Relatively Rainey (32 page)

“Okay, I’ll let everyone know you are out of danger. Love you. See you at the hospital.”

“Okay, see you.”

It was kind of sad that she and Katie had been through so many crisis situations that the ending of another could seem so practiced. Rainey shoved the phone back in her pocket and then remembered someone else who should know. She pulled out the phone and looked through her contacts while she asked the officer, “How far out are they?”

“Two minutes tops,” he replied.

Rainey looked down at her sister. She reached in to take her hand. She squeezed it tightly and said, “Hold on, Wendy. You’re going to make it. Fight for me, sis. It takes a crap load of drugs to kill one of us. You have to fight.”

Rainey remembered the light that beckoned her to come when JW shot her up with enough narcotics to kill her. She remembered how part of her wanted to float away, give up, and give in, to stay with her father who smiled back through a haze telling her it was not her time. Rainey recalled the doctors’ comments on her astonishing will to live and knew they would never understand it was Billy Bell who willed her back to life.

“You stay with me, Wendy.”

She found and dialed the contact number she sought. He too had been waiting by his phone.

Rainey listened to his panicked hello before she said, “Rex, get to Memorial Hospital. I’ve found her. They’ll be bringing her there.”

“Is she—is she—”

Rainey answered the question he couldn’t bring himself to ask, “She’s alive. I think she’s probably been drugged and she looks like she took a few good shots to the head and face. I can’t tell anymore until we get her out of this box. I just wanted you to know. See you at the hospital.”

Rainey hung up rather than listen to the questions for which she had no answers. She slipped the phone into her trouser pocket and leaned over the box again.

“Come on, kid. Stay with me,” she said, tucking the coat around Wendy’s shoulders. “I’ve gotten used to having you around. I like having you as a little sister. I think I might even love you, you know. Thank you for saving my son.”

Rainey saw the tear hit her arm. She hadn’t realized she was crying. It startled her. While she’d grown fond of Wendy, she had not completely opened to the idea of sisterhood. At that moment, Rainey understood what Katie had told her—sisters are joined at the heart.

She heard the voice before she saw him, but the sound made the hair stand up on her arms. He was speaking to the officer holding Buddy’s neck.

“Is he still alive?”

Rainey turned slowly and recognized the man immediately. All the crazy things Buddy said made sense in one glance. She stood and turned to face him. He saw her and reached into his jacket. Rainey pulled her weapon at the same time Travis Odom stuck the barrel of a forty-five semi-automatic to the officer’s head.

Travis glanced back toward the house and then focused on Rainey. “I can tell by the expression on your face that you do recognize where you’ve seen me. I was surprised when Wendy did not seem to put it together the other day on the observation deck. I knew she would though. I can’t have that part of my life exposed.”

Rainey smiled at the murderer in the door. “My, my, my. Travis, the way you deal with conflict is very unhealthy. First, your stepfather catches you molesting his son, so you hung him here in his workshop. Did Joanne Bonner discover you molesting Buddy? Is that why you killed her and made it look like your mentally ill brother did it? When you saw Wendy with those boys, you knew it was just a matter of time before she nailed you for your pedophilic tendencies, right?”

Handsome Travis smiled and took another glance toward the house. He bent to remove the officer’s service weapon. The helpless officer stared at Rainey, pleading with his eyes for help. If she shot Travis, the slightest twitch of his finger could take the life of the terrified cop at his feet, but she knew time was running out. If Travis had an end game, it was about to be played as the ambulance siren whirred to a stop in front of the house.

“What are you going to do, Travis? You cannot possibly think you can kill us all and get away with it.”

“Let’s see,” he said as his dark heart shaded his smile, “I’m shooting you with his gun and then I’ll shoot him and Buddy with your gun. Then I’ll tell everyone how Buddy shot you and how you got off two shots before falling dead.”

Rainey didn’t hesitate or waste one more second because as Travis glanced at the house again, she nodded to the cop and unloaded three shots to Travis’s chest in rapid succession. The cop at his feet ducked away, but he really didn’t have to. Travis Odom was dead before his body hit the floor.

Rainey heard a raspy whisper, “Nice shot, sis.”

She turned to see Wendy trying to sit up.

“Hey, you,” Rainey said, smiling. “Don’t get up. You’re going to be okay.”

Wendy winced with pain and asked, “Mack?”

“He’s safe. Thank you, Wendy.”

Wendy’s lips curled into a slight, and from the looks of it, painful grin. “Are you thankful enough not to kick my ass for leaving my weapon at your house?”

Rainey chuckled and said, “Today I am. We’ll see how I feel when you heal up.”

