Jacked

by Tina Reber

  The girl pointing the gun at my face followed me inside, shoving the door closed behind her.

  My mind raced trying to recall if I knew her. She looked familiar but my panicked mind could not place her. A past patient?

  “Please don’t shoot.” My hands rose in front of me. I kept backing up. I knew if I tried to run, I wouldn’t be fast enough.

  “Shut up,” the girl ordered.

  She was rail thin and petite. Straight brown hair fell past her shoulders. I bumped into the leather chair in the living room. “What do you want?”

  Vacant eyes that held no remorse stared back at me. She looked strung out, possibly on drugs.

  She shook the gun at me. “You couldn’t just go away, could you? You just kept at him and at him and at him and at him. He’s mine! Understand? MINE!”

  “Okay, calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down. You stole my boyfriend, you fucking bitch, and now he doesn’t even come to see me. He wasn’t yours! He was mine!” She rubbed her head, pulling on her own hair. “Why would you do that?”

  Her mouth continued to tremble as though she were having a conversation with herself.

  “Easy. Let’s talk about this.” I’d dealt with enough mentally ill people over the years to recognize the signs. “You’re talking about Adam, right?”

  She shook the gun again, scowling. “Do not say his name. Do not. You have no right. No right to say his fucking name.”

  “Okay, sorry.” I kept my hands up, scrambling for my own sense of clarity. One wrong step and I knew I’d be dead. “I didn’t know he was yours. You have to believe me.”

  Her head tilted, regarding me anew.

  “He’s not here.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know that. And I know you know who I am.”

  I took another step back. “He, um, never said anything to me about you. I swear.”

  “Liar!” She scoffed. “You knew. He paraded you right in front of me at the diner so do not stand there and lie to me.”

  “Diner?” My mind reeled. “The Parkway Diner?”

  The gun rattled in her hand. “He used to come in every morning to see me. Every. Morning. For months we saw each other. He was falling in love with me. And then you come along and suddenly what? I don’t exist? I don’t matter? I’m supposed to just take that?”

  I found myself shaking my head, agreeing with the psychopath. “I’m sorry he hurt you.”

  “You’re sorry?” She charged forward, forcing me deeper into the living room.

  I shielded myself, fearing she’d strike or shoot. “Yes. Stop. Please.”

  “You’re fucking around with my man and you’re sorry. Did you know that I’m pregnant?” Her face twisted, landing somewhere between pride and righteous rage.

  I glanced over her flat, shapeless body. “You’re pregnant?”

  She nodded at me as if I were stupid. “That’s right. We’re having a baby, me and Adam, so you need to quit interfering and leave him alone. Get out of our lives.”

  Impossible.

  Adam had stated their “one time” had happened months before we’d started dating. I cautioned her to stay where she was. “Does Adam know?”

  “Of course he knows. I text him every day.”

  “You text him?”

  “You think you’re special? He’s mine.” She growled at me. “We want to be together but you just won’t go away. He told me over and over again how he was going to leave you but he’s too afraid of how you’d react to do it himself.”

  She was beyond delusional.

  “So I’m doing this for him. He doesn’t love you, got it? He loves me. He. Loves. Me.”

  I shrank back, fearing that her gun would discharge. “Okay. I got it. Let me get my keys and I’ll go. I’ll leave here and you’ll never see me again. I promise.”

  She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand, panting hard while muttering to herself. I’d hoped she was considering letting me go.

  My cell rang in my back pocket, startling her. She shook the gun at me. I didn’t know if she’d shoot if I tried to reach for it. I decided to slip it out of my pocket anyway. “It’s him.” I showed her the screen, taking another risk. “Let me just answer it, tell him I’m leaving and you two can be together. Okay?”

  I thought she was going to pull the trigger. “You try anything, I swear I will fucking shoot you.”

  I hit the button, hesitantly lifting it to my ear.

  She stepped closer, sending ripples of terror through my nerves.

