In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (39 page)

Doc let out a long breath. “I see ‘em.” He also saw the rifles held in the crook of their arms as they watched him from the overhang of the guard roof.

“Don’t look like they’re of a mind to come out in this downpour,” Mary Bernice remarked. She bent her head and looked into the side mirror. The limo was right behind them.

“Hurry,” Doc snarled beneath his breath. The gates weren’t moving fast enough for him. There was no doubt in his mind that the other ambulance and the limo they had passed weren’t too far behind them. They would be cutting it close.

Edna Mae chewed
on her fingernail as Delbert Merrill drove through the gates behind Doc. Rain was driving so hard against the windshield, it was hard to see the guards, but she knew they were there.

“Gates closing,” Delbert told her.

“How far back do you think that other limo is, Del?” Edna Mae asked.

Delbert looked into the rear view mirror. “They were going pretty slow, Miss Edna. I’d say we got twenty, maybe thirty minutes on ‘em.”

“Lord, I hope so,” Edna Mae breathed.

Doc saw the
black orderly motioning for him to swing to the left side of the mansion. He put up a hand acknowledging the order, but wasn’t sure the man could see his action. He pulled under a wide roof and put the ambulance in neutral as the orderly hurried up to Mary Bernice’s side of the ambulance. As she rolled down the glass, the orderly’s worried face thrust into the opening.

“You Mrs. Boudreaux’s driver?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Mary Bernice answered.

“You’d best hurry then. We got another transfer due any minute now.” His eyes narrowed. “They’re coming earlier than we expected.”

Doc leaned forward to see past Mary Bernice. “We passed them on the road.”

“Then you’d better get going.”

Edna Mae sat
in the limo, her fingernail bleeding where she had bitten into the quick. There was no need for her to get out, but she wondered if she should. She nearly screamed when someone tapped at her window.

“Dr. Lassiter, Miss Boudreaux,” Delbert told her as he pushed the button to lower the old lady’s window.

“Don’t bother getting out in this mess, Mrs. Boudreaux,” Lassiter said. “We’ll bring David to you.” The physician was crouched beneath an umbrella being held by the orderly Edna Mae remembered was named Beecher. There was a black orderly with them, his hands thrust deep into his raincoat, his bull neck pulled down into the coat’s collar. “We’re going check on our patient in the bungalow or I’d invite you in for tea. I just wanted to wish you luck with your son.” He put his hand through the window.

Edna Mae squeezed it. “Thank you for all you’ve tried to do, Dr. Lassiter. We won’t forget it.”

Lassiter smiled. “Neither will I, ma’am.” He let go of Edna Mae’s hand and stepped back from the limo. “Y’all drive safe now.” He turned away and headed for the walkway leading around the right side of the mansion to the rear courtyard.

“You take care,” Edna Mae called and saw the man’s hand come up in acknowledgment.

Doc looked around
as he and Mary Bernice and the orderly who had been awaiting them walked through the small hallway into the clinic. The place was spotless, antiseptic, but pleasant in an ostentatious way. The walls were a creamy beige, the wood mold and trim in a pale oak; the floors were parquet with deep rose runners and area rugs scattered about. The furniture was rose and teal—very expensive and very pretty. Even the lighting overhead reeked of money.

“Not a bad place to recuperate,” Mary Bernice whispered in awe. She gawked as she helped push the gurney they had taken from the ambulance.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Cobb told her. He stopped them beside a closed door. His eyes went to the door, then to Doc. “We have a patient in there who is being transferred tonight. I’m going to go up and get Mr. David.”

“Where is everybody?” Doc asked.

“They’re having an assembly,” Cobb said. He jerked his thumb to the closed door. “I’ll go check on them first while you take care of whatever needs taking care of here, then I’ll get Mr. David for you.” He headed down a short corridor toward a set of double doors.

Doc watched as the man opened the doors and stepped inside. He looked at Mary Bernice. “Let’s go!”

