Shooting Starr (10 page)

O
n the day Caitlyn Brown was to be released, the hospital held a press conference on the promenade outside its main public entrance. The hospital's administrator and attorney were featured, as was the doctor in charge of the patient's care and treatment. So were Caitlyn's parents and the attorney they'd hired on their daughter's behalf. Various law enforcement agencies were represented, including the FBI, the district attorney's office and the local chief of police.

Throughout the conference, fit young men with somber faces and flinty eyes kept watch from the steps in front of the crowd, while somewhat scruffier individuals of both genders bearing microphones and video cameras filled the sidewalks and overflowed into the street, snarling traffic for blocks around. The hospital parking lot was choked with satellite trucks and vans bearing the logos of every major news agency in the country and a fair number from overseas—it had been a relatively quiet news week and this was the niece of the former leader of the free world, after all.

C.J. watched the news conference on a television set
mounted high on the wall of a waiting area on the hospital's quiet third floor. Except for one big-bellied, ruddy-faced man leafing through a tabloid newspaper in the row of chairs across from him, he was alone. Closed-captioning was off; the TV sound was on, turned down low.

Leaning tensely forward, clasped hands fidgeting, C.J. listened to the hospital personnel tell how Ms. Brown had received the best possible care and how pleased everyone was with her recovery thus far. Then he listened while the doctor explained about the swelling inside Caitlyn's brain, a result of the bullet that had grazed her skull, that was affecting the optic nerve. And no, there was no way of knowing at this point whether her blindness would be permanent; they would have to wait for the swelling to go down in order to determine whether or not there was significant damage to the optic nerve itself.

At that point the red-faced man, who was wearing overalls with a short-sleeved T-shirt, and a ball cap bearing a tractor manufacturer's logo over thick iron-gray hair, gave his newspaper a shake and grunted, “Helluva thing, innit?”

Without taking his eyes from the screen, C.J. agreed that it was. He was watching the law enforcement contingent take over the microphones, shuffling around and muttering as they got themselves sorted into the previously agreed-upon speaking order. After some throat-clearing and fidgeting, the chief of police admitted there was no new progress to report in the search for the gunman who'd killed Mary Kelly Vasily and wounded Ms. Brown and two police officers. And that it was too early to determine whether the body of a male Caucasian in mid to late forties that had been discovered shot to death and dumped locally near an abandoned mill had any connection with the case.

The D.A. then stepped up to assert that the decision had been made not to return Caitlyn Brown to jail, and that the FBI would be placing her in protective custody at an undisclosed location.

The FBI representative's remarks consisted mostly of “I'm sorry, I can't comment on that,” in response to questions fired at him from all sides by members of the press corps.

About the time the questioners were showing signs of impatience and the organizers of the press conference looked as though they might be getting ready to pack it in, a change came over the crowd. As if, C.J. thought, a stiff wind had sprung up out of somewhere. The young blond CNN reporter came into view, looking excited and holding a microphone in one hand. She had the other hand up to the side of her head, cupped over her ear.

“…word that Caitlyn Brown is coming out of the hospital
at this very moment.
Tim, I'm going to try and get over there—”

There followed a confusion of rapidly changing pictures, garbled sounds and jerky images, and then a partly obscured view of the hospital's ambulance entrance, where someone in a wheelchair had apparently just emerged through the automatic sliding door. The wheelchair was being propelled with some urgency across the pavement to where three dark sedans with tinted windows waited, engines idling. There were only glimpses of the chair and its occupant, surrounded as they were by hospital personnel in light-colored slacks and tunics and men in neckties and dark suits. Nevertheless, it was possible to determine that the figure in the chair was slender and slightly built and was wearing dark blue sweats and a black-and-yellow baseball cap that didn't quite cover the bandages swathing her head. Also a pair of dark-rimmed sunglasses.

“Why,” the red-faced man said in an awed voice, “looka there, she ain't but a little bit of a thang.”

