Spencer-3 (17 page)

Spencer dropped to the floor and stared at Dee. She had two bloody stains on her chest and he could see the bullet hole in her head. He was still sitting there when a uniformed officer came up and asked him his name.

“Yes, I’m Spencer Grant. Is there any news...have you heard from Detective O’Malley yet?”

“Yes, sir. She called the captain and told him she knew where Martinez was and that she would contact him when she was sure he was there. Captain Tucker said I should take you home; there wasn’t anything you could do here.” Spencer couldn’t go home. He had to be there when Cait got Meggie for him.

He knew that she would too. She would do whatever it took to get her back. But at what cost to herself, he wasn’t sure. He nodded to the officer and stood. He pulled out his cell and called his mother.

“Mom, Meggie’s been...Cait, she’s hurt, and I...Paddy is dead and so is Dee. I hurt her, Mom. I sent her to her death. And now Meggie has been taken and I told Cait she had to...Christ, Mom, I need you.” He was sobbing now and had to lean against the wall for support.

“We’ll be right there. We just heard on the news about the shootout. They’re saying that twelve are dead and three are injured. Everyone is here and I’m rounding them up right now. Spencer, she’ll get Meggie back for you. I don’t know all that’s going on, but I’m sure that Cait will make her safe.” Spencer was sure she would too. And with getting his daughter back, he would lose Cait too—one way or another.

~CHAPTER 19~

Cait walked as far as she could then finally had to sit down on the sidewalk.

Her head felt as if a jackhammer was pounding inside and her chest hurt to breathe. The wound in her leg had been wrapped by the ambulance attendant, but she had had to remove it when it soaked though. Her dark jeans did a better job of hiding the blood than the padding did stopping the bleeding. She looked toward where she had come from and noticed the trail of blood. Shit, that can’t be good, she thought with a giggle.

She needed to get to the bus station downtown and then to the drop car she had placed when she had been able to move once she got to Ohio. But the way she was losing blood and as dizzy as she was, she would never make it to either place if she tried walking. Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed the taxi service.

They told her it would be ten minutes and she spent that time reading the text messages that had piled up and then the voice messages. There were four messages from Spencer that she saved and two from Captain Tucker. He had left her his phone numbers, including his home and cell, and she thought she might need them later. The rest she deleted. The texts were mostly from Tucker.

Though he had basically left the same information on voice mail, she still kept them. By the time she had finished, the cab pulled up.

The ride to the bus station was not long, but it was enough time that Cait could rest. She took inventory of her weapons and ammo and then of herself.

She had three full clips left and both her weapons and one that belonged to her uncle. She wiped furiously at the tears that fell when she thought about his and Aunt Dee’s death, but knew that she had one more thing to finish before she could mourn them. Meggie would be home for supper or Cait would die trying, and there was a good likelihood that she would.

She had a bullet wound in her leg that she had gotten when one of the wounded had fired at her when Cait had tried to move closer to the garage. The bullet had gone through, which was good, but it had been in the large muscle in her thigh and hurt like hell. The wound in her arm was not so bad, just a graze about three inches long. It probably needed to be stitched close, but she wasn’t worried about it right now. She was afraid to look at her chest, especially after she saw the face of the ambulance attendant when he had removed her vest. He had told her that she was going to need surgery again, and that he was surprised and impressed that she could move at all. So was she, actually. The bullet wound in her head hurt the most. Martinez had fired at her from such a short distance; she knew he could not miss. But Meggie had jerked him, Cait had seen, and thrown his arm off. The police pulling up was probably all that prevented him from firing again at her.

The wound was just at the right temple and had laid open her head from there to the back of her skull. She knew from past experience that head wounds bled a lot, but this was more than that. Cait was seeing blurry and she was constantly fighting dizziness. Being sick to her stomach and heaving whenever she stopped to rest didn’t help either. By the time the cab pulled up in front of the bus station, she had rested enough that she was able to walk in without anyone noticing her.

