I Shall Not Want (42 page)

“And what about you?”

He twitched the question away. The shooter reappeared in the window. “Hey!” Russ said. The third thing was to get him to say
yes
. Didn’t matter to what. One
yes
leads to another. “It’s hotter’n hell today, isn’t it?” The shadowy figure stared at him. “Hard to keep things cool when it’s ninety degrees.”

“You think this is hot? This ain’t nothin‘.”

“For you, maybe. Me, I’m dying out here.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kevin taking up position at the back of his unit. “I could use something cold and wet. What about you? You want a cold beer? I can bring a six-pack up to the porch, and we can talk.”

The guy laughed. “You think I’m an idiot? Whadda you take me for?”

Russ spread his hands. “Okay. You know what we want. We want everybody here to walk away unharmed. We want a win-win solution. You tell me what you want.”

The shooter ducked away from the window for a moment. Russ glanced at Lyle. Lyle held up two fingers. Two guys. At least.

“You know what I want? I want our property back. These rednecks stole something from us, and I want it back.”

Russ got that sensation in his head, like bottle rockets popping off, one after the other. “The directory of dealer names,” he said, tossing out another wild guess.

The man—the Punta Diablos foot soldier—hissed in surprise.
A hit, a palpable hit
. “What you say?” the shooter asked after a moment. He’d be a lousy poker player.

“We arrested the Christie brothers this morning. You know how it goes. Any valuable information goes on the bargaining table.”

“Son of a bitch monkey-balled mother—” Russ let the guy rave on. He’d be a good match for Donald’s latest fiancée. He almost smiled, until the last bottle rocket went off, and he realized it was the Punta Diablos, and not the large and thugly Christies, who had done those horrible things to Amado Esfuentes.
These guys are junkyard-dog vicious
, he’d told Clare. And now they had an unknown number of women and children at their mercy.

The shooter was going on about how you couldn’t trust anyone. Russ wasn’t sure if the rant was directed at him or at the unknown accomplices inside, but he was getting worried. These guys were trapped. That’s when dangerous animals attacked. Where the hell was Knox? Had something happened to her?

Then she appeared from the back of the house. He kept his face forward, fixed intently on the Punta Diablo point man, who was working himself up in a major way. He slipped one hand off the hood of his truck and signaled to Kevin. Nothing. He signaled again. No long tall streak of red loping toward Knox’s squad car.

Then Kevin’s voice was behind him, in his ear. “There’s a dead woman out back,” he said quietly. “Shot in the chest.”

Russ thought about hapless, knocked-around Isabel Christie, with her strawberry-blond hair and her sad eyes. What a goddamn waste. He suddenly felt twenty years older.

“Chief?” Kevin kept his voice low.

“Have Harlene patch you to the SWAT team. Brief ‘em. Then get ready to run for that vest.”

“Roger that.” Kevin sprinted for his cruiser, bent double. He flung open the door and lay on the seat, reaching for the mic.

“What’s going on?” the Punta Diablo guy asked. “What’s he doing on the radio?”

“I just told him to ask the state troopers to stay back a ways,” Russ said. “I want you and me to have the time we need to talk our way out of this thing.” He kept his face forward and rattled on, good faith, blah-blah-blah, listening as Kevin briefed the state assault team sergeant he’d been connected to. It was informative, detailed, and short. The kid was finally learning to get to the point.

“You tell those bastards to stay away from us,” the shooter yelled. “Anybody tries to mess with us, they gotta go through one of these kids to do it!”

Kevin hung up the mic. “Fifteen—twenty minutes.”

Shit
. Might as well be tomorrow, for all the good they were going to do.

The guy disappeared from the window. Inside the house, a woman screamed. “Knox!” He grabbed his gun off the hood. “What’s he doing in there?”

She jumped up like a jackrabbit and looked in the window. Ran to the next one. He flapped at Kevin. “The vest! Go! Go!”

“He’s holding a kid,” Knox yelled. “He’s—oh, shit, no!”

This was going straight down the crapper. “Are there other shooters?”

“I can’t tell!” she screamed. “Maybe in the front—”

The window above Knox exploded. She dropped, and for one sickening moment he thought she’d been hit, but then he saw she was crouched, her hands over the back of her neck. Kevin had popped the trunk and was yanking a vest out. “Go through the back,” Russ yelled. “Go through the back!”