3:30 PM, Friday, March 6, 2015

Memorial Hospital Emergency Room

Orange County, NC

Katie pulled the curtain back and stepped up beside the bed. The sound of a busy emergency room during an ice storm filled the air with crying children and overworked staff. A harried nurse had led her to the curtained bed and then hurried away.

Katie smiled at the patient, “I’m used to picking up a woman that looks a lot like you in this ward. How are you doing?”

Wendy smiled as best she could with her swollen lips. The cut above her eye had been closed and bandaged. A spot of dried blood remained on her cheek.

“I’m okay. I’m going to be sore, but the drugs are leaving my system as we speak.” Wendy nodded to the IV bag. “Is Mack okay?”

“He will be when he knows you are all right. He asked me every hour if Nee Nee found you. He was very happy when I told him she had.”

“I’m sorry, Katie. I know how hard you and Rainey work to keep your family from harm. Mack and I went out back to see if Barron was perhaps in my shed. I forgot to reset the alarm when we came back in. Travis Odom came in right after we walked into the office. I heard him. That’s when I put Mack in the closet.”

“Thank you,” Katie said, patting Wendy’s hand. “Rainey said you fought like hell for him.”

Wendy smiled a little, but Katie could tell she was tired.

“Your mother called. She and your father are on the way. I told her we would stay with you until they arrived.”

Wendy’s eyelids flickered, but then sprung open with her question, “Did Buddy make it? He saved me, sort of.”

“He’s in a coma. That’s all I know,” Katie answered.

With her eyelids at half-mast, Wendy said, “Travis knocked me out with a shot of Haldol, they tell me. He left me in the woods. I woke up a little bit when Buddy carried me into his workshop. I didn’t wake up again until just before Rainey shot Travis.”

“Where did he get Haldol?” Katie asked.

Sheila Robertson answered the question, as she opened the curtain to enter.

“He stole it from the half-way house. They reported it missing, but Travis was not a suspect—seeing as how he is or was an upstanding citizen just coming by to check on his little brother. He apparently went out the back of the house with Wendy just as Rainey arrived. I don't think he realized who he was dealing with.”

“Why did he come after Wendy?” Katie asked.

Sheila walked to the other side of Wendy's bed and gave her a soft pat on the hand. It appeared she was aware of Wendy's badly bruised body and took care not to add to her pain.

She answered Katie's question. “Wendy had been looking into disappearances involving some homeless young men who used survival sex to subsist. After searching his home and computers, we've discovered he was a pedophile. Buddy was his first victim. Rainey told us she and Wendy saw Travis on the observation deck looking for a trick. He must have recognized Wendy as his mother's neighbor.”

“Did he kill that other girl, the one that lived in my house?”

“Rainey's pretty sure he did. She thinks Joanne Bonner tried to help Buddy. Travis killed her to keep from being found out.”

Katie had spoken with Rainey while she followed the ambulance to the hospital. She had agreed to an escort and surrendered her weapon, because for the first time in her life Rainey had actually killed someone.

Katie asked Sheila, “Rainey is clear on the shooting, right?”

Sheila smiled, “Oh, you have no worries. The cop she saved is singing her praises and thanking his lucky stars she’s a hell of a shot.”

Wendy tried to open her eyes wider, but Katie knew from her own experience that the effects of the drug would come and go for a few hours. She pushed a familiar Bell chestnut curl from Wendy’s forehead.

“Close your eyes and rest. I’m glad Rainey found you, little sis. I’m so very thankful you are going to be all right.”

Wendy’s eyes closed slowly, as she said, “You know you’re married to a badass, right?”

Katie chuckled. “I know that she will fight to the death for the ones she loves. It appears to be a family trait.” As she turned to Sheila, Katie asked, “Where is she, anyway?”

From the curtained-off area next to Wendy’s bed came the answer, “Bleccckkkk.”

2013 Rainbow Awards First Runner-up for Best Lesbian Novel, Out on the Panhandle, and three time Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Mystery with Rainey Nights (2012), Molly: House on Fire (2013), and The Rainey Season (2014), author R. E. Bradshaw began publishing in August of 2010. Before beginning a full-time writing career, she worked in professional theatre and also taught at both the university and high school level. A native of North Carolina and a proud Tar Heel, Bradshaw now makes her home in Oklahoma with her wife of 27 years. Writing in many genres, from the fun southern romantic romps of the Adventures of Decky and Charlie series to the intensely bone-chilling Rainey Bell Thrillers, R. E. Bradshaw’s books offer something for everyone.

Learn more at
http://www.rebradshawbooks.com