Granddad's House (On Geneva Shores) (31 page)

Several minutes later someone opened the front door. 

Beau jerked at the noise. Two men stood in the entry. One wore a black sweater with a tear along one sleeve. He was unshaven and his jeans looked worn and dirty. Beau stood up. The men didn’t look like they belonged in the neighborhood.

“Are you here to see the house?” he asked.

The other man, in a gray hoodie, shrugged.

“You the agent?” the first man asked as he moved past Beau, through the dining room and into the kitchen, one hand tucked inside his sweater.

“Uh, no. She’ll be right back.”

Beau followed Black Sweater into the kitchen.

Gray Hoodie caught up with him and asked, “That the agent’s car out there—the Mercedes?”

“Uh, no. It’s mine,” Beau replied as he looked over his shoulder.

“Ain’t that convenient,” Black Sweater said. “I like it.” He pulled a knife from the inside of his boot, waved it in threatening circles in front of Beau and held out his other hand. “Hand over the keys.”

Beau backed away from the knife and something hard pressed against his back just above his belt.

“Careful,” Gray Hoodie said from behind him. “Give him the keys.”

Beau raised his arms in the direction of Black Sweater. “Stay cool. I hear you.”

Black Sweater’s eyes darted nervously. He angled the knife closer to Beau’s chest.

“My keys—they’re in my inside pocket.” Beau slowly reached into the pocket of his sport jacket with his right hand, keeping his voice calm, even as his pulse started to jump. His father’s words about how to avoid trouble in a bar echoed in his brain.
Slow reply, calm voice, stay alert.

He calculated the distance between himself and Black Sweater, showed him the keys and tossed them over the man’s shoulder. “Here they are.” The keys hit the window next to the sliding glass door and skittered across the tile floor before coming to rest near a table in the sun room. Beau stared at Black Sweater. “Oops. I guess I miscalculated.” He clamped his jaw shut and mentally repeated his father’s words.

Black Sweater swore and swiveled in the direction of the keys just as Beau did a quick sidestep and lunged for the man. A loud explosion rang in his ears at the same time something slammed into his back, knocking him to the floor. Beau rolled, reached upward with one arm, and grabbed for Black Sweater’s leg. The man knocked over a chair as he fell, and the knife slid out of his hands.

Gray Hoodie ran for the keys, and was about to pick them up when Beau scrambled forward, reaching for the knife. But before he touched the hilt of the weapon, Hoodie raised his arm. Beau saw the gun in Hoodie’s hand just before it struck his head. He slammed against the kitchen island, stunned, surprised that he seemed to be slipping in something wet.

He grunted, his vision blurring and his back now starting to burn.
Bad guys.
Call 9-1-1. Warn Livvy.
Where had they gone? He tried to roll to one side to pull out his phone, and groaned at the pain now growing from a point in his back to encompass his entire left side. There was blood on the front of his shirt.
Where’d that come from?
Dizzy, he lay back on the floor to catch his breath. He closed his eyes, determined to concentrate on something other than the pain before he tumbled into a black well.

Olivia returned to the house, surprised that Beau’s car was no longer in the driveway.

“He must have gone for a newspaper,” she murmured to herself.
But why would he do that before she returned? When she entered the house, his coffee cup was still on the table near the couch.

“Beau?” she called. She started up the stairs, then turned around, picked up the coffee cup and headed for the kitchen. She hadn’t gone more than ten steps as she walked toward the kitchen when she saw Beau lying behind the center island in a pool of blood. Shock focused her attention. She pulled out her phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“I need an ambulance at seven fifteen Barkley Place. A man has been hurt. He’s bleeding. A lot. Please hurry!”

She tried to remember what she had learned about first aid. She looked in a drawer until she found some kitchen towels, then kneeled next to Beau and tried to find the source of the blood.
Press against the wound to stop the bleeding
. It seemed forever before a siren wailed in the distance, growing louder and finally stopping as it approached the house.

Two paramedics bounded through the front door and quickly took over, ushering her out of the way and then assessing vital signs, finding the source of the bleeding, and calling the ER. Their next call was to the police. “GSW here. One witness at the scene.”

Minutes later, Olivia was starting to feel woozy when the police arrived. One of the police officers grabbed her elbow and helped her into a chair.

“Did he say gunshot wound?”

The officer nodded. “Take it easy, ma’am. Can you tell us what happened here?”

She shook her head. “I—I don’t know. I was across the street.” She looked at Beau’s still body, his face so pale. The EMTs were giving him oxygen. She thought she heard one of them saying, “Pulse is
thready. Pressure dropping. Substantial blood loss. Looks like a clean in-and-out: entry in the back, exit from the lower abdomen. External head injury, too. ETA in five minutes.”

The EMTs eased Beau’s body onto a gurney and took him out to the ambulance. The siren shattered the silence and then seemed to follow the ambulance down the street on the way to the hospital.

One of the officers was still talking to her. She turned toward the sound of his voice.

“I was across the street. Beau’s car is gone.” She pointed in the general direction of the driveway.

“What kind of car?”

“Mercedes. Silver convertible.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the blood on the kitchen tiles. “Is … is he dead?” Her heart clutched at the thought.

“No, ma’am. They’ve taken him to the hospital. Are you feeling okay?” He touched her hand. “You don’t look so good yourself.”

Something about his touch seemed to rouse her. “I have to go. I can’t lose him. Not like this. But I can’t leave the house. What will the Stewarts think?” She reached for one of the towels she had pulled out earlier and slid down off the chair to wipe the floor.

The officer stopped her. “Not yet, ma’am. This is a crime scene. We have to get pictures.”

The shock of his words sent her reeling.

