The Watchman (15 page)

Without flipping on the lights, I followed Brutus through the house and downstairs to the basement.

The glow from the television flickered across a body on the floor.

Bella lay with her head on Ted's stomach—his broad face covered in blood. “Ted!”

Heart hammering like a manic jackhammer, I dropped to his side and jerked off my gloves. Cradling his head in one arm, I searched for a pulse in the carotid artery. Warm, sticky ooze covered my fingers, but the strong throb told me he was alive and reasonably stable. Blood flowed from a large bump on his skull, still wet. Someone hit him hard, and not to too long ago.

The pups raced me to the top step as I clambered upstairs to the medicine cabinet.

At the landing, Brutus pushed past me, turned, and flashed an open-mouth grin. Red stained the white fur around his muzzle. Drops of blood led through the kitchen to the front door.

Brutus had grabbed a piece of the attacker before he'd gotten away.

I snatched towels and my first aid kit and hurried back to Ted. With shaky hands, I dunked the towel in cold water in the basement bathroom, and squeezed it dry. On my knees again, I washed the blood from Ted's ashen face, put his head on a pillow, and covered him with a blanket. With a low moan, his eyes flickered and opened slowly.

Ted stared up at me, gaze wide with fear. “Noah...my head hurts. Why did the man hit me? Didn't he like me?”

“He thought you were me. Did you get a look at him?”

Ted nodded and then winced in pain.

“Did you recognize him?”

“No. I didn't know him, Noah. Don't know why he hit me if he didn't know me.”

I patted his hand. “Too dark down here for him to see.”

I struggled to push back the rush of emotions that engulfed me. The effort failed. Why were the innocent among us the victims of the most evil among us? My hands ached to get hold of the guy, but I talked myself down. Ted needed attention. Anyway, whoever hit him had gone. Brutus took care of that.

Crossing to the phone, I called Mabel. I pushed heavy air from my lungs, relieved. “It's Noah. I was afraid you might not be home yet. Can you come to my place? Ted's been hurt.”

She inhaled an anxious breath. “How?”

“I don't think it's serious, but I'd rather not discuss it over the phone. We probably need to get him to emergency. Have him checked out just to make sure.”

Her voice cracked. “I'm on my way.”

I went upstairs and opened the door.

Mabel crossed the street and swept past me into the entryway. “Where is he?”

In the basement, she rushed to Ted's side and cradled his head in her lap. She stared at the gash on his head and tossed me an angry glare. “What happened?”

“An intruder struck him. I'm sorry. You know I wouldn't knowingly place Ted in danger. I love him almost as much as you do.”

The lines around her mouth softened. “I know that.” A lone tear rolled down her cheek. “He shouldn't have been watching TV here, anyway. I think it makes him feel grownup to be here alone. It's just...if Ted were seriously hurt, I...”

“I know...I know.” I put my arms around her shoulders. “The cut doesn't look serious. He'll be fine.”

She wiped her eyes and straightened. The steel was back in her spine. “I'm OK. I can do this. I'll call 9-1-1. You know they'll bring the police. What should I tell them?”

“The truth, except the part where I found him. Someone jimmied the front door so that will match the intruder theory. Just give me ten minutes to get away before you place the call. Maybe later, Ted can pick out the thug from the station's mug shots.”

I gathered up jackets, sweaters, snow boots, and wrote my throwaway cell number on a business card. I handed her the number and squeezed her hand. “Let me know what the doctor says. I'll call and check on him.”

She gave her watch a quick glance. “You best get going. We've had more than one visit from the police since you left. They stopped Ted while he walked your dogs. An officer asked him to call if you turned up.” Mabel smiled. “Ted told them he wouldn't call. You were his friend.”

“Thanks, Mabel. I'll have the kennel pick up Bella and Brutus for a week or so, just until Ted feels better. He can take over again whenever he wants. The kennel guy will be here tomorrow. We've done this drill before. He won't need a key since the locks broken. I'll have a locksmith come out and take care of it and leave the key with you.”

