Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (35 page)

Wanderley again. I knew what he was going to say. He knew I wouldn't wait.

Patches of grass grew through the gravel in places. I tried to stay on them to mute the sound of the gravel under my sneakers. There were windows open in the trailer. That made me feel hopeful—if you were holding someone at gunpoint, you wouldn't be likely to open a window, right? When all the person would have to do is scream? There wasn't any screaming going on. When I got closer, though, I could hear talking. Some of the tightness around my heart eased up. Jo would be sitting at the table, just like last time, only this time Jo and Phoebe's crazy granddaddy DeWitt would be sitting at the table, sharing iced tea and telling Phoebe stories. I could go right to the door and knock, and DeWitt would let me in, and this time I would get the chance to tell him how sorry I was for his loss . . .

Fifteen feet away from the trailer, I again texted Wanderley. I said I was going to call him, and I wanted him to answer, but I didn't want him to speak as I would be close to, or inside, the trailer. That was so he could hear what was going on.

I called his number and snapped my phone into the holster I wear on my belt, then made the last fifteen feet in a crouch. I ducked beneath one of the open windows. The trailer felt cool and dusty under my hands. From inside, I could hear Mitch DeWitt maundering on about Liz and Mark getting theirs—my heart seized up again. Slowly, I raised my head high enough to see through the dark window over the kitchen sink. Between the Palmolive liquid bottle and two Jim Beam empties, I saw Jo.

Mitch sat across from her, drinking something the color of tea, but it was in a shot glass. The trailer was completely dark. My Jo was there, sitting at the table, just as I had imagined her.

Well, not
just
as I'd imagined her. Hot rage poured into me, filling me so completely, I could have taken that trailer apart like the crackerbox Liz had called it. I wanted to lift that trailer up over my head and shake that drunken sot out on his head—Jo would be safe when I did that because
that son of a gun had taped my daughter to the table!

Duct tape had been wrapped round and round the kitchen table, pinning Jo's arms, wrist to elbow, flat against the surface. Another piece of duct tape was across her mouth. DeWitt held his shot glass in one hand and a pistol in the other. A brand-new bottle of Jim Beam was down four or five inches and working its way toward joining the empties on the kitchen counter.

Jo's eyes found mine and glided past. But she knew I was there. She knew I had found her. She knew I would save her. And I would.

But I didn't know how.

Oh, God
, I prayed.
I've never asked You for a miracle, but I'm asking for one
now.

I scurried back to the plastic flower garden—the three dogs bounding from window to window to watch my progress—and I picked the heaviest gnome I saw, tucked him under my arm and leaped from grass island to grass island back to the trailer. I didn't give myself a chance to think. I didn't give myself a chance to doubt.

We don't do Hail Marys in the Church of Christ, but I threw one in anyway.

The garden gnome hit the back of Mitch DeWitt's head so hard, it forced his head forward with enough force to smack it against the kitchen table before breaking. The gnome, not DeWitt's head, thank you, God. My feet hit the kitchen floor about the same time Mitch hit the table, my fingernails scraping at the duct tape binding Jo down. Useless. Then I remembered. In a flash, I had Annie's worthless anniversary knife open and slashing the tape on either side of my daughter's arms. As soon as I had freed her arms, I grabbed her around her waist and yanked her from the booth. She came but her feet didn't. I ducked under the table and sliced at the tape binding Jo's ankles tightly to the table base. Mitch must have happened upon a duct tape special at the local Sam's Club. I finally got her loose and I rose up from under the table to find Mitch's flat, cold eyes staring at me, wanting me dead.

I looked for my gnome but he was beyond help himself. DeWitt stood slowly and I tried to put myself between him and Jo but she elbowed me hard and that's when I saw that Jo, her mouth still duct taped, was holding DeWitt's nasty little snub-nosed pistol about a foot and a half from his belly.

“Give me the gun, Jo,” I said.

She shook her head, her hair flying loose from its band. She held the little gun in two hands like a movie cop. I didn't know if that would help her accuracy but I thought it would be hard to miss from less than two feet.

I held my hand out for the gun. “You don't want to accidentally shoot him, Jo—”

She nodded her head so emphatically, it was hard to miss her intent.