  “Hi.” My voice cracked.

  “Hey, Doc. What are you wearing?” Adam joked. “Listen. Cherise and Marcus want us to come over for dinner on Saturday. We got anything going on?”

  My hands were trembling, knowing I’d never see his smile again.

  “End it,” she mouthed. “Now.”

  Would this be the last conversation we would ever have before I died? I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him. To anyone. He was my sunshine. My lover. My heart. And yet I knew, one false move, one wrong word from my lips, and this crazy person waving a gun at me would pull the trigger. “I can’t do this.”

  “Why? You scheduled to work?”

  Work was the last thing on my mind when faced with having to say goodbye forever to the man I loved. “I can’t do this…”

  He drew in an exasperated breath, probably growing tired of my indecisions. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  The tear felt cold against my cheek. “Everything.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I bit my thumbnail, at a complete loss for how to answer. “No,” quaked out of me.

  Psycho girl slammed her hand against the wall.

  “Babe, what’s wrong?”

  I flinched while thousands of answers barraged my brain all at once, adding mayhem to my terror-addled confusion. How do I tell him goodbye?

  “I can’t…”

  I love you so much.

  Life is so unfair.

  “You can’t what, Erin? I’m not following.”

  She stepped closer, jabbing the gun in my direction, making me jump.

  I can’t… meet you in ten or in fifteen.”

  “Sweetheart, what are you talking about? Was I supposed to be someplace? Are you crying?”

  I wiped my face and sniffed. “I said I can’t meet you in ten or in fifteen. You’ll just have to go without me.”

  “Okay, Marcus and I are leaving the courthouse now. I’m confused. Where am I supposed to be going?”

  I cleared my throat of fear and doom, needing him to understand. “Do you remember the story you told me about that kid, Casper?”

  My captor’s eyes scrunched.

  “Casper? Yeah but—”

  “I’m in the same situation.”

  “Situation?”

  “You’re a smart detective. I would have thought you’d see that by now. You belong to someone else.”

  “Excuse me? Baby, what the fuck—”

  “Stop!” I interrupted, panicking. “Just listen. Don’t come home because I won’t be here. Just like Casper the ghost.”

  “Wait. Casper put a gun to my head,” Adam said roughly. “Baby, please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I wish I was. I can’t meet you in fifteen.”

  “Ten fifteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you…?”

  I tried to mask my relief. “Yes.”

  “Oh fuck. Okay, stay calm. Is someone there now?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook the gun harder, getting impatient, but I couldn’t see any other way out of this.

  “But… but I can’t stay with you anymore. You belong to someone else.” It killed me to say that. The words physically pained me beyond all reason.

  Adam was frantic. I could hear the rustle of fabric, the sound of doors opening and closing. “I’m on my way. Where are you?” Adam spoke to someone around him, mentioning hostage situation.

  “I can’t live with a
liar,” I bit out, trying to sell it for all it was worth.

  “House? You’re in the house? Where? Where in the house?”

  I glanced around quickly, feeling pressured and terrified. A rustic picture dominated his wall. “Don’t call me ‘deer.’ I’m not a furry animal.”

  “Don’t call you dear. Deer. Living room. You’re in the living room?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a gun in the kitchen above the microwave. Can you get it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Stay on the line with me. I am on my way. I swear to Christ.” I heard a car door slam, the crackle of his radio, calls to dispatch. Orders for Marcus to fucking drive. “How many in the house?”

  I stared at my captor, trying to understand the mania that drove her to this point. Desperation, mental psychosis, all without control, or fear of the repercussions of her actions. To allow your psyche to snap to the point of drawing a gun on someone and considering cold-blooded murder…

  “I thought I was your only woman. You want more than that? Isn’t one woman enough?”

  “One armed,” Adam repeated aloud. “Armed. Female. Yes, armed and dangerous. Has my girlfriend at gunpoint.”

  The stress was getting to this girl, making her pace and ramble to herself, as though several people inside her mind were having arguments.

