Not Even Past (11 page)

“Bill? You’re here?”

“I’m here,” he said.

The lead ball in Donne’s stomach exploded and pain radiated through his entire body. He got to his feet in time to see her fall into Bill’s arms.

She said his name. Again.

Bill held her tight with his left hand. His gun was still in his right. Donne dropped his head and started to walk toward them. The corners of his eyes stung and his cheeks felt wet.

He thought of Kate. He should call Kate.

“Thank you, Jackson,” Martin said. “But I don’t need your help anymore.”

Bill Martin lifted his free arm, and time stopped for Jackson Donne. He didn’t have time to say anything.

Martin pulled the trigger three times.

D
ONNE’S EYES
snapped open and he gasped for breath. He was on his back, but he wasn’t sure for how long. His nerves, muscles, and brain were screaming for him to get up and run. A warm, thick liquid was making his clothes sticky. His body felt heavy and he was having trouble getting to his feet. Every time he tried to push himself up, he fell back down.

Intellectually, he knew he’d been shot. He was getting cold. He knew he was covered in blood. And it was hard to breathe.

The funny thing was it didn’t hurt.

Donne rolled over on to his stomach and started to crawl. The warm liquid now spread to his pants and palms of his hands. He looked at them and saw they were covered in red.

This is how I’m going to die,
he thought.
Covered in blood in a warehouse in Perth Amboy.

He pushed himself forward and tried to figure out if Bill Martin and Jeanne were still there. His only urge was to crawl, find a way to escape, but part of him expected to be shot again. One last bullet to the brain to make everything go dark.

Air was getting caught in the back of his throat, and he spit to try and clear his mouth. He wondered where he’d been shot and why it didn’t hurt. When he was a cop, Martin and he interviewed a gangbanger who’d been dealing dope to college kids. The guy told them he’d been shot three or four times, but it didn’t hurt. The heat from the bullet numbs the wound.

“People don’t scream because of the pain,” the guy said. “They scream because they’re scared to die.”

And Donne realized he wasn’t screaming. Maybe he should. Yell for help. Yell for his mother. Yell for someone.

He pulled himself forward some more, away from the chair Jeanne had been bound to, and toward the office. He couldn’t see Martin and Jeanne. They must have left.

Did he black out? Had he been dead for a few minutes? Why did they leave without finishing the job?

Donne got some air down into his lungs. It helped. He pushed forward, imagining a trail of blood behind him, like that Sean Connery scene in
The Untouchables.
He was a slug. A shot and dying slug, leaving a trail.

He tried to talk, but nothing had come out. He wondered if he’d been shot in the throat, and that’s why he couldn’t speak.

Listen
, he told himself.
Try to hear something that can help you. A truck, a ship in the distance. Maybe a ringing phone
.

His phone. He could dial 911. Even if they couldn’t hear him, they could track the call, couldn’t that?

Or was that only landlines?

He could hear the lapping water again. The wind blew through the open hangar of the warehouse, and metal creaked. No one drove by, that he could tell. It seemed like his hearing was malfunctioning, though. The wind would fade in and out, and the lapping water seemed to transition to static.

Inching backward along the floor, Donne moved his arms from in front of him down to his right pocket. He slipped his hand inside and found his iPhone. He wrapped his fingers around hit and started to pull. That’s when the pain came. It was hot and burned and shot throughout his body, radiating out ward like sonar.

He opened his mouth to scream, but only a gasp of air came out.

He inhaled again and pulled on his phone. It slipped from his pocket, but once his hand was free, his fingers went slack. The phone clattered out of his hands. Donne tried to twist his head to look for it, but he couldn’t. His motor functions were impaired. His limbs weren’t working, and even if he found his phone, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to dial.

Better to focus on crawling.

Donne pulled himself forward again, his nails digging into the grooved floor. He pulled himself ahead, each inch feeling like a country mile. The door swung open and closed in the wind before him. At this point, there was no plan. All he wanted was to get out into the open. Try to get to where someone could see him.

Where someone could find him.

Stay alive long enough to be found and get to a hospital. He opened his mouth again and tried to force the words out.

“Help,” hissed from his lips. “Me.”

It worked. But now he was out of breath. The strength had gone out of him. He couldn’t pull himself any longer. His arms went slack and his head slammed into the floor. He was able to turn it sideways, as if he was sleeping on his stomach.

The static faded and he could hear the water again. Somewhere a bird crowed. He worked his mouth again, fought air into his lungs.

The image of Jeanne formed before his eyes. But it twisted and morphed into Kate. She reached for him. Donne tried to lift his arm to reach for her. Like a professional wrestler mugging for the crowd, he got his arm up, but it slammed back into the ground.

“Help me,” he said. A full sentence this time.

“Oh my God, Jackson! Oh my God!”

