Too Close to Home (22 page)

Then I thought better of it.

He was scared enough already.

I’d ruined another uniform.

“What’s this?” Chad was saying. “Maybe the fourth or fifth this year? Gotta be a record of some kind. Don’t you think so, Ed?”

Chad continued babbling about my uniforms—listing all the creative ways I’d managed to destroy them—as he pulled a dry, waterproof blanket up beneath Ed’s chin, then carefully tucked it around his body. Slowing the hypothermia that the combination of soaking rain, cooling temperatures and blood loss made inevitable.

Ed’s flicker of a smile encouraged the nonsensical patter, signaling Chad that this effort to capture Ed’s drifting attention was working.

“So you see,” he continued, “Brooke’s gotta start blaming other people. The way I figure it, though, you’re only responsible for ruining fifty percent of her uniform.”

“Didn’t ask for a big bandage,” Ed murmured, alert enough to play along. But his voice was terrifyingly weak.

Chad shook his head.

I slid my hand beneath the blanket, captured Ed’s wrist and took his pulse.

“I’m not talking about the shirt she tied around your leg. That’ll clean up fine. But the trousers, Ed. Oh, my. Those are torn pretty badly. From crawling around your property.”

A sweep of Chad’s hand took in our surroundings.

“So it’s only fair you provide compensation. She’s a cop, so I’m thinking doughnuts are the perfect payoff.”

“The chocolate-iced ones,” I chimed in as I let go of Ed’s wrist.

I frowned, shook my head briefly to let Chad know I wasn’t happy with the result.

He covered his obvious concern with a nod.

“So, Ed, how many do you think she’ll have to eat before you two are even?”

“Dozens.”

The word was barely audible.

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Chad said, and then began working some silly word problem aloud for Ed’s benefit.

How much longer could he hang on? I wondered as I half listened to something about the cost of half a uniform divided by the value of a doughnut. How much longer could the paramedics take?

Five more minutes, dispatch had promised the last time I’d called.

Downed trees and power lines across the roadways—not casualties—were slowing response time. Maryville had survived mostly intact. From what I was hearing on the radio, the tornado’s path had clipped only the extreme northeastern edge of town—mostly farm fields and forest—then fallen apart at the river. Statler’s and the used-car dealership, it seemed to me, had taken the brunt of the storm’s wrath.

What Chad had seen as he’d driven into town then doubled back to help me, confirmed that.

“Just down 146, there are cars strewn everywhere. And what looks like the entire damn roof from their building,” he’d told me earlier. “The road was pretty much impassable, so I wound my way through side streets to get here. Fortu
nately, all the folks at the dealership evacuated before the weather hit.”

Which made them a darn sight smarter than Ed and me, I thought as I looked at my watch again. Seven minutes. Three more minutes, I decided, and Chad and I would risk loading Ed into a squad car and driving to meet the ambulance.

I heard a siren in the distance.

Chad lifted his head in response to the same sound and smiled. This time—for the first time since he’d arrived at the scene—the smile was genuine.

“Hear that, Ed?” he said. “They’ll be here soon. Hang in there, man.”

I prayed that Chad was right, that the siren was actually headed our way. But if I had doubts, I left them unspoken.

Ed didn’t speak, either.

A quick glance at his face convinced me that his silence was unconsciousness, not lack of faith.

But Ed proved to be a lot tougher than I thought.

Though his eyes remained closed, he slowly lifted his hand a few inches. And flashed us a thumbs-up.

I
left before the paramedics arrived.

Even as the sound of the siren drew closer, the dispatcher’s voice was broadcasting in stereo over both squad-car radios. An armed robbery in progress.

The address was the Cherokee Rose.

Chad wasn’t the kind of man who needed to play macho games. He didn’t spend a moment arguing that I shouldn’t do my job. Or insisting that I should wait until he could protect me.

“Go!” he said almost before the call ended. “Your family. Your jurisdiction. Call for other backup if you need it. I’ll take care of Ed and follow you as fast as I can.”

