Infamous (55 page)

“Tell him,” Alison said as she settled back against a pile of dirt and rocks, “to hurry. And to not blow anything important off with that dynamite.”

It was supposed to be a joke, upbeat and positive—see? She really did think A.J. was going to get her out. But God, it was so hard to breathe, so very hard.

And she had to close her eyes.

“Hold on, Alison,” Jamie said, jolting her awake. “You
hold
on!”

When I popped back outside, A.J. was in the middle of a standoff, because Rob and Charlotte from the FBI had appeared.

Hugh was talking a blue streak, trying to explain that A.J. had
saved
him and Alison from the man who’d done the killing—including that of not just the hapless gun collector up in Alaska, but a second firearms “collector” here in Arizona, too. Meanwhile, the red-haired kid was inching forward, toward the fuse, matchbook hidden in his hand.

A.J., though, had had enough. He held out his hand to
Hugh, gesturing for the matches, which made both Rob and Charlotte refresh their grips on their weapons.

“On the ground
now,”
Rob ordered in a voice that meant business.

“You’re just going to have to shoot me,” A.J. said, as he took the matchbook from Hugh.

And—damn! Rob did just that, or at least I thought he did. It scared the hell out of me, but he’d only discharged his weapon into the ground at A.J.’s feet.

But A.J. didn’t flinch. He just looked at Rob. “I love her,” he said. “The way I know you love Charlotte. I can’t let her die, so shoot me if you have to, but shoot me dead, because I’m gonna keep going until I light this fuse.”

And he turned, and I confess I may have done some heavy-duty praying right about then, because Rob didn’t look happy.

It was Charlotte, though, who spoke up. “Hold your fire,” she told her partner as A.J. sprinted toward the fuse. “Everyone get back and get down,” he told them as he lit it and he, too, ran for cover.

Boom!

It was a magnificent blast, spraying them all with dirt and little pieces of rock.

But A.J. was back at the side of the hill, using Skip’s shovel to dig farther into that crater he’d just made, even before the smoke had cleared.

It would have been a lot easier simply to close her eyes.

Her death would be painless that way—she’d just go to sleep.

This way was torture—forcing her eyes to stay open, forcing air that was much too thin or too poisonous into her lungs, her head pounding with each labored beat of her heart.

Alison heard the explosion and turned off the flashlight, waiting for a stream of sunlight to guide her to the fresh air. But there was no sunlight.

And no fresh air.

The disappointment hurt more than her lungs or her head.
She tried to turn the flashlight back on, but it had rolled away, out of her reach, and she couldn’t find it.

She was going to die, alone and in the dark.

But then she
could
hear something. Digging. Someone was digging. Somewhere. Calling her:
Alison!

It was A.J. She couldn’t call back to him, she couldn’t even tell which way the sound was coming from.

But then Jamie was there, glowing like an angel in the dark, imploring her, calling to her:
This way! Come on, Alison. This way
 …

Slowly, painfully, she began to crawl toward his light.

A.J. was a machine. He was digging. Only digging. The shovel was an extension of his arms, and when it was no longer useful, he threw it down and used his bare hands.

He was going to get Alison out of that mine. Or die trying.

Hugh was beside him. Rob and Charlotte, too—helping him.

Finally,
finally
his hand broke free to the other side of the wall of earth. Sand and dirt rained down on him, but he had what he hoped was a clear hole. He worked to make it larger, even larger, and he tried to look inside, but the mine was so dark, he couldn’t see a thing.

“I need a flashlight!” he shouted.

As Hugh scrambled to get him that, A.J. reached his hand and then his arm into the darkness, praying he wouldn’t hit another wall of solid rock.

But he didn’t touch rock or dirt or sand.

He touched human flesh, another hand, grasping, reaching for him.

Alison. It was Alison!

“She’s alive!”

Her fingers encircled his wrist and he grabbed her arm, pulling her closer and using his other hand and arm to widen the hole.

With a superhuman heave, he pulled her up and out of the mine and into his arms.