When she had first gotten around to coming here, it was the middle of the night and it had been busy. Now it was the day after a major holiday and it was fairly quiet. She moved to the lockers as she pulled out her key. Locker twenty-four was still closed and her things, thankfully, were still inside.

Pulling out the heavy duffle, she took it to the bathroom and went into one of the larger stalls. She hated to use the handicapped one, but she had to change her clothes and fix her leg and needed privacy and room to do so. Besides, she thought, she could not get much more handicapped than she currently was. She nearly giggled again, but stopped it before it could pass her lips.

The first thing she pulled out was the first-aid kit. It was one of the larger ones and she knew that she could repair most of the damage that she could see with it. Opening it up, she pulled out the scissors and began cutting away her pants. Her phone rang again while she was working. She didn’t answer it.

Spencer had called her six times in the hour’s times since she had seen him at the scene. She wasn’t mad at him, but knew that whatever he had to say, she didn’t want to hear it. Cait had screwed up; they both knew it, and him telling her again was not going to help her right now.

She had removed most of the pant leg and had washed the area as best she could when it rang again. This time it was CO Hunter. She debated answering it, but decided what the hell? In for a penny, in for a pound, as her uncle had said.

“I’m busy right now, why don’t you call back tomorrow?” She winced when he started cussing at her, not so much from what he was saying, but the volume in which he was doing it. She started sewing together the bullet hole until he calmed down.

“Damn it, girl, what the fuck are you trying to prove? You gotta death wish or something? Wait for my group to get to you. From what I hear, you ain’t in such good shape anyway.”

“Gee, Capt., way to be encouraging. Want maybe I should go out and flag down the first bad guy I see and let him know that I can barely move, so he should go ahead and kill me now?” She finished off the stitch and knotted the thread.

Taking the little pair of scissors, she snipped the thread and then started on the back wound. She had to wipe the sweat off her face twice during the procedure; the pain was excruciating.

“How much longer you gonna be at the bus station? You must have a plan in place.”

Cait stopped sewing and leaned her head back against the wall. “Martinez has two places in Columbus. I thought I’d take the bus to the middle of them and then take a cab from there. The bus I want is leaving in thirty minutes. I’m going to his house first.”

“Sounds like a plan. Keep me updated and I’ll pass it on to Tucker for you.

You armed?”

“Not well. I have the one piece I had with me when I left the house but no extra ammo. I did have a knife, but I traded it for the money to get here. I’m hurt pretty bad, Capt. I hope I can make it.”

“I have no doubt you’ll see this to the end, O’Malley. I’ll see what I can do about having one of Tucker’s men at the station for you when you arrive. Call me when you get there and I’ll tell you what I have.” She hung up after he did.

Hunter was in on it. She had always wondered how Cantel and his men had known where to find her at the range, and now she knew. She looked down at the phone he had given her at the hospital when hers had been broken at the first shooting. She had never taken it apart. She was glad now that she had not taken it with her everywhere she had gone.

Rummaging through the bag again, she pulled out the small cell phone and turned it on. She finished up the wound in the back of her leg and started wrapping it tight as she dialed. After three rings, he answered.

“Did you send those folders off for me?” she asked when he answered. She hoped her uncle and she had been right about this man, but now, she had no choice.

“I hand delivered them myself just now. Fact is, I’m still in their driveway.

They’re all at the mother’s house. Wasn’t too happy to see me, ‘cause I wouldn’t give them anything, but I can live with it. That man, Spencer, I don’t think he’ll be able to shit for a month I crawled so far up his ass for what he did to you,” Captain Tucker told her.

“He’s entitled to his opinion. In fact, it doesn’t differ that much from my own. Hunter just called. We were right. He’s as deep as he can be. He knows where I am and he is supposed to call you with information on my whereabouts.”

“And you gonna share with me where you are too? It would be nice to be in on some of what’s going on, seeing as how it’s going on in my town. You know where that little girl is, don’t you, O’Malley?”

