by Wendy Wax
The front door burst open and Giraldi and Troy raced in.
“Don’t let anybody else in until the police or the ambulance get here!” Giraldi barked over his shoulder as he moved quickly into the living room, his gun drawn. He strode toward Kyra, who was kneeling in the pool of blood that surrounded Max.
“Help me!” Kyra shouted. “I can’t tell if Max is breathing or not. Dustin’s trapped underneath him.”
Maddie’s heart seized up as Giraldi lifted Max’s limp body off the little boy so that Kyra could reach her son. Maddie’s heart began to beat again when Dustin’s chubby arms reached for his mother and he began to wail. Breathing in a ragged sigh of relief, she took in the rest of the scene.
“Max has a pulse, but it’s faint,” Giraldi said as the sirens drew closer.
Deirdre sat up, clutching her arm, her face twisted in pain. Avery knelt protectively beside her. “Deirdre’s shot,” Avery said. Then, almost to herself, “She stepped in front of a bullet for me.”
Giraldi crossed the room and knelt down next to Nikki, who lay crumpled on the floor. His manner was cool and professional, but his eyes flashed with relief when she raised her head and opened her eyes.
“Don’t move,” he said to her. “I can’t tell if that’s your blood or Amherst’s. Just stay still until the paramedics get here.”
“But I’m right on top of him,” Nicole said, a note of hysteria in her voice.
Giraldi took Amherst’s wrist between his fingers and felt for a pulse. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “He’s not feeling a thing.”
Nicole scrambled up off the floor like someone shot from a cannon. “I’m not lying here on top of a dead guy.”
The sirens sounded outside then cut off in midscreech. Two paramedics and a policeman rushed in through the front door. Giraldi flashed his badge.
“We’ve got one confirmed dead,” he said, pointing to Amherst. “The lady took a bullet in the arm.” He nodded toward Deirdre. “This is Max,” he continued. “He’s ninety. And he’s lost a lot of blood.”
The paramedics knelt around Max. Gently they turned him onto his back. His shirt was saturated with blood. His eyes remained closed.
“Is he breathing?” Maddie asked, praying that he was.
“Barely,” Giraldi said as one paramedic worked to stabilize the old man. The other checked Dustin for injury, finally determining that the blood on the child belonged to Max, then moved to examine Deirdre.
“Gax!” The little boy shrieked as Max was carried out on the stretcher and placed in the ambulance. Deirdre was strapped in beside him.
Maddie’s throat clogged with fear as Giraldi piled them into the minivan and followed the ambulance to the hospital. Troy and Anthony followed behind them.
Maddie looked back at The Millicent as they turned off Meridian onto Third and she wondered whether Max would be back. Or whether he’d even make it to the hospital.
They huddled together in the hospital waiting room for what felt like an eternity while the surgeons struggled to remove the bullet that had lodged in Max’s chest.
They spoke little, staring at one another blankly as they waited for word. When the doctor finally came out to look for Max’s family, it took all of their persuasive powers and Giraldi’s badge to convince him that they were the closest thing to family that Max had.
“He lost a lot of blood and we think one of his lungs may have been compromised. He hasn’t regained consciousness.” The young doctor’s eyes were weary. “It’s possible he never will.”
The hours passed slowly while they waited for Max to come out of recovery. Still numb, they tried to piece together what had happened.
“I don’t understand where Amherst came from. Or why he would bring a gun and go after Nicole,” Kyra said, cradling Dustin in her arms.
Nicole swallowed thickly. Her hands shook as she thought of how close they’d all come to death. How completely her fault it was. “Joe tried to tell me how squirrelly Amherst was, but I…I was so desperate to believe he was a potential matchmaking client that I refused to listen.” She looked at the others whose lives she’d put at risk. “I had this weird encounter with him at his house where he tried to pick my brain about where the unrecovered money Malcolm stole was, but I didn’t know that his family had lost everything to Malcolm.
