by K. L Randis
Jared snapped and hoped Dex was a poor shot as he lunged for him. Tina’s screams echoed in his ear as she fled the room and in seconds he was wrestling Dex to the ground, the gun in-between them.
There was a brief moment where Jared grabbed the flesh behind Dex’s elbow and pushed in the opposite direction on his wrist, contorting it backward. Dex spit he screamed so violently and the gun went scattering across the room. Jared slid on his belly before jumping to his feet and tackling the gun between his hands. By the time he turned around Dex was standing in the far corner of the kitchen, his cell phone to his ear, smiling at Jared through his bloody lip. Jared aimed the gun at Dex’s head.
“You won’t kill me Jared,” said Dex.
“I will you crazy mother fucker,” Jared vowed.
“You won’t,” Dex repeated, hanging up his phone, “because you have exactly fifteen minutes to get to Hailey before my men do. I needed an insurance policy in case something like this happened. You can kill me and spend the time cleaning up the mess so you don’t spend the rest of your life in jail or you can drive as fast as you fucking can to save the one person in this world who gives a shit about you.”
Jared’s eyes widened. There was no way to tell if he was lying but if he wasn’t it meant Hailey was in danger.
“Better get going Jared,” Dex said, looking at his watch, “tick tock.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jared almost slammed into the line of cars that were sitting at a dead stop in front of him. He had just turned onto Hailey’s road and there was a roadblock of police cars less than a tenth of a mile from where she lived. One by one the cars in front of him made a three point turn in front of the sole police car acting as a barricade to turn back in the opposite direction. Jared’s blood pressure was teetering on volcanic status as he made his way to the front of the line, rolling down his window to speak to the female cop that was redirecting traffic.
“Please I need to get through, this is an emergency,” Jared gushed.
The detective held up her hand and shook her head. “Sorry, all traffic needs to be redirected down Weir Lake road, follow the other cars,” she said, nodding her head in the opposite direction of where Jared needed to be.
“You don’t understand, my girlfriend lives in that apartment right there. Please just let me through.” He waited on her response, waiting to stomp on the gas pedal if she refused to let him pass.
“What’s her name?”
“Hailey Corson.”
“And your name?” the detective asked.
“Jared Vorcelli, please officer…”
“Detective,” corrected the woman, “Sir don’t be alarmed but there’s been a break in at your girlfriend’s place. Hailey Corson is the name of the victim we’re here for. The ambulance is just about finished loading her up.”
“Victim?” Jared yelled, throwing his car into park and grabbing for his door handle, “what happened? Is she okay? Where is she?”
“Sir I’m going to need you to stay in your car.”
“Fuck my car,” Jared yelled, opening his door.
The detective positioned her hand over the firearm on her side, holding one hand out in front of her chest. “Sir I know you’re upset but I’m going to need you to stay put and show me some identification.”
“What in the hell for, I need to get to Hailey!” he yelled, craning his neck as he finally spotted the other police cars and ambulance parked in front of her place. He could make it if he ran.
“Don’t even think about it,” the detective said, reading his face, “if you are who you say you are I can help you, I’ll put you in the back of my patrol car and I’ll get you to the hospital as fast as I can. Where is your identification?”
Jared groaned. “It’s in my wallet, in my back pocket.”
“Let’s see it.”
He pulled the leather wallet from his back pocket, his hands shaking so furiously he couldn’t pull it out from the plastic liner that held it hostage. “It’s here, see? Jared Vorcelli.”
The detective took her time scanning Jared’s face and the I.D; piecing together their resemblance should have taken less than a minute but she studied the card with the tenacity of a college student.
She looked towards the remaining two cars that had been stuck behind Jared and when she saw they had vanished she nodded her head towards the parked patrol car. “Okay, let’s get you to the hospital, the cones should keep anyone else from passing through.”
“Did you see her? Please tell me something.”
“I didn’t see her,” the detective confessed as she opened up the back door, letting Jared slide in. “All I know is that there was a break in and your girlfriend was assaulted. I’m sure they can tell you more at the hospital.”
“Oh man, oh I can’t believe this,” Jared said, covering his face, dragging his hands up his cheekbones and across the top of his head. “Do they know who called it in? Everyone got here so fast.”
“We got the call about a half hour ago. Not sure who called it in, but we got here as fast as we could. She was unconscious when we arrived.”
So Dex had lied. His men were already inside Hailey’s apartment when he made the phone call pretending to let his men loose on her. Jared was going to kill him—that he was sure of.
“Why aren’t we driving?” Jared asked. The detective took her time writing something down and shifting her equipment around on the front seat.
“I just need to gather some information from you, shouldn’t take more than a second.”
“Please, I really just need to get to…”
“What is your occupation?” asked the detective, ignoring Jared’s pleas.
Jared tried to calm his temper, there was no use arguing with a detective so the sooner he answered her the faster they could be on their way.
“I work at a state park, I patrol there.”
“And what kind of car do you drive?”
“A Honda. Civic, 2012,” he said.
“Great and one more question Jared, how is the weather?”
