Farewell to Goodbye

by Penny Childs

  “What? The boy heard her called by name?”

  Lyle hesitated. “Yeah. He didn’t remember when he gave his initial statement. He was a little shook up. Anyway, he said he remembers the guy with her called her Sarah. He says he heard it twice and the woman about throttled the guy both times he said it.”

  “I’m surprised she let the boy live,” Mel said quietly, getting Bill’s attention. “Anything else, Lyle?”

  “Nope. That does it.”

  “All right. You did good. Thanks.” Disconnecting the call, Mel said to Bill, “Her first name is Sarah.” She told him about the call from Lyle.

  “That doesn’t really help much,” Renee noted.

  “It gives us something to call her now,” Craig said.

  “I don’t know, I’m still partial to bitch, myself,” Mel muttered. She gave Bill a look, “Yeah, I know, it’s a tact thing.” Feeling what composure she had left about to snap, she said, “I’ll be in my office for a few minutes.”

  Bill watched her carefully as she left the room, then he said to Craig and Renee, “Keep an eye on her. She may be able to connect to either Trevor or…Sarah, soon. She’s going to want to push it.”

  “The last time she connected to her she got a nose bleed and passed out,” Renee said.

  “Exactly. And if she does it too soon this time it could be worse. Just keep an eye on her. She’ll be desperate to do whatever she thinks is necessary to help Trevor now.” He hopped off the table and headed out of the room.

  “Sir?” Renee called after him.

  He stopped and turned around.

  “What do you think the odds are we find Trevor before she kills him?”

  He thought that depended on Mel now. “I don’t know. Barking dogs and women with the first name Sarah aren’t a whole hell of a lot to go on, are they?” He walked out before she could respond and headed directly for Mel’s office. When he rapped on the door it was only to tell her that he was coming in.

  “Damnit, Bill. Can’t you take a freaking hint?” she asked him sourly.

  He turned on the overhead light and nodded. “I can, but right now I don’t think leaving you alone is a good idea.”

  “I think in the interest of your health, you probably should.” She swiped at her tears with the sleeve of her sweater. “I told you I would come get you if I thought I was ready.”

  “You’re no good to him dead. Or worse; a vegetable.”

  “I’m aware of that, Bill. I’m not going to do anything.”

  “You haven’t eaten. Come get something to eat with me.”

  “I’m not hungry,” she said.

  Bill sat down on her couch and crossed his legs, leaning back and making himself comfortable. “Okay.”

  “Bill, go away.”

  “You were going to try, weren’t you? Just a little bit. Just to see if you could get close.”

  Through clenched teeth, Mel said, “So what if I was. It won’t hurt to send out a feeler. If it looked good I was going to come get you.” The fact that he was not a psychic, yet could read her so easily irritated the hell out of her. But then, he had always been good at it. She sat down in the chair behind her desk and stared back at him.

  “If it’s no big deal why didn’t you want me around?”

  Because if it was too hard on her she didn’t want him to know. She didn’t want him to stop her when she felt she had just enough strength to do it.

  “Who were you going to try? Trevor or Sarah?”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she leaned back in her chair and glared at him.

  “I’m not going anywhere until you answer my question.”

  “You won’t go anywhere even if I do,” Mel countered. “Well, some of you certainly rubbed off on Trevor. Too bad it was the pain in the ass part.”

  He shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as being persistent.”

  Mel rolled her eyes. “You’re splitting hairs. But to answer your question, either one of them will be difficult because of the woman’s nature. Trevor will be easier for me though, because of our relationship.” She sighed at length. “The problem is he may not know where they are.”

  He reached behind himself and turned the overhead lights back off.

  “He’s running out of time, Bill.”

  “I know that.”

  “We may not have the luxury of taking it easy on me.”

  “You can’t trade yourself for him, Mel. He wouldn’t allow it and you know it.”

  “He’s not here,” she pointed out harshly. “Whatever I do is my decision. Right now I just want to see where I stand. I want to see if I can make contact.”

  “You haven’t been back on long enough, Mel. You should wait and you know it.”

  “Are you going to help me or not, Bill? ‘Cause I’m doing this with or without you.”

  He spread his hands. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Closing her eyes, she decided on Trevor. She needed to know if he was still alive. She let herself drift, thinking of him, wishing the trail she was following to him now was a physical trail which she could map out and find in her car. But it didn’t work that way.

  She knew in an instant he was not conscious, even through the haze surrounding him because of the woman. She could also feel the pain, even through the haze. She knew now where he had been wounded.

  “Mel?” Bill leaned across her desk. He could see a tiny drop of blood leaking from her left nostril. “Mel!” he repeated sharply, slapping his palms on the top of her desk.

  She flinched but otherwise did not respond to him.

  “Mel, come out. Now. You’re not ready.”

  “He’s hurt, Bill,” she whispered miserably.

  “I know that.”

  “I can’t focus. That bitch.”

  “Then get out now, Mel, before it’s too late.” He slapped his palms on her desk again, determined if that didn’t work he would slap her face next. Whatever it took.