C.J. nodded absently. His eyes were riveted on the TV screen and he was trying his best to follow the jerky, jostled images of a pale face all but obscured by huge dark lenses. Then there was only a closing car door, and dark-tinted
windows reflecting back excited faces, open mouths and shoving microphones against a blue September sky.

The red-faced man said sadly, “It's just a shame, innit? A real shame…”

C.J. let out the breath he'd been holding and agreed that it was indeed a shame. Then, murmuring, “Would you excuse me?” he pushed himself up from the chair and lurched out of the waiting area. Halfway down an empty hallway across from an elevator marked Hospital Personnel Only, he pushed open a door, stepped into a room and closed the door behind him.

“Okay,” he said, a little out of breath, “they're off. How's everybody doing in here? You ready to go?”

“I'm ready,” Caitlyn said, breathless as he was. Her silvery eyes stared resolutely into middle distance as one hand lifted to adjust the scarf that framed her face, wound loosely and draped over her shoulders in the style of an Afghani woman. The other hand, relaxed in her lap, cradled a video camera.

Jake Redfield stood behind Caitlyn's wheelchair. His deep-set eyes, intent and somber, were on his wife. “Okay, then—I guess this is it.” He took a breath, and it occurred to C.J. that the FBI man might not be as cool about things as he looked. “Eve, you know what—”

“Yes, love, I know what to do.” Her tone was somber, too, but her eyes danced. “By now, I've made sure everyone in my crew knows about my new protégée from Afghanistan, here for a ‘few days' to learn about documentary filmmaking. Her name is Jamille, by the way—which means beautiful, I think, in one of those languages over there. Perfect, isn't it?” Her smile burst forth, as if she couldn't keep it in check a moment longer.

She dropped into a crouch beside the wheelchair and placed both hands on Caitlyn's arm. Softly, as if for her only, she said, “Okay, just like we practiced. I'll be right beside you, you'll be able to feel me touching you all the
time, but if you feel lost or woozy or anything, just stop where you are and keep looking through the camera. I'll get you, don't worry.”

“I'm not worried,” Caitlyn said staunchly. “You just have to keep telling me where to point this thing so I don't look like an idiot.”

Eve chuckled richly. “We'll do the clock thing, okay? Twelve o'clock is straight ahead, ten's to the left, two's to the right, six is behind you. Then high or low—”

“So
that's
where it comes from,” Caitlyn said in a wondering tone. “‘Watch your six.' I've always wondered….”

“It means watch your back,” Jake said. He kissed his wife and added a husky, “That goes for all of you. I don't have to tell you—”

“No,” Eve murmured, gently smiling, “you don't. We'll be fine. Don't worry.”

“I think it's best we leave the chair here,” Jake said, frowning at nobody in particular. “On the off chance somebody sees you exit the elevator. You okay with that, Caitlyn?”

She nodded and said, “Sure.” She was already fumbling for the wheelchair's footrests with her toes.

C.J. dropped to one knee and folded the footrests out of her way. Then he took her feet, one at a time, and lowered them, like fragile artifacts, to the floor. She was wearing sandals, he noticed, and her ankles felt slender and strong in his hands. He rose, breathing hard and slightly lightheaded, and put a hand under her elbow.

Murmuring a polite and barely audible, “Thank you,” she allowed him to steady her for a second, then unfolded herself in that graceful, lighter-than-air way she had. The robe settled with a whisper around her ankles. “I'm okay—I'll be fine.” Her voice was steady; the breathlessness was only excitement.

“Two o'clock high,” Eve sang out, testing her, and C.J. barely ducked in time as Caitlyn swung the video camera
toward him. He caught a glimpse of parted lips and silvery eyes as Eve said with laughter in her voice, “Well done!”

Jake was waiting with poorly disguised impatience beside the door. At his wife's nod he opened it a crack, gave the hallway a quick glance, then pulled the door wide. “All clear.”

C.J. stepped across the hallway to the elevator and punched a button. Counted heartbeats until the doors clunked open.

“Off we go,” Eve breathed from close behind him.

He turned and saw that she had linked her arm with Caitlyn's. He wanted to touch her, too—for reassurance, maybe, but for whose? Anyway, it didn't matter, because he didn't do it.

