Cemetery Tours (37 page)

“My father told me after you left.”

“Then how did you follow us?  We should have been long gone by the time he talked to you.”

“I didn’t need to follow you.
  You gave me all the information I needed when you told me your full name,” she told Kate.  “Beau is a computer genius.  He was able to track down your personal information in less than a second, and as a result, Michael’s.”  Kate turned her eyes on the bulky guy standing behind Michael.  His eyes were fixed on a spot on the ground.  Almost like he felt guilty...

“What about you?
  Why are you doing this?” Kate asked Beau.  

“He’s doing this because it is God’s will, and the only way to vanquish his past sin from his life,” Chastity answered for him.

“Oh.  I thought only Jesus could do that.”  The words were out of Kate’s mouth before she could stop them.  Chastity narrowed her eyes.

“You are not a true Child of God, so how can you be expected to understand His ways?”
 

You know what, bitch?
  You go ahead and think that
.  Chastity could say whatever she wanted.  All that mattered was getting Michael, Luke, and herself out of that field alive.  Luke was on the same page.

“So how are we going to do this, Chas?
  Are you going to let us take our friend home or are we going to have to fight you for him?”  

Oh, such a bad idea.
  Why, why,
why
had he said the word, “fight?”  They weren’t supposed to fight, especially with a crazy lady wielding a gun.  Hell, they weren’t even supposed to be out there in the first place.  Cannon had advised them to wait for the police, but neither was willing to do that; a decision that Kate was beginning to sorely regret. 

“My name is
Chastity
.  And you will not be taking him.”  

“Well, in that case, I guess I have no choice.”
  Luke pulled out his iPhone, pretended to punch something in, and held it up to his ear.

Chastity narrowed her eyes.
  “Who are you calling?”

“The police,” Luke replied casually.
  Of course, it was all a bluff.  If Pastor Cannon was to be believed, the police were already on their way.  Luke was simply trying to buy them all a little more time.  

Though the longer it took for the police to show up, the more Kate wondered if maybe he’d set them up to die as well.
  Maybe he and his daughter were more similar than he’d let on.  

“Drop the phone!” Chastity demanded.

“Drop the gun,” Luke countered.  

Chastity’s hands began to shake.
  In that moment, Kate realized why Luke wasn’t afraid to go on taunting her.  Chastity couldn’t kill him.  If he didn’t have “the gift of the devil” or whatever, then killing Luke would be murder, a sin.  And ironically, that was the last thing Chastity Cannon wanted to do.  

Luke, apparently having decided he’d waited long enough, said, “Yes, I’d like to report an abduction and attempted murder - ”

“No!” Chastity screamed as the gun slipped out of her hand and tumbled to the ground.  Then, like a hysterical child reaching for a candy bar, she lunged toward Luke’s cell phone.  But Luke was too fast and too strong for her.  He sprinted off into the thick grass to the left, leading Chastity away from Michael.  “Beau, help me!” she cried.

As the bulky man barreled across the field after them, Kate made a mad dash over to Michael.
  She dropped to her knees, scraping both of them in the process, and took his tortured face in her hands.  

“Are you alright?” she asked.
 

“I am now,” he told her.
  But Kate could see the awkward way he held himself and the harsh, plum-colored bruise that was creeping up his neck.  He was far from ‘alright.’  

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” she told him and scrambled around to the back of the cross, where his bloody hands were bound by two thick plastic zip ties.
  One of them had marks in it, like it had been in the process of being cut before something, or someone, had interrupted.

Crap
.  

There was no time to dwell.
  Kate reached into her pocket, pulled out her keys, and began sawing away at the bands.  The one that had been cut broke fairly easily.  The keys barely made a mark in the second.  

“Dammit,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
  If only she had Luke’s Swiss army knife.  Of course, he probably needed it more than she did at the moment.  

“Are you okay?” Michael asked.
 

“This isn’t cutting.
  Do you have anything sharp?”

“No.”

Kate thought fast.  If she could get the key between his skin and the zip tie, maybe one good tug would do the trick, just like the tiny plastic clothing tags.  She’d have to pull hard, and the band would probably hurt Michael even more, but it was her only option.  

“Michael, this might hurt a little,” she warned him.

“I can handle it,” he assured her.

With a silent prayer, she turned the key sideways and slid it beneath the zip tie.
  Then, she turned the key ridge-side-up, took a deep breath, and tugged.  Michael inhaled sharply as the band cut into the back of his wrists, but Kate wouldn’t let up.  Seconds later, the band broke with a gratifying SNAP, but Michael cried out as his arms fell free.  Kate was by his side in an instant.  

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I can’t - it hurts - ” he tried to speak, but he was in too much pain.   

“Can you stand?”
  She had learned back in her lifeguarding days that injured persons should never be moved, but she was pretty sure that rule could be ignored when there was a homicidal Bible-thumper on the loose.  