She nodded and pushed me toward the stairway. “Get going. Ted will be disappointed, but it's best, at least until this situation blows over.”

God willing, it would take the authorities fifteen minutes to get to my place. At the Jeep, I opened the door and threw the clothes into the backseat. Before I could get in, a car swung in behind me and jammed the bumper against the Jeep's backend.

The police couldn't have gotten here that quick. Unmarked car. Perhaps a detective, but they didn't roll on minor cases. I leaned inside the jeep, pushed my gun under the seat, and eased away from the door, arms away from my body, hands open.

A goon with the face of a bad prizefighter withdrew from the vehicle. A bloody handkerchief encircled his left hand—red stains smeared down his jacket.

This clod didn't work for the city. He was the lowlife who had attacked Ted—the owner of the blue sedan.

An inch shorter than me, he reached into his jacket with his good hand and pointed a .40 Beretta at my heart. “Hold it there, Adams.” As I stared at the gun, he looked much bigger. “I've been waiting a long time for you to come home, and I don't like to wait, especially in the cold.” He moved in close. The gun never wavered.

“Why? Did you run out of handicapped kids to pistol whip?” Wrong thing to say to a man holding a gun.

He lunged forward and brought the gun butt down, aimed at my skull.

I ducked and caught the blow on my right collarbone. Hot pain soared through my arm and my collarbone crunched like someone stepping on dry twigs. I hit the ground.

The goon stepped back and growled. “I want to know where you've stashed London's kid.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said through clenched teeth.

A sinister grin spread across his ugly face. “I think you do.” He stepped forward, put his foot on my wounded shoulder, and pressed down.

Waves of pain like hot knives ripped down my arm and flooded through my shoulder.

The goon stood over me, poised to rain another savage blow on my head, when blue and white strobe lights flashed into the street. The ambulance, soon to be followed by the cops.

The thug jerked around. The lights moved into my front driveway. His posture tensed, and he turned back to me.

I raised my good arm to evade the blow that would follow. Instead, he drew back his foot, and aimed at my upper body. In mid-swing, I grabbed his shoe, almost knocking him down. He recovered quickly and before I could block the next move, pain flared as the gun butt connected with my skull. I slid back onto the icy ground and welcomed the darkness that followed.

 



 

Somewhere Outside Hebron

Consciousness returned in small increments of awareness. As the fog in my brain cleared, I realized I lay folded into a fetal position, my head jammed against my knees in the trunk of a small automobile. Claustrophobia pressed the trunk closer, closing in on me.

The car wasn't moving and stale, sour air inside the trunk assaulted my nostrils—familiar odors of oil and fuel.

Pain and cold metal were my next sensations although the top of the trunk lid felt tepid. Sunrays seeped through rusted holes like tiny flashlight beams in the dark space. I must have been out for a while. The light confirmed it was daylight and that the car sat somewhere in the open.

My body throbbed with the ache in my head and my shoulder felt as though the thug continued to beat me with the butt of his revolver. I tried to move, but the small space left no room to maneuver. I focused on becoming invisible, tried to summon my power. It didn't work. The gift had never failed me before. The pain in my body wouldn't let me concentrate, and the tight space became unbearable. Blackness enveloped me once again.

When I next awoke, my head pounded and the misery in my shoulder remained as severe as ever. A chilled darkness emanated from the metal hull.

Night.

My tin coffin grew colder as the temperature dropped. As a rule, tight places don't bother me, but there was far too much of me, and much too little space in the trunk. I tried to fight the panic that filled my chest, as silent screams choked off my breath.

The terror must have been the stimulus my tortured psyche needed. Like the answer to an unspoken prayer, I found myself free outside the car, invisible and sucking fresh, cold air into my lungs. Weak, I slid painfully to the ground.

The pungent odor I'd smelled earlier was a junkyard. My assailant had locked me in an abandoned car on the outskirts of Hebron.

With stiff feeble movements, I climbed into the backseat of the rusting wreck. I stretched out as much as possible, and welcomed the comfort the dirty seat covers provided. My body needed rest—until it could heal itself. A warm blanket would have come in handy.