When the two women were on the elevator and had turned to face the open door, Eve blew her husband a kiss, then looked at C.J. and winked. He wanted to say to her, “You take care of her, now, you hear?” But again he didn't.

“We'll be right behind you,” Jake said.

As the doors slowly closed, C.J. was conscious of a peculiar hollowness under his ribs. As he and Jake made their way to the stairs and down the four flights to the parking garage, moving with a tense and silent urgency, he felt as if he'd just put a newly hatched chick on a plank and shoved it out in the middle of a lake.

Something in the silence all around him made him steal a glance at the man next to him, and he saw that the FBI man's jaw looked as tense and bunched up as his was. He wondered if Jake was feeling the same way about Eve. Well, why wouldn't he? She was his wife, after all.

And Caitlyn was…

My responsibility.
That's all. And he didn't know what he'd do if he let anything happen to her. Anything more than had happened already.

He and Jake found a vantage point near the garage en
trance where they could watch the hive of activity around the media trucks from behind a planter filled with crepe myrtle. Over by the hospital's main entrance, some of the on-camera reporters were doing their wrap-up pieces against the backdrop of the building, while others were still finding people in the crowd to interview. Quite a number of people seemed to be doing nothing in particular, while others moved with the efficiency of a colony of ants, lifting, loading, packing up equipment and preparing to move on.

“There they are,” C.J. said suddenly, his voice a fair imitation of a crow squawking from the top of a telephone pole. He'd picked up the glint of sunshine on Eve's blond head, and next to that the flutter of the pale blue scarf draped loosely around Caitlyn's. He saw Eve lean close and point, and Caitlyn swing her video camera upward toward a helicopter hovering overhead, just exactly as if she could see it there.

Jake didn't say anything, but C.J. knew he'd seen them, too. There was a certain
quickening,
a kind of electricity, an alertness that had nothing to do with the senses. Whatever it was, he recognized it in Jake because it was going on inside himself, too, and he felt a sense of kinship with the man that didn't have a thing to do with blood. Funny thing was, he didn't even know Jake Redfield all that well—they'd run into each other at the major family get-togethers, and that was about it. Now, though, he found himself thinking about the man, wondering what made an FBI agent tick, and how it must be to feel about a woman the way he obviously did for his wife, Eve.

And then out of the blue he was thinking about his brothers and their wives—Jimmy Joe and his feisty, redheaded Mirabella, Troy and Charly, with that dry sense of humor and chip-on-the-shoulder attitude of hers. For the first time ever in his life he thought about the people he knew who were head over heels in love with their mates, and knew how lucky they were. And for the first time ever in his life
he knew that there was an emptiness inside himself and that it was called loneliness.

What he couldn't figure out was why he was having those thoughts and feelings while his eyes followed, as if stuck to her by a magnet, the slow and graceful progress of a woman who was, in all the ways that counted, a stranger to him. Yeah, a stranger; she was right about that, after all.

Strange? What else would you call a blind woman with silver eyes, a hijacker of trucks, a rescuer of battered women, and a kidnapper of children—an incredibly beautiful woman who at the moment was hiding herself and her bandaged head in the all-concealing robes of a woman from Afghanistan?

Strange…or crazy, maybe?

Jake, who'd been scanning the thinning crowd with eagle eyes, suddenly seemed to relax. He let out a breath and muttered, “She's something else, isn't she?”

C.J. replied fervently, “She sure is.”

He was fairly certain they were talking about two different women, but that didn't matter. They were most likely both right.

They stayed where they were until the crowd began to thin out and they saw Eve give the wrap-it-up signal to her crew. They watched the two women make their way to the van followed by the other members of the crew, and then the seemingly endless process of getting all the equipment stowed, buttoned down and loaded up. Finally, Eve and Caitlyn climbed into the back of the van and disappeared from view. The rest of the crew sorted themselves out and found seats. Doors slammed. Nobody but the two men watching from behind the crepe myrtle paid any attention whatsoever as the van pulled slowly out of the hospital parking lot and bumped into the street.