“I don’t know.”
 

And then, like music to her ears, distant sirens began to wail.
  Kate heaved a sigh of relief.  “They came!”  In spite of his pain, Michael grinned too.  

 
Slowly, easily, Kate took Michael’s good arm and helped him to his feet.  He was still shaking after his ordeal, but with Kate supporting him, he was able to stand.  

“Thank you,” he whispered.
 

“No problem.
  Now let’s get you out of - ” 

Her words died in her throat, as she turned to see the shadowy silhouette of Chastity Cannon standing just a few yards away.
  Kate felt all the blood draining from her extremities as she stared into the barrel of the gun that Chastity had aimed at her head.  

“Chastity...” she whispered.
  Her instincts told her to run, but her unwillingness to leave Michael held her where she stood.  

“You know why I have to do this, don’t you Katherine?” Chastity patronized.
  “First Samuel, chapter fifteen, verse twenty-three B.  ‘Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He therefore has rejected you.’” 

“
What
?” 

But Chastity was through explaining.
  With a wry grin, she straightened her arm and cocked the gun.

~*~

Michael didn’t have time to think.  He didn’t need to think.  He could hear the shouts and footsteps of a dozen men and women running across the field.  It was almost over.  

But it wouldn’t be over soon enough.

“
Kate, get down
!”  Summoning every ounce of strength he possessed, Michael threw himself at Kate.  

He felt her falling beneath him.

Then Chastity pulled the trigger.

The last eight hours were a blur, and to be honest, Kate was okay with that.  For once, she didn’t want to remember.  

There had been questions.
  A lot of them.  She thought she’d answered all of them, but she couldn’t be sure.  The only good news was that neither she nor Luke was suspected of having anything to do with what had happened.

Luke was doing okay.
  He had an ugly bruise around one of his eyes and he’d sprained his ankle, but he would be fine.  He’d had to answer a lot more questions from a lot more people, but that wasn’t surprising.  He was a good sport about it too, but he was obviously worn out from the ordeal.  Kate didn’t envy him a bit.  

Gavin had called her sometime around
6 A.
M. wondering where she was.  She didn’t tell him the whole story, but assured him that she was fine and that he didn’t need to worry.  Her mind was so numb that she wasn’t sure she would have been able to talk about it even if she’d wanted to.  And why would she want to?  Living through it once had been enough.        

The last few moments before Waxahachie police had finally apprehended Chastity Cannon were the ones that Kate couldn’t make go away.
  Every few minutes or so, she heard Michael yell at her to get down.  Then she heard the gunshot.  Then she felt the flow of hot, sticky liquid as she crumpled to the ground beneath him...

Kate shuddered at the memory and tried to force herself to concentrate on something, anything, else.
  Luke was
still
talking to reporters outside.  Kate wished his agent or manager or whatever would tell them to get lost and let him rest, but she seemed to be of the mindset that all publicity was good publicity.        

Why would anyone want publicity for this?
  She didn’t.  Yeah, they’d sort of helped apprehend Chastity, but at what cost?  

A small voice in her mind reminded her that not all hope was lost.
  Michael might still be okay.  The bullet had missed his heart by a few short inches.  But she’d seen his pale, lifeless body lying on the ground after he’d pushed her out of the way.  She couldn’t imagine anyone waking up from that state.

You did
, the voice reminded her.  Somehow, it brought her little comfort.  It was true, she had come back.  But that sort of miracle happened once in a lifetime, if that.  

Hoping to tune everything out, Kate closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall.
  She’d been sitting in the ICU waiting room at Baylor Waxahachie for what seemed like a millennium.  She remembered what Gavin had told her about his time in the waiting room.  He’d reached the point where he just wanted answers.  Kate didn’t want answers.  She already knew everything.  Now, all she wanted, was to open her eyes and be somewhere else.  

She must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing she knew, someone was shaking her shoulder.
 

“Kate,” Luke whispered.
 

“Hmm?” she asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
  “What’s going on?”

“He made it.”
   

~*~

When Michael woke up for the first time, he was in a white room.  It was so bright, he shut his eyes and immediately fell back asleep.  

The second time, he was in a new room with soft blue curtains and a television.
  It was still bright, but not nearly as blinding as the first room had been.  He looked around the room and saw his mother sitting in a chair next to his bed, reading a book.  She smiled and cried when she saw that he was awake.  He was sure they’d talked, but he was so exhausted that he couldn’t remember what was said.  

By the third time he opened his eyes, the events leading up to waking up in the bright white room were coming back.
  Some of it was a little fuzzy, but he remembered all the big things.  Being kidnapped.  Being stoned.  Being saved.  Being shot.  Even the after-effects of anesthesia couldn’t dull those memories.