I crawled back over the rubble, ran to my SUV.

After yanking the two-by-four loose from my shattered rear window, I tossed the disabled bar of Mars lights to the ground, dragged aside the branch that had crushed my hood, and climbed in. Ignoring the cracks that snaked across the
windshield, I said a quick prayer as I turned the key in the ignition. Blessedly, the engine roared to life.

As I raced through the streets, taking detours around obstructed roads, I wondered if the call was actually a robbery or if Hector had somehow found his way to the hotel. Because—unlike my house—there was no reason to believe that Katie had told him how to get to the Cherokee Rose.

Maybe he’d remained in Maryville despite my warning. Perhaps he’d seen Gran or Aunt Lucy and had recognized them from the hospital. And had followed them home.

My fault.

I’d let a violent man go loose the night before because I was more concerned about the risk to the Underground than the risk to my family.

I should have killed him when I’d had the chance.

Within a block of the Cherokee Rose, the wind had knocked down a massive old oak. The tree and the power lines that it had dragged down with it blocked the entire street and the adjacent sidewalks. And here, near the top of the bluff, there were no alternate routes, no alleyways, no quick detours around obstructions.

I got out of my SUV, clambered over a picket fence and angled across a yard that was filled with another fallen tree. Following a leg of the “shortcut” that Chad and I had often taken between our houses, I pulled myself up and over a privacy fence. That put me into the front yard of the hotel’s nearest neighbor, still half a block away from the Cherokee Rose. Then I jogged to the front corner of that yard to skirt a snapping, spitting power line that was draped across the sidewalk and road. Finally, I pushed my way through a thick privet hedge—a maneuver that had been easier when I was
smaller and the hedge was younger. Back out on the sidewalk, I headed uphill, jogging the remaining distance to the Cherokee Rose.

As I approached, I could see a crowd gathered on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Trapped, for all intents and purposes, at the top of the bluff. I recognized our nearby neighbors and the kitchen staff. Figured that the strangers were probably guests. They all stood in clumps of two or three or four, in proximity to the people they knew, not moving from their little groups.

Except for Aunt Lucy and Katie.

The two of them were circulating. Patting shoulders, giving quick hugs, chatting with people in one group, then another.

Keeping everyone calm.

Gran wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Aunt Lucy was the first to see me approaching. She said something to Katie, who nodded and stayed with the crowd. Then Aunt Lucy ran down the street to meet me.

Her eyes widened and her mouth formed an
O
as she drew closer. She was shocked, I supposed, by my appearance. Which was undoubtedly shocking.

I was stripped down to my Kevlar vest, a once-white T-shirt and torn uniform pants. My bare arms were covered with dozens of scratches, the newest of them inflicted by the hedge. And though, back at Statler’s, I’d wiped my hands and the worst of my cuts with antiseptic from the first-aid kit, I was soaked with equal parts blood and rain.

“I’m fine,” I said before she could ask. “What’s going on?”

I grabbed her arm, and as we walked quickly back in the direction of the Cherokee Rose, we talked quietly so that our voices wouldn’t carry up the hill.

Aunt Lucy’s face was tense with worry, but her voice remained calm.

“I don’t know how he found us, but Hector got into the hotel while we were in the basement waiting out the tornado. We were just walking the guests back upstairs—had gotten as far as the kitchen—when we heard him on the second floor. Kicking his way into every guest room, yelling for Jackie. So Katie and I rushed everyone out here. And called 911.”

“And Gran?”

Only then did Aunt Lucy sound upset.

“I tried to make her come with us. Even grabbed her arm and tried to drag her outside. But she refused and pushed me away. She said I was to send you in when you got here. Said something about being wrong about last night.”

I shook my head, thinking that Gran had actually been right. Hector
had
returned to Maryville the night before. And I’d encountered him, just as she’d feared. Just not in town.