“Honey, he's an old man, and he's harmless and unarmed—”

Mitch DeWitt reached across the table and snatched the gun from Jo.

My mouth fell open. Without saying a word, DeWitt raised the gun and shot me, then half spun and fell across the table, faceup. Jo looked down at her blood-splattered hands and arms and her eyes screamed at me. I snatched her up, put my shoulder to the door and burst through it, stumbled over a stick in the grass and the world exploded.

•   •   •

A long time later, when the world came right and my ears stopped ringing, I tried to sit up. I couldn't. A great suffocating weight pinned me to the ground. It was hard to breathe and the air was hot and humid and it smelled like garbage. I opened my eyes. Baby Bear gave my face a lick and shifted his weight so most of it was on my belly and groin. I pushed him off and took in a deep breath. I could sit up now, now that I didn't have 180 pounds on my chest. I brushed gravel off my face. I could hear Wanderley swearing long and evenly and without any appearance of taking a breath to fortify himself for more cursing.

“Where's Jo?” I said. “Is she okay?”

“She's okay.” He added something that I'll leave off.

“Where is she?”

He flung out his arm, pointing toward the trailer I had stolen the gnome from. On one of the webbed chairs sat Lacey Corinda. Jo sat in the woman's lap, her arms around the woman's neck. The woman held her tight and rocked back and forth. The bloody T-shirt was gone and Jo was wearing a plaid flannel shirt, three sizes too large. The two pugs were planted in the garden among the gnomes, wondering when refreshments would be served. As Jo was out of range of Wanderley's cursing, I let him vent.

“How bad am I shot?” I asked.

“You're not shot.” He kicked the side of the trailer and Baby Bear barked at him. At that, a tall young woman appeared at the door of the trailer. She was backlit—all the trailer's lights were on now. I peered up at her. It was Chloe, Molly's mom.

“Was that you?” she asked Wanderley.

“Sorry.”

“Chloe?” I said. “What's Chloe doing here?” Baby Bear climbed the steps to the trailer door but Chloe pushed him away.

“She wouldn't stay behind, that's what she's doing here and don't you dare say a word to me about it because none of your women listen to you.”

“They listen to me.”

“They listen and then they ignore what you say.”

“When will the cops be here?” Chloe said.

And far off, we heard the whoop of the siren.

“Soon,” he said. “Will he live?”

“Long enough to die of alcoholism.”

“Thank God,” I said. “If Jo had killed him—”

“Jo didn't shoot him, you idiot. I did. You stood there like a moron and let her hold that gun a foot away from the man—he took it from her, don't you remember? She hadn't even cocked the pistol, for God's sake, don't you know anything?” Wanderley was mad.

“Oh.” I got to my feet. Even though Wanderley had told me I wasn't shot, I pulled my T-shirt up and checked to be certain. I wasn't bleeding. “Did you shoot at me, too?”

“No, Bear. I didn't shoot at you. Though if you hadn't been carrying your daughter, I'd have been tempted. Do you want to tell me why you saw fit to bring a pack of dogs with you?”

I ignored him and looked around. We had again gathered a crowd of interested onlookers. “
Someone
shot at me.”

“No one shot at you. I shot DeWitt through the kitchen window. He had the gun. I had to take the chance. On your way out, you tripped over a shotgun and the shotgun went off. Some moron laid a shotgun right outside the front door.”

“Hey,” I said, “that must've been a different moron. I didn't do it.” I got one of Wanderley's unibrow stares. “I didn't bring the dogs, either. Jo did.”

“That would be a detail you forgot to mention.”

“It wasn't topmost in my mind.”

Baby Bear at my heels, I walked over to Lacey Corinda and gathered my child up. Jo was crying so hard I don't know that she noticed. I stuck half my hand out to the woman, the rest being needed to hold Jo.

“We haven't met properly. Walker Wells,” I said.

She shook my hand then held on to it as she hefted herself out of her chair. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wells.” She had a soft purr of a voice. “I'm Lacey Corinda. Your daughter tells me Hilliard gave his life to save hers. He would have liked that.”

Oh, dear God. I'd gotten someone else killed. “Hilliard?”