Her lips were dry and tinged with blue from lack of oxygen
and she was covered with dirt and dust and gasping for air. Her injured arm, where she’d been shot yesterday, was bleeding again—the stitches had opened. But she was alive, and to A.J., she had never looked so good.

“We need an ambulance,” A.J. told Rob, but Charlotte was ahead of the game.

“I’ve already called for a Medevac,” she told them. “And the paramedics from Jubilation. They’ll get here soon with oxygen.”

“A.J.,” Alison whispered. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t believe you.”

“Shhh.” He smiled down at her as he held her there in the hot morning sun. “You made one little mistake. Big deal.”

“I nearly got you killed,” she breathed, as she started to cry.

“That was yesterday,” he told her. “This is today. One day at a time, remember?”

She laughed through her tears at that. “I don’t think that applies to something like this.”

“Sure it does,” he said. “Trust me on this. It applies to everything.”

“I
do
trust you,” she whispered.

And then Hugh was there, with a golf umbrella that he must’ve had in the back of his Jeep, providing them with a little shade, which was nice. He shifted slightly so that Rob was protected from the sun, too.

Poor Rob looked shell-shocked, particularly when Alison turned to him and said, “Jamie wants me to tell you to man up and give Charlotte the ring.”

“Jamie,” Rob repeated. “The ghost.”

They all nodded—A.J. and Alison and Hugh.

“He’s absolutely real,” Hugh told him. “Jamie, go ahead and do your crazy thing to Rob.”

“Holy
shit,”
Rob said after Jamie must’ve done just that.

In the distance, A.J. could hear sirens—ambulances and a fire engine and probably state police cars and the sheriff’s vehicles, as well as security details from the movie set.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do to me,” he told Alison, whose breathing was getting a little easier, thank God. “Where they’re going to take me. But I’ll make sure Jamie stays close to you, okay?” He lifted his head. “Jamie, you hear that?”

Jamie told him yes.

Alison nodded, worry in her eyes. “Why would they take you away?” she whispered. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Sometimes it takes awhile for the truth to catch up,” he told her. “I’m a veteran with a mental health discharge. People are always going to look at me sideways and assume that I’m maybe a little dangerous.”

“Not while I’m around,” Alison said.

“And not while I’m around either,” Rob chimed in. “You’ll be going to the hospital along with Dr. Carter. I’ll make sure of it.”

Rob—good man—held to his promise to not let anyone take A.J. away. He even got into a shouting match with a pair of state troopers over it, but he didn’t back down.

He was helped when A.J.’s friend Craig Lutz and his SUV filled with other former SEALs made the scene. They were a convincing bunch, that’s for sure, each one bigger than the last. Lutz hugged A.J. and kissed Alison and made damn sure that when Alison—oxygen mask on her face, blood pressure cuff on her arm—was whisked aboard that medical chopper, A.J. was right there, by her side.

Promising to be in touch, he and his team went zooming back to San Diego, where duty called.

Hugh, meanwhile, was busy recounting the horrific events of the past night, giving a statement to Charlotte, who, it turns out, was the highest-ranking FBI official on the scene.

Which made her Rob’s boss, which I found interesting.

The bodies were bagged, the remainder of the dynamite was contained, the trucks impounded, and the place where Brian’s body was buried in the rubble was clearly marked.

Excavation equipment would be brought in over the next few days so that his remains would be recovered.

He was identified as one Stewart Brian Bacca from his truck registration—can you imagine going through childhood as Stew Bacca?

Still, I’m not sure it’s enough to excuse his choice to live a soulless existence as a hired killer.

I still didn’t understand exactly what had happened, but I
did
know that both Rob and Charlotte were supremely satisfied with the outcome.

Apparently, there was a very, very bad man by the name of Stanley Parker, whose home in L.A. was being surrounded by a SWAT team at that very moment.

“We’ll get a call,” Charlotte told Rob, “when it’s over.”

One by one, the emergency vehicles had left the entrance to the mine that I’d won in a poker game over a hundred years earlier.

My FBI friends, Charlotte and Rob, were alone, walking back down the trail to where they’d left their car when they’d decided to check out the gunshots Charlotte had heard coming from these hills, early in the morning.

