and stayed quiet. I figured he wouldn’t have done the same for me, but that didn’t matter. It only mattered what I had done.
31
We waited for the helicopter for twenty-five minutes. It was coming from Oxford General Hospital. It was an MD 520N, a fairly decent chopper used for police and rescue operations all over the world. This one was painted white with a dark-blue stripe right across the middle. A red light blinked from the bottom of the canopy. We stood outside and watched as it flew over the trees. The rush of wind from the rotors blew the treetops in firm gusts like the oncoming winds from a tropical storm. The chopper pilot maneuvered the helicopter over power lines and streetlights. It yawed as it descended at a steady pace. The skids landed on the street with a low thud. The main rotor and tail blades kept turning. Debris from the road flew up into the air and drifted away behind the chopper, swept up into the night.
The deputies lifted Gemson and helped a pair of paramedics strap him to a gurney. They strapped him in tightly and loaded him onto the helicopter. We stood outside and watched as the chopper lifted off the ground and flew away.
Grady looked at me and scratched his nose. He said, “Widow, would you wait inside for a moment. Doctor, is that okay?”
Sheldon smiled at me and said, “Of course.”
Grady pointed at one of his deputies and said, “Take him inside and watch him for a moment.”
I put my hand up and said, “That won’t be necessary. If I wanted to run, I would’ve.”
Sheldon said, “Ty, I think Widow has proven himself.”
Grady leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder like he was trying to say something out of my earshot, but I heard him fine. He said, “I don’t trust him.”
Sheldon said, “If it weren’t for him, Gemson would be dead.”
Grady shrugged and made a kind of retreat. He backed away about a foot and stared at the ground for a moment, like he wanted to phrase his next statement right.
Sheldon never gave him the chance to speak. She said, “The bullet did more than graze his head. I think it fractured his skull. At the very least. And Widow could’ve walked away and left him to die.”
Grady thought for a moment, conflict on his face. Finally, he faced me and said, “For now, you’re no longer under arrest. I appreciate your helping my deputy. But don’t you be leaving just yet. I need to know what the hell is going on.”
I said, “All I know is that I was asleep in my cell, then I woke up, and some Mexican guy was waving a gun in my face.”
A confused look fell across Grady’s face. He asked, “Mexican guy?”
I nodded and said, “A dead Mexican guy now.”
Grady cocked his head and looked at me. “So, there’s a dead guy in my jail?”
I said, “Dead as he can get.”
Then I paused a beat, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the P30L. I handed it to him—butt first. He stared at the gun, and his brow wrinkled and created several slopes across his forehead.
I said, “The Mexican was armed with this.”
Grady inspected it and sighed, and nodded. He slipped the gun into the back of his waistband.
“Okay. For now, you stay here with Dr. Eckhart.” He looked over at his deputy again and said, “Stay with them.”
The deputy nodded. I shrugged and followed Sheldon and the deputy into the clinic.
Grady and the other deputy left their vehicles on the street with the light bars on and went on foot back to the Public Safety Complex. I guess they wanted to block the street from any traffic, or from me getting away in a vehicle. The road they were parked on was the only way out. Not that it mattered because I wasn’t going anywhere.
32
Sheldon stood at the reception counter. Even in her scrubs, her muscular frame made its presence known. It called to me like a siren. I tried to look away, but she was like a vortex, and I was in danger of being sucked in.
She caught me staring. Leaning against the countertop, she heaved herself up and sat casually on its edge, her legs swinging back and forth like a teenage girl’s.
“What’re you staring at?” she asked.
“I was remembering my mother.”
She tilted her head, and then she asked, “What? I remind you of your mother? That’s weird.”
I smiled and said, “No. Nothing like that. She died recently. And I was just thinking that when I was a kid, my mom was beautiful. I used to beat up the kids at school because they said things about her.”
She looked perplexed. Strands of blonde hair from her ponytail fell across her left shoulder. “I don’t understand what that has to do with you staring at me.”
“I was thinking that I would hate it if you were mine.”
Her smile diminished. She asked, “What?”
I said, “I’d hate for you to be mine. Like my girl.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of all the fights, I’d get in over you.”
She smiled wider.
It wasn’t a line. I meant it. I had just met Sheldon, and already I was fighting over her. I said, “A beautiful woman can be a deadly thing. Look at Cleopatra or Helen of Troy. A beautiful woman can destroy the world.”
“I’m like Cleopatra?”
I smiled. Then I said, “Cleopatra ain’t got shit on you. That’s for damn sure.”
She paused and smiled and looked away, like some far-off realization slapped her across the face.
I asked, “What is it?”
She turned back and smiled again. “I like you. I think.”
“You think?”
She said, “I mean, we just met, but you’re different. A lot different from these small-town people.”
“Aren’t you from here?”
At first, she shook her head, and then she nodded.
I was confused.
She said, “I’ve only lived here for five years. I got a special grant to open this Medical Center, and it had to be here, so I came here.”
“So, where are you from?”
She hesitated for a second and said, “Here.”
“Really?”
She said, “I moved away for a while. I actually went to school abroad. I fell in with the wrong crowd and then got my medical degree and came back.”
I looked around, starting with the walls, which were full of medical posters and plaques. Boxes of unused medical supplies were piled up like there wasn’t enough room for them in a storage closet. There were boxes of feminine medical supplies and hygiene products—skin products, birth control pills, Plan B tablets, and female contraceptives.
I said, “Wow. Lots of female stuff here.”
She cracked a smile and then said, “Country women have a lot of needs.”
I looked down at the computer screens behind the counter. I guessed that this was the nurses’ station. The screensavers danced on the monitors like flickering candlelight.