“I wrote him off as a client after that, but when he kept calling and texting and wanting to get together, I figured if I didn’t answer he’d just give up and disappear.”
Giraldi’s arm was strong and solid around her, but he didn’t interrupt. He hadn’t yet said “I told you so,” and she didn’t think he ever would.
“I hate to say it, but your visit to the Land of Denial almost got people killed,” Avery said with a glance at Deirdre and Dustin.
“I lived there for a while myself,” Maddie said. “And it’s not a good place.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nicole said, though she knew the words were nowhere near enough. “Losing his family home today must have pushed him over the edge. I…” She felt the tears well in her eyes. Her voice broke. “I never meant to put you all in danger. I didn’t realize…”
Giraldi pulled her tighter to him while she cried.
“So how did Deirdre get shot?” Andrew asked.
“She pushed me out of the way,” Avery said. “I still can’t believe she took a bullet for me.”
“And then Dustin started walking toward Max,” Maddie continued. “And Amherst pointed the gun at Dustin.” She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. “Max threw himself on top of Dustin. He saved his life. Oh God, I hope Max isn’t going to die.”
Kyra slipped an arm around her mother’s shoulders.
“I suspect he’d consider it a worthwhile exchange,” Giraldi said quietly. “He loves that boy. And he never had a chance to save his own son.”
There was a long silence.
“It’s unclear whether the shot that killed Amherst was accidental or an attempt at suicide,” Giraldi said.
Nicole grimaced. “All I could think about was trying to get the gun out of his hand. But I don’t know what triggered that lost shot. I thought I was dead when the gun went off. And I don’t know how Maddie ended up on top of me, either.” She expelled a shaky breath of air.
“That was pretty quick thinking keeping the phone line open when he made you toss it,” Giraldi said. “I was able to call it in, but I was too far away to get there in time. When I heard those shots—”
“You’re all lucky to be alive,” Troy said.
Nicole knew they were all praying that Max would be lucky too.
“It’s almost too bad there was no camera rolling,” Deirdre said. “Lisa Hogan would be eating all of this with a spoon.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Who says there was no camera rolling?” Troy asked.
They all turned to the cameraman.
“Remember when I left my camera on the piano and said I’d be back?” Troy asked.
Nikki nodded along with the others, though she didn’t seem to be thinking any more clearly now than she had been then.
“I’ve been doing that on occasion over the last few weeks,” Troy went on, looking everywhere but at Kyra. “You know, leaving it sitting around.” He paused. “Set to record.” There was another hesitation. “It was the only way I could think of to get around the way you all clammed up when you knew I was shooting.”
Kyra shook her head, but she seemed too dazed to engage in debate over the cameraman’s tactics.
“We’re not going to have to look at the footage right now, are we?” Maddie asked. “I’m already feeling sick to my stomach. I don’t think I could take it.”
“No, actually, the police took it,” Troy said. “It’s evidence.”
Which made Max’s living room a crime scene.
It was dark out by the time Max had stabilized enough to be moved to ICU. Through the plate-glass window he appeared shrunken and far too small for the number of ma
chines he’d been connected to. One of them forced his chest up and down. Another blipped with each heartbeat. Maddie watched for some sign of the Max that they’d come to love, but his eyes remained closed. Not even a finger moved.
Giraldi was still there when Chase arrived at the hospital that evening. The local news played on the waiting room television. They all went still when a shot of a reporter in front of The Millicent, cordoned off with crime-scene tape, appeared on the screen. None of them could look away as the details of Amherst’s attack were relayed, including Nicole’s relationship to Malcolm Dyer, the demise of the Amherst family fortune, and the fact that Daniel Deranian’s son was almost killed by the madman.
A shot of the actor and his wife and their brood stranded in a Scandinavian airport because of the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano followed along with a sound bite from Deranian, who was anxious to get back to Miami to see to the welfare of his son.