No one—not even Gran—could have foreseen that he’d find his way to the Cherokee Rose today. And only I could have prevented it. But I’d let him walk away. With a stern warning, I thought bitterly. I’d done a better job of deterring a car full of kids who’d off-roaded through a cornfield and then sped through the center of town than I’d done deterring Hector.

“She was opening the safe as we left, Brooke,” Aunt Lucy was saying. “Getting her gun out. I think she was going upstairs after him.”

I would have predicted nothing less of my Gran.

Still, I was horrified.

I went into my family home with my gun drawn.

Loud voices—one male, one female—drifted down the center staircase. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but I was familiar enough with the acoustics of the old building to know
that Gran and Hector were inside one of the guest rooms. With the door into the hallway open.

I bounded up the carpeted stairs, taking them two at a time as Katie and I had done so often in play. Once in the second-floor hallway, it was easy enough to hear the conversation clearly. It carried from a room near the middle of the hall.

Hector’s deep voice was angry and outraged.

“You told me she was here!”

Gran’s retort was just as angry. Just as outraged.

“I lied! Just like you did when you promised to love and protect Jackie!”

By then, I was creeping through the hall, knowing that the sound of footsteps in the hallway echoed into open guest rooms. I knew that from playing endless games of hide-and-seek with Katie and Chad.

“You tell me where she is or I’ll—”

Gran laughed.

“Or you’ll what? I’m the one with the gun. Both of them, in fact. How does it feel, having a woman get the best of you?”

That’s when I realized that she was holding him at gunpoint, waiting for me. He hadn’t hurt her, wasn’t brutalizing her. Going into my childhood home, I’d known only too well what Hector was capable of. But now, though I kept moving as quickly as I could, I no longer feared for my grandmother’s safety. And as appalled as I was that she’d gone after Hector on her own, I couldn’t help admiring her toughness. I was proud of my Gran and her willingness to confront a problem, then deal with it.

I was just steps away from the door. But I didn’t call out for fear that I’d distract Gran and inadvertently give Hector an opening to exploit.

Gran murmured something so quietly I couldn’t make it out.

Hector’s response was a shout.

“Bitch!”

He must have flung himself at Gran.

The sound of a gunshot overlaid her cry of surprise and pain.

I heard a hand strike flesh.

That’s when I reached the doorway. In time to see Gran on the floor. Definitely dazed. Her glasses were askew and the left side of her face was reddened from the impact of Hector’s hand. But she was conscious. And alive. She’d fallen against a nightstand and now sat with her back against it. Almost upright. On the wall nearby, the stray bullet had torn through one of my great-grandmother’s oil paintings—a view of the hotel when the Cherokee roses were in full bloom.

And Hector—

He’d tossed my grandfather’s old revolver into a far corner of the room and was backing away from Gran, now back in possession of the gun she’d taken from him. He held the cheap Saturday-night special gangsta-style, sideways in front of him. And had it aimed at my grandmother.

He stopped a few feet from the door.

“Last chance, old woman,” he said. “Tell me where my wife is.”

My very proper Gran replied, very clearly, “Fuck you!”

He would have pulled the trigger.

Except I was behind him by then.

In one movement, I stepped forward and pressed my gun barrel against his neck. At a point just beneath his ear. A place where a bullet would be instantly lethal.

“Drop the gun, asshole,” I said quietly. “I’m a cop and you’re under arrest.”

He’d almost killed my Gran.

I wanted nothing more than an excuse to pull the trigger.

Hector must have heard his own death in my voice. He let the gun fall from his fingers.

I was almost disappointed.

With my free hand, I reached for my cuffs. And only then realized that I’d lost them in the rubble at Statler’s or hung them up as I’d crashed through the privet hedge.

“Get your hands behind your head, lock your fingers and keep them there,” I said.

Hector listened and obeyed.

As a precaution, I decided to kick his gun beneath the bed. To keep him from being tempted by the proximity or the sight of it. But it was difficult to manage the angle and keep Hector covered at the same time. I succeeded only in pushing Hector’s gun closer to Gran.