Kevin waved acknowledgment and tore through the side yard. Knox rose and ran after him. They disappeared around the corner.

“Don’t move,” Lyle said. “I’m getting you the other one.” He raced toward Knox’s unit.

Up on the porch, the door flew open. A teenaged girl with a baby under her arm made a dash for it. The shooter lunged forward, long rope-muscled arm extended, and snagged her by her collar. She rebounded, gagged, and almost dropped the baby. Her captor dragged her backward by the neck.

Russ broke cover and ran for the house. Lyle was shouting something at him, but he couldn’t hear it over the thudding of his feet, the rasp of his breath, the crying and yelling inside.

He took the porch steps in two strides and slammed through the door with the side of his body, leaving him face-to-face with the open double doors and the wild-eyed shooter, tattooed fingers, just like Knox had said, backing away with a squirming, squalling teen and her baby as a shield.

“Police! Drop your weapon,” Russ roared: habit, not hope.

“Drop
your
weapon!” The Punta Diablo guy had a monster .357 Taurus pointed at the girl. Russ kept his Glock lined and sighted for a head shot. The gangbanger started to look scared. It was damn hard to keep your gun pointed
away
from a man when you could see his bore drilling you between the eyes.

Then the girl lunged to the side, yanking her captor off balance. His instinct took over; he swung his .357 toward Russ, arms wide, chest unguarded. Russ dropped his Glock three inches and squeezed twice. He dove right as the Magnum went off, but the young man was already crumpling, the gun falling from his tattooed fingers.

The girl and her baby ran screaming into the dining room. Russ hit a brown corduroy chair, the weight of his body skidding it across the floor. He stumbled upright, swung toward where the shooter’s body had fallen, saw Isabel Christie sagging, unconscious, against the couch. And then a baseball bat smashed into his chest.

Russ turned, not understanding, and another bat struck his upper thigh, white-hot pain streaking along his hip, and he slipped, his leg useless, and saw him in the doorway to the front hall, the second man. Russ saw the gun pointed at him, tried to raise his Glock, too slow, too slow. Russ squeezed off a round but the next shot punched him in the chest and blew him over.

He heard more shots, three, four, like a movie playing in a different room. His awareness burrowed inward, as if all the universe were six feet three inches long and contained within his skin. Labored breathing. Sluggish heart. Burning hip. Throbbing chest.

Lyle’s face dropped into view for a moment. He didn’t bother Russ with a lot of talking, just turned and started ripping his uniform blouse open. Lyle. His friend. Why hadn’t he forgiven him? Instead of carrying his grudge around like an old set of keys. He closed his eyes.

“Call nine-one-one,” Lyle said to someone. Russ’s skin was clammy. He shivered convulsively. The wooden floor beneath him was winter-cold.

“Get me something I can use for compresses,” Lyle said.

He tried to breathe in, but there was a bubble blocking his throat, like swallowing inside out. He gurgled and hacked.

“Hurry, Knox!” Lyle’s hands were cradling his skull, turning his head so he could spit. Liquid gushed out of his mouth. He could breathe again. Lyle’s hands went away.

“Oh, Jesus,” Knox said. She didn’t sound so good.

“Shut up,” Lyle said. “Get these civilians out of here.”

There were noises, children, but they seemed increasingly far away. The pain was everything. The only thing. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want that to be the last thing. He opened his eyes. Lyle was on his knees, stripping his belt out of his pants. “Didn’t know… you felt that way,” Russ managed.

Lyle’s hands stuttered for a second. “You should be so lucky,” he said. He finished pulling his belt free. “I’m gonna tourniquet your thigh, slow down this bleeding. It’s gonna hurt like a ring-tailed bitch.” He bent over, out of Russ’s line of sight, and then a five-thousand-volt electrical shock went through his leg.

“Je… fu… Chr.…” Russ gasped. The pain curled him forward, as if he could rise and escape it. He caught sight of his own chest.

“Lay back,” Lyle said. He did. Lyle laid something over his chest. “I’m gonna compress you until the EMTs arrive. Won’t be long.”

He lifted his hand, stopping Lyle with a strengthless motion. “Lyle.” He could feel another bubble rising in his throat. He wanted to say this before it choked him off. “I’m sorry.” He opened his hand. “Friend.”

