by Wesley Lewis
“Three hundred and fifty thousand,” replied Scarlett. “You’re going to sew it into Tom’s parachute rig.”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t worry about why; just do it. I’d have been done and gone by now if you and your cop friend hadn’t interrupted me.”
“I don’t know anything about sewing something like this. How am I—”
“Christ, bitch, it’s not that tough. I already put most of the money in the part where the missing parachute went. All you need to do is take out the other parachute, put the rest of the money in there, and sew it shut.”
Vegas stared at the rig. “But . . . I don’t . . .” She looked up at Scarlett. “Did you really hurt Larry?”
Scarlett’s face flushed red, but whatever brewed inside her was preempted by a loud knock at the door.
From the hallway, Sheriff Cargill yelled, “Wrap it up, ladies. We gotta roll.”
Scarlett took a step toward Vegas and whispered, “Stall him.”
Vegas scowled at Scarlett and shouted, “We’re not dressed. Just give us a few more minutes.”
“I’ll give you two minutes,” replied the sheriff. “Then I’m coming in.”
Scarlett nudged Vegas with the barrel of the gun. “Get over there and open the window.”
“The window?”
“Yeah.” Scarlett snatched the skydiving rig from the bed. “We’re leaving.”
Jennifer stepped aside to let Vegas onto the desk. Vegas crawled over the sewing machine and flipped the window latch.
Scarlett slipped her left arm through the rig’s left shoulder strap.
“How exactly do you see this working?” asked Jennifer.
Scarlett switched the gun to her left hand. “Shut up.” She slipped her right arm through the other shoulder strap, then returned the gun to that hand. “You don’t need to know how it’s going to work.”
“What I mean is, do you plan on going out first and trusting Vegas and me to follow, or do you plan on going out last and trusting Vegas and me to wait for you?”
Scarlett wore the rig like a backpack, with the leg straps dangling free behind her. She stared at Jennifer.
“Or,” continued Jennifer, “you could try having one of us climb out before you and the other after you, but then you’d have to cover both inside and outside, and you only have one gun.”
“Shut up,” said Scarlett. “Let me think a minute.”
“Got it!” exclaimed Vegas. The window slid up with a loud rattle.
“Better figure it out quick,” said Jennifer, “before the sheriff comes in to find out what that was.” She saw Scarlett’s jawline become more pronounced and knew she was getting to her. “I suppose you could just shoot us, but the sheriff would probably be in here before you got off the second shot.” She saw Scarlett’s left hand tighten into a fist and knew she had her on the ropes. “Maybe you’d better just make a run for it. Forget about us. Try to get a head start on the sheriff.”
Scarlett’s eyes narrowed. A shallow grin formed at the corners of her mouth.
Shit. What did I miss?
Scarlett pointed the gun at Jennifer’s face and cocked the hammer.
Jennifer swallowed hard. “Scarlett, I—”
Scarlett raised a finger to her lips.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jennifer saw Vegas frozen atop the desk.
Scarlett lowered the finger and screamed, “Help, Sheriff! Hurry!”
As the doorknob turned, Scarlett pivoted away from Jennifer and fired three quick shots through the door.
For the second time in the past hour, Jennifer found her hearing replaced with a painful ringing. She was still staring at the three holes in the door when Scarlett turned and pointed the gun at her head. Her field of vision narrowed until only the gun and Scarlett’s grinning face remained. She wanted to lunge for the gun, to take it away and beat that evil grin into a bloody mash of teeth and bone. But Scarlett had the drop on her.
Then the evil grin was gone, replaced by the blur of a white sneaker as Vegas’s foot connected with Scarlett’s face. Scarlett went flying backward—wig, gun, and all.
Instinct took over, and Jennifer’s legs propelled her toward the door. She grabbed the knob, yanked open the door, and stepped out into a trail of blood. She slipped and crashed into the far wall.
She fell to the floor and pivoted back toward the room, certain that Scarlett was about to put a bullet in her back. She saw only Vegas, still standing on the desk.
“Come on!” screamed Jennifer. “Run!”
Vegas covered half the length of the room in a single bound. She was one step from the door when her gray UNLV shirt disintegrated in a plume of red. She fell face-first, with one outstretched hand extending into the hallway.
Jennifer reached for the hand but felt herself yanked clear of the doorway just as the doorjamb exploded in a cloud of splinters. She looked back and saw Sheriff Cargill lying on the floor, pulling her with his left arm—the one not soaked in blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The burnt smell of smokeless powder reached Crocker’s nostrils as he neared the end of the main hallway. Somewhere behind him, Special Agent Eastland shouted at him to stay back, but Crocker wasn’t about to slow down and wait for someone else, even an FBI agent, to go first.
He knew better than to rush headlong toward the sound of gunfire. A lifetime of training told him to hang back, to clear the corners, to advance with caution. He’d spent years warning students to fight the initial surge of adrenaline, to go slow, to slice the pie. All of that was well and good in the academy’s shoot house or on a SWAT raid, but this was personal.