She was already back on her feet, had hung on to a corner of the nightstand as she’d pulled herself upright. Now her glasses were in place and her eyes were more focused. But she was trembling, and she looked very frail.

She bent over and picked up the gun before I could stop her. Stood with it pointing at the floor. And stared at Hector. Still a bruised and battered elderly woman, but now potentially very dangerous.

No cop likes to see a gun in a scared civilian’s hands. Even if that civilian is their grandmother. He’d terrified her, I thought. Made her feel vulnerable. Probably for the first time in her life. So I acted accordingly, kept my voice soothing and my eyes on Hector.

“It’s okay, Gran. I’ll take care of this.”

“Yesterday, you said that you could do the job. Handle any trouble he made.”

“I am handling it,” I said, reacting to the accusation in her
voice. “I came as fast as I could. And now I’m arresting him, Gran. He’ll go to jail.”

She shook her head.

“There’s only one way to protect women from men like these,” she said. “I thought you understood that. That’s why I gave you your chance last night. So you could prove that you’re strong enough to take over for me. That you can do things the way they need to get done.”

I stared at her, horrified. Thinking of how close Hector had come to raping me the night before. And knowing now that Gran—not Katie—had sent him after me.

“He’s just like them. Those men you found,” she continued. “They were the worst of the abusers. So I dealt with them. Just like I expected you to deal with Hector.”

I choked out a single word.

“How?”

She smiled. Unpleasantly.

“It was difficult the first time, but I got better at it with practice. And I figured out to ask for money. To help us with our work. I phoned each of them, promised to show them where their women were hiding. For a price. They could have said no. Accepted that their wives—their lovers—were bound for a better life. Away from them. But they didn’t.”

She sounded reasonable. So terribly reasonable.

Hector shifted his weight, and I jabbed him in the spine with my gun. Just to let him know that I still knew he was there. Knew, and wondered why Gran was talking so freely in front of him. But I wasn’t going to stop her. I had to find out what she’d done.

“I’d meet them somewhere public. Lately, at one of those big outlet malls. And I’d tell them to leave their cars parked, so they wouldn’t be recognized. Then I’d drive them to Camp Cadiz. I’ll show you where she’s hiding—that’s what I’d say.
There’s an old cabin not far from here. In the woods. So they’d follow me. And I’d cast them into hell for their sins.”

She was still holding Hector’s gun at her side.

In the hallway, I heard running footsteps. And Katie and Aunt Lucy’s urgent voices. But my attention was already consumed by Gran and Hector. Of the two, I feared that she was the more dangerous.

I had to stop her before she killed anyone else.

“Let me help you, Gran,” I said, struggling to emulate Aunt Lucy’s unflappable calm. “Give me the gun, okay?”

“When you found them, I thought it was a sign,” she said. “I thought you were ready. You were supposed to kill him. And find a safe place to discard his body. Just like you did with Missy. But you let me down, Brooke. I can see now that you’re weak, too. Just like your mother and Lucy. Just like Katie.”

Behind me, in the hallway, Aunt Lucy gasped.

I ignored the sound.

Because Gran had lifted her gun. Pointed it at Hector.

Her hands weren’t trembling any longer.

“For the Underground,” she whispered.

Gran’s finger tensed on the trigger.

That’s when Hector threw himself against me. Using the same strategy that had saved his life minutes earlier.

The impact drove me to the floor.

He landed on top of me, his elbow in my stomach. Knocking the breath out of me. Then he rolled aside and made a grab for my gun.

I couldn’t breathe, but I could still shoot.

My bullet hit him in the head.

But the bullet that Gran had meant for him sped, unimpeded, across the room.

Through the open doorway.

Katie made an odd, moaning noise when it struck her in the chest.

For a heartbeat, she stood, eyes widening with surprise. And then her legs folded beneath her.