Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (20 page)

“What now? If you want to get on out of here, the door’s over there.” He points across the room to the front door. “Go ahead, we won’t follow you.”

I snort. “No, I think I’d rather just shoot you.”

Like a snake striking out, Lagazo grabs the arm of the guy behind him, and I see a gun moving fast in my direction. Before the guy stumbles and falls into him, Lagazo manages to wrap his hand around the guy’s hand and the gun in it. He squeezes, and there’s a sharp blast. I pull the trigger on my gun as well, and the last thing I think is that the blood spreading over Lagazo’s chest is poisoned, and I’m very glad to see it drain away his life.

It might be the report of my own gun that pushes me back against the wall, but whatever it is, it hurts. A lot. My entire right side is in flames, and my arm drops to my side because I’m unable to lift it again. Lagazo is lying on the floor, and his guy is talking to him to see if he’s okay. Lagazo doesn’t move. I try to take a breath, but everything feels heavy and it’s so hard to expand my lungs, I feel like the air is the density of liquid. As I struggle to stay on my feet, Lagazo’s guy looks up at me, and I can tell by his face that something’s not right.

“Shit,” he gasps, before he jumps to his feet, gives Lagazo one last shove with his foot, and then takes off, running out the door.

I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, Lagazo just a few inches from my feet. I struggle to breathe again and this time I hear a horrible bubbling, sucking noise when I do. I clutch my chest and when I pull my hand away there is blood. Everywhere. Blood on my hand, blood on my arm, blood on my shirt.

“Oh God,” I gasp. I wonder if this is what Carly felt like, if it hurt this badly, if she had this same feeling that she was watching it all from someplace far, far away? I try to take another breath, and this time I can’t. My head begins to pound, and all I can smell is the metallic odor of the blood. My last thought is that at least I did what I said I would. I took Lagazo with me. I remember Carly’s beautiful smile and her soft, sweet skin once more, and then my world goes dark.

Pax Part V

Carly

It’s dark when I pry my eyes open, and for a moment, I think I must be dead and it’s going to suck. I hurt all over, especially my lower left side. There’s this burning pain that radiates out from one spot, and when I tense a little to try to sit up, it hurts so badly that I cry out before dissolving back onto the bed in agony.

“Carly?” Vaughn says from the dark, confirming that I am not actually dead but must be in a hospital.

I see him move into the light that’s oozing in from a window in the door, and then he’s next to me, picking up my hand.

“Hey,” he says. “Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone? I probably should anyway to let them know you’re awake.”

I grit my teeth. “I want to sit up, but it hurts so much I can’t move.”

“Okay. It’s going to be okay. Let me get the nurse.” He turns on the lamp next to my bed and I blink a few times, adjusting to the light.

As he presses a call button on the wall behind my head, I look up at him. He’s pale, and there are fine lines of stress bracketing his mouth as he sits on the chair next to my bed.

“Here.” He hands me a remote control. “This raises the head if you want to sit up more. I’ll let you do it so I don’t do anything that hurts you.”

I adjust the bed until I’m sitting partially upright and can look Vaughn in the eyes.

“That better?” he asks.

“Yes, thanks.”

He reaches out and strokes a piece of hair out of my eyes. “You scared the hell out of me, Carly.”

I can see by the tension in his face that this has been a long day for him, and I feel guilty for having caused him so much stress.

“I’m sorry,” I answer simply. “I really am. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. There was…” My mind goes back to my argument with Pax, the way he accused me of selling him out to Lagazo. “I had a fight with Pax, and I just wanted to get away. I thought I could handle it on my own…” My voice fades. I’m exhausted and not sure what else I can say.

I obviously made a huge mistake. Lagazo had me in spangles and on that stage faster than you could say
pole dance
. Dancing half naked was even worse than I could have imagined, and I only did it for a few hours.

An image flashes through my mind—me dancing, and Pax on the floor, telling me to come down and go with him.

“Oh my God.” I try to sit up more, but pain lances through me. I yelp.

“Carly! Whoa,” Vaughn soothes. “You can’t move suddenly like that. What’s wrong? Let me help.”

