Driven to Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  “Do you know that Ray left a duffel bag with ten thousand dollars in his locker at That’s Amore?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “Where did he get that kind of money?” she asked.

  I studied her face for any sign of recognition that she knew about the money, but nothing. I took a stab in the dark.

  “You didn’t give it to him, did you?”

  Sylvia chuckled. “Do you think I did?”

  “You withdrew ten grand from your bank account the day before your wedding,” I said. “I saw the receipt.”

  No flicker in her eyes, no twitch of her cheek. She continued to smile at me.

  “I think that’s my business, don’t you, dear?” And Sylvia went out into the living room to tell everyone dinner was on.

  I nearly bumped into Bernie as I brought plates to the dining room.

  “Don’t harass her,” he said softly.

  “I’m not,” I assured him, although I really wanted to press the issue. I’d have to find another way around it.

  Rosalie came to the table, her black eye now faded to yellow. Soon it would be gone, like the man who’d given it to her. She was laughing at something Jeff said, her mannerisms less stiff and awkward than they’d been the other couple of times I’d seen her. Jeff was right: She was better off without Lou.

  I started to say something about Dan Franklin, but Jeff kicked me under the table. I glared at him, but he was shaking his head and frowning. This wasn’t the time.

  I caught Rosalie looking at me thoughtfully a couple of times, and then she’d quickly look over at Jeff. I didn’t want to know what she was thinking.

  Bernie patted his daughter’s hand all through dinner. Jeff caught my eye a couple of times and winked as his mother told stories about the old people on the bus to Sedona. It was a family dinner that seemed perfectly normal. Except for the fact that two people were dead.

  I didn’t want coffee. It would keep me up. It had been a long day, and after we’d cleaned up I asked Jeff whether he could take me home.

  Sylvia offered her cheek, and I gave her a kiss.

  “Don’t worry about anything,” she whispered as she kissed me back.

  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but she’d already moved on to Jeff and was saying good-bye to him now.

  Bernie had already taken Rosalie back into the living room, and Jeff and I stepped out into the night. It had grown cold, and I shivered in my T-shirt.

  “You okay?” he asked as he opened the car door for me.

  “Just turn the heat on,” I said, settling back and closing my eyes.

  He didn’t say anything else as he climbed in his seat and turned over the engine. I felt the car moving, and it lulled me into one of those half-awake, half-asleep states.

  I was so out of it that I thought the sound was in a dream. I opened my eyes and saw the bright lights straight ahead. They blinded me, and suddenly my body was jerked back against the seat as Jeff spun the wheel, the car skidding sideways across the pavement.

  But he hadn’t been fast enough. The impact of the crash caused the air bag to explode, and it slammed into my face so hard I thought my nose was broken.

  Chapter 52

  Suddenly it was quiet. Too quiet.

  A streetlight a few feet away cast a dim yellow beam across the road, but everything around it was black. Like being inside with the lights on and not being able to see anything but your own reflection in the windows.

  Then I heard something—couldn’t put my finger on it—but the air bag began to slowly deflate.

  “You okay, Kavanaugh?” Jeff’s voice pierced the silence.

  I turned my head slowly—everything hurt—and saw a glint of something in Jeff’s hand. A pocket knife.

  “What happened?” I asked, surprised that my voice sounded normal, even though it was too loud in my ears.

  “Car was coming straight at us. I swerved right into a pole or something. That’s why the air bags inflated.”

  But that wasn’t what I’d meant.

  A rustling outside the car caused me to tense up, pain tearing through my muscles. My eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, but I still couldn’t see anything outside the car.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  Jeff put a finger to his lips, the streetlight illuminating his silhouette. He shifted down in his seat and indicated I should do the same. Pain shot through my back and up to my neck, but I moved past it as I heard more rustling. It sounded as if someone or something was walking through the shrubs along the side of the road, just beyond the car.