The report concluded with a shot of the Do Over cast and crew members taken at the premiere party, which faded into a final shot of the paparazzi out in front of Mount Sinai Hospital at that very moment jockeying for position.
They were still sitting in the hospital late that night when Steve finally called. “Are you all right?” he asked Maddie after he’d spoken to Kyra and Andrew. “I’m sorry, I didn’t pick up your messages until just a few minutes ago and I haven’t had the television on.”
Maddie stepped away from the group and carried her cell phone out into the hallway. “You were a lot quicker to call when you wanted to criticize me for my lack of supervision,” she said. “But then I guess that’s what happens when you get used to taking your time returning your family’s calls. You miss a few near-death experiences now and then.”
She heard the bitterness in her voice and sighed. In the waiting room, Chase held Avery’s hand while Deirdre, her arm in a sling, sat beside them. Giraldi and Nicole huddled close together. His arm was slung across her shoulders. Maddie had never felt so alone.
“Andrew can pick you up at the airport,” Maddie said in a less combative tone. “What time does your flight get in?” She began to work out the logistics in her head.
“Actually, I’m not going to be able to come right now,” Steve said. “I have important meetings that I just can’t miss or reschedule. Not now when I’m working so hard to build a client base.”
“Steve, we just barely survived an attack by a crazed gunman. Dustin and Kyra and I could have died. Max may never wake up. I really can’t believe—”
“But everyone’s okay. You all are fine. And Max is ninety; every time he goes to sleep, chances are he won’t wake up.”
She listened in silence, unable to believe he wasn’t already on his way to the airport, that he wasn’t planning to come.
“And you’re so strong, Mad. You’re practically the Rock of Gibraltar.” The words were offered as a compliment, but she heard what lay beneath them. He still had not forgiven her for keeping it together when he had fallen apart. He hated that she was strong in ways he was not.
She hung up and walked slowly back to the others. They all looked at her expectantly.
“When’s Dad coming down?” Andrew asked when Maddie had returned to her seat.
“He’s not.”
Kyra held tighter to Dustin, who’d fallen asleep on her shoulder. Her lips pursed in disapproval.
“What an asshole,” Andrew said.
Maddie couldn’t have agreed more. She said only, “He’s your father and he loves you.”
“Well, he has a strange way of showing it,” Kyra said.
Maddie had no answer for this. She was not inclined to defend Steve, but she also knew this was not the moment to grapple with her husband’s place within their family. But deep in her heart she wondered whether there was enough of “them” left to hang on to.
Kyra’s cell phone was the next to ring.
“It’s Lisa Hogan,” she mouthed as she answered.
All of them watched as an odd sequence of expressions flitted across Kyra’s face.
“We were fighting for our lives,” Kyra said curtly. “My child was almost killed right in front of me.”
Madeline watched her daughter struggle to hold on to her temper.
“No,” Kyra bit out. “I wasn’t shooting at the time. You’ll have to check with Troy about that.”
Kyra’s look turned incredulous. “No,” she said. “I don’t have my camera with me right now.” She shook her head in disbelief. “And I’m fairly certain they don’t allow cameras, lights, or audio in ICU.”
Kyra hung up. “Lisa Hogan and the network are extremely worried about all of us and wanted to know how we are.” She snorted. “I have this really disturbing feeling that she would have been okay with at least one of us biting the dust. As long as we did it on camera. I’m glad I won’t have to watch her happy dance when she finds out about Troy’s footage.”
The next call was also for Kyra, and from what Maddie could see, it was even more disturbing.
“He’s fine,” Kyra said. “Dustin is absolutely fine.” And then, “I would have called, but I’ve had such a hard time getting through lately I thought maybe you’d changed your number.”
Kyra listened, her shoulders tightening and her face growing dark. Once again Madeline saw her struggle to hold on to her temper. Maddie looked around the waiting room; they were all straining to listen while trying to pretend not to.
“No, this is not a perfect example of why Dustin would be safer with you,” Kyra said. “This is a perfect example of a crazy person with a grudge and a gun.”