“The gnome.”

“Oh.”

A cop car followed by an ambulance followed by two more cop cars screamed into what space there was in Green Vista. The pugs leaped to attention and started that yapping they do when they want to alert you to new arrivals. Baby Bear felt remiss, so he added his voice, too.

I said, “Miss Corinda, I'm going to excuse myself. But I owe you a gnome. I'll see that you get it. I'll get this shirt back to you, too.” I patted Jo's flannel-clad back. The pugs hopped out of the raised flower bed and joined me as I made my way back over to Wanderley. I was kind of hoping that he could keep me out of a jail cell this time. I was determined that he would keep Jo out of one.

A uniformed officer came up to me, his police baton at the ready. “That your dog?” He pointed the stick at Baby Bear, who was staying close to my side.

“Jo?” I said, “Let me put you down. You're too old for this.
I'm
too old for this.” I put her on her feet. The flannel shirt hung to her knees. I lifted her face to mine and examined it. I turned her around, squeezed her arms and patted down her legs.

“
Dad
,” she said.

She seemed okay to me.

“Sir! Is that your dog?”

“He's mine,” said Jo. “He doesn't bite.”

“Leash him, please.”

I reached down and caught Baby Bear's collar. “I don't have a leash. Not on me.”

Before the officer could call me a moron, an onlooker stepped forward.

“I'll getcha some rope—got some back of the trailer.” The young man was back in a minute with a thin rope looped over his arm. He pulled a pocketknife out of his pocket and cut off three lengths. He dropped to his knees in front of Baby Bear, hesitated and said, “He won't bite me?”

Jo said, “He won't bite you. He only bites bad guys.”

The guy paused a moment more and then searched through Baby Bear's heavy coat for his collar. “Beautiful boy. What is he?”

“He's a Newfoundland. He's mine,” she said.

The young man smiled at her. “I heard. He always know the good guys from the bad?” He tied the rope to Baby Bear's collar and passed the end of it to Jo.

“So far.” She smiled at him and nudged the pugs forward with her toe. The man must have had something savory for dinner because the pugs crawled right up into his lap in their eagerness to smell his shirt. He got them secured, too, and gave all three makeshift leashes to Jo.

Jo and I watched as the EMS squad gingerly hoisted DeWitt out of the trailer on a stretcher. When they had him secured in the ambulance, and the ambulance had backed out of the park and sped away down Telephone Road, I said to Jo, “I'm thinking about sending you to a military academy. You know that, don't you?”

She sat on the gravel and pulled Baby Bear against her. The pugs fought over her lap. “No you aren't, Dad.”

“I am, too.”

“You'd miss me.”

“I'll miss you more if you go off and get yourself killed.” I had to cover my eyes. It had been too close. This time, it had been way too close. If I had gotten there five minutes later—if Wanderley had gotten there five minutes later.

Jo put her small hand on the middle of my back. “It's okay, Dad. I'm okay.”

I wanted to tell her that it wasn't okay. It was
too close
. I couldn't talk.

Chloe, freed from taking care of DeWitt, sat down next to Jo. “Let me see your eyes, Jo.” She shone a tiny flashlight into Jo's eyes, approved of what she saw there, took Jo's arm and pushed the sleeve up and put two fingers on her wrist. She nodded.

The inspection had given me some time to pull it together. “Are you a doctor, Chloe?” I asked.

“I'm a physician's assistant.”

I helped her to her feet. She had been pulled from bed in the early hours and she wasn't wearing any makeup. She wore a pair of jeans, a jacket that was too big to be hers and loafers on her feet. And she was still beautiful.

“Huh,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Only, you and Wanderley are both in the business of saving people. I think that's interesting, is all.”

Chloe opened her mouth to respond but closed it. Wanderley had pulled himself loose from the Houston police officers.

“You owe me, Preacher.”

“I know I do.”

“We're all going to the station. Um, the dogs are a problem. They'll call animal protection for the dogs.”

Oh, no. Not for my dog. Not for Rebecca's pugs, either.

I took the leashes from Jo. “Wait a minute.”

Lacey Corinda was still watching from her trailer. I took the dogs over to her and explained about animal protection.