  We were facing the desert. I glanced in the side-view mirror. Behind us, on the other side of the street, town houses stood in line like toy soldiers, but it was a development that was only half finished. No lights in any windows.

  No cars on the road, either.

  Nothing except that blasted streetlight, which was more of a hindrance than a help. I saw now that the pole we crashed into was another streetlight, but it wasn’t working.

  Jeff put his fingers to his ear, pantomiming a phone. I wondered where his was as I stretched my arm to reach my bag on the floor. As my fingers touched the fabric, an explosion rocked the air.

  I yanked my hand back, my whole body shaking.

  It wasn’t an explosion. It was a gunshot.

  Who was out there?

  Jeff’s hand encircled mine, and he squeezed tight, as if to say it would be okay.

  But I wasn’t convinced. Someone was out there. Someone who’d tried to run us down and was now shooting at us.

  Well, one shot.

  Made me wish Willis hadn’t found that gun I’d had. Not that I knew how to use it, but it was big. Big enough to make a statement, even if I just waved it around.

  After a few minutes of silence, I reached down again for my bag.

  Another shot rocked the air.

  Whoever was out there could see me.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  Jeff was holding on to my hand so tightly that when he squeezed it again, I barely noticed. I moved my head slightly, and he was looking out the front window. I didn’t think he could see any more than I could. Unless his time in the Marines had given him some sort of natural night-vision goggles.

  The air bags hung, deflated, in front of us like empty sacks. I was acutely aware that my face felt as though it were on fire. I had turned my face slightly when the bag inflated, and I sensed that my cheek had a huge rug burn. I was afraid to touch my nose, as if any movement would cause whomever was out there to shoot again.

  “We can’t just sit here like this,” I whispered.

  “Got any ideas?” he whispered back.

  “You’re the Marine. What did you do when you got shot at in the desert?”

  “I never got shot at in the desert. Except for now.”

  His other hand inched toward the door. Great. He was going to try to open it, and we’d both get blown away. But as I contemplated how to stop him, he fingered the knob that maneuvered the side mirror.

  It moved a fraction of an inch.

  And another gunshot pierced the air and shattered the mirror.

  Jeff seemed to have been expecting that because he didn’t move his finger.

  “He’s behind us,” he whispered. “I saw the car.”

  “Could you see him?”

  “I saw a shadow. He’s standing right at the trunk, watching us.”

  A shiver shimmied across my shoulders and down through my legs. “What does he want?”

  “Want to ask him?”

  I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it tightly.

  “I’ve got a plan,” he said.

  “Will it get us killed?”

  “Hopefully not. But you have to scooch down further. He can’t have a good visual.”

  That didn’t make me feel very confident. But we couldn’t just sit here, held hostage by some unknown guy with a gun.

  “I’m going to start the car and back up into
him,” Jeff whispered.

  “You’re nuts. Can the car even start?”

  “We’ll find out, won’t we? Get down.”

  I tried to slide down farther, but the seat belt pinned me to the back of the seat. I managed to maneuver under the chest belt so it was behind my head. The lap belt was tight across my abdomen, but I could live with it. The deflated air bag covered my legs, but I pulled them up as far as possible. I didn’t want him to shoot my leg. Because I was certain he would start shooting.

  Jeff let go of my hand, and I felt even more exposed. He shimmied down farther, too, but not as far. His seat belt was close to his neck, but still across his shoulder. He didn’t move his legs. His foot was hovering over the accelerator.

  “Hold on,” he whispered as his hand moved to the ignition and he turned the key.

  The engine roared to life, and he slammed his foot on the accelerator. The car shot backward, and I felt as if I was on a roller coaster, my body slamming back against the seat. I had shifted even lower, the seat belt strap across my neck, but I could still see out the front windshield. One of the headlights was out, but the other one illuminated the desert. It was ugly out here, brown with a few tumbleweeds and scattered yuccas.

  The gunshots were steady now.