They silently climbed into their car, and Rob—who was behind the wheel—started the engine and blasted the air-conditioning. I joined them, in the backseat, mostly because I didn’t have anywhere pressing to go. I wanted to give Alison and A.J. a little alone time.

I was also curious, I admit.

“That,” Rob said, “was weird.” He turned his head to look at Charlotte, who looked like she needed a long, quiet nap. She nodded.

“It was,” she said. “I know most people are a little crazy—who’s not? And don’t get me wrong, I love that we helped catch Stanley Parker. But a ghost? Come on.”

Rob chuckled and looked a little embarrassed as he said, “I think the ghost is real. It walked through me. It was … kind of cool.”

She looked at him, and he shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “A.J. knew all that stuff about us
that … He knew it, even though I swept our trailer with a bug detector twice a day. I don’t know how—”

“Long-range listening device,” Charlotte suggested.

But Rob shook his head. “No,” he said. “There were things he knew—that Alison knew, too—that I didn’t talk about.”

“Like what?” Charlotte asked.

And Rob—good man—did it. He dug into his pocket and pulled out that little jeweler’s box. “Like this,” he said as he handed it to her. “They knew about this. They knew that I’ve been carrying it around. For you.”

Her eyes were wide as she looked from it—it was undeniably a ring box—to him.

“After the ghost walked through me,” Rob told her, “Alison—she can see him and hear him. He told her to tell me to, um, man up, I think is what he said. And to give this to you. Along with, I assume, the right words, which would be … Marry me.”

Charlotte swallowed and opened the box, and exhaled her surprise.

I leaned over to get another look. “Nice choice, Rob,” I told him, even though he couldn’t hear me. It was a decent-sized diamond in a simple solitaire setting—a serious investment for a government employee.

And Rob, probably realizing that the words may not have come out exactly right, rephrased. “Will you marry me?” he whispered. “God, I love you so much, Charlie. I want to spend my life with you. Please say yes.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said as she slipped that ring on her finger, and hauled old Rob in for a kiss.

Which, of course, is when I popped out.

Alison was allowed to shower before the cast was put on her ankle.

It was broken—just a hairline fracture that would heal quickly, if she took care of it properly.

The application of the cast was quick enough—it was the trip through the hospital hallways via wheelchair that seemed to take forever. But finally Alison was returned to the private room where she would spend the night, as the doctors monitored a bump she’d gotten on her head when the mine caved in.

There was very slight swelling, and it was probably nothing, but overnight observation was recommended.

A.J. wasn’t happy about that—his worry for her was all over his face. He’d showered and shaved while she was gone, and someone from the set had brought him his backpack, so his clothes were clean, but he still looked considerably worse for the wear. His hands were a mess—he’d actually needed a few stitches from clawing at the earth, trying to reach her before her air ran out.

He’d saved her life today—this man she’d been afraid to take a chance on.

“Hey,” she said, because the alternative was to burst into tears at the sight of him. “Good news—nothing else is broken. Just bruised.”

A.J. smiled as he got to his feet and helped the nurse assist Alison into the hospital bed. “Yeah, the doctor already came and told me. That’s great.”

He waited until the woman was gone and the door shut before he leaned over and kissed Alison soundly. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, and she couldn’t help but think of Melody’s description of Jamie’s sweet kisses, from her diaries. Melody, too, had been rescued from certain death in a dark, airless prison by a man who loved her more than life itself.

And when A.J. would have pulled back, Alison clung to him, unwilling to let him go. So he sat down on the edge of her bed, and just held her in his arms.

“I was sure I was going to die,” she admitted into the soft cotton of his shoulder, as he stroked her back, her hair.

She felt him breathing, felt the solid beat of his heart as he didn’t respond with false bravado, with
I’d never let that happen
.… Instead he nodded, as always, quietly honest. “I was terrified, too.” He laughed. “Thank God for Jamie. And Hugh.”

Alison pulled back to look at him. “Thank God for you.”

“It was a team effort,” he told her.

But she wasn’t fooled. “Jamie said … Did you really tell the FBI to shoot you?”

A.J. made a face, a little embarrassed. “I might’ve said … something like that.”