Lyle took his hand and squeezed too hard. His face pinched. “I don’t wanna hear any goddamn last words or deathbed apologies from you, you hear?”

He tried to say something, but the rushing liquid filled his throat, his mouth, his nose. He turned his head and retched, coughed, spluttered.

As soon as his mouth was clear, Lyle leaned on him, crushing him, hurting him. Russ tried to bat him away but he didn’t have anything left. It was heavy, so heavy, like cold concrete burying him. He heaved for air. Lyle was going to suffocate him trying to save him. “Can’t… breathe…” he got out.

“I think you’ve punctured a lung,” Lyle said. “The EMTs will set you to rights. Listen.” He heard his breath, his heart, his blood taking its last few trips around the system. “They’re almost here.”

It wasn’t Lyle. It was him. He was dying. He thought of Clare.
Oh, love. I wish we had had more time
. He was going to die, and she would be left with hateful, angry words as their last good-bye.
Already forgotten
, he wanted to say.
I always knew what was in your heart
. Now, right now, the slate was wiped clean.

“Lyle… tell Clare… .” He struggled to get enough air to push out the words. “Tell her…”

“You can tell her yourself when you see her,” Lyle said.

He inhaled again, but it wasn’t enough. His lungs burned. His head buzzed. She would know. She would have to know.

“Russ?” Lyle’s voice receded into the distance, with the children and the gunshots. “Don’t you die on me, Russ!”

So, how do you pray
? he’d asked her once.

She’d thought about it a long moment. She always listened, always took his questions seriously.
Say what you believe
, she said.
Say what you’re thankful for. Say what you love
.

He’d never been one for prayer. But there was a last time for everything. “Clare,” he said. Then everything stopped.

No official church involvement, that was the dictat. Volunteers, on their own, could work with the migrant farmhands. That’s what they had agreed on. Well, it was her day off. She could do what she wanted on her day off. And if she wanted to drive to the Rehabilitation Center and pick up Lucia Pirone for a sedate drive around the countryside, that was her own business. If they happened to stop in at a few farms and check in with the Spanish-speaking workers, that was her own damn business, too.

“You’re sure this isn’t going to get you in trouble with your bishop?” Sister Lucia shifted in the passenger seat. The pin in her hip was healed enough for the center to release her for the afternoon, but it was plain it hadn’t healed enough to be comfortable.

“Absolutely sure,” Clare said. “If he doesn’t find out.”

Sister Lucia laughed. “I like the way you think.”

“We’re going to have to find a better solution, though. Sooner rather than later. I’m away one weekend out of four as it is. Smuggling you out of the center three days a month doesn’t cut it.”

“You know Christophe St. Laurent? From Sacred Heart? He’s willing to drum up volunteers, but he’d like to talk to you at some point and see if any of your people would consider continuing on, even if the outreach isn’t sponsored by your church.”

In the rearview mirror, a whirl of red and white bloomed. She glanced at the speedometer; caught up in conversation, she had eased off the gas. She was now going the legal speed. She steered for the shoulder.

The first car blew past her at a speed that rattled her windows. A second car, and then an SUV, flew in its wake. State police. No sirens. Responding to a call.

Her chest squeezed, as if someone had wrapped an unfriendly hand around her heart.

Then she heard the
whoop-whoop-whoop
of an emergency vehicle. She stomped on the brake, grinding her front wheels into the dirt at the shoulder. “What on earth?” Sister Lucia threw out a hand to brace herself on the dashboard.

Clare turned around in time to see the ambulance crest the rise behind her, blue lights beating in time with the pulse of her blood. From the corner of her eye, she could see Sister Lucia cross herself.

The vehicle blazed past, almost too fast to read MILLERS KILL EMERGENCY on its side.

“Do you think—” Sister Lucia started. She read the papers like everyone else. “Could they have found another body?”

Clare shook her head. “Those weren’t Millers Kill police cruisers. They don’t normally get the state police involved, unless they need one of their special units, like crime scene or a dive team or”—the penny fell as she said the words—“tactical response.”

“Which is?”

“The men who show up if there’s a hostage situation or officers under fire.” Clare released the brake and tromped on the gas, jumping her Subaru back onto the road, sparing a glance for oncoming traffic only after it would’ve been too late to avoid it.