  The car swerved around, and we were facing the road again.

  “Down, Brett!” Jeff shouted as he put the car into first and we rocketed forward, shots ringing in my ears, barely discernible above the engine’s roar, so much so that I thought the shots might have been my imagination. But then I saw the hole in the windshield. It had just registered when a body came up over the hood, smashed against the windshield, and then rolled off.

  I couldn’t discern the hole anymore, because the entire windshield had shattered into a mosaic with the impact of the body.

  The car kept going.

  I moved up in my seat and stared out my window, looking back to see who it was.

  “Do you think he’s okay?” I asked. My voice sounded too loud.

  “Call 911,” Jeff barked, the car still rocketing down the road.

  I leaned down and grabbed my bag. We were getting close to a traffic light, but Jeff wasn’t slowing down. There were a couple cars waiting at the light.

  “Aren’t you going to stop?” I asked.

  Jeff didn’t answer, spun the Pontiac around the cars.

  It was brighter here, too, the streetlights doing a better job than the one up the road. I turned to confront Jeff about the speed of the car when I saw it.

  The gun had blown a hole through more than the windshield.

  Blood was pouring out of Jeff’s shoulder.

  Chapter 53

  I felt myself start to hyperventilate, but I took a couple of deep breaths. I still held my phone, but I hadn’t opened it yet.

  “You have to stop, Jeff,” I shouted. “You’re bleeding.”

  “We’re going to the hospital. Call the cops. Tell them what happened.”

  My hand was shaking as I flipped up the cover on the phone. Instinct made me call Tim.

  “What, Brett?” He sounded annoyed.

  “Tim,” I said breathlessly, still looking at Jeff’s shoulder. All that blood was making me woozy.

  “Talk to him, Brett,” Jeff said sternly, although his voice wasn’t nearly as strong as it should’ve been. “Don’t look at me.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “What’s going on, Brett?” Tim’s voice echoed through my head.

  “It’s Jeff. He’s been shot.” It was all I could concentrate on at the moment.

  “Shot? Where?”

  “In the desert.”

  “Where are you?”

  I opened my eyes and looked through the windshield. The shattered glass gave it a sort of magnifying glass appearance. The lights from the strip malls and the gas stations and the apartment complexes glimmered against the broken windshield and bounced back off it in a halo effect. How on earth could Jeff see to drive?

  “We’re on the way to the hospital,” I heard myself say, the question about Jeff’s driving still bouncing around in my head like a pinball. “He’s been shot.” I didn’t say he was at the wheel.

  “Which hospital?”

  There was only one on this road, so I figured that’s where we were heading. “University Medical Center.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Um, Tim? We hit the guy who shot at us. He’s back there—I don’t know—somewhere on the side of West Charleston Boulevard in Summerlin. Near a streetlight that’s out. He forced us off the road. Then he shot at us. Jeff ran him over. We left him there.” I couldn’t stop talking; I didn’t want to stop. I felt as though if I stopped, something even more awful would happen. My hand was still shaking as the phone vibrated against my ear.

  “Brett, stay calm.” Tim’s voice was soothing. “Did you recognize the guy who shot at you, the guy you hit?”

  “No, I never saw him. Even when he hit the car”—the words got stuck in my throat for a second—“I just saw a body. Not his face. Nothing to recognize.”

  “That’s okay; don’t worry about it. I’ll meet you at the hospital. I’ll send someone out to Summerlin. How’s Jeff?”

  I looked over at him. He was focused on the road; his hands were holding the steering wheel tight. The blood was spreading, and his breaths were short and shallow.

  “He’s okay,” I lied to Tim, then closed the phone.

  We were almost at the hospital. We’d run every red light, but, remarkably, we didn’t see any cops. The emergency entrance was up on the next block. I sighed with relief.

  Too soon.

  As we approached the driveway to the hospital, the car suddenly swerved as Jeff’s arms fell from the wheel.

