by Cee Bowerman
“Reba’s hiding spot,” Sonny actually laughed. “Stay there. I’m on my way.”
“I can’t get the bleeding to slow down,” Reba sobbed. When I glanced over, I saw that she had tears streaming down her cheeks.
I scrambled over the plywood on my bare knees and assessed Jace’s injuries. He had been stabbed more than once around his left shoulder and I worried that one of the wounds may have damaged his heart. It looked ilke there was also a wound in his belly. The bleeding was sluggish, and his color was bad.
I felt for a pulse and then put my head down on Jace’s chest to listen for his heartbeat.
“Fuck!” I yelled, readjusting his body. “Reba, his heart has stopped. He’s not breathing. I’m going to start CPR.”
“Oh my God!” Reba whispered as she held pressure on Jace’s wound.
I started chest compressions and then did rescue breathing before I moved back up and started compressions again. I heard Jace’s ribs crack under the pressure and flinched at the sound. I bent down and gave him more rescue breaths before I felt for his pulse again.
I heard the rafters behind me creak. I spun around on my ass and saw a man walking steadily across the attic, his body hunched over so he could fit under the roof. There was a gun in his hand and it was pointed in Reba’s direction.
“You’re so predictable, Reba,” the man mused. “I made sure there was another way I could get up here if you tried to hide from me again.”
I grabbed the gun I’d put down next to Jace’s shoulder and without a second thought, after years of practice at the range with my brothers, I extended my arm. My left hand reached up and found its position over the lower half of my right hand. With a soft exhale, I pulled the trigger and shot the man in center mass, right where I was aiming.
He jerked back but didn’t fall. I pulled the trigger again. From a few feet away, I heard another gunshot and then three more in rapid succession. I watched the man in front of us jolt with every hit before falling forward. His hands never even came up to brace his fall. He hit the rafters with a thud right before his body fell through the sheetrock and into the room below.
I turned my head and with the ringing in my ears, it felt like I was moving in slow motion. I saw that Reba was on one knee beside Jace, her other leg up with her foot planted on the plywood beneath her. Her arms were extended and she was holding Jace’s gun in her hand with the same grip I was still holding mine.
I watched as Reba carefully put her gun down beside Jace’s leg before she moved her hands back over his wounds to put more pressure on them to stop his bleeding.
I worked my jaw back and forth hoping that my ears might pop and make it easier for me to hear as I scrambled to start CPR again.
“Jace!” Reba sobbed as she moved one hand to his throat to feel for a pulse. “Oh God, Mace!”
“Go to the window and look for Sonny. You’ll have to tell the cops we shot him and he fell downstairs.”
I gave Jace rescue breaths and then started compressions again while Reba moved carefully over the rafters and looked down into the hole her brother’s body had made.
“He’s dead,” Reba said flatly. Her voice was completely without emotion, and I wondered if she was in shock. “I’m going to have to get a new couch.”
21.
“The princess is awake!”
Grunt
MACE
“Ms. Lane?” I glanced up and saw a uniformed officer walking toward us from the side of the house. Reba was staring straight ahead. The tears she’d shed earlier as we watched the ambulance take Jace away had dried in salty tracks down her face, and she now had no expression. I watched her shiver even though it wasn’t very cool outside, and I knew she was in shock.
“Can I go inside and find her a blanket?” I asked the officer as he got closer to us.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t let either of you go inside the house. I’m going to have to ask you both to move over to the other side of the street until Detective Amerson gets here to speak to you.
“She needs medical attention,” I told the young cop. “She’s shivering and I think she’s in shock.”
The cop glanced at Reba and nodded before he reached for the radio on his shoulder. I took my arm from around her shoulders and held both of her hands in mine. Her hands were freezing and when I glanced back at her face, I saw that her lips were turning blue.
“Reba, baby?”
When I moved off the step to stand in front of her, she didn’t seem to see me. I heard a siren coming our direction and could see the lights bouncing off the houses at the end of the block before it even turned down the street toward us.
I leaned down and scooped Reba up in my arms and walked toward the curb to wait for the paramedics.
“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered. “Darryl can’t hurt anybody now. We killed the monster and you don’t ever have to worry about him again.”
I blinked to clear the vision of Reba’s brother’s body jerking back as the bullets I shot found their target. I was not going to regret shooting the man, but I wouldn’t forget it either.
“She’s in shock,” I told the paramedic as he came around the ambulance. He nodded his head and opened the doors. I stepped up and ducked my head so I could get inside the ambulance and then laid Reba down on the stretcher. I held her hand in mine as I sat on the bench seat beside her.
“Is she injured?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Just processing.”
“I heard the call on the radio earlier,” the paramedic shook his head slowly. “They got your friend to the hospital. We’ll be going to that same one.”
“Okay,” I whispered as I reached up to move Reba’s hair away from her face.
My phone rang and I reached down and pulled it out of my pocket.
“Where the fuck are you?” Angus growled.
“Reba’s in shock. We’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
“I’ll be there.”
I flipped the phone closed and looked back at Reba.
“Reba, it’s okay, sweetheart. We’re all going to be fine.”