  “It is Nikki?”

  “No.”

  “Stay calm, baby. You’re doing great. You said female. Do you know her?”

  The female in question was leaning and snarling at me, ready to lunge.

  “Sort of? I’m sorry I didn’t make time for you. I can’t be texting you all the time like your other women.”

  “Texting?” he questioned.

  I heard their siren echo through my cell. So did my captor. Her gun lifted to pointblank range. I flattened the phone as close to my ear as possible.

  “Hang up,” she ordered low, jabbing me with the barrel of the gun.

  I tried to back away, refusing to end my only connection to Adam. She grabbed for my phone; playing keep-away wasn’t the smartest idea, but fuck her, I wouldn’t go down without some sort of fight. I aimed for her face, shoving her back a step.

  “Hang up!” she ordered louder, swinging violently at me. She smacked the phone out of my hand; it flew through the air, sliding after it hit the kitchen floor.

  I thought about diving for it.

  I thought about hitting her.

  I thought about wrestling her for the weapon.

  But all of those thoughts ended when she pulled the trigger.

  “TEXTING?”

  It had to be another clue of some sort but it didn’t make sense. Erin and I texted all the time, every day, every time we were apart. My mind was so consumed with getting to her that deciphering the details was becoming muddled.

  “Hang up!” I heard a crazed female voice order in the background between Erin’s petrified breathing. I tried to concentrate on the voice above our sirens, but it was so brief that I couldn’t identify it.

  “Baby, I’m on the way. I’m coming. Stay on the line with me.” I was praying, clinging to each one of Erin’s sounds with a level of desperation I’d never felt before. Each passing second that it took to reach her was sheer agony.

  “Hang up!” the female ordered again. This time I could tell she was much closer and yet I still could not place the voice.

  Agony turned into utter helplessness, hearing a tousle, hearing Erin’s grunts and groans as she struggled.

  A loud thud cracked in my ear. “No! Erin!”

  Everything accelerated—time, space, the forward momentum.

  I gripped the handle bolted to the ceiling as Marcus drove faster. The scenery outside the windshield blurred into streaks of random shades of light and dark, pulling me under the confusion of adrenaline overload. If I could have beamed myself through the phone, I would have.

  “Erin!”

  My world shattered when I heard the gunshot.

  “Erin!” I screamed. “No, baby, NO! ERIN!”

  Marcus took us sideways through an intersection, slamming my side into the door.

  “Erin? ERIN! Oh God, baby. Please no.” I squeezed my cell so hard the plastic creaked. The sharp pain in my chest took my breath away. My partner shook me. When I met his glance, one word trembled out. “Gunshot.” There was a final rustle and then nothing.

  Marcus growled and used his mic. “Romeo Seven to control. Shots fired. I repeat. Shots fired inside the residence.” His hand landed on my shoulder, grabbing and shaking the strap of my Kevlar. “Stay with me, brother. Get your shit together and focus. Other units are just about there. You keep positive and strong now. You do that for your woman. You hear me?”

  I couldn’t hear anything beyond the dead silence. We’d been disconnected. My calls went unanswered.

  Several units surrounded my house, turning my nightmare into a sickening reality.

  A uniform stopped me halfway up my driveway. I shoved him back. “Get out of my way!”

  Marcus’s arm came across my chest, putting me into a restrained chokehold. “Calm down.” I struggled but he lifted and spun me like a ragdoll when I tried to escape. “Calm the fuck down! You can’t just barge in there, dude. Settle.” He plastered me against a squad car.

  “Erin is in there! That’s my woman!”

  “I know, man. I know.” Marcus grabbed my coat in both hands and shook, showing me his seriousness. “You need to pull your shit together, right now. You hear me? Pull, your, shit, together.”

  I’d never been this terrified.

  Marcus gave me a final shove and released me. “Now think. You see a familiar car out here? Recognize the suspect’s voice? Anything that can help.”