Mary Bernice was right behind Doc as they pushed the gurney through the wide oak door. As Doc found the light switch and hurried to the bed, she stood guard.

It can’t be him, Doc’s mind told him as he looked into the face of the unconscious man. Even given an expert plastic surgeon’s hand, this man couldn’t be Gabe James. There was nothing in this man’s face that bore any resemblance to Gabe.

“Is it him?” Mary Bernice asked, looking out the door as if half-expecting to see a horde of people rushing to stop them.

“I don’t know,” Doc answered. He pulled the sheet away from the sleeping man. His fingers went to the buttons of the man’s shirt and undid the first two, pushed the fabric aside. A gasp of stunned disbelief shook his body.

“Well?” Mary Bernice asked, “is the scar there?”

Doc could only nod. “It’s Gabe James.” He stared for only a second more at the wavering gash on the young man’s chest—the legacy of a barbed wire fence that had ripped Gabe open on a hunting trip—then he called for Mary Bernice to help him get Gabe on the gurney. He tossed away the sheet and then sucked in a furious breath.

“What is it?” she asked as she pushed the gurney to the bed.

“They’ve got him tied down like an animal!” Doc hissed as his fingers snatched at the canvas straps. “Damn bastards!”

It didn’t take them long to unbuckle the restraints, roll Gabe onto the gurney and strap him down. Mary Bernice pulled the sheets up to Gabe’s neck, turned his head to the side then walked to the door, cautiously poking out her head. Doc’s jaw clenched tightly as they pushed the bed into the hall and headed for the exit.

Martin Cobb didn’t
even glance at the opened door into Jamie Sinclair’s room as he passed. He’d seen the gurney disappearing around the corner as he’d come out of the assembly. His footsteps increased in speed as he came to the stairway, progressed up the risers, taking them two at a time, all the impetus he needed to break out in a cold sweat. In his hands, he carried an orderly’s uniform. He nearly groaned with relief when he saw the man he knew as David Boudreaux standing at the top of the steps.

“Hurry, Mr. David,” Cobb whispered urgently, tossing the uniform to him.

Kyle didn’t take time to answer. He snatched off his pajama bottoms, threw them to Cobb, stepped into the white uniform pants and nearly tore the pajama top in half in his effort to drag it over his head. Cobb wadded the pajamas into a tight ball before thrusting them under his uniform top. Kyle yanked on the uniform shirt and brushed against the black man as the two men turned to head down the stairs.

The moment the
gurney rolled out of the mansion’s side door, Delbert turned. “They got him, Miss Edna.”

“Gabe or Kyle?” Edna Mae whispered. She sat forward, clutching the seat.

Only a few moments later, she saw Cobb and Kyle hurrying from the building, Kyle heading for the back of the ambulance where Doc and Mary Bernice were pushing the gurney into the ambulance. Kyle climbed into the ambulance, Cobb right behind him.

As the doors
slammed shut, Kyle flinched. He was barely aware of Cobb moving the gurney into place inside the ambulance.

“Help me, Mr. David,” Cobb said, drawing Kyle’s attention.

“Kyle Vittetoe,” Kyle corrected, giving his real name. He heard the front doors of the ambulance opening, closing, and stumbled as Doc put the van into gear and pulled out from under the wide roof.

Delbert sat hunched
over the wheel, his hands clutching the cushioned ring so hard his fingers were becoming numb. Every prayer he knew had escaped his lips as they had sat waiting for Mary Bernice and Doc to reappear. Every word he’d ever spoken in anger to his wife had blared out of his conscience to scald him. Every moment of pleasure the two of them had ever shared passed before his eyes. Every plan and dream and hope he had ever had for their little family came back to taunt him.

“It’s gonna be all right,” he heard himself say as the ambulance neared the closed gates. “Before the good Lord Almighty, it’s gonna be all right.”

