Broken Places

by Tracy Clark

  He looked down at the gun in my hand. “Drop it, or I drop you, then I go after the other two.” My hand tightened on the gun. His eyes narrowed. “You know I’ll do it.”

  I nodded. I did know he’d do it. I lay the gun at my feet.

  ” Kick it to me,” he said.

  It took some doing on my part to kick it. My right leg felt like it didn’t belong to me. Still, I managed to slide the gun toward him. “You ruined everything,” he said through clenched teeth, as he kicked the gun farther away, making damn sure I couldn’t get to it. He didn’t need it, after all. He had the semi he’d brought with him. “I’m going to kill you.”

  I searched his face. It looked like he meant it. I limped backward, managing to angle myself along the side of the altar table.

  “In this beautiful church,” I said. “The one you said you loved so much? Look at that Italian marble.”

  Cummings’ turned to look, and I took off in a crippled sprint, my knee barely holding me up, bone gnashing against bone with every step I took. I could tell it was wrecked, but I grit my teeth and dug into every quick, unstable step. It was a sickening sound, bone against bone, and I was pretty sure that whatever was going on down there, it wasn’t going to be good—medically speaking. It was one more thing to hate George Cummings for.

  As I brushed past the first pew, I grabbed my jacket from the back and hopped, trotted, and shambled quickly for the front doors. Cummings fired once and the bullet splintered the top of a pew near me. I ducked and slid into a row, landing hard, half on, half off a long, padded knee rest. The impact didn’t do my knee any good. I muffled a scream as I clumsily worked the gun out of my jacket, listening for Cummings. I was drenched in sweat. I laid my forehead on the knee rest for a moment and closed my eyes, unable to feel my right foot.

  “You’re dead!” Cummings yelled.

  From the sound of his voice he was still a good distance away. Regrouping? I popped my head up just above the top of the pew to check. It hurt to breathe, and every breath hurt more than the one before it. I couldn’t stay where I was, and I hurt too much to want to move. Neither option left me in a good place. My mother’s ring dangled in front of me like a lazy pendulum. It was supposed to bring me good luck. I wondered, as I hung out on the knee rest with a wrecked knee that felt like the Devil himself had done a demon’s jig on it, when the luck would kick in.

  “You may as well give up,” Cummings said, getting closer.

  Quietly, I lay my gun down on the kneeler under me, grabbed the ring, kissed it, then quickly flipped it back inside my sweater. Time to roll. I picked up the gun, gripped it, then as quietly as I could, eased off the kneeler and pushed it to its upright position, which gave me more crouching room. Then I reached out and eased up the kneeler in the pew in front of me, so I could crawl under the pew I was in, up to the next. I needed to put as much distance between the stepdaddy psycho and me, even if I had to do it one row at a time. My hand was sweaty on the grip of my gun as I crawled and slid toward the front doors, dragging my jacket along behind me. I might need it. Barb would have definitely called the police by now, but until they got here, it was just one-legged me and crazy George.

  “I had this all under control!” he screeched, completely unhinged now. By the sound of his voice I could tell he hadn’t covered much ground. What was he doing? Maybe he figured he had plenty of time to run me down. I cleared another two rows, even though navigating the low kneelers with a busted knee was tantamount to climbing the Himalayas with a yak on my back. “I’m going to enjoy killing you even more than I enjoyed watching that banger die!”

  My pew crawl wasn’t doing me much good. I was moving far too slow. There were way too many pews. It was only a matter of time before he found me. I pulled myself up into a one-legged crouch. I peeked up over the top of the pew. Cummings was checking pews no more than twenty feet away. It wouldn’t be long now.

  I braced, took a breath, and pushed off into a pathetic trot across the center aisle to the other side. Cummings fired twice, splintering more wood. I checked myself quickly for bullet holes. Free and clear, but my predicament hadn’t much changed. I was across the aisle, but on another knee rest.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, double shit. I bit down hard on my lower lip, then squeezed my eyes shut trying to think beyond the pain. Think. Think. Think. Cummings has his semi, that’s, what? Seven rounds? Nine? My .9mm’s lying on the floor up there, thankfully, out of his reach, but, unfortunately, it’s out of mine, too. I have the Glock. That’s fifteen rounds. I wiped more sweat from my forehead, doing the rapid math in my head.

  So, seven rounds fully loaded, and why wouldn’t it be fully loaded, right? He’d fired three times already, hadn’t he? I focused in, trying to recreate the rhythm of the shots in my head, but pain kept getting in the way. Had it been boom . . . boom or boom . . . boom, boom? I slid a glance toward the front doors, hoping Barb wasn’t behind them waiting to burst in with hymnals.

  I grabbed my jacket, got a good hold on it, then flung it up into the air. Cummings fired once, the loud boom followed by another. I cowered on the kneeler, not moving, listening to Cummings as he checked his ammo.

  “Two bullets left,” he said. He was close. I could hear him breathing. “I only need one.”

  “Moron,” I muttered, though I was thankful for the confirmation. And he was right. He only needed one.

  I wiggled out of my shoe, tossed it. He shot at it. One round left. “Too bad you kicked my gun away,” I called out. “You could have used the extra rounds. Not to brag, but I’m a much better shot than you are.”

  My knee throbbed, I felt nauseous, and I didn’t want to have to fire a gun in Pop’s church, I really didn’t. Cummings didn’t answer back, but I could hear him moving. I got ready to make my stand. Unfortunately, it didn’t sound like he was moving toward me. I peeked up over the pew top. I was right, he was racing up the center aisle toward the altar, toward the other gun.

