Willow (20 page)

Standing now, but leaning heavily on the stack, he lifted the gun and aimed at her the second she lifted the air gun. He felt the impact immediately and the glass shattered behind him.

The nail had entered his throat and tore into him. He was falling backwards and because of the blood at his feet, he couldn’t seem to get a purchase as he went through the large window behind him. Glass cut into his back and legs as he broke through it. As soon as he hit the ground below, he knew something was wrong.

Pain ricocheted through his head, but strangely, not the rest of his body. He couldn’t move, couldn’t lift his arms, wiggle his toes. Blood touched his face. It was warm and that was all he could feel.

Seconds, no more than that, passed and one of his men stood over him. Daniel heard him say “fuck” then he disappeared. Daniel wanted to call him back, to beg him to call for help, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He was beginning to feel lightheaded and cold. Things were fading; his vision blurred. He looked up at the window where he’d fallen and realized that he’d broken his back. His last thought was that the bitch was going to pay for this. He was going to make his own list.

~o0o~

J.R. held his wife and watched his son pace the room. It had been over seventeen hours since J.R. had come to this house and a little less than five since Willow had come up missing. Then there was the issue with Thomas Conley and his family. He’d been found late last night. He and his wife had taken quite a beating and were lucky that one of their children had found them when he had. While in critical condition, both adults would make a full recovery.

J.R. was startled out of his thoughts when Edgar spoke softly to him. He, too, held his sleeping wife.

“
Do you think they’ll find her soon? My baby’s been with that bastard a long time. Maybe they’ve taken her out of the state.” J.R. didn’t miss that Edgar hadn’t mentioned that he could be hurting her again.

The police had found the notebook at the hotel. They figured it belonged to Shawn. And they had confirmed that the blood on it and in the room had been Willow’s. A person who J.R. had bribed had told him that it was filled with dates and names and that the few that the police had researched were dead. It looked as though Shawn had been keeping track of the people he’d been killing and how he’d done it. There were over fifty names in the book, including his own mother. But it was the back of the book that had sent chills down their spines.

He had a list of “punishments” that he felt Willow had coming to her. Some of the infractions in his eyes were as petty as her not taking a lunch break with him to her sleeping with everyone but him. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done telling Jared and the James what he’d learned.

Edgar simply held his sobbing wife; Alexander left the house, while Jared gathered his coat without saying a word and took the dogs outside into the yard. Looking at his watch, J.R. realized that Jared had been out there for over two hours.

“
I’m not sure, Edgar. I’d like to think she’s here close to us. But you’re right, he is a sick bastard.”

Marta came into the room and looked at both of them. She looked worried and confused.

“
The police is on the phone for you, Mr. Stone. Said they be a problem down at your site. Said if you got a silent alarm down there you’d best be bringing everybody down to see about it.” J.R. looked at the woman, his own confusion evident. “Said you needed to know you have a scanner if anyone was to ask you how you come to be knowing about the incident. You got one of them in here?”

“
Scanner? No, I don’t—” Suddenly, he got it. “Shit! They’ve found her. Quick, get the boys. Hurry before someone calls and tells us not to come down.”

“
You don’t worry none about them telling you that, sir. I got your back. Go get my girl and bring her back. I got her some sticky buns to eat.” With that, Marta went to the kitchen.

In less than ten minutes, they were all piling into the limo. In another twenty, they were pulling into the site lot.

The place was alight with blue and red strobing lights and uniformed personnel. The yellow tape went around the entire building as well as the tape that had already gone around the site trailer. Looking up when he heard the whoop-whoop of helicopter blades, he saw two of them flying low overhead. One was a life flight, the other police. Jared was the first to break away from them and race to the melee, Alexander close behind.

When the rest of them reached the area where their sons were, they heard one of the cops say they had two dead, both males, and that no one could enter until the FBI was finished.

“
Willow? Willow James, is she in there? Please, you have to tell me,” Jared begged the officer. “She’s his sister and my fiancée.”

“
I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give you—” he was cut off by another man, this one in a suit.

“
I’ll talk to him.” He waited until the officer walked away. “If you folks will step over here, I can give you what I can.”

J.R. held his wife as Edgar did the same to Amanda. They were led past a tarp-covered lump and overheard one of the men standing next to it say “bled to death” before they were escorted to an area just behind the trailer.

“
My name is Agent Samuel Gant with the FBI. What I’m going to tell you is strictly off the record and will be my ass if you repeat any of it. The girl is in bad shape. The medics don’t know the extent of her injuries because…because one of the bastards nailed her leg to the floor. They are bringing in a crew to cut the flooring away because they don’t know for sure if the nails being removed would cause her more damage than just leaving them for the hospital to take care of. The team is about twenty minutes away and—”

“
I’ll do it,” Jared said to him. “I’m a carpenter and I have the knowledge of every piece of equipment used here. Let me do it for her.”

Amanda started to say something, but Edgar pulled her back. J.R. wasn’t so sure it was a good idea either. Jared loved this woman and if anything happened to her because he’d caused it, J.R. knew he’d never forgive himself.

Gant looked back at the building before he answered Jared. “If she doesn’t get help soon, she’ll die. You understand that, right? The medics are saying even if they get her to a hospital soon…it just might be for nothing. She’s lost a great deal of blood, young man.”

“
I want to do this. Please, I have to try.” J.R. took a deep breath when he heard the pain in his son’s voice

After a moment’s hesitation, Jared was escorted to the building. After only a few steps Jared returned and pulled Amanda James into his arms and hugged her. “I’ll make her live. I’ll make sure he knows I won’t let her die.” Releasing her, he ran to the officer.

J.R. had never been more proud of his son in all his life.

