“You’re interfering with my family, bitch. We don’t need no handouts.”
“If you’re Mr. Clarence, your family isn’t signed up for any help. Not yet.”
“You think you’re real smart, don’t you? The same as those fucking cops who hauled me off to jail the other night. Well, I ain’t goin’ back to jail, and Mary and my kids ain’t goin’ on without me, neither.”
Did he mean he was going to kill them and himself? “Why would you want to hurt the people you love, Mr. Clarence?”
The gun drifted away from beneath her chin, and Trish drew a slow, shallow breath.
“She’s not gettin’ rid of me. She’s my wife, and those kids are mine. They belong to me.”
Trish eased a hand up toward the gun. If only she could grab the barrel and hold it away from her. “You can go to family counseling, Mr. Clarence, to help settle your differences with your wife. You can still be a family.”
“Not with you showing her how she can go on without me.”
The familiar black and white Charger the county sheriffs drove came around the corner and started up the street. When the gun barrel swung back toward her, Trish caught it and held it away from her face. “I have a family of my own, and I’m not going to let you shoot me.”
“Try and stop me, bitch.” Clarence jerked at the gun, but Trish held on while she let her legs relax beneath her, forcing him to bend and hold her weight. Then she bit into his wrist and held on. Clarence yelled and released his grip on her as he tried to wrench his hand free. If he got loose, he’d shoot her. He punched her on the back of the head with his fist, and pain ricocheted through her neck.
The front grill of the black and white jumped the curb and hit the sidewalk right in front of them. Truman Marshall’s six-foot-four frame leaped out of the car with his weapon in hand.
“Get the hell away from her,” he shouted. “Drop the weapon.”
Clarence heaved back and kneed Trish in the ribs just beneath her breast, nearly lifting her off the ground. Air exploded from her lungs, and she lost her grip on his hand and sprawled back on the sidewalk, hitting her head so hard she saw white, then black. Clarence raised the gun and pointed it toward Marshall, then let out a bellow of rage and fired.
The bark of Marshall’s service weapon seemed to echo as he fired. Clarence tumbled back, the twenty-two pistol gripped in his hand going off again as he fell. He twisted around and ran back toward the houses.
Marshall ran from behind his vehicle and gave chase.
When her ears stopped ringing, Trish became aware of the distant sound of traffic two blocks over. The sensation of not being able to catch her breath started to overwhelm her.
Great. She was having a panic attack after everything was over. She tried to roll to her feet, but found her body wouldn’t respond. There was something wrong.
The sound of running feet approached. Marshall’s huge shoulders and round head popped into her range of vision. “Trish?” The first time he said her name it was like an inquiry. “Trish—” His panicked shout caused her to jerk.
A horrible pain built in her chest, arrowing deeper by the moment.
“Just lie still.” The deputy’s hand seemed the size of a baseball mitt as he pressed down against her ribcage. He keyed his radio, identifying himself and giving his location. “I have shots fired. The suspect is still at large. I need a supervisor. I have a victim down. She has a gunshot wound to the right chest, and she’s bleeding heavily. I need an ambulance now!”
Every breath felt like she was trying to breathe underwater. She’d been shot. It didn’t seem possible. The son-of-a-bitch actually shot her. She felt cold and nausea rolling her stomach into a tight ball, and she fought the need to throw up. She reached out to grip Marshall’s wrist, but her arm couldn’t seem to work quite right. He snatched the waving limb in midair and gripped it hard.
She thought of Langley. She wouldn’t leave him with that burden of guilt any more than he would her. “Langley.” Her voice sounded like a puff of air. “Love him.”
“Don’t you go there, Trish,” Marshall yelled, as if the strength of his voice would keep her from giving into the blackness creeping around the edges of her vision.
Sirens warbled in the distance, getting closer. “Just hold on. They’re coming.”
She’d never realized how noble Marshall’s African-American features looked, or how intense a brown his eyes were. She remembered the child custody case where they met. He’d been sympathetic but professional, and defused the situation by taking the father outside and talking to him while the children got their clothing together. The man was weeping openly, but hadn’t been violent as so many were.
Marshall did his job, she did hers, and months would go by when she didn’t have to access him as a contact. She didn’t even know if he was married or had children. But he was holding her hand and talking to her now, urging her to keep breathing.
Two different sirens converged on the street. Trish’s vision narrowed to a tunnel. She didn’t want to leave her children. They needed her.
She felt so tired. Pushing air in and out took more and more effort. There was a boulder sitting on her chest, and she couldn’t get enough air. She coughed and pushed against Marshall’s hand so she could roll on her side. He seemed to sense what she needed and eased her over.
Her vision went from gray to black. She closed her eyes and surrendered.
Chapter 4
SATURDAY, 1:00 p.m.
Langley studied his son’s sullen expression. Tad had been asleep when he attempted this talk the first time.
Now he was awake, Tad was giving him a solid dose of what Trish described earlier today. His body language screamed I don’t give a shit, but his ears remained bright red with temper.