  I braced myself as we slammed into an ambulance. My neck snapped back and hit the headrest.

  Security guards, paramedics, and doctors surrounded the car in seconds. Faces peered through the windows. The door opened, letting in a cold gust of air that made me shiver. Jeff was white as a ghost; he looked as though he’d passed out. My heart leaped into my throat as someone tried to pull me from my seat.

  “Help him,” I begged, although they were already doing that. Jeff was out of the car; they had him on a gurney; they were rolling him away.

  It was only then that I let myself be brought out of the car, unlatching my seat belt, reaching for my bag at my feet. My legs got caught for a second in the air bag before I wrenched them free and stepped out of the car. I felt as though I’d been at sea for days; my knees buckled, and I almost went down. Hands were under my arms, pulling me back up.

  A familiar voice asked, “Are you okay?”

  I turned my head to see Colin Bixby in his white lab coat, holding me.

  I tried for a small smile, but I couldn’t carry it off. “Yes. But Jeff . . .”

  “We’re taking care of him. Don’t worry about him.”

  I wanted to worry. “He lost a lot of blood.” I saw it then, on my arm, on my shirt. It had splattered all over me. Bixby was looking at me, wondering whether I’d been shot, too. “I’m okay,” I said, lying again. Sister Mary Eucharista was giving me a pass, though. I asked her to look after Jeff.

  “You weren’t shot?” Concern laced Bixby’s words.

  “No.”

  He helped me around the ambulance, and I glanced back at the Pontiac. There was blood on the hood.

  My knees buckled again, and I started to fall. Bixby leaned down and swept me up in his arms, carrying me like a child through the sliding doors into the emergency room waiting room. People who’d probably been waiting here for hours watched as we went through another set of sliding doors into the emergency room. I’d been here once before.

  Bixby set me down on a bed and pulled the curtain around.

  He peered into my face and gently touched it. I winced when his fingers probed my nose.

  “Air bag?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “It’s not broken.”<
br />
  I sighed. “I feel like a truck ran over me.” And then I thought about Jeff, helpless and bleeding on a gurney. Never having shot his gun during a war. But getting shot by a crazy person in the Vegas desert. The tears started then, and Bixby let me cry. His fingers probed my arms, my legs, my torso without a word. I barely felt them.

  Finally he stepped back and said, “You’ll be okay.”

  I sniffled. “Thanks.”

  The curtain snapped back then, and my brother came in. He didn’t say anything. He came over and put his arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug.

  It made me start crying all over again.

  Bixby stepped back. “I’ll check on Coleman,” and then he disappeared, making sure the curtain was giving us as much privacy as possible.

  “He’s in surgery,” Tim said. “He lost a lot of blood.”

  I nodded against his chest.

  “What were you doing out there?”

  That’s when I saw him. Detective Kevin Flanigan was standing behind him. Tim saw where my gaze had settled.

  “Tell us what happened,” Tim said softly.

  I knew it was procedure, but it still felt like an imposition. I didn’t have a choice. I reared my head back and frowned. “We were coming back from Rosalie’s. We had dinner with her and Sylvia and Bernie. Jeff was taking me home.” It all sounded so benign, considering everything else that had gone on in the past couple of days. In the last hour. Who would try to kill us? Granted, I had been poking around a little too much maybe, but I didn’t know diddly about anything. Although perhaps the guy shooting thought I did. I shivered at the thought.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” Flanigan asked, a little notebook in his hand. His voice was kind, as if he had some empathy after all.

  In fits and starts, I told them what happened on the road out there in the desert.

  “I don’t know why . . .” I said when I finished. “Who would do that?”

  “You didn’t recognize him?” Flanigan asked, the same question Tim had asked on the phone earlier.

  I shook my head. “I just saw a shadow. He rolled onto the hood of the car, but I didn’t see his face. The windshield shattered. I couldn’t see much of anything too clearly.”