Brakes screeched. Car doors opened and closed.

Donne shut his eyes and waited to die. Kate faded away from him. Pain bubbled in his chest and his side. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t muster the strength.

Footsteps clattered against the metal floor. More than one person.

“Mr. Donne?” he heard. The voice was familiar. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. It’s good you called.”

He tried to open his eyes, but it felt like anvils had been tied to the lids. He couldn’t call for anyone.

“No, no, no. You can’t die.”
Was Kate really here?

“Your friend made quite a mess outside.” The man was crouching over him.

Donne turned his head and forced his eyes open. He looked up, but could only see a body covered in shadow.

The shadow reached out his hand.

“You can’t die yet, Jackson.” Kate’s voice was shrill and whimpering.

The world went black.

B
ILL MARTIN
wanted to ask a million questions, but he felt like Jeanne should start. Jeanne, however, didn’t say a word. She reclined the passenger seat and had her forearm resting over her eyes.

The Parkway going south was empty, which was a good thing, because Martin was having a hell of a time concentrating. His hands wanted to shake, they begged him to shake, but he gripped the steering wheel hard to stop them. His knuckles turned white instead.

Twice he opened his mouth, then shut it again. Instead of talking, he stared ahead at the glowing lights of a sedan or two in the distance.

“W
HERE ARE
we?” Jeanne snapped her head up off the rest.

Before Martin could answer, Jeanne said, “No. No, no, no. We can’t go here, Bill.”

“We have to figure things out,” he said. “All of us.”

Martin turned down the Bakers’ street. The garbage had been removed from the curbs. Not too many cars were parked on the street.It felt like a ghost town.

And here he was with a living ghost.

“You will get them killed, Bill. They will die.”

“What are you talking about? What is going on?”

“Turn the car around.”

He rolled forward, scanning the house fronts, looking for her parents’ place. It seemed further up the road this time, as opposed to this afternoon.

“Turn the car around, Bill.”

“No one followed us here. I made sure of it.”

“Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

Martin pulled the car over. They weren’t in front of her parents’ place. Not yet. But he couldn’t have this conversation and drive at the same time.

“I don’t know who we’re dealing with, Jeanne. As far as I knew this morning you were still dead. And—” He wanted to bring up William’s name. It’d been rattling around in his brain all day. But he wasn’t ready to confront that part just yet.

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t even been here.”

“Why did they track down Jackson, then?”

The look on her face said it all. At that moment, it dawned on him. She hadn’t even flinched when he shot Jackson Donne. She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. He couldn’t keep his from hands shaking if he tried.

“I don’t know.”

“Who is after you?”

She reached out and touched Martin’s face. It wasn’t a caress and it wasn’t loving, but his cheek still burned warm at her touch.

“Go home. Let me run again.”

Martin shook his head. “Can’t.”

“It’s been six years, Bill.”

Martin reached over and turned down the radio. The air-conditioner was pumping, but everything else felt very still. His shoulders were loose, but his stomach was tight. He’d hoped that finding Jeanne would cause his hands to go still, but the shaking was worse than ever. Part of him thought maybe he needed a doctor to check them out.

“I have so many questions.”

Jeanne shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Where have you been?”

“I can’t.”

Now the tightness in his stomach travelled up to his shoulders. He slammed his hands down on the steering wheel and the horn beeped. Jeanne flinched.

“I saved
you
!” Inside his shoes, his toes curled.

“I saved myself. Six years ago.”

“And tonight?”

She shrugged again. Martin wanted to slam the steering wheel again but restrained himself.

“I would have figured it out.” She crossed her legs. “I’m trying to save you. I’m still trying to save my parents, and I’m trying to save William.”

“You let me believe he was dead too.” Martin spit it out.

Jeanne turned pale.

“Years ago, years ago you told me he was mine. And then you died.”

Jeanne didn’t say a word.

“You needed me to hurt. Because if I was hurt, I wouldn’t dig.”

“I’m going to leave now,” she said.

“No.”

She reached for the door handle, but Martin was quicker. He hit the autolock and put the car back into drive. Accelerated before she could get out.

“We’re going to talk to your parents. We’re going to see William.”

“This is a mistake, Bill.”

Martin shrugged. He thought about the day she walked out of his life. How he wanted to chase her.

“I’ve made them before,” he said.

“Please. Let’s find a motel at least,” Jeanne said.

Martin could see her parents’ home now. There was a light on in the front room, and the porch light was on as well. Someone was still awake. He accelerated a little bit, and then pulled to the right to make a U-turn. He would park in front of their house.

“Please. I can’t see them tonight. Not like this.”

Martin stopped the car before making the U-turn. He looked at her. The bruises on her arms were turning yellow. There was a lump on her chin, swollen and red. Her eyes had dark shades under them.