Langley took a step farther into the room so Tad had to tilt his head back to look up at him. Sometimes it helped to put a little dominant body language into the equation. Jesus, he was using psychology on his twelve-year-old to gain the upper hand.
“You realize you’ve hurt your sister in a way she’ll never forget. She’ll forgive you, eventually, but she won’t forget what you did today.”
“Good. Maybe she’ll stay out of my room.”
“I’m sure she will. I expect you to stay out of hers from now on, too.”
“No problem.”
At his snappy answer, Langley clenched his hands into fists. “Your mother’s already taken your X-box. Keep up with the attitude, and you’ll be staring at these four walls for the next week without a television as well.”
Tad’s head jerked up and his blue eyes, so much like Trish’s, glinted with a combination of resentment and fear before he looked away.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are you going to continue digging a hole for yourself with your mouth?”
Silence stretched, filling the room. Langley leaned against the chest of drawers and prepared to wait until Tad broke it.
“You and Mom don’t like each other anymore.”
“We love each other, Tad.”
“You don’t act like it.”
He gripped his thin legs, and Langley saw himself in the gesture.
Tad’s voice dropped. “Or at least Mom doesn’t.”
Langley thought about the final moment they had before Trish left for work. He’d done a lot of thinking before he walked into this room, and what he’d figured out didn’t make him happy.
Trish was overwhelmed right now, and she needed more help than he could give her. He’d dropped the ball again, and his job made it difficult for him to pick it back up.
But how could he explain the ups and downs of a marriage to a twelve-year-old?
“Tad, your mom and I have been married fifteen years, and she’s had to do everything alone more than half the time we’ve been married, because I’ve been gone. She’s had to carry the weight of everything without me.
“Her job’s gotten really hard the last couple of months, because they’ve
doubled her caseload, and she’s having to work weekends and longer hours to keep up. She’s tired when she gets home. But she still has the same responsibility for taking care of you and your sisters, the house, and the bills.”
“You help,” Tad broke in.
Langley smiled half-heartedly at his son’s defense of him. “When I’m here, but I’m not always here. I’m home for stretches of time, but in between…she has to be Mom and Dad to you and your sisters. You know that, and I know it. I had to leave this morning. Who fixed your breakfast and loaded the dishwasher while I was gone?”
“Mom.”
“Who folded your laundry and put it in the basket for you to put away?”
“Mom.”
“Who dealt with your meltdown and the consequences before she had to leave for work?”
Tad’s head dropped, as did his voice. “Mom.”
“She’s working sixty-hour weeks, Tad. How many hours a day is that in a six-day week?”
“Ten.”
“But she still picked up the drinks for your team on Thursday, made sure your uniform was clean, and came to the game, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“She does those things because she knows they’re important to you, because you’re important to her. She does things for all of us, including me, because she loves us.”
Relief and regret hit him as tears ran down Tad’s cheeks. It was hard to stand there and watch his son cry without offering him support or sympathy. He waited several moments to allow the reality of how upset he was with his son to sink in before he moved to sit down on the end of the bed. “I need your help, Tad.”
Using the hem of his T-shirt, Tad dried his face. “With what?”
“I need you to help me figure out how we can help Mom not have so much to do around here, so she can spend more time with us.”
Tad attempted to look pitiful and almost succeeded. “Mom said I have to ask around the neighborhood for yard work jobs to earn enough money to pay for another camera for Jessica.”
“You broke it. It’s your responsibility to replace it.”
Tad’s head dropped again.
“I thought it might be a good idea to revamp the household chore schedule and add a few things that you and your sisters can do to help out more when I’m not here. Like take out the trash, clean the bathroom, load the dishwasher, and fold the laundry.”
“Okay.”
“And it wouldn’t hurt to apologize to your sister, too.”
Tad shot him a resentful look, and Langley gritted his teeth and fought the urge to shake the shit out of him. He was getting a full dose of what Trish had been dealing with for months. If she could be patient, so could he, but damn it was hard. “Think about it.”
He left the bedroom much more optimistic than when he entered it. He made some real headway with Tad, he was certain of it. He paused outside Jessica’s door. She’d been asleep for a while, but now sat on the side of her bed.
Jess was their most sensitive child. A true blend of the two of them, with her mother’s blue eyes, and his dark hair and brows, she was the one he was going to worry about when she started dating. Both his girls were beautiful, but Jessica was going to be gorgeous, and have that special inner beauty that would draw guys right in. It was guaranteed to drive him crazy trying to protect her.
He wandered into the room, sat down on the bed, and wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into him and cuddled close. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Mom and I have both spoken to Tad. He’s lost his X-box privileges, and he has to earn the money to replace the camera. He owes you an apology, too.”
He was surprised when she didn’t cry. It worried him more when she just curled in closer and remained silent. “It’s going to be okay, Jess.”
She nodded. “Why are boys so mean?”
“Tad isn’t always mean. He’s good to you and Anna most of the time.”
“Ethan Morgan and Bobby Alexander are mean to me at school.”
Shit! What next? “Just you? Or everyone?”