  Blinking, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  “You’re not ready yet,” he repeated, pulling a tissue out of a box on her desk and handing it to her.

  She looked at the tissue in puzzlement for a moment, then felt the blood on her lips. Dabbing at it, she said, “I can do this. I can.”

  “Not yet.”

  “We don’t have much longer. She’s going to shoot him again tomorrow, assuming he makes it that long anyway.”

  “Well, assuming you can do this, you need to rest. I’m serious Mel. The nosebleeds are surely your body’s way of saying enough is enough. If you continue to push you could really do some damage.”

  “Bill…”

  He got up. “You know I’m right, Mel. Just give it a little longer and try again. I’ll help you, I promise.”

  After he walked out, Mel found herself staring at the top of her desk for a long time. Finally she opened the top drawer. Trevor’s sidearm lay in there. It was something very personal of his, something he carried with him every day. It would give her a stronger connection to him when the time came. And whether Bill liked it or not, the time was coming soon.

  Twenty-three

  Brody stuck his head in the conference room later in the afternoon. “I should have asked this sooner boss. Big dog or little dog?”

  “What?” Mel asked, confused.

  “The dog you heard. Could you tell if it was a big one or a little one?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “A big one, I think. It didn’t sound yappy at all.”

  Nodding, Brody pulled out and went back to the front.

  “Doesn’t matter anyway,” Mel muttered to herself.

  Bill looked over at her. “It’s something.” He sighed. At least she had taken a shower in the locker room and changed her clothes from a stash she kept at the hall in case of emergencies. He had even gotten her to eat a cheeseburger and some French fries. Now if he could just convince her to take a nap.

  “I’m not tired Bill,” she told him.

&nbs
p; She had been doing a lot more of that as the day progressed as well.

  “Privacy, please,” Bill reminded her.

  She shrugged. “You’re the hardest one for me to read, so you’re the best gauge of my strength.”

  “You and I both know that you won’t be ready to take her on again for a day or two.” He saw her scowl and pointed a finger at her. “I mean it, Mel.”

  “Trevor doesn’t have a day or two and you know it. Don’t you even care?”

  “Of course I care. But if I let you kill yourself and lose him too, what will we have accomplished? We do this the old fashioned way.” He looked at his computer screen for a moment then back up at her. “Of course if you’d try and catch some more sleep it might speed things up.”

  She knew what he was doing and this time decided to let him think he was persuading her. He’d been up her ass all day and she needed some alone time. Rubbing her face, she said, “I’m really okay, Bill.”

  “Just for a couple hours, Mel. I’ll keep things going here.”

  “You’ll wake me up in a couple hours?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  She let him think she was seriously considering it for a moment, then she stood up. “All right, Bill. But you have to let me try again later tonight.”

  “Try being the operative word. I’m going to pull you out if you show any signs of distress.”

  Right now she was glad they didn’t share the talent. With a nod which had just enough annoyance to it, she walked out of the room and to her office. Once inside, she shut off the overhead light and locked her door. Craig had an extra key. Or they could break it down later. They were cops. They would manage to get in.

  Going behind her desk, she opened the drawer and pulled out Trevor’s pistol and another smaller item. They used it to record statements. It was just a little voice recorder that plugged right into the computer for downloads. It was no bigger than her cell phone.

  She decided to lay on the couch and save herself a fall to the floor. Clutching Trevor’s pistol in one hand, she pulled the extra chair next to the couch, activated the recorder with the press of a button, and sat it on the chair. She didn’t want them to miss it.

  Now, with her hand on something of his, she opened herself and moved in Trevor’s direction, hoping like hell he could give her some clue as to where he was.

  With a howl of pain, he woke, trying to swing his cuffed hand at what caused the pain. She was poking at his injured shoulder. “God damnit!” he swore.

  “Wake up,” she demanded, backing away from him.

  His shoulder screamed at him louder than his leg now. There was no attempt at a bandage on this new wound. He figured she was hoping for him to bleed out. He thought he just might accommodate her.

  “Wake up.”

  “Why the hell should I?” he grumbled. All he knew when he was awake was pain. Sleep was better. Sleep was where he found Mel.

  “Because I made you something to eat and you’re going to eat it, that’s why,” she said petulantly.

  He burst into a fit of laughter so intense it made him hurt, but he could not stop. He wondered if he was getting delirious. He thought he probably was. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You shot me, not once, but twice, and you’re worried about whether or not I eat? Do you know the meaning of the word irony, lady?” He lay back on his pillow, still laughing. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to die of starvation before I bleed to death.”

  “I took the time to make you something to eat.” She sounded like a pouty five year old.

  “Well, you wasted your damn time, is what you did. I’m not hungry. If I eat I’ll throw up.” He wondered if she would threaten to shoot him again if he didn’t eat what she had brought him. He laughed all the harder at the thought.

  “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy?” she asked.

  He stopped laughing suddenly, thought about her question and started up again. “Me?” Even the sight of the gun could not stop his laughing. But when she slammed her fist into the wound on his thigh he stopped, his laugh turning into a yowl of pure pain.