He rounded the corner at a dead run and saw Sheriff Cargill, soaked in blood, lying on the floor with his head propped against the wall. Crocker slid to a stop at the sheriff’s side and reached to take the pistol from the injured man’s one good hand.
The sheriff shook his head and pulled the gun away. “It’s over. Go help her.” He nodded at the open doorway across the hall.
Crocker turned and looked into the room.
Just inside the doorway, Jennifer—wearing a pink T-shirt splattered with drops of red—knelt over Vegas, pressing down on the girl’s blood-soaked chest.
Crocker stood and approached the doorway.
Jennifer looked up and, speaking in rapid-fire bursts, said, “I think she’s okay—I think it missed her heart—I think she’s going to be okay.”
One look told Crocker that Vegas was not okay. The logo on her shirt had vanished beneath a pool of blood. The veins on her neck and head bulged as if they might burst through her skin. Her eyes were open but unfocused, and her breathing was shallow and rapid.
“I just need to stop the bleeding,” said Jennifer, still speaking in staccato bursts. “I can’t stop the bleeding—I think she’ll be all right if I can stop the bleeding, but I can’t stop the bleeding—I need a towel or something—all I could find was this shirt.”
In Jennifer’s hand was a bloody rag that might once have been a shirt.
“Tampons,” said Crocker. “You need to stick a tampon in the wound.”
Behind Crocker, a voice called, “Officer down. Officer down at the Prickly Pear Ranch.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Eastland using the radio attached to the sheriff’s belt.
“On the dresser,” said Jennifer. “Look in the diaper bag on the dresser—she has tampons in the diaper bag on the dresser.”
Crocker stepped around Vegas’s outstretched body and walked to the dresser. Scraps of fabric and bits of thread danced in the breeze from the open window. He grabbed the bag and unzipped it.
“Side pocket,” said Jennifer. “Check the side pocket—she has tampons in the side pocket.”
Crocker sat beside Jennifer, dug through the items in the side pocket—condoms, makeup, the cell phone he’d used at the Stratosphere—and finally pulled out a tampon.
Vegas choked and coughed up a little blood.
Crocker unwrapped the tampon. “Move your hands.”
Jennifer didn’t move.
“Jennifer,” he said, “you have to move so that I can get to the wound.”
Jennifer nodded and pulled her hands away.
Crocker moved the applicator toward the wound and froze.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jennifer.
“This is an exit wound.”
“Scarlett shot her in the back.”
“Larry’s three fifty-seven,” muttered Crocker. He laid the tampon on the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Just keep pressure on it.”
“What?”
“The bullet passed all the way through. I can’t plug it.”
Jennifer scowled and placed the bloody rag over the wound again.
Vegas choked again and tried to say something.
“What’s that, honey?” asked Jennifer.
Vegas pointed to the bag and mumbled something.
Jennifer leaned in close. “Tell me what you want.”
Crocker heard Vegas’s raspy whisper but couldn’t decipher it. “What is she saying?”
“She’s asking for her phone.” Jennifer smiled unconvincingly at the young woman. “Don’t worry, hon. We’ll bring it to the hospital for you.”
Crocker pulled the phone from the side pocket of the diaper bag and offered it to Jennifer. “Give it to her if she wants it.”
Jennifer shot him a deadly look. “We have to stop the bleeding.”
“We will.” He pressed the phone into Jennifer’s hand. “Ask her who she wants to call. I need to check on the sheriff.”
Eastland was perfectly capable of tending to the sheriff, but Crocker couldn’t bring himself to sit and watch Vegas—Vegas who’d giggled like a little kid after firing a gun for the first time, Vegas whose schoolgirl crush he’d dodged for nearly two years—die on the floor of her shitty brothel dorm room.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Make your phone call, kiddo. I’ll check on you in a few minutes.”
She gave a gentle nod, barely discernible from the tremors that had taken hold of her.
Crocker stepped into the hallway and knelt beside Eastland, who was applying pressure to a bullet wound in the sheriff’s hip. The sheriff was using his left hand to put pressure on a bullet wound—clearly the source of most of the blood—in his right arm. Through a hole in the sheriff’s shirt, Crocker saw the shiny copper jacket of a bullet trapped in a bulletproof vest.
He pointed to the trapped bullet. “Good thing you’re wearing your Kevlar.”
The sheriff nodded. “How’s the girl?”
Crocker shook his head and wiped his eyes.
“Goddammit,” said the sheriff. He turned his head to the side, breaking eye contact. “I should have checked the room more carefully. I—”
“Crocker!” screamed Jennifer. “Help!”
He turned and stepped back into the room.
“She’s not responding,” said Jennifer. “I can’t tell if she’s breathing—she’s not responding—I can’t . . . she . . .”
Crocker knelt beside her. Vegas’s eyes were still open, but the life had gone from them. He placed an ear on her bloody chest. He didn’t hear a heartbeat. He did, however, hear a woman’s voice, faint and distorted, saying, “Megan, honey, is that you? Are you there?” The cell phone lay on the ground beside Vegas’s head. He picked it up. The text on the screen said mom.