“Just me and Sarah Donner.”
He wracked his brain to identify Sarah Donner. “Is that the little girl with blond hair down to her waist?”
“Yes.”
“Boys sometimes do things to get your attention because they like you.”
Jessica looked up at him. “Being mean to me isn’t going to make me like either of them.”
He bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. “You are very smart. Have I told you that lately?”
She smiled for the first time. “You tell me that all the time.”
“If they keep picking on you, tell your teacher. And if that doesn’t work, tell them you’re going to tell your dad, and he’ll have a nice visit with theirs.”
She snuggled up to him and gave him a squeeze as far as her arms could reach.
Only your kids could make you feel ten feet tall or as helpless as hell. “Anna and I are going to hang out together. Why don’t you join us, and we’ll watch a movie together? Or we can hang out by the pool. We can play some volleyball.”
“I’d rather watch a movie.”
“Okay. I’ll go round up your sister.”
Anna was still riding her bicycle up and down the sidewalk in front of the house. He called her in, and they settled in the family room. He’d sit through anything the girls picked, but he hoped it wasn’t going to be a cartoon. Luckily, they picked an action/adventure.
With a daughter on each side, he kicked off his shoes and propped his bare feet on the coffee table.
The opening credits had just begun when the doorbell sounded.
“I’ll get it,” Anna said and ran down the hall to the front of the house. She returned almost immediately, her expression so anxious he was already getting to his feet before she spoke. “Dad, the police are at the door.”
Adrenaline hit his system, and his heart raced. Langley tried to keep his expression neutral. “Stay here and watch the movie. I’ll go see what they need.”
Once out of the family room he rushed to get to the front door. One patrol officer stood on the front stoop, the other out in the yard. They both looked very young, and both looked like they wished they were anywhere but here.
“Mr. Marks?”
“Yes.”
“Sir, there’s been an incident concerning your wife. She’s at the hospital.”
Police officers didn’t come to the house to tell you about a fender-bender or some other minor thing. “What’s happened?”
“Sir. She’s been shot.”
The words punched a hole right through him. He gripped the door facing to stay on his feet. “Shot? Shot?” He had to go to her. “What hospital has she been taken to?”
“She’s at Balboa, sir. We’ll take you there.”
It must be bad if they had come to get him. He whipped his phone out of his pocket, scrolled, then hit Hawk’s number. He couldn’t seem to get his breath. “I need you to come to the house and stay with my kids. Trish has been shot.”
Chapter 5
SATURDAY, 6:00 p.m.
Light pierced Trish’s eyelids, drawing her toward consciousness. She fought against it and the rising pain in her chest. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. Something was in her mouth, blocking her throat. She reached for the obstacle, but was so weak she couldn’t fight the pressure of other hands as they redirected hers.
“Trish?” Langley’s voice drew her closer to the surface. She didn’t want to go there yet.
What if he told her something horrible had happened? She couldn’t bear to hear it right now.
Exhaustion weighted her limbs.
Was that a baby crying?
She drifted back to sleep.
JUNE 28, 2008
It had been a good day. A relaxing day.
In the shade of the house, with a breeze cooling them, it was even comfortable.
The baby had barely cried, and Langley, God bless him, took Tad and Anna to the beach to pla
y for a couple of hours.
She looked down the street, expecting to see the car at any moment. She hoped she was over the hump of recovery after Jessica’s birth. It had been difficult, and the stress of breast-feeding, plus the loss of so much blood, drained her.
She still didn’t feel herself. She felt shaky, weak, and exhausted. Just walking across the floor took far more effort than usual.
If only her mother hadn’t needed to return to Kansas. She’d been such help the two weeks she was here, and Trish had really needed her, since Langley was away on a training.
But her mother had a life too, her job, her house. She’d enjoyed the children. Undoubtedly she loved them. But she’d begun to wilt around the edges before leaving. Tad was only four, Anna two, and now a newborn. Her mother, though just this side of fifty, had been glad to go home to her quiet house and her friends.
Jessica lay under an awning attached to her small playpen, her short legs tucked under her belly and her butt in the air. She weighed eight pounds two ounces at birth, but was already growing. She was a good baby during the day, but wasn’t sleeping at night. Not unexpected. They were all sleep-deprived.
Trish caught a glimpse through the neighbor’s yard of their red Malibu as it turned the corner. Langley pulled into the driveway, got out of the car, and walked around to release Tad from his car seat first.
Tad ran over to give her a hug, his cheeks sun-kissed and sand glittering on his skin. “We missed you, Mommy.”
“I missed you, too. Why don’t you go around and get the water hose and let Daddy spray you off a little before you go in the house?”
“I can do it myself.” He might look like her, but his personality was all Langley, and she encouraged his independence in every way she could.
He couldn’t make much mess outside in the grass spraying himself down, and she could strip his clothes off before he went inside. “Why don’t you give it a try, and if there’s any extra sand left, Daddy will take care of it.”
Breaking Point: A SEAL Team Heartbreakers Novella Page 4