As I lay in the frigid darkness, my arm felt a familiar bulge in my coat pocket. My cell phone.

In his haste to leave, my attacker was in too big of a hurry to check my pockets. Now if I could just get bars. Yes!

I called George.

 



I stumbled outside the junkyard and sat on a cement retaining wall. As best I could figure, it was late Tuesday night.

George's truck slung snow sludge as he barreled down the narrow lane and slid to a stop in front of me. He got out, opened the passenger door, and helped ease my bruised carcass into the warmth of his pickup. “What happened? You look like the loser in a kickboxing tournament.”

The heat in the cab stopped my chill, and I relayed the one-sided battle with the mugger, leaving out how I'd escaped from the trunk. It eluded me how the thug evaded the police and why he didn't just shoot me. Perhaps he wanted my death to be a slow process since I hadn't divulged the information he wanted.

Nice guy.

The truck roared into action, and George glanced over at me. “I know I owe you my life, but saving your hide is getting to be a habit.” He went quiet for a moment and then nodded as if reaching a conclusion. “I have an old Marine buddy who's a medic. We'll get you fixed up.”

He picked up his cell phone and made the call.

 



 

Twenty minutes later, we entered a small frame house in the suburbs. George's Marine buddy, Gloria Burke, was a pretty woman with caramel skin and bright hazel eyes. She opened the door at our knock.

Without fanfare or introductions, George nodded at her. “This is the package I called you about.”

She stood back and opened the door wide. “Bring him in.”

The pain was almost unbearable. George helped me inside and led me to a sofa. Sweat beaded on my brow, and I leaned against the cushions.

Gloria prodded my head with the gentle touch of an angel. “You've got a big goose egg here, and your right eye is dilated, so looks like you've got a concussion.”

She helped me off with my shirt. More pain.

“Ohhhh, I bet that hurts,” she said. “There's swelling and the skin is broken in several places. Without X-rays I can't say for sure if the collarbone is broken, but it sure looks that way.” She washed the wounds with alcohol wipes and smeared on an antibiotic gel.

I gritted my teeth and tried not to embarrass myself by fainting. Tough guy to the end.

She removed a prescription bottle from her bag and handed me two pills. “This will help with the pain, but it might make you drowsy. Keep the rest.”

I fell in love with Gloria Burke.

“If the bone is broken it will take five to six weeks to mend,” she said in a boot drill sergeant tone. ‘Your collarbone doesn't appear to have a clean break, but it could be fractured. You should really see a doctor and get it X-rayed. The sooner, the better.”

I wouldn't see a doctor. They'd asked questions I didn't want to answer. Another anomaly of my physical structure―broken bones healed at an accelerated rate. I would be whole again in a week.

Gloria encased my arm into a sling and stepped back. She nodded her satisfaction. George helped me to my feet and I tried to pay her.

“Forget it,” she said. “You can repay the favor sometime.”

George took me to his home and put me to bed. Good friends were God's answer to prayers.

 

 

 

 

13

 

George Thomas's Home

“Norma takes better care of you than she does me.” George feigned a wounded look at his wife.

I winked at Norma. “Yeah, I think I'll sell my place and move in with you guys. Norma's a great cook. She fluffs my pillows, makes me breakfast, and brings me coffee. This is better than the Hilton.”

George's right eyebrow lifted. “Exactly why is it you make him an omelet and hash browns, and I'm lucky to get a cold biscuit?”

“That's easy.” Norma tossed a grin over her shoulder. “He's prettier than you are.”

As she left the room, George called after her. “Girl, you need glasses.”

After breakfast, George walked me around the property, Tooie at George's heels. The dog carried a slight limp in his right back leg, a gift from his previous owner.

I scratched behind Tooie's ear. “How's he doing?”

Pulling a doggie treat from his pocket, George grinned. “He's healthier than I am.”

Tooie was a rescue dog George picked up, half-starved and crippled, at a shelter. The dog had needed a lot of love and affection before he started to trust people again. The two had been inseparable ever since.