  I gulped in a quick breath, braced myself for the pain that was going to shoot through me, then scrambled up from the floor, gun drawn, limping quickly into the center aisle where I had a clear shot at Cummings’s back.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “Or I’ll shoot!”

  He stopped, turned, fired his last shot. I dropped to the floor, rolled, but he missed me by a mile. The drop to the carpet, however, didn’t do my knee any good. I watched as Cummings kept pulling the trigger, his face contorted by hate and crazy, the hollow click of it echoing through the church. For me, it was the sound of salvation. For him, likely defeat. I scrambled to my feet as he turned for the altar again.

  “Take one more step, and I swear I’ll drop you where you stand!”

  He turned slowly back and watched, grinning, as I hobbled slowly toward him, the Glock trained squarely at him.

  He sneered derisively. “You won’t shoot. Not in his precious church.”

  I gave him a moment to take a good long look at my face. The gun felt as heavy as a ship’s anchor, but I held it steady. “Walk this way, then down on the floor.” He didn’t move. He was testing me. “I’m only saying it once.”

  He smirked. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

  “Then I’ll shoot you on my way down,” I said. “Move!”

  Slowly, Cummings walked back, got down on the floor. I watched him closely while also looking for my jacket. My phone was in one of the pockets. I thought about sitting, but didn’t think I’d be able to get back up, so I stood, teetering on one leg.

  “It got out of hand,” Cummings whined. “I liked Father Ray, but you don’t interfere with family.”

  I thought I’d feel more, knowing I’d gotten Pop’s killer. I thought that a weight would lift, but it hadn’t. He was still gone. I wouldn’t kill Cummings. He wasn’t worth killing. He wasn’t worth spending another moment on.

  “A man’s got a right to what’s his!”

  I tuned him out. I didn’t have to listen. I hopped over to my jacket slung acros
s a pew seat a couple of rows up. There was a bullet hole in the sleeve. I glared at Cummings. First, Tiny Guard ruined my favorite jeans, now this asshat put a bullet in my jacket. I briefly reconsidered shooting him. Suddenly, the front doors burst open and a horde of uniformed cops rushed in, guns drawn. When they saw me, they lasered in, and I found myself staring into a whole lot of gun barrels.

  “Freeze!” they yelled.

  I made like a Popsicle, dropping the jacket, raising my hands over my head. “Consider me frozen.” I began to breathe again only when I saw Ben crash through the front lines and rush toward me.

  “Not her,” he said to the cops behind him. He pointed at Cummings. “That mope! Get him out of here before I lose my religion.”

  He hurried over to me, and I handed him my gun, glad to get rid of it, balancing on my one good leg, holding the other up.

  “I’m fine,” I said, taking in the look on his face. “But for the love of God do not touch me. My knee’s busted, and I think I also stubbed my toe, but it’s hard to tell because I have practically no feeling in my foot.”

  He grimaced as if my distress hurt him too. I appreciated the empathy, but no way did his emotional discomfort hold a candle to my physical pain.

  He looked down at my knee, now twice its normal size. “He do that?”

  “Forget it. I said I’m fine.”

  He walked over to the nearest uniform and whispered something to him, then watched as the cops cuffed George none too gently and then yanked him up off the floor. When Cummings was upright, Ben got right in his face, and, in a voice too low for anyone else to hear, told him a thing or two. When he was done, he made a slow show of straightening out Cummings shirtfront, his eyes flintlike. Whatever he said drained every bit of color from Cummings’s face. He was uncharacteristically quiet as the uniforms escorted him out.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Let’s just say I made sure we understood each other.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I want to know what you said.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  I hobbled backward. “Where?”

  “Let’s see. I was thinking the hospital might be nice.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again. There was no way of getting around a trip to the ER. “Normally, I’d bitch about going to the hospital.”

  “If it’ll make you happy, bitch away, but you’re still going.” I hobbled a half step forward. The front door looked miles away. “Let me carry you,” Ben said, making a move toward me.

  I backed away from him. “Don’t you frigging dare. Back up. I got this.”

  Ben arched an eyebrow, shook his head. “You have got some serious issues.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t have time to discuss them all now.” I hopped forward, then stopped, remembering my .9mm. “I want my gun. Cummings kicked it away up there somewhere.”

  “Why are you always asking for your gun?”

  “I paid good money for it. It’s mine. I want it.”

  “I’ll make sure you get it back. Now move. With any luck, we’ll hit the hospital by Thanksgiving.”

  He slowly walked beside me as I limped along, hovering but being careful not to touch.

  I slid him a look. “Are Barb and you-know-who okay?

  “They’re fine. Is that what you’re calling him?”

  “For now.”

  We walked a few more steps in silence. “Oh, hey, he gave me this to give to you. He insisted on it.” He handed me a slip of paper. It was a train ticket from St. Louis to Chicago dated after Pop’s death. “He says it proves his word is good.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, stuffing it into my pocket.

  “You got him,” Ben said.

  I stopped, glanced over to the confessional box. Yeah. I did. “Where’s Farraday? I want to rub his nose in it.”

  “He’s suspiciously absent,” Ben said.

  I frowned, then winced. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

  From the top of the church steps, I saw Detective Weber standing at the curb with two cups of Starbucks coffee. He gave me a look, which told me one of the cups was meant for me.

  “What’s that all about?” Ben asked. “You don’t drink coffee.” He glanced at me, frowned. “And what’s he grinning about?” Ben looked at Weber, then back at me. “Aww, c’mon! When did this start?”

  “Are you taking me to the ER, or not?” I said.

  “Not till you get that goofy look off your face, I’m not.”

  I picked my way down the stone steps and smiled.