There was more listening and face scrunching.
“No. I’m not okay with that. No. Really, that’s not a good idea. I…” Kyra closed her eyes and fell silent.
The waiting room had emptied except for their group. They exchanged nervous glances, but no one seemed worried about being caught listening. Maddie was watching Kyra’s face when she saw a speculative gleam come into her daughter’s eyes.
“You know,” she said now, “the more I think about it, the more I guess maybe that would be okay.” A small smile stole onto her face, but her voice remained tentative, as if she were being talked into something against her will. “All right,” she said. “Okay. I’ll see you then.”
She hung up and slipped her cell phone into her pocket then folded her arms across her chest.
“Well?” Maddie, Nicole, Avery, and Deirdre demanded as one.
“Well,” Kyra said. “That was Daniel calling from Norway. He and Tonja are waiting for the ash cloud to pass. As soon as he can get here, he intends to come and see for himself that Dustin is okay.”
Two days later Max opened his eyes for the first time. They were cloudy and uncertain and stayed open for only a matter of seconds. Nicole couldn’t tell what, if anything, they’d registered, but she texted the achievement to the others and promised to let them know if anything more happened. Though she stayed in the hospital the rest of the day until Maddie came to take over, there wasn’t so much as a flutter of his eyelashes.
Occasionally, she stood up and paced the tiny space, wishing she could wake Max up so that she could apologize for being Malcolm’s sister and for bringing Parker Amherst into everyone’s life. Most of all she wanted to tell him that he was a hero and that his heroic act had saved Dustin’s life.
The machines hissed and beeped and his chest continued to rise and fall, but Nikki thought he looked smaller and less substantial by the hour. As if the machines were sucking the life out of him a little at a time rather than restoring it.
The crime-scene tape had been removed and most of the blood in the living room cleaned up. The Millicent looked more beautiful than it ever had, but it was a hollow beauty without Max there to fill it up. They sat around the kitchen table picking at the remains of breakfast, a meal Maddie had cooked halfheartedly and that they’d consumed in the same spirit. Other than taking turns sitting at the hospital waiting for the brief intervals during
which they were allowed to sit in Max’s room, trying to will him into consciousness, none of them were sure what to do next.
“Well, I’m going to have to replace that living room rug and I want to rehang Max’s wall of fame and get his bedroom ready for when he comes home,” Deirdre said when the dishes had been cleared away. “I had all the photos rematted and his chair and ottoman reupholstered. They just have to be set in place.”
Everyone looked at her for a long moment, but it was Maddie who gave voice to their fear. “What if he never comes home? What’s the point when he may never even see the house again and has no one to leave it to?”
“We’ll get it ready for Aaron because he promised Millie he would,” Deirdre said. “Everything is just a leap of faith now. It wouldn’t hurt us to try to have some.”
They exchanged glances. No one disagreed with the sentiment, but it was hard to dig down that deep underneath the worry and sadness.
“I liked the movie Field of Dreams as much as the next person,” Nicole said. “But I don’t think it’s a philosophy to live by.”
“Well, right now it’s all we’ve got,” Deirdre said. “I’d do his room myself, but I only have one good arm at the moment. And I know Maddie’s planning to spend the morning at the hospital.” She looked pointedly at Avery.
“Jeez,” Avery said. “The woman saves my life and now she thinks I’m supposed to be her slave or something.”
“Damn straight,” Chase said. “She did take a bullet for you.”
“I’d settle for temporary slave.” Deirdre paused then added tentatively, “And maybe full-time daughter?”
Avery looked away for a moment, the hope in Deirdre’s eyes impossible to ignore. Chase and Andrew excused themselves. Displaying a heretofore unsuspected degree of tact, Troy and Anthony went with them.
Avery faced her mother and finally said, “I’ll be your slave for the day. Maybe we could just let the rest play out.” She cleared her throat. “You know, see how it goes.”
Deirdre nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.