  “I’m not ready to shoot you again, but so help me, I will. Do not laugh at me!”

  Sucking in his breaths, he had to keep his teeth clenched together to keep from screaming.

  “I told Mel tomorrow, but I can call back now if I have to. Is that what you want me to do? Call her back and shoot you while I have her on the phone?”

  “I thought that was the plan anyway,” he said between his teeth.

  She smiled. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll manage to figure out where we are before that.” Now it was her turn to laugh as she left the room.

  Unless the crazy bitch had given them any clues, he didn’t think there was much chance of them finding him. And with Mel out of commission his chances were even slimmer. He looked over at the food on the tray and felt his stomach turn. The bottle of water on the other hand looked delicious. Carefully, he leaned toward the nightstand and having to use his bad shoulder, reached for the water. “Son of a bitch,” he moaned, getting hold of the bottle and bringing it to him. At least she had removed the cap this time.

  Not caring whether it was drugged or not, he drank down half the bottle and leaned back against the head of the bed, eyes closed. He set the bottle between his legs and let his arm drop to the bed next to him, once again thinking he might have lost enough blood now to mess with his head. His thoughts were muddled.

  He passed out again thinking of barking dogs and crazy women.

  Twenty-four

  “You left her alone?” Renee asked Bill. “I thought you were worried about her trying something again.”

  “She’s too weak to make any contact right now and she knows it. Besides, I told her I’d help her later.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe a nap will help her focus.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “No, I don’t. Not for a while yet.”

  “Trevor doesn’t have much time left, sir.”

  “I know. She pointed that out as well.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Staring at the screen of his laptop was giving him a headache. “There are one hundred sixty-six people in town that own one or more large dogs.”

  “That’s a narrower search than over a thousand homes.”

  “Yes. I have teams of two going door to door under the pretense of checking for proper dog registration. If they see any other dogs at addresses not on the list, they knock on their doors too and give them a warning.”

  “What if she doesn’t buy it, assuming they go to the house she’s holed up in?”

  “She’ll probably kill him right away.”

  “Assuming she hasn’t yet.”

  He shook his head. “She hasn’t yet. She still has a call to make in the morning. She’ll do it then.”

  Renee thought of Mel having to be on the phone to listen to that and cringed. “Then we have to find him tonight.”

  “Yes, before it’s too late to go door to door. We also have to hope that Sarah hasn’t changed her looks a lot since Haskins saw her at the mall.”

  That was a lot to hope for.

  Mel let herself drift and when she found him, she began to cry. He was hurt badly. The woman’s presence made the reception fuzzy, but she knew part of it was him too. He had lost a lot of blood and was in a lot of pain. She wondered now if coming to him had been a mistake. But, she also knew without something belonging to the woman she would not have been able to form a strong enough link to her to get what she needed. She just wasn’t strong enough yet, and time was something Trevor was almost out of.

  In the past she had been able to make Trevor aware of her presence in his mind. It had been a little lover’s game they had played with each other. She tried this now. She had to push hard, but she needed him to come around a little bit. All she was getting from him now was thoughts of a woman with a gun and a dog barking hysterically while it cowered in a corner.

  �
�Trevor, please,” she begged him softly. “Just wake up for a minute. Just open your eyes for me.”

  She felt him stir then, heard a moan of pain. She knew if she allowed herself to delve much deeper, she would feel his pain as well. Right now there was a knowledge of the pain, but not the actual pain itself. If she allowed that much she would not be able to come back on her own. Though she longed for closeness, she knew she had to keep some distance.

  Groaning again, he whispered her name.

  “Just open your eyes Trevor,” she whispered.

  He was groggy but coming around.

  She needed him to hurry, she could feel her strength waning. “Wake up Agent Giles!” she said sternly.

  “Mel, no. Don’t,” he muttered, feeling her now. Knowing, even through the fog of pain, what it meant. “Oh, baby, no.”

  “Hurry, Giles.”

  He forced his eyes open and found himself staring into a big furry brown face. “You again,” he muttered.

  “What the hell is that?” she asked him, not knowing if it was something he was actually seeing or if he was hallucinating.

  “Bosco.” The dog licked his hand.

  She felt it then, the sharp pain shoot though the center of her forehead. She felt the blood trickling from her nose too. “Not yet,” she begged of her own body. “Bosco.” That was all she could manage to say before she slipped away from Trevor and into complete darkness.

  Bill drummed his fingers on the table top. They were not going to be able to finish the door to door before dark. He figured anything past five o’clock would raise too much suspicion. It was a quarter to five now.

  Craig walked into the conference room then, looking weary. “Boss around?” he asked Bill.

  “She’s napping,” he told him absently.

  “Huh. How’d you pull that one off? I figured nothing short of a brick to her head would get her to rest today.”

  “I did use a brick on her. I told her she couldn’t help Trevor unless she got some sleep.”

  “Well, I got nothin’ today,” he said, sinking into a chair. He looked around. “Renee taking a nap too?”