Good Enough: A Shay James Mystery

by Brenda McCreight

  Chapter Twelve

  Valuable Lessons

 

  The girls walked out of the mud room and into the darkness of the snow-filled night. Shay took Larissa’s hand and squeezed it to reassure the frightened girl but Larissa surprised her by pulling her hand away and putting her arm around Shay to support her as she walked.

  “Its okay, Shay,” Larissa said. “I can help you walk.”

  “Shut up!” Jacobs yelled through the blowing snow.

  Shay’s eyes filled with tears, not from the wind, but from the kindness of Larissa. The younger girl was full of strength and goodness that no one would ever know about unless Shay could save her. But she couldn’t think of anything to do, and Shay was quickly losing hope that the Norton’s would find them in time. She knew that Grace’s parents would first go the Halliwell’s place and spend some time looking for the girls there. By the time they figured out the girls were gone, it would be too late. Jacobs would have them halfway up a mountain road where they’d either die from the weather, or Jacobs would shoot them. Shay could see Jacob’s old, battered car at the bottom of the road. It waited like a beast ready to devour her and Larissa. Shay knew that Jacobs wouldn’t take the chance of her getting out of the car again, he would do something to her before she got into the car and there would be nothing she could do to help Larissa.

  Shay gulped at the cold air as fear threatened to over take her. She tried to calm her racing mind and focused on slowing her breathing. The distance between the girls and the car was getting smaller and smaller. Shay could feel Larissa’s arm around her back, holding her in both support and fear.

  Suddenly, a memory forced itself into Shay’s terrified mind. It was her father flushing drugs down the toilet while the police were banging in the front door of their dilapidated rented house.

  “What are you doing, you fool?” her mother had screamed at him. “They’ve got guns, just give up!”

  Her father ignored the noise and didn’t looked up or stop flushing the drugs till the police slammed into the bathroom, guns pointing at the back of his head, and ordered him to stop. He’d finally looked up and noticed Shay, small and terrified, curled up beside the bath tub. He’d winked at Shay and smiled as the police roughly put the handcuffs on his thick wrists.

  “I never give up kid,” he’d said to her. “You can learn that much from me, eh? Never give up!” And his desperate flushing had worked as the most incriminating drugs were gone, leaving the police with only enough evidence to charge him with possession.

  You’re right, Shay thought. I can learn that much from you.

  Shay squeezed Larissa’s hand to steady herself and then in one fluid motion she turned and kicked out with her half frozen foot, catching Jacobs in the shin with Jolene’s hard toed boots.

  “Oh shit,” Jacobs cried out and bent over to rub at his shin. Larissa saw her chance and didn’t hesitate: she moved quickly, kicking at his other leg as Jacobs lost his footing and began flinging his arms wildly, trying in vain to stay on his feet. The gun went off in the air as he landed hard on the snow covered ice, and the weapon fell out of the man’s hand and landed in the snow. Shay kicked again at the fallen figure, this time aiming for his kidneys through his thick coat. Jacobs swore again and squirmed forward, trying to find his gun in the snow.

  “Get the gun,” Shay yelled at Larissa as she kicked again at the fallen Jacobs.

  Larissa moved quickly around the man’s head and kicked the gun out his reach then kicked it again and again till it was deep in the snow bank at the side of the road. She ran back to Shay who was still kicking at Jacobs as he tried to grab Shay’s legs.

  “Get his arms!” Shay yelled.

  Larissa jumped on his arms and slammed one foot into his shoulder and one on his hand, letting her full weight pin his movements.

  “Get off me!” he cried. “You’re going to break my shoulder you little bitch!”

  Shay kicked hard again at the man’s back. As he rolled toward her she put her heavy boot on his other shoulder, pinning him to the frozen ground. Jacobs tried to move, but the girls had him down. He kicked up with his legs, but a lifetime of drugs and unhealthy living had robbed him of energy and strength. As the cold silently gripped him, Jacobs became visibly weaker.

  “Get snow on him,” Shay said to Larissa. “We have to get him as cold as we can, so he can’t do anything.”

  Larissa nodded as she reached down and pulled the cap off Jacob’s and then piled snow around his scalp and on his face.

  “You’re going to kill me!” he said weakly, trying to shake off the snow. “I’m going to freeze to death.”

  Shay didn’t want him to die, but she didn’t have any other way to keep him down. The cold that had been her enemy only moments before was now going to be her salvation.

  Shay dimly heard the honking of a truck’s horn and looked up to see headlights blazing through the snow. The Norton’s had arrived. It was over, and she and Larissa were still alive!