Tears are burning the backs of my eyes now. “I just remembered that Pax was there. When I got shot. He was right next to me. Please tell me he’s okay.”

Vaughn’s expression is grim. “He’s fine. But then Pax is always fine, so you don’t need to worry.”

Relief washes over me. “Where is he? Can I see him?”

“No.” Vaughn’s voice is firm, and I can tell he’s going to pull the older-cousin card. “He’s not here and he’s not coming back. Now, you can focus on yourself and getting well so we can take you home to Portland.”

I elect to ignore the part about going to Portland. “What do you mean he’s not here? Where did he go?”

Vaughn runs a hand through his hair and opens his mouth to speak, but a nurse comes bustling in before he can get it out.

After about ten minutes, I’ve been thoroughly checked out and given another dose of painkillers. I can already feel myself getting sleepy, but I don’t want to let Vaughn off the hook yet.

“You have to tell me now. Where is Pax?”

He sighs as he leans on the rail of my bed. “I sent him away, C.”

“Why? I mean, we had an argument, but I don’t think he would have come after me if he didn’t want to apologize. Maybe I want to forgive him.” I pause. “It’s kind of my choice, isn’t it?”

Vaughn’s face falls, and he looks everywhere but at me. “The bullet was meant for him,” he blurts out. “You stepped in front of a bullet that was aimed at Pax. I can’t let him near you again, Carly. I know he didn’t mean to, but he put you in danger, and he encouraged this whole fiasco with his hundred thousand dollars and his belief that, somehow, nothing bad can ever happen to him. I know why he thinks that way—nothing bad has ever happened to him—but it doesn’t help him make good decisions, and I sure as hell don’t want any more of his bad decisions near my cousin.”

The small lamp on the nightstand is the only light in the room except the tiny bits put off by the medical equipment. Vaughn’s voice is low, and I feel tears on my cheeks, but even though I’m screaming on the inside that I want Pax, that I don’t care if the bullet was for him, that I just want to hear his voice and know he’s not angry with me anymore, I find my eyes closing, and it’s so hard to talk that I can’t fight with Vaughn right now. Maybe later I’ll tell him that he’s being an overbearing douche—because he is—but right now, I need to sleep.

“Sleep tight, Carly.” Vaughn’s voice floats around me. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again,” he says.

And my last thought is,
But what if I want him to hurt me?

**

Walsh

We’ve been checked into the hotel in Birmingham for about forty-five minutes when the delivery arrives. It’s a plain, brown envelope addressed to me, containing a zip drive and a letter.

Ethan, Jason, and the other security guys who are camped out in our penthouse suite handle the whole thing with latex gloves and dust it all for prints before they’ll let me read the letter. It contains instructions to bring one point two million dollars to a storefront in downtown Bittersweet. Once I’m done reading, they load the zip drive in a laptop and we all face it, expecting a video. But it’s not. It’s a recording. When Pax’s voice comes through the speakers, I nearly choke on the bile that rises in my throat. Joss puts his head down in his hands, and Mike takes a sharp breath.

“Hey, Dad,” Pax says. “Today is September tenth, and as you know by now, I’ve been kidnapped. They want you to know that they’re only interested in the money, and as long as you stick to the instructions, there won’t be any problems. I’m doing fine right now. I hope I see you soon. Bye.”

The recording goes silent, and in the room, you could hear a pin drop.

“That was Pax’s voice, but it didn’t sound like him,” I say. “The words he chose—I don’t know. Something was off. Could they have drugged him?” I ask.

“They could have,” Jason answers. “But they also most likely gave him a statement to read. They don’t want him slipping any hidden details into his communications—some sort of family code. They’re smart enough to know that you and your kid might be able to communicate in ways the rest of us wouldn’t notice. That’s probably also why they didn’t do a video. They don’t want him signaling information to you.”

“God, these guys are twisted,” Mike mutters.

“They are,” Ethan agrees. “And that’s why we have to tread very carefully. Our objective here is to retain your money and extract Pax, but if it comes down to the money or him, obviously, the money loses.”

“Damn right it does,” Joss growls. “To hell with the money. My nephew is all that matters here. We can’t take any chances with this.” He shoots Ethan a dark look. “You understand me? No chances. Not over something we can earn back by doing a thirty-second AT&T commercial.”