Edna Mae’s hands were clutched in her lap, pressed down so tight to the wool of her coat she could no longer feel them. Her eyes did not blink; did not move away from the back of the ambulance. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her breath a short, shallow grunt of worry. She, too, was praying her entreaty to St. Jude in a soft murmur.

Doc stopped the
ambulance, his breathing loud in the confines of the ambulance’s cab. His eyes were glued to the closed gates, willing them to swing toward him. He could feel Mary Bernice’s own edginess; almost smell her fear.

“Open, damn you,” she growled.

“What’s the hold up?” Kyle called.

“Gates are closed,” Doc answered. “How’s he doing back there?”

“He ain’t breathing right,” Cobb said.

“What are they
waiting for?” Edna Mae asked. The gates were still closed, the guards standing under the overhang of their guard hut, not making any move to open the wrought-iron barrier.

“One of them’s going inside,” Del said.

“Doc?” Kyle called
. “Trade places with Mary Bernice as soon as you can. Cobb says Gabe isn’t breathing like he should.”

Doc twisted his head and peered through the ambulance. “Can you take his blood pressure?”

Cobb reached for the sphygmometer. He wrapped it around the sleeping man’s arm and secured the Velcro closing. “I can’t see the dial.” He began to pump the bulb.

“I don’t dare turn the lights on,” Doc reminded them. He thrust out his left leg, fished into his pocket and pulled out his lighter. He handed it to Mary Bernice who passed it to Kyle.

“Shield that as much as you can,” Doc warned. He looked at the gate, wondering if they’d been found out.

“Car coming,” he said. He was looking east at the road beyond the gate. The twin sweeps of headlights were cutting through the driving rain toward them. Another set closely followed. “Shit!” He gunned the idling motor, thought for a moment of ramming through the gates, the threat of them being electrified passing like a warning through his mind.

“His blood pressure is one-ten over sixty,” Cobb called. “Normally it’s around one-thirty over ninety even with all that junk they pump into him.”

Doc felt a chill run through him. “Check his pulse rate!”

Eyes glued to the approaching lights, Doc’s heart was triphammering in his chest and he could smell his own sour sweat.

His eyes narrowed as he glared at the ambulance and limo now on the other side of the closed gates. If that was, indeed, the Tremayne family coming to transport Gabe, they were bound to have firepower, weapons and men more than able to use them. He became aware of the tremor in his hands and looked at Mary Bernice.

“They’re under my seat,” she told him as if reading his mind, bending forward to withdraw the box containing the two semi-automatics Thais had given them. She placed the box on her lap.

Kyle shielded the
lighter’s flame over Cobb’s watch as the man took Jamie’s pulse.

No, a voice inside Kyle’s head reminded him. It’s not Jamie. It’s Gabe. It’s your best friend, man.

Kyle’s eyes shifted to the unconscious face at the head of the gurney. There was nothing in that face that looked even remotely like Gabe James. The angle was all wrong. The nose. The cheekbones. The cleft in the chin was missing. He was finding it hard to believe the man lying so still was connected to him in any way. He didn’t feel anything as he looked at the closed eyes.

“His pulse is
fifty, sir, and thready.” Cobb’s voice was strained, nervous.

Doc spun around in his seat. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn,” Doc snarled. He turned around, his jaw clenching. “What the hell did they give him?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Cobb replied. “Something ain’t right though. He’s all clammy and sweaty, too.”

“What does that mean?” Kyle asked.

“That he may be going into shock,” Cobb answered.

“But why?”

“Overdose,” Doc snapped. “Only God knows what the bastards shot him up with! The gate’s opening,” Doc nearly shouted. He gunned the engine and slid the gear into drive.

“Praise Jesus,” Mary Bernice cried as the gates began to part.

The gates shuddered as they opened all the way and Doc shot through the opening as though the hounds of hell were on his heels. He looked down briefly to make sure the limo was right behind him before he turned past the other ambulance and flipped on the emergency flashers.

“They’re shutting the gate behind us!” Doc said as he looked into the rear view mirror.