“Oh. Oh.” Then she felt the same odd sensation that had overwhelmed her the day Dave Reynolds had pointed the gun at her. But she couldn’t faint. She had to stay alert. For Beau. But there was blood on the floor. At an open house.

“Ms. Brown, I’m Rachel Stewart.” The woman she had met earlier in the afternoon was leaning over her. “It’s all right. Let us—let us take care of this. The policeman told us what happened. They want you to go with them to the hospital. We’ll take care of this—after they tell us
it’s okay.”

Olivia nodded, her throat dry, her heart pounding. “The hospital. Yes. I have to do that. Beau—oh, my God.”  She sat up, not caring that her skirt was now stained with his blood.

The officer who had been patting her hand helped her up. “I’ll take you to the hospital. Glenn, I’ll be back.”

His partner nodded. “The photographer will be here soon. And evidence guys, too. I think one of the
perps touched that window over there. Maybe we can get a decent print.” He pointed to a smudge on the pristine pane of the sliding door.

Olivia glanced around at the sunroom and the kitchen. It resembled the scene of a bar fight. One kitchen chair lay on its side, two others were out of position in the breakfast nook, and Mrs. Stewart was staring at the bloody towels lying in a heap on the floor.

“I’m so sorry this happened. But I ha— … have to … I have to … to—”

“Yes, you go. We’ll talk later.” The woman waved her out the door.

At the hospital, Olivia sat alone in the waiting room after learning that Beau was still in the emergency room. She was about to use her phone to call Melanie when the doors of the ER opened and Beau was wheeled out and down the hall, an oxygen mask on his face and several people in green walking briskly on either side of the gurney.

She stood up. “Tell me … Is he?”

But no one spoke to her as they walked purposefully past her. She trotted after them down the hall.

“You can’t come in here. We’re taking him to surgery,” a nurse said before the gurney was pushed through a set of double doors and disappeared.

Olivia’s hands flew to her face and she leaned against the wall, afraid she was going to fall down. The nurse reached for her.

“I’ll take you where you can wait.”

Olivia followed the woman into the surgical waiting room, not caring that two people sitting on nearby chairs stared at her blood-stained knees and skirt. Time seemed to fly by as she sat there. Whenever she glanced at the wall clock, too many minutes had been lost and still she waited for someone to tell her something, anything. Not sure she could stand to be alone another minute, she called Beau’s office, thinking she should leave a message for George. 

“Hello, Fiona. Can I leave a message for George?”

“He’s right here, Olivia.”

“Oh. George. Beau’s been shot.” She gasped for breath and tried again. “I don’t know what happened, but his car is gone. I shouldn’t have left the open house, and he was—there was so much blood, and now he’s in surgery—for such a long time.”

“Where are you?” The man’s voice radiated calm. “Are you all right?”

“The hospital. I’ve been here for hours.” She didn’t know what else to say. She closed her phone when the dial tone droned in her ear.

Minutes later, George’s burly arms reached around her and he held her tightly. When he released her and looked into her eyes, she began to cry.

“I shouldn’t have left the house. I wasn’t gone but a few minutes. Maybe if—if—if—”

“Olivia. If he was shot because someone was after his car … they might have shot you, too. Do the police know about the car?”

She nodded. “But I couldn’t remember the license plate or the year.”

He smiled. “No worries. It has a GPS tracking device on it. They’ll find it. I need to tell them. Are they here?”

“I don’t know. One of them brought me, but I think he left. And then they took Beau into surgery.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Oh, George, what if he dies?”

He hugged her again. “That man loves you too much to die. I’ll bet he tried to stop them. Wouldn’t put it past him to do that. He complains about his gung-ho brother, but he’s the same way. I could tell you stories about what he did when he was interning. Let me call the cops about the car.” He headed down the hall then turned back to Olivia. “I’ll be right back, sweetie. You stay there so I’ll know where to find you.”

George headed back toward the entrance to the hospital, pulling out his cell phone as he did so. He was almost to the exit doors when a police officer walked in, escorting a belligerent teenager holding a bloody bandage to his head. 

“Officer, may I speak with you?”

The policeman turned to George after handing the teenager over to a nurse.

“My business partner was assaulted this evening. Shot. I’m told his car was stolen. It has a GPS tracker on it. If you want, I’ll alert the company so they can tell you where the car is.”

The officer pulled out his book. “Type of car?”

“Silver Mercedes SLK.”

“License plate?”

George told him then grinned. “Unless they have it at a chop shop already, you can remotely kill the engine.”

The officer grinned. “We love that feature. Why’d he put it on the car?”

“He figured it was a magnet for joyriders and he used to be fifteen. But I don’t think he ever figured someone would try to kill him for it.”

“Let me get on this. How can I reach you?”

George gave the officer his cell number. “I’ll be here. My partner’s girlfriend is pretty shaken up about all this. I’m going back to sit with her.”

George was holding Olivia’s hand, one arm around her shoulders when a surgeon exited the double doors and approached the cluster of people in the waiting room. “Which of you is here for Mr. James?”

George stood up. “That would be us. What’s the story?”

“One gunshot wound—the bullet went right through him. And, by some miracle, didn’t hit any internal organs. We got the internal bleeding stopped, which was our biggest concern. He’s got a nasty bump on the head, and some skin off one hand. Although he lost a lot of blood, he should be fine.”

“He’ll be fine?” Olivia slid out from under George’s arm back onto the chair, breathing fast, her face losing color. She gave George a wan smile. “He’ll be fine.”

“When can we see him?” George asked the doctor.

“He’s in recovery now. I doubt he’ll be awake until tomorrow. Why don’t you come back then?”

“We’ll do that.” George grasped Olivia’s hand.

She looked at him, her face pinker than before, her breathing steadier. “I’m so relieved.”