It caught him off guard but when he opened his mouth to deflect the meaningless question her eyes were burning into his in the rear-view mirror.
“The weather?” Jared asked. The thudding in his chest grew stronger and a fight or flight response started to trigger in his hands and feet.
“Yes,” said the detective, “I need you to tell me…How is the weather?”
The question was coming from a detective, a person of law. He gazed at the expressionless face pressuring him from the front seat remembering the code of conduct enforced by Dex. The question was required when meeting with subordinates, prior to speaking about business matters.
It could be a trap. She could be an undercover detective for all he knew, somehow learning about the phrase to unlock weeks or months of undercover work for herself. He had no way of knowing, but Hailey needed him.
He pulled his t-shirt up over his head, his elbows flaring out at the sides as he turned his back toward the front of the patrol car, exposing the scarred patch of flesh that had been singed to resemble a lightening bolt. Jared held his breath, unable to see the detective’s reaction.
“I always hated that he branded his men like cattle. Nice to finally meet you Jared, you can put your shirt down now.”
Jared obliged, waiting for an explanation. Pillbillies came in all shapes and sizes; it wouldn’t be unusual to have a mole inside of law enforcement but if they did Dex never made Jared aware of it.
“I’m Flick,” said the woman, “I hate that we had to meet under these circumstances but I couldn’t have you running into Hailey’s house and blowing your cover as my lead guy all for the sake of love. Although it would have been romantic if you think about it.”
“You?” Jared asked. If this was Flick then who did Dex think he killed? If she was lying then who was this woman really?
“You seem surprised.”
“Confused. You were always referred to you as a guy. H
ow do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“For obvious reasons,” Flick said, opening the palms of her hands and looking down at her uniform, “I have to operate under a certain level of anonymity, which is why it is crucial you understand the risk I am taking meeting with you. There’s too much to explain in too short a time. I’ll fill you in on the important matters first and hopefully you’ll understand.” Flick reached across her shoulder, pulling on her seatbelt. “First, let’s get moving to the hospital. I put you back there for both of our safety. I couldn’t risk you becoming anymore distressed about Hailey and coming after me, especially when I told you who I was.”
“Why would I need to be back here for my safety?”
“Because everything I did had to be by the book, I was being watched by other officers and there were too many civilians around to invite you to sit in the front.”
Flick cruised onto Route 209 heading North.
“You need to give me something here, I’m at a loss,” Jared confessed.
“I have a tight circle of people I rely on to help conceal my identity. One of them makes phone calls for me, which is why Dex would rightfully assume I was a man.”
Jared relaxed a little. He purposely didn’t use Dex’s name at the beginning of the conversation to see if Flick would when referring to business. There was too much of his freedom riding on trusting what this woman was saying so he had to be careful about what he exposed.
“Dex won’t make it past the Delaware Water Gap,” Flick assured him, “my guys were tailing him the moment he left your apartment. I apologize for the intrusiveness of what I am about to say but I had your place bugged a few weeks ago when Dex started giving me reasons to not trust him. I needed to know if I could trust you too.”
“You bugged it?” Jared asked. “How did you even…I mean, could you see us?”
Jared could have sworn he saw her face turn crimson. “Oh, nothing like that. Just what you guys were saying.”
“That’s messed up.”
“So is what Dex did. I thought he was arranging a meeting for us to discuss some business matters. It would have been the first time he met me face to face so I had the advantage. I sent one of my guys in to see how the meeting would flow and if all went well I was going to show up at the end of the meeting and introduce myself.”
“What happened?”
“Dex killed one of my guys. Moments before I decided to start heading towards the house I heard gunshots. I had a bug on the guy I sent in. From what I could hear the conversation never escalated, Dex complained about pay structure mostly, it was a dry conversation. My guy must have been shot in the back of the head because they had already said goodbye when Dex started to go off about it being ‘his time’.”
“Why did he want you dead?”
Jared watched Flick look into the rear-view mirror to meet Jared’s gaze. There isn’t a person within a hundred mile radius that would think this woman was a filthy rich drug lord, he thought. Her brunette hair was pulled into a braid that rested over her right shoulder. There was a kindness in her brown eyes that was deceiving; Jared knew she would kill someone if she had to.
“I don’t know. All he said was that it was ‘his time’ and that I was a moron for coming to meet him,” she said. “Little did he know, he had killed the wrong person. We tailed him to your apartment and by the time I regrouped with more men your car was already in the driveway. I listened to the conversation from the outside and the moment we heard he was sending guys to Hailey’s I had one of my men call in a suspected robbery at her house and we left. Any guys that were on Dex’s side are no friends of mine so I wasn’t concerned if they were picked up at the scene if he was telling the truth.”
“So you really don’t know how Hailey is?” Jared asked.
“No idea. The roads leading to Hailey’s were barricaded when we got there. We got word that the attacker was armed and on foot, last seen by a neighbor fleeing the scene with something in their hand. They wanted to set up a perimeter. Since I knew you were coming from your apartment I offered to monitor the road I thought you’d take to head you off.”