~Chapter 21~

Jared followed the agent toward the building. He tried to think what the fuck had gotten into him when they were suddenly inside. The place was bright with lights from the cruisers and medical teams. Someone had even plugged in the heavy duty construction lights as well. He was led up to the third floor.

There was a tarp covering something near the broken out window at the front of the building. Since it was covered in blood, Jared assumed it was another corpse like the one in the lot. Around the room were several yellow little tent like markers, most of them by the body, a few more near the broken glass. Jared didn’t see Willow right away.

The medic team was close to the wall and the police, two of them had their guns out but at their sides. They seemed to be guarding the medics.

With a quiet “wait here,” Agent Gant went to the team. Within seconds, two of them stood and he could finally see her.

Someone had removed one leg of her pants and she lay bare from her panties to her foot. Her leg was at an odd angle and from where he stood, all he could see was blood and lots of it.

Her shirt sleeves had been cut open and Jared could make out in IV in her arm. The front of her shirt was pulled up or cut away, he couldn’t tell which, but he could see her exposed belly and the bruising there. There were also a few bloodied places there as well. But it was her face that made him need to find the bastard who’d hurt her and beat the ever-loving shit out of him.

Both her eyes were swollen, one completely closed. Her lower lip looked like someone had bitten her. The long cut in her forehead was open and one of the medics was wiping it with a white cloth. Jared wondered if that was how her blood had ended up on the door at the hotel where she’d been staying.

Jared suddenly hoped that one of the two tarps held the dead bastard that had hurt her because if not, then he would wish that he was. Whoever had dared do this to his love wasn’t going to be long for this world anyway. Jared looked at Agent Gant when he returned.

“
The medic said he’d hold her still while you cut her free. He doesn’t think she’ll wake, but he said she will still feel the pain and will scream. He wants to make sure that you’ll be able to handle that.”

Could he? Probably not, but he wasn’t going to stop now. Before he could think about it anymore, he nodded to the agent.

“
Good. Do you have any questions?” Jared shook his head then nodded.

“
Yes. I’d like…can I call my parents? I want to assure them that she’s here. That I have her.” he wanted to give them comfort, but the agent warned him not to give them any details.

“
We don’t want them to come up here just yet. We’re still processing the scene. It may take us a while to…your girl there? We think she might have stopped the biggest crime lord in the United States. She took him out with a nail gun.”

Jared looked back at Willow then at the agent. “Sounds like something she’d do.” He stepped closer to her and pulled out his cell phone. His father answered on the first ring. Jared had never been so glad to hear his voice in his life.

“
Dad—” Emotion swamped him. Tears fell freely down his cheeks and he choked on a sob. “Tell them…tell them it’s her. Tell them that I have her and that…and that I’ll try my best for her.”

“
We know that, son. And Jared…I love you with all my heart. Take care of your girl.”

Jared set to work. He took a large circular saw and cut a two foot long seam about three inches on either side of her thigh. The medic with him, Tyler Landis, had covered Willow’s wound up with large gauze then wrapped a thermo blanket over her body. When he covered her face, Jared had a moment of panic and asked him to please pull it off her. Tyler started to protest, but in the end decided to simply do as Jared had asked. He was glad; he really would have hated to hurt the guy. The blanket over her face looked too much like the other two tarps for his taste.

He tried not to think about what he was doing or for that matter, who he was doing it for. Instead, he concentrated on the task and not the why. It took him only fifteen minutes to cut the seams.

“
We have to set her up to cut in the other direction. The hospital wants as little as possible of the floor brought with her. Once we get everything cut down, then five men plus you and I are going to pry the flooring up and they’ll take her away.”

Jared nodded. He was missing something here, but he couldn’t tell what. Something about the way the guy kept stalling. Then he remembered what the agent had said.

“
I know it will hurt her. I’m aware that she’ll be screaming.”

Tyler nodded. “Yes, you’ve been told she’ll scream, but do you know how much? Mr. Stone, she is going to scream in pain and she is going to do it the entire time it takes us to finish this. Scream for us to stop, scream for her mother and dad. You have no idea what it’s like to know that you can’t help her and neither can we. I want you to know that it’s necessary. I promise you it will only get better once we get her to the hospital.”

Jared looked at him then at Willow. “You’re afraid I’ll hit you, aren’t you?”

“
Yes, sir, I am. I’ve been in this situation before. I know you won’t mean to, but you’re a big man and, well…I don’t want to have to have one of those cops shoot you to stop you from hurting me.”

Jared looked at the police standing there. Tyler had a point. He didn’t know what it was going to be like and all he could do was promise him he’d try not to hit him. Tyler nodded and stuck out his hand.

“
Good luck, Mr. Stone. Now let’s cut this bastard.”

Tyler was right. Jared wasn’t prepared. Her screams pounded in his head as he ran the saw. It seemed an eternity before he got the first seam cut and longer for the second, even though it was the same length. When the other men came forward with their pry bars and they stuck them in the cuts, he thought he’d puke when blood began pooling beneath the boards and over her. Still she screamed and sobbed.

She’d begged them to stop, begged him to please make them stop. She called for her dad and her mom. She yelled for Alexander as well. Then she was free.

Jared was drenched in sweat despite the cold air. Even as he followed her gurney down the stairs, he wanted to pull her into his arms and simply comfort her. He was weak and dizzy by the time they got down the stairs.

Willow was loaded into an ambulance that was taking her to an open field where it would take her to the nearest hospital. They told him that she would be at the hospital and in surgery before they got there.

Their families met him right outside the door when they came out. Her parents followed as far as the ambulance then came back to him. His dad was telling him something when he realized he’d missed it.