Mike chuckles, remembering the last time they asked us to do one of their commercials and Joss blew his top, hollering at our poor agent about how low he expected us to go just for cash.

“He’s right,” I tell Ethan and Jason. “The cash doesn’t matter. I know it’s hard to imagine that, and I don’t want to sound like I don’t realize what that kind of money would mean to most people, but the simple fact is that it doesn’t mean that much to me. I can make it back in a heartbeat. It’s not some huge financial setback I’ll be feeling for years.”

Mike nods beside me. Between him and Jenny, they’ve earned so much money that they’re funding a whole international aid organization by themselves. They’re like the Bill and Melinda Gates of Portland.

What I say next surprises everyone, and from the corner of my eye, I see Mike and Joss shooting each other looks. “The money doesn’t matter, but what does is stopping this Lagazo guy. I want him either dead or in prison when this is over, and you need to tell me how we’re going to do that.”

Ethan sighs. “Walsh. Without involving the cops right now, we’re in a precarious position here. We can’t just go around shooting up the place and expect to argue self-defense. A court’s going to say we wouldn’t have been in a shooting situation if we’d called the police like we’re supposed to. As for getting him arrested? Well, again. No cops, right?”

I briefly look out the tinted window of the hotel, my mind wandering to the other time someone tried to take Pax. We were in an arcade in Portland, having one of our many boys’ days out when Lyric was still young enough to demand most of Tammy’s attention. We’d do all sorts of things—skate, hang out at the recording studio, go to the game arcade.

That particular day, a man managed to get between Pax and me before I had even realized what was happening. The guy was crazy—and possibly drunk—but stupid. The only problem was he had a gun in his hand, and even though he wasn’t pointing it at Pax or me, I was absolutely terrified. I bargained with him, offered him all the cash I had on me, and told him to walk away. He did, and I went to the authorities immediately.

They found him not too far away, and he spent some time in prison, but I remember thinking in the moment, as he had one hand on my kid and another on a gun, that I didn’t care if they ever caught him as long as he gave me my son back. All I wanted was Pax safe and sound and in my arms again. In those brief seconds, I would have traded anything just to have him back alive.

Now, I’m faced with that choice again, and I have to decide what’s the right thing to do. What’s the best choice for everyone concerned? Because this isn’t just some drunk who’s addled. This is a dangerous career criminal who’s gone after my family more than once. And he could again. Once I give him over a million of my dollars, what’s to say he won’t go after Tammy next time? Or, God forbid, Lyric? What’s to say he won’t keep harassing Carly Nelsen or her family?

I turn to Ethan. “Pax comes first. No matter what, Pax comes first. But I won’t roll over. I’m not going to hand him the money and walk away so that he can consider doing this another day to me or to Carly Nelsen or to someone else. There has to be some way we can get some law enforcement involved in this without the risk of a crooked local cop.”

Ethan scratches his head and looks perplexed. It’s not often that he’s not sure of himself and what actions to take, but I can tell I’ve given him a difficult task.

“Kidnapping’s a federal offense,” Jason says. “And while local police coordinate, the FBI is consulted in the case if there’s a ransom being demanded. If the victim’s taken across state lines, then the FBI takes it over. They have more resources. I do know someone in the bureau…”

I look at Ethan and he nods at me. “Can you call them? See what’s possible? We have until noon to make the drop. Maybe they can get someone to be there for it?”

Jason agrees, and then he and Ethan go to their suite to make plans. We’re all instructed to be up and ready for anything by seven a.m. There’s no way to get that kind of cash this fast from one bank, so I have my business manager making withdrawals from six different banks in the area, and runners will deliver the cash to me in the morning before eight a.m. It’s incredible what you can manage if you can pay for it.

We have guards on the floor all night, but they go out to the hallway, and Joss, Mike, and I are left to ourselves.

“How you holding up?” Joss asks as he sits forward in his chair and leans his elbows on his knees.

I run a hand through my hair and fight back a wave of nausea that rolls through me with no warning. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I really don’t know.”

“Can I get you anything?” Mike asks, uncharacteristically thoughtful. “Something to eat?”