“Why are you trusting me?” Jared asked.
Flick raised her eyebrows, letting out an exasperated whistle. “I’ll clearly need a replacement for Dex. I need someone business-minded like yourself. You’re a gem Jared. Your ideas and the relationships you build with people are exactly how I would execute it if I were out in the field. You’re fresh and I need someone who’s willing to step up who can keep his nose clean. Too much wasted product and heightened ego’s come from a seller who’s also a user.”
“Dex was clean when I first met him.”
“I know, until he met your Tina.”
“What makes you think I won’t relapse?”
Flick smiled. “You won’t. There’s a reason you christened the pill ‘Lace’ isn’t there? You won’t let yourself get that involved in it again, I know what happened with your sister. I was on scene that night.”
“You remember?” Jared asked, intrigued.
“I do. I’m sorry that I do,” Flick said. Her eyes went soft again.
Jared nodded. Suddenly he had a lot of things that needed answering. “Was it really Dex that was trying to poison heroin users into switching to pills? He was responsible for the green heroin?”
“Yes, unfortunately. I learned about that in the same moment you did when he confessed in your apartment. I had no idea he was behind that.”
There was a rattle in her throat that didn’t fully convince Jared that she was telling the truth.
“And the guy in prison, Dennis, who is he?”
“An informant. The fact that Dex sold his old car to him was purely coincidental. Your meeting him in prison was not. I needed to keep an eye on you while you were locked up.”
“To protect your investment?” Jared asked as they neared the hospital.
“Exactly,” Flick responded. There was a slight hesitation in her voice. There was more to Dennis’ story than she was letting on.
Jared felt exposed. From the moment he had walked into prison until the current moment in the patrol car Flick had kept tabs on his every move. She knew all about his past, the conversations he shared with Dennis and every intimate detail about his life with Tina, thanks to careful placement of surveillance and informants. He wondered who she knew in the rehab he was placed at, if anyone.
Flick continued on with the conversation, “I’ll be honest with you Jared, I need a sober mind and creative ideas. You have both. Obviously you have bigger things to worry about at the moment but I want you to consider a very lucrative position with me. We can talk more on that later. Dex is making it easy for me to identify who his Pillbillies are because of the branding, the challenge is going to be sorting through them and disposing of the ones who are loyal to him and replacing them with subordinates of my own. For now I need to head back to the station and get in touch with my guys to see if they picked up Dex, I’ll need to deal with him.”
“Are you going to…?”
“He’s no good to me anymore. Or anyone for that matter. Don’t you worry about it.”
Jared rubbed the side of his head. “I’m not worried about it, I want in on it. Flick—I mean, you—are a woman, a detective even. Dex tried to kill me and then Hailey. And Dex was the one I was hunting this whole time?”
Flick put the car into park in front of the Emergency Room entrance. Jared’s attention momentarily focused on the glass doors of the E.R as he tried to process everything, he was hypnotized by the radiant, flashing red lights of the cop car.
“Just focus on her for now,” she said, nodding towards the doors, “I promise I won’t do anything to Dex until you hear from me again. In the meantime take this prepaid phone and toss the old one you have.”
“Focus on her,” Jared repeated, nodding his head, “all I need to do is focus on her.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“We’re sorry the wait was so long, the d
octors needed time to stabilize her after emergency surgery,” the nurse said, pulling back the curtain to Hailey’s bed. “She’ll be in ICU for the long haul but we can discuss that later. She’s a lucky girl, very strong.”
Nine hours later Jared was standing at the foot of Hailey’s bed staring at an unrecognizable mound that should have been her face. If the doctors didn’t keep her sedated he imagined the pain she would be in would be torture.
The blows to her head had fractured her skull and the swelling that ballooned her face was something from a Sci-Fi. Her white hospital gown hung limply off her shoulders and monitors beeped and buzzed in discord all around her. Yet the sight that caught Jared off guard the most was the tube that was placed down Hailey’s throat. The rise and fall of her chest that was synchronized with a machine was the only thing keeping her alive, and by the time he reached the side of her bed to take her bloodied hand into his he was blinded by tears.
It was Lacey all over again.
Watching someone he loved so deeply struggling to keep breathing, while he sat by uselessly, overwhelmed him. She was the second person in his life to be harmed so brutally because of his carelessness. If he only moved in with her sooner, changed apartments...if only he had been with her instead of at Tina’s she wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed teetering on the brink of life.
Two hours passed before the doctor came in.
“I’m Dr. Brine, head of the department of neurosurgery,” he said, extending his hand and raising his eyebrows in Hailey’s direction. “She’s a strong woman. She’s suffered a severe head injury, resulting in an extradural hematoma. It was blunt force trauma, no doubt about it.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means she had some bleeding between her skull and something called the dura. She had a GCS score of only a five when we admitted her, which puts her in a rough spot. We put an ICP monitor on her, that’s what those wires around her head are for. We need to keep an eye on the swelling around her brain, that’s our biggest concern. She’s on the life support because of a collapsed left lung and a partially collapsed right lung, it just makes it easier for her to breathe.”