“Yes. I’m going to go to his house. It’s near the Scioto River. Do you have someone you can trust to help me out? I may need a ride there.”

“Yeah, me. Tell me what you need and I’ll be there. By the way, do you trust me, O’Malley?”

Yes, she did. She didn’t know what it was about the man, but trust had never been an issue with him. Her uncle Paddy had said the same thing about him.

“Yeah, Tucker, I do. This is what I need…”

An hour later, she was getting on a COTA and traveling to the closest stop there was to where she was going. It just happened to be the Columbus Zoo.

~~~

Spencer was still pacing. He had been doing that since he had walked in the door to his mother’s home, and hadn’t stopped since. He wanted to know what Devin was doing, but short of breaking the door down, he couldn’t just barge into the study.

The cop, Tucker, the one he had met at the picnic, had shown up about two hours ago and asked to speak to Devin. Devin seemed surprised and when questioned, Tucker told them that he had no more information on the shooting than he had before and that his visit right now was personal. When Devin had come forward, Tucker simply handed him the large envelope. He then told Devin that he was doing this for a friend and that other than what the contents were, he didn’t know the details. Then he left.

When the study door opened and Devin walked out, Spencer saw the look on his brother’s face and knew something bad had happened. He wanted to ask, but instead, just waited for Devin to get a drink and sit down.

“You all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Anything I can do to help you out?”

Devin looked up at him in a dazed, faraway look. “I just finalized the funeral arrangements for Patrick and Deidre O’Malley. Captain Tucker brought me the paperwork that named me the executor of their estate. Caitlynne O’Malley signed the job over to me two weeks ago.”

“Why you? I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. I mean, why did she name you the one...shit, Devin, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. There were letters with the file—one from each of them. The letters weren’t addressed to me, at least the ones from Caitlynne’s aunt and uncle weren’t. Theirs said that in the event they were dead, Caitlynne or the surviving other would choice an attorney to fulfill the terms of their will to the letter. Cait’s was to me. Would you like to read it?”

Spencer was nodding yes before his heart told him this was a bad idea. He knew that he was going to regret this. And knowing what he knew about the O’Malley family, he knew that it would be straight forward and concise. There would be no details other than the ones needed to make the arrangements. But he found himself reaching for the envelope and opening it.

Mr. Grant,

If you are reading this letter it means that my aunt and uncle are both dead.

Let me explain to you what we have done.

In the years since my father was killed and my mother committed suicide, my uncle has had arrangements made like these to ensure that his wants and needs at this time are met. My father left no will, probably thinking that my mother would finish raising me. My mother did nothing.

When I became a cop then later a detective, I knew that the chances were fairly good that I would be killed in the line of duty. I took my uncle’s advice and made up my arrangements as well. I don’t have a great deal to leave, but I have made changes in my will recently. You will find it enclosed too. You will need to please keep it on file as I have no one else to leave it to. Monies from our combined estate will pay you any fees you deem reasonable and customary.

You have all the bank information and copies of insurance papers you need to take care of arrangements for my aunt and uncle. Also, there are several numbers in Ireland you will need to call to have Aunt Dee’s body shipped there.

Thank you for your professionalism in this very personal matter for us. My uncle and aunt liked you, regardless of how much I told them you were a pain in the ass to me.

Sincerely,

Caitlynne Alexander O’Malley

Spencer handed the envelope back to Devin and stared at the empty grate.

Even making her own funeral arrangements, O’Malley had told it like it was. He looked over at Devin.

“What are the arrangements for the two of them? I’m assuming that from that letter, Dee will be going back to Ireland. What about Paddy?”

“A simple graveside service and nothing more. I had to call Tucker back and ask about that. He said that the department would want a policeman’s funeral with all the pomp and circumstance, but he would relay the information to the Mayor about the change.”

“Did you ask about O’Malley?” Spencer kept thinking about the things he had said to her. The way he had shaken her as if she was nothing more than the people who had taken his daughter.