  I glanced around the street, momentarily blinded by all of the red and blue flashes. Random cars dotted the street, but nothing looked familiar.

  Another officer trotted over to me and introduced himself. “We have a perimeter set. This your residence?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, refocusing. “My girlfriend is in there. Don’t know if she’s wounded. I heard a single shot before we were disconnected. I don’t know who has her at gunpoint. Only way into the first floor is either through the rear door to the garage and in through the kitchen door or the front door. My woman is about five foot six, a hundred thirty pounds. Long blonde hair.”

  My cell rang in my hand, showing a number that I’d become quite familiar with. Texting… that’s what she’d meant.

  I tried not to lose my patience when I accepted the call. “Hello?”

  “Adam?”

  My grip tightened, hearing a female voice that wasn’t Erin’s. “Who is this?”

  “Make all the cops go away.”

  She was lucky I wasn’t busting my front door down at that very second. “Can’t do that. Not until you tell me your name.” I waved Marcus over, letting him know I had the suspect on the line.

  “It’s me,” she said. “Make them leave or I’ll kill her.”

  “Do you know who—?” Marcus mouthed.

  I had no fucking clue. “Is Erin okay? Let me talk to her.”

  “Make. Them. Go. Away,” the girl ordered.

  I could hear the cornered desperation in her voice.

  “Easy. All right? Just tell me if Erin is okay and I’ll tell them to back off. Work with me and we’ll settle this peacefully.”

  “I didn’t want this. I didn’t. Things just… make them leave.”

  “Tell me your name first. Can you do that?” I turned my radio down so I could hear her.

  “It’s Kara, Adam.” She sniffed. “It’s Kara.”

  Reality slammed me in the chest. “Kara? Kara Simmons?”

  “Yeah.”

  Regret the size of a mountain crashed atop of me. My moment of weakness, of selfish need and empty loneliness, led me to one meaningless encounter with this girl, and now she had Erin.

  “Kara, listen to me. I’m coming in.”

  �
�No,” she screamed. “You just want to come in so you can shoot me.”

  Several officers surrounded me, monitoring my every word. I held them off. “Kara, that’s not what I want. I just want to talk. That’s all. Just let’s talk, okay? You want to talk to me? You’re in my house. Put down the gun, let me come in, and we’ll figure this out together.”

  All I could hear was her breathing. A shadow crossed back and forth behind my front window. I saw the curtain move.

  “Kara, is Erin okay? Is she hurt?”

  “I just wanted us to be together,” she cried. “You wanted me. I know you did. That’s why. But I wasn’t good enough for you, was I? I was never good enough.”

  I shook my head at Marcus and held up three fingers to ready our assault. Things were deteriorating. If Erin had been shot, her time was running out.

  “Why, Adam?” Kara whined. “I never cheated on you. And you brought that whore to where I work?”

  Another patrol unit rolled up; men hustled about.

  “Flash bang and breach,” Marcus said low, coordinating our entrance.

  I held the phone away. “They don’t go in without me.” I glanced at all the faces standing by making sure they all got the message, then started scribbling a physical description of the assailant. “Kara, no one wants this. I want you to put the gun down and come out. I promise no one will hurt you.”

  “No,” she mumbled adamantly. “I’m going to hurt you like you hurt me. This is all your fucking fault!” Kara screamed. “All your fault, you fucking slut!” Several dull thuds accompanied her grunts. It sounded as though she was kicking something. Muffled groans and a pained moan assaulted my brain, which I could only presume were coming from Erin. Another crash resounded inside, which was clearly heard outside my house.

  I drew my weapon. Fuck waiting another second.

  We had our assault team organized within moments; I headed up my walkway. We had speed, surprise, and violence of action on our side—none of which our suspect would be expecting.

  As soon as I heard my dining room window shatter and the flash bang discharge, we came in through the front door.

  “Police! Lower your weapon,” the officers flanking me ordered.