Jennifer whispered, “I just dialed it.”
He pressed the disconnect button and laid the phone beside its owner.
From the hallway, a man yelled, “Out of the way! Let me through.”
Crocker looked back and saw a sheriff’s deputy—one of the few he didn’t know—pushing his way through the door.
Unit 23 had arrived.
Crocker placed a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder and said, “We need to let the deputy take over.”
She shot him the same deadly look as before. “No, I’m not—”
“The deputy knows what he’s doing. You and I need to go wait for the ambulance so that we can show the paramedics how to get back here.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he took her by the shoulders, stood her up, and pointed her into the hallway.
Jennifer stopped beside the sheriff. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” he replied.
“I shouldn’t have made you bring us here. I—”
“Stop it. There ain’t no one to blame but the person who pulled the trigger.”
“He’s right,” said Eastland.
Jennifer nodded as if she understood, but Crocker knew she’d require a lot more convincing. A therapist had once told him that no emotion is more persuasive than guilt.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go flag down those paramedics.” He put an arm around Jennifer. “Bill, do you want me to call Jim?”
The sheriff shook his head. “I’ll get one of my deputies to call him before I’m loaded into the ambulance. That way, he can hear my voice and know I’m okay.”
Crocker nodded and led Jennifer down the hall.
Most of the doors that lined the hallway stood open, occupied by young women wearing nightgowns or wrapped in bedsheets. They were obviously curious about what was happening but streetwise enough not to get involved.
As Crocker and Jennifer rounded the corner into the main hallway, a woman behind them let out a despondent scream. Crocker wasn’t certain, but he thought it sounded like Dottie. He didn’t have the nerve to go back and check.
Jennifer stopped at the end of the main hallway, in front of the shoe wall.
When she didn’t say anything, Crocker asked, “Are you okay?”
He immediately regretted the question. Nobody was okay. Rather than press the issue, he joined her in staring at the rows of shoes. Because only a handful of the Prickly Pear’s working girls were with clients at this early hour, most of the shoes were what Jennifer had referred to as hooker pumps.
Jennifer grabbed a pair of purple sneakers hiding among the foot-contorting stilettos and checked the size. Without a word, she sat on the floor and put on the shoes, sans socks. When she’d finished lacing up the shoes, she stood and walked to the door, not once looking back to see if Crocker was following.
He caught up to her in the parking lot, where she’d taken a seat on the bumper of Sheriff Cargill’s patrol car. She stared in the direction of the faintly audible sirens. He stood beside her and watched for the not-yet-visible flashing lights.
Without taking her eyes off the road, Jennifer said, “She was hiding in the armoire.”
“What?”
“Scarlett. She was hiding in Vegas’s big wooden wardrobe. She had a gun.”
Crocker thought, No shit she had a gun, but had the good sense not to say it.
Jennifer continued, “She shot the sheriff through the door. She was about to shoot me, but Vegas kicked her, and . . .”
Crocker took a seat on the bumper and wrapped an arm around Jennifer. “Vegas liked you. Wherever she is, she’s happy you’re okay.”
Jennifer’s voice cracked as she said, “Everyone would be okay if it weren’t for me.”
“If you keep blaming yourself, the guilt will eat you up inside.”
“But if I hadn’t made the sheriff—”
“You didn’t make the sheriff do anything. He was in favor of coming here. So was I. How could any of us have known Scarlett would be hiding in Vegas’s r
oom? What possible reason—”
“She was using Vegas’s sewing stuff. She hid in the wardrobe when she heard us coming.”
“Sewing?”
Jennifer nodded. “She sewed most of the stolen money into the empty compartment in Tom’s parachute rig.”
“What the hell for?”
“Hide it, I guess.”
“If you want to hide eight hundred thousand dollars, you sew it into a stuffed animal or the lining of a suitcase. Why would she . . .”
He stood and looked toward the dry lake bed. A faint cloud of dust hung over the dirt road.
“What is it?” asked Jennifer.
“There is only one place around here where walking around with a parachute would look natural.”
“The skydiving tournament?”
“She can’t take a commercial flight—she’s a fugitive. Lucky for her, we showed her a way around that.”
“But that only worked because Tom has friends there. Scarlett doesn’t.”
Crocker walked around the left side of the car. “A woman with almost a million in cash can make friends fast.”
“Six hundred grand.” Jennifer stood and walked around the other side of the car. “The rest of the money is still in Vegas’s room.”
“Six hundred thousand dollars and a three fifty-seven revolver can be pretty damned persuasive.” He tried the driver-side door but found it locked. “Shit.”
“What do you need?”
“Police radio. Come on, we need to tell Agent Eastland and the sheriff.”
As he turned toward the building, he spied a familiar Chevy Traverse parked twenty yards away.
He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out the key. “Change of plans. You go tell the sheriff and Eastland. I’m going after—”
The sound of smashing glass obscured his words. He turned back toward the sheriff’s car.