◆◆◆
“What did the doctor say?” Sonny asked as he sat down beside me in the waiting area down the hall from the exam room where they’d taken Reba.
“He said she’s just in shock and he’ll give her a little bit to rest and relax. If she doesn’t come out of it on her own, he’ll give her some drug that might help snap her out of it.”
“Can we see her?”
“They’ll let us know when we can go back. Right now, they’re getting to admit her to a room. How’s Jace?”
“He’s still in surgery. He was stabbed five times and his spleen got nicked, so he had some internal bleeding. Our friend is a nurse here. She just came on shift and checked on him for me. She said he’s going to be okay.”
“Good,” I nodded. “That’s good.”
“Cops are here,” Sonny mumbled and I glanced up at the doorway. The detective we’d spoken to before, Detective Amerson, was walking in with two patrol officers I’d seen at the house.
“Mr. Lane?” one of the officers asked.
“I’m Mace Conner. Reba Lane is my girlfriend who owns the house.”
“The suspect was her brother, correct?”
“Yes,” Sonny answered him. “They’re my cousins.”
“Well, right before you requested an ambulance for Ms. Lane, officers on scene discovered that he had the place wired for an explosion. Did you notice the gasoline on your way out of the house?” Detective Amerson asked me.
“Yeah, I did.” I nodded.
“From what we can piece together, and we’ll have to speak to Mr. Duke when he’s able to verify, but there were three men. They disabled the alarm system from outside after they’d already set the charges around the house. They snuck in, most likely expecting Mr. Duke to be in one of the bedrooms. Instead, they found him in the garage. That’s where the initial evidence shows that he was
able to fight off two attackers, killing both of them. He also injured Ms. Lane’s brother in the scuffle before moving into the house and towards her bedroom.”
I filled in the rest of the story for the detective and he nodded before he continued.
“It must have taken some time for Mr. Duke to make it to the bedroom, giving the intruder time to spread gasoline through the kitchen, dining room, and living area. It trailed down the hall and into the children’s bedrooms and then to the bedroom where he left the gas can as he tried to break through the bedroom door.”
“Yeah, then the asshole went back outside and broke into her bedroom through a window. What I want to know is how he got into the attic. He came from the other end of the house.” I said, still mulling over the possibilities.
“He entered through a vent in the eave of the house. It seems that entry point had been used before, most likely either while no one was home or while the residents were sleeping. There’s evidence in the attic that shows he tracked in mud at some point. Unless that came from somewhere in the yard, he would have brought it in from the street. It hasn’t rained here in weeks.”
“He might have been in her attic while she was home?” I asked, stunned.
“Yeah, let’s not tell Reba that little tidbit. What do you say?” Sonny shook his head and looked down at his shoes. “She’s not gonna want to live there anymore anyway. Fuck. She can’t. Everything she owns is covered in gasoline.”
“I want her to live with me,” I told Sonny, completely ignoring the detective who was standing in front of us. “She and the kids will move in with me.”
“Well,” Sonny chuckled. “I guess that settles it then, doesn’t it?”
◆◆◆
REBA
“Mama, wake up.” I felt Vada’s hair tickle my nose and wanted to roll over for just a little bit more sleep. My whole body ached for some reason and my mouth was so dry I could barely move my tongue. “Mace, she’s not waking up.”
“Just snuggle with her for a minute, baby girl,” I heard Sonny tell Vada from across the room.
What in the hell was Sonny doing in my bedroom?
I opened my eyes to look at my cousin and realized I was not at home in my bed. I was in a hospital room and the bed I was laying in was surrounded by people.
“What the…” My whole body tensed and I tried to sit up in bed, but my son and daughter’s heavy little bodies held me still.
“Hi, Mama. Ms. Martha called Shannon and said you were sleeping like a princess, but if you heard us you’d wake right up.” Vada giggled. “She was right.”
“Hi, baby,” I closed my eyes and smelled my baby's hair before I gave her a kiss, and then I turned my head to do the same with my son. “Hi, Cy.”
“The princess is awake!” Grunt clapped his hands. “Now we’ve got to go and get her some food.”
“Donuts!” Vada squealed as she elbowed me trying to jump out of the bed. “I want cherry with sprinkles.”
“Sprinkles are for babies. I want a cinnamon roll!” Cy jumped out of bed and then turned around and smiled. “We’ll bring your favorites back, okay?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Be back in a bit. Thirty minutes okay?” Grunt smiled and tilted his head toward me before he opened the door and ushered my kids out into the hall.
“Thanks, brother.” Sonny saluted his friend and I watched the door close behind him before I turned my head and looked at the others in the room.
“Why am I here?” My voice was scratchy and my tongue was like sandpaper.
“Take a drink, babe.” Mace angled a bottle of water toward my mouth and I reached up and covered his hand with mine. I drank greedily and felt instantly better. “You’ve been asleep for a while.”
“A while? How did I get here? We were on the porch and there was gasoline everywhere. Oh my God! Jace!”
“Jace came out of surgery fine, babe. They fixed him right up. I talked to him half an hour ago,” Sonny assured me. “He’s gonna be just fine.”
“Oh, good,” I dropped my head back onto the pillow, still wondering how I got here.
“You kind of zoned out, Reba. You were in shock and they gave you some anti-anxiety medication and it knocked you right out.” Mace reached over and brushed my hair back from my face and smiled at me. “Glad you’re back.”
“Darryl’s still dead, right?”
“Yup.” I heard Sonny chuckle. “I double checked. Tried to talk to the cops into letting me verify it with a wooden stake and they got all pissy.”
“Some people got no sense.” I heard Angus, Mace’s twin brother laugh. I glanced over and saw him sitting in a chair by the bathroom door, his girlfriend on his knee. “Don’t they watch movies?”
Sonny, Angus, Violet and a few others in the room started talking about how stupid people on horror films were, but my focus was on Mace.
“It’s all over” I whispered. “I don’t ever have to worry about him again.”
“Never,” Mace assured me. “We can go on with our lives now, baby.”
“Yeah,” I smiled, so relieved that I felt like I could just float on air. “I’ve always worried he’d come for me. Now I never have to look over my shoulder again.”
“You okay?” Mace whispered.
“You mean because I shot him?”
“You remember.”
“I remember. I’m okay with it. There was just so much going on and I flashed back to what the house smelled like when he tried to burn Mom and I and then he was laying there in the living room... oh my God. What am I going to do with my house? There was gasoline everywhere.”
“You and the kids are going to live with me,” Mace said firmly. “It was going to happen, this just moved up the timeline.”
“We are?”
“Yes. You are. I’ve got the room.”
“It’s been decided,” Sonny agreed with Mace.
“But…”
“Don’t even try to argue,” Violet laughed. “Mace already put the wheels in motion.”
“Really?” I asked as I lifted my head to look at her. “How?”
“I talked to your Aunt Sandy. She’s at your house with Lena, and they’ve got some other women over there sorting through what can be salvaged after the gasoline. Looks like all of y’all’s clothes are okay, but the beds are soaked. The rest of your furniture has to go. The things in the kitchen and attic are okay. They’re packing and cleaning so you won’t have to do a thing. The three of you will move into my house as soon as we get you out of here.”
I still felt a little woozy and I was sure I needed to argue, but I couldn’t come up with a convincing reason not to just go with the flow here.
I wanted to live with Mace. I loved him and wanted to spend my future with him, so it made sense that at some point we’d live together.
It wasn’t ideal that it was because my brother had once again tried to kill me, but I’d take the reasoning. Besides, I didn’t want to step foot back into that house again. It was tainted by my brother’s evil, and covered in Jace’s blood.
“Can I go see Jace? I want to thank him. I owe him so much.” I pushed myself up in the bed and Mace helped me sit up.
“Reba, he’s as fucked up as a football bat right now. He’d never remember talking to you at this point,” Sonny laughed. “Let’s let you both rest and recover a bit before we do a tearful reunion.”
“He’s right,” Mace agreed as he laughed. “The look on his face is so funny. He’s so high.”
“Well, at least he isn’t feeling any pain” I surmised. “When can I get out of here? What exactly is wrong with me?”
“You were in shock and just kind of shut down,” Mace explained. “They gave you a shot and then you slept like a log.”
“How long was I out?”
“We got here around two this morning and it’s just past noon now.”
“I haven’t slept that long in years,” I whispered.
“Maybe your body realized it had a
shot and took it,” Violet laughed.
I laughed for a minute, deciding that she just might be right.
“I need to get up.” I moved the blanket over and started to shift my legs to the edge of the bed, but Mace put his hands out to stop me.
“No, babe. Stay in bed.”
“My eyeballs are floating,” I hissed.
Mace barked out a laugh and then started to help me out of bed.
“Honey, since you’re okay, we’re going to head on over to your house and see what we can do to help your aunt. We’ll let her know that you’re awake and doing fine, but I’m sure she’s going to want to see for herself.”
“What are they doing with my stuff? I need to get out of here and help them. Lena can’t lift much and I don’t want Aunt Sandy to hurt herself.”
“You do remember how many brothers I have, right?” Mace asked. “All your aunt has to do is point and there is someone right there to fetch and carry for her.”
“She’s got some of the Knights over there too,” Sonny told me. “Believe me. Aunt Sandy’s in her element bossing a houseful of people around. She’s probably enjoying the hell out of it.”
“She probably is,” I agreed with a smile. “Once they get me packed, where are they going to put it all? I guess there’s room in the garage if I move my car.”
“Construction company? Trucks and trailers?” Mace was pointing to his chest. “It’s all going to my garage. Remember? You’re moving in with me.”
“Right now?”
“Well, yeah.” Mace looked confused and glanced over at Sonny. “Didn’t we already go over this?”
“Well, with that, we’re out of here.” Angus stood to say his goodbyes. He and Violet waved as they hurried out the door, probably sensing that I was a little irritated by Mace’s flippant attitude.
“I’m going to go too. Grunt should be back any minute, so you’d better go pee.” Sonny leaned over and kissed my forehead before he turned to the door. “Love you, kiddo